Behavioral Drivers of Students’ Intention for Sustainable Palm Oil
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35876/ijop.v9i2.180Keywords:
Sustainable palm oil, Theory of Planned Behavior, Prosocial motivation, Student engagement, IndonesiaAbstract
While sustainable palm oil is central to Indonesia’s climate agenda, behavioral engagement among youth remains underexplored. This study applies the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to identify psychological drivers of students’ intentions to promote sustainable palm oil practices within their home regions. We surveyed 150 university students originating from Riau, Jambi, and West Kalimantan via an online questionnaire and analyzed the data using Structural Equation Modeling with SmartPLS. The extended TPB model integrates sustainability knowledge and prosocial motivation as antecedents of attitude, while retaining attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control (PBC) as predictors of intention. Results indicate that knowledge and prosocial motivation significantly strengthen positive attitudes toward sustainable practices. In turn, attitude, subjective norm, and PBC strongly predict behavioral intention. Intention also mediates the relationship between these psychological factors and students’ planned sustainability actions. The model explains 93.6% of the variance in behavioral intention (R² = 0.936), suggesting substantial explanatory power for youth engagement in resource-based communities. Theoretically, this research enriches TPB by incorporating prosocