Individual cultural heterogeneity in sustainable consumption: How Chinese Confucianism values shape behavioural variations

Abstract Extant literature has conspicuous paucity in elucidating individual heterogeneity in traditional cultures and its multidimensional impacts in sustainable consumption. Anchored in the cultural milieu of China, this study explored the influences exerted by distinct dimensions of individuals' face consciousness, zhongyong thinking and collectivism on their sustainable consumption. Concurrently, this paper investigated the moderating role of descriptive social norms in the influencing process of Chinese traditional cultural values. Empirical findings underscore the heterogeneity across the dimensions of consumer cultural values. The moral face exerts a positive influence on sustainable consumption, whereas the social face construct has a negative effect. The integration and harmony dimension of zhongyong thinking has a positive influence on sustainable consumption behaviour, while the weigh and balance dimension had no significant impact. Horizontal collectivism has a strong positive correlation sustainable consumption, yet the impact of vertical collectivism is insignificant. Furthermore, the analysis reveals that descriptive social norm moderated the negative effects of social face and the positive effects of moral face, horizontal collectivism and zhongyong integration on sustainable consumption behaviour. This paper furnished empirical substantiation for the multidimensionality of culture and its differential impacts, thereby proffering significant practical implications for governmental interventions aimed at catalysing the populace transition towards sustainable consumption paradigms.