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This study aims to investigate the relationships among monetary cost (stimulus), perceived greenwash fear, attitude and perceived behavioural control (organism-related factors) and green hotel patronage intention (response) using the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model.

A total of 262 valid questionnaires were collected. Data were collected using the purposive sampling method and tested using the partial least squares (PLS) approach.

Monetary cost is positively related to only one organism-related factor which is perceived greenwash fear. All organism-related factors are positively related to response, which is green hotel patronage intention. Attitude mediates the relationship between perceived greenwash fear and green hotel patronage intention, as well as perceived behavioural control and green hotel patronage intention.

A longitudinal study can be performed in the future to observe the actual green hotel patronage behaviour of customers.

Green hoteliers should focus on the development of communication strategies to enhance their corporate reputation. Green hoteliers also need to build trust by showing their green initiatives are genuine, identify consumers who are willing to pay more for green hotels and offer promotions with price incentives such as frequency discounts, coupons and rebates to increase interest and trialability.

Few studies have focused on the use of monetary cost as a stimulus in the S-O-R model to predict green hotel patronage intention. This study also tested the mediating effect of attitude, one of the organism-related factors, in the model.

When a company practices greenwashing, it violates consumers' expectations by deliberately deceiving them about their environmental practices or the benefits of their products/services. This study investigated the effects of greenwashing on corporate reputation and brand hate. Furthermore, this study explored the mediating effects of perceived environmental performance and green perceived risk.

A survey design using cross-sectional primary data from 420 Portuguese consumers who identified and recognized brands engaged in greenwashing was employed. The proposed hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling techniques.

This study's findings show that consumer perceptions of greenwashing may damage brands. The results show that greenwashing has a negative effect on corporate reputation through perceived environmental performance and green perceived risk. Additionally, greenwashing has a positive direct effect on brand hate and a negative effect on green perceived risk. Therefore, reducing greenwashing practices can improve consumers' perceptions of corporate environmental performance, buffer green perceived risk, and ultimately enhance corporate reputation. This can lead to positive relationships with customers.

Based on signaling and expectancy violation theories, this study develops a new framework highlighting the detrimental effects of greenwashing on brands. The combination of these theories provides the right framework to understand how greenwashing may lead to extreme feelings like brand hate and negative perceptions of corporate reputation, thus advancing the current research that lacks studies on the association between these constructs.

This final chapter moves from a firm-level perspective to a more general level to connect individual organisational decisions on corporate sustainability to current and future societal and environmental challenges. The chapter starts by illustrating greenhushing, seen as a deceptive strategic silence that occurs when companies voluntarily decrease their communication on sustainability issues. The emergence of novel forms of greenwashing stresses the need to integrate the principles of sustainability in their corporate strategies in an authentic way, and to activate a virtuous circuit of sustainability sensegiving-sensemaking, in which the company can recognise the contribution of stakeholders in decision-making. The discussion then addresses some unresolved tensions in sustainability communication approaches that cause ‘deep-rooted’ greenwashing, thus paving the way for a systemic approach to the phenomenon. The chapter thus presents some speculative sketches that illustrate the social, organisational and environmental costs and benefits of an authentic approach to corporate sustainability. The discussion emphasises the need to establish a shared sustainability culture at different systems' levels and within organisations to avoid environmental and social damaging practices and widen corporate objectives to initiate long-lasting changes. Policy and decision-makers may appreciate this effort to identify responsibilities for each component and priority areas for action.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence that the occurrence of greenwashing has on the consumer perception of corporate social responsibility (CSR).

This paper observed the market indication that a consistent undermining of authentic commitment to CSR taints consumer perception. Investigating how the motivations behind greenwashing contribute to the presentation of CSR was the first means of examining the market forces. Consumer orientation was used as a guiding principle to consider the short- and long-term perspective of a greenwasher.

Individual instances of greenwashing contribute to a collective deterioration of marketplace trust in the promises of CSR. The negative influence on CSR is not isolated to the greenwashing perpetrator but casts a wider effect. The consequences of greenwashing are not isolated but widely dispersed.

