Research Proposal on Green Marketing: Aspect of recycling attitudes and/or behaviors of University of Exeter students

Section 1: Introduction & Overview of the Issue

Green marketing has become a highly debated topic that has attracted not only media attention but also the attention of manufacturing business in the United Kingdom and across the world. Green marketing involves product development, pricing and distribution of products that are environmentally friendly. Companies have been forced to adopt green marketing production process to come up with environmentally friendly products that consumers needs. Such products should not have toxic effects on consumer’s health and should be packaged in eco-friendly packaging materials (Rettie, Burchell, Barnham, 2014). If materials used to manufacture and package the product is not easily recyclable and has adverse impact on the environment there is a higher likelihood that such product may not be sustainable in the future. Green marketing is an important topic because it focuses on promoting an environment that is friendly to human life. Besides, it provide researchers with a fundamental basis for conducting further research on areas that companies should focus on to ensure that they manufacture products that are environmentally friendly and at the same time meet customers’ needs (Wan, Cheung, Shen, 2012).

Some of the implications of green marketing include both positive and negative implication. Some of the positive impacts are that it leads to the production of green products that are not toxic. Less toxic green products help to enhance life expectancy level of consumers as people are less likely to succumb to diseases to severe diseases that may cause death and human suffering. Besides, green marketing promote environmental conservation as most of the products and packaging materials used can be collected and recycled (Henning, Jochen, 2013).Such recycling helps to minimize wastage of packaging materials and also prevent environmental pollution. Besides it reduce the cost of manufacturing other packaging materials. However, despite having some positive implication, the topic is also faced with negative impacts which include cost implication (McEachern, Carrigan, 2012). Furthermore, companies must spend time and money in ensuring research and development are carried out to enable the companies manufacture products that are environmentally friendly. Therefore, the study will be guided by the following research specific objectives and hypothesis

Research objectives

• (i). To determine the specific aspects of recycling attitudes and behaviors among University of Exeter students
• (ii).To find out whether there is sufficient information on the importance of recycling among Exeter university students
• (iii).To determine what else needs to be done to ensure that students at the University of Exeter are embraced green marketing and carry out recycling

Research hypothesis/questions

• H01: There is no relationship between green marketing and recycling attitudes behaviors among University of Exeter students
• H02: There is no relationship between availability of sufficient information among Exert university students and recycling
• H03: There is no relationship between other actions to promote recycling and student’s behavior on recycling behavior

To ensure that students at Exert university and other stakeholders have a clear picture of green marketing and its key components. Some of those components included price, recycling, enhancement of product durability, use of safer products, and re-using packaging materials. When setting up the price, it is imperative to ensure that a premium price is set in such a way that customers pay for higher cost incurred in designing, processing and packaging a product that is environmentally friendly. Production and packaging firms should work closely with students and administration of Exert University to carry out training and awareness campaigns on significant of recycling (Prothero, 1990). During such training and campaigns, students should be encouraged to motivate their friends and relatives to consider paying a premium price charged by production firms on green adverting for the sake of ensuring the future generation lives in a friendly and sustainable environment that is free from pollution. Methods of recycling and re-using the product should be discussed in details to allow all the stakeholders take part in promoting eco-friendly environment (Smith, Brower, 2012).

Section 2: Methodology

Research methodologies are the techniques that will be used to carry out actual research to determine the behavior and attitude of students at Exeter University. The methodology section will provide the design that will be used in the study, target population, sampling frame, sampling size and sampling techniques that the research will use to conduct the study. The study will further determine data collection procedure and techniques for analyzing collected data.

A research design is a structural plan that is utilized by the researcher to carry out the study to provide answers to the research questions. The study will employ descriptive research design to answer research questions and research objectives. Justification for using descriptive research design is because it helps to give the course and affect relationship between dependent and independent variables. Such cause and effect relationship will provide the basis for analyzing and making conclusion and recommendations based on the findings from the study. A research design is an imperative tool for any study because it provides a blueprint that will be followed by the researcher to achieve the specific research objectives (Brindley, Oxborrow, 2014).

Boost your grades with a new guide on A+ writing

Learn everything you need about academic writing for free!

Incorrect email. Please check it and try again.

Get it

By continuing, you agree to the Terms & conditions & Privacy policy

Time to excel in writing! The download will start within seconds.

Download

Another justification for using descriptive research design is because it will allow the researcher to conduct an advanced level analysis such as correlation and regression to establish the extent in which the relationship between the independent and dependent variables is determined. The study will employ primary data whereby, data will be collected from the target respondents using structured questions that will be self-administered to ensure that any unclear issue is adequately explained by the researcher (Kadirov, Varey, 2013). A target population in research involves a whole group that the research is focusing on carrying the study on. The study population comprises of the entire number of 22085 students of the University of Exeter. The reason for choosing this population is because it falls within the scope of the study and hence it may help to provide vital information that may help to ensure that the study becomes a success. Out of the population, a sample will be selected to obtain the views of the respondents about their behavior and attitude towards recycling and green marketing.

A sampling frame is a list of all those item or element in the population. A sample is a representative and manageable subset of the entire population where significant estimates and inferences pertaining the whole population can be obtained. In this study, the sampling frame will comprise of 22 students in each of the three categories namely UG, PGT, and PGR. The students will be selected using stratified random sampling which provides all the respondents an equal chance of inclusion. The Sample size of 66 students will be arrived using Nassiuma’s formula which is as follows.

The study will employ primary data that will be collected using structured questionnaires from the targeted respondents. The questionnaire to be used is in appendix 1.1 together with interview guide in appendix 1.2.  The pilot study will be done to test validity, credibility, and accuracy of the research questions before the actual collection of data from actual respondents.

Collected data will be processed using SPSS version 25. The test for significance will also be carried out where F-test will be used to measure multiple variables.  The F-test framework will comprise of two sections namely restricted and unrestricted that helps to explain variation in the independent variables. The coefficient of determination (R2) represents the explained variation. It involves the sum of squares due to regression divided by the total sum of square.

Section 3: Conclusion

It is important to conduct this research because it will provide a fundamental basis for further research. The limited research that has been done on the specific aspects of recycling attitudes and behaviors among University of Exeter students and hence this research is needed to provide an answer to all the specified research questions. The research will add value to the body of knowledge by giving underlying theories that support the study and also identify research gaps that need to be filled. The study will contribute to the body of knowledge on ways they can establish new theories relating to the world of green marketing. Also, the study contributed towards a realignment of previous approaches to modern technological innovations. The research will provide policymakers such as the government and regulators with vital information that can assist them in making policies that can create a conducive business environment for the production firms to excel in their business.   It will also provide the government with a clear view of what it can do to support companies so that they can be able to effectively produce and package their products on eco-friendly and recyclable packaging materials.