Whilst much of the literature focuses on the stigmatisation of individual firms, it is crucial to note how marketplace trust is eroded. In addition, the perception of CSR-related regulations is for example influenced but rarely recognised as a consequence of greenwashing behaviour.

This study aims to examine the timing of the disclosure of a firm’s environmental certification. In general, certifications comply with signaling and legitimacy theories and serve to bolster a firm’s reputation, financial performance and valuation, among other benefits. However, when a firm finds itself facing a reputational threat, it is unclear whether disclosing a recent certification would provide those same benefits or be perceived by investors as “greenwashing” or a disingenuous distraction from the threat.

This study is based on a case and survey the authors developed that is supported in methodology and approach by past academic work.

The findings suggest that in the short term, the disclosure of the certification benefits the firm regardless of the current reputational environment, good or bad. More specifically, investors view the certification as a benefit (rather than an attempt to distract) even when its disclosure was immediately proceeded by a reputational threat.

This study is limited by the population of survey respondents from which the authors collected data and their internal predispositions and biases.

This work is applicable to firms that have engaged in certifications or are considering such certifications as well as firms that provide certification services. The study is also relevant to stakeholders and consumers of information related to certifications.

This study is operationalized through the use of a case and survey the authors developed. The research question the authors attempt to answer is derived from a question raised in the literature. The authors are unaware of any other study that addresses this question.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the nuances of the consequences of greenwashing in the consumer and financial markets. Greenwashing is discussed frequently but in very abstract terms. Hence, a closer examination of the palpable consequences elucidates the ripple effects of this widespread phenomenon.

Focal points are the concept of green marketing, the stigmatization of corporations in the media and the regulatory consequences of greenwashing behaviour across consumer and financial markets. The two markets are paralleled in order to trace the novelties as well as the points of commonality in greenwashing.

The current consequences are an insufficient deterrence in both markets. The regulatory trend in both markets is leaning towards more stringent and punitive measures, which will likely affect the efficacy of the deterrence factor.

The influence on consumer perception is identified both as a motivating factor for greenwashing and as one of the most immediate elements which is negatively influenced by its exposition. In addition to the fact that greenwashing practices are common across the two markets, this paper identifies that a systemic deterioration of investor trusts significantly compromises the potential of sustainable finance and impacts investment in the financial market, mirrored in the negative consequences on consumer reactions to greenwashed products.

This study aims to evaluate the impact of a sustainable production action on consumer trust and purchase intention by a company involved in moral transgression and also analyze the effect on consumer trust and purchase intention if a company, after green marketing, is identified as greenwashing spreader.

This quantitative nature (n = 121) study uses scale’s discriminant and convergent validity analyses, structural equation modeling and Student’s t-test.

Even for previously morally transgressive brands, actions of social legitimation, such as embracing environmental causes, positively impact consumer trust and purchase intention. However, consumers drop brand trust and purchase intention when verifying that this action was greenwashing.

Mediating or moderating variables of ecological awareness, such as religiosity or political view, were not tested.

This article combines the impact of positive, sustainable management actions for morally transgressive companies and the effects of new transgression on their sustainable management action. Thus, it aims to reduce the gap between organizational practice and management research.

This article shows that embracing society’s emerging causes and helping the world be a better place to live, moving toward the 2030 United Nations agenda, have practical repercussions for organizations.

This article contributes both to the literature and managerial implications by combining the impact of positive, sustainable management actions for morally transgressive companies and the effects of new transgression on their sustainable management action, thus reducing the gap between management research and organizational practice by unveiling the relations between sustainable actions and their perceived consequences.

Although many Lebanese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) express concern about social and environmental issues and report intentions to engage in pro-environmental activities, other enterprises still resist to embed a culture of social responsibility. After the analysis of major scholarship in the field, this paper defines corporate social responsibility (CSR) culture and provides an overview of the contemporary debate on it.

Through exploratory study, this paper identifies reasons why Lebanese SMEs do not embody CSR into their culture. The empirical data were gathered through 18 in-depth interviews with questions based on the main research questions.

Findings reveal that resistance to change is one of the main drivers of resistance to CSR. Collective and organizational culture can source this resistance to CSR.

This paper contributes to filling the gap in the literature in relation to CSR in small-medium firms and in particular Lebanese SMEs.

In the era of new technological revolution, seeking to survive and guarantee business sustainability in their digital internationalization, enterprises choose to become environmentally oriented. The need for new green business models has become evident in recent years, and enterprises offer green services in creative and eco-friendly ways. However, does the display of a green label on hotels' websites really promote the eco-conscious tourists' online booking intention? This study aims to examine the impact of the perceived label on the online sustainable hotel booking intention of the eco-conscious tourists, using the foundations of signal theory.

This study adopted a structural equation model to integrate several constructs with a sample of 349 validated responses.

The empirical results highlight, the importance of the green label perception on the eco-conscious tourists' booking intention of online sustainable hotel and the role that green trust and green perceived risk play as a mediating variable between the perception of the exposed label and the booking intention. Indeed, when booking a sustainable hotel online, the tourists may be sensitive to the exposure of a green label. Therefore, this signal decreases the perceived risk of unsustainability and ultimately increases the trust in hotel's sustainability.

The first limitation is related to the sample employed in this study. Given that most of the participants were residents of France, the results of this study may not be generalized to the entire population. Secondly, a range of other factors can affect the eco-conscious tourists' intentions to book online a hotel with green label, such as their attitude, social media influence, tourists' satisfaction, etc. Indeed, other variables and/or signals could be adopted to study online booking intention in the pandemic era.

In light of these results, theoretical and managerial implications are discussed. The findings make an important contribution to SMEs sustainability and internationalization by exploring new ties. This study considers how SMEs and specifically hotels start following green practices (e.g. adoption of an eco-label) relevant to their international environment where they operate and in response to global pressures. SMEs can survive better in the highly competitive global environment where they need to employ more green practices, however, managers should consider how green trust and green perceived risk can affect customer behavior. It also adds to the existing literature by dealing with customer perceptions about the green label of sustainable hotels and its subsequent effect on booking intention.

This study had shown the importance of the display of green label on the eco-conscious tourist's online booking intention.

The purpose of this study is to answer the following questions: What factors influence attitude toward green brands among Pakistani millennials? Does attitude toward green brands affect purchase intention? Does gender moderate the effect?

Data was collected through an online questionnaire distributed through multiple academic and professional networks. The questionnaire was answered by 242 Pakistani millennials. SmartPLS was used to conduct partial least square-structural equation modeling analysis. The analysis was conducted using a two-stage protocol typically followed in SEM analysis. First, an outer model assessment was done to measure construct reliability and validity. This was followed by hypotheses testing in the inner model assessment. Moderating effects were tested using the multigroup analysis feature of SmartPLS.

The antecedent factors tested in this study are green brand skepticism, environmental consciousness and attitude toward green campaigns. Results show that these factors do influence a person’s attitude toward a green brand, which, in turn, influences his/her purchase intention regarding that brand. Marketers of green brands can use the factors outlined in this study to improve consumer attitudes toward their company and products. This study showed that women are more positively affected by green campaigns. Green campaigns in Pakistan may be more successful if directed at female millennials.

This study conveys helpful implications for marketing managers, as specific antecedents are found to be significant predictors of purchase intention for green brands. Companies should not let the fear of consumer skepticism stop them from advocating their green products and initiatives. Green marketing campaigns can inspire millennials to encourage their social groups to be environmentally conscious. By actively helping the environment, these consumers may feel a sense of pride for their cohort and their country. As a result, Pakistan might undergo a transition to buying green brands, adopting green lifestyles and demanding green products from non-green brands.

Most of the research on green marketing and branding for millennials pertains to developed countries. However, as roughly 90% of the global millennial population live in developing countries, it is important to conduct research in developing countries. This paper specifically focuses on Pakistan, a developing country in South Asia. A propensity toward environmental issues among millennials makes this study an important one, both for the Pakistani market and for generalizations in populated developing countries having a similar profile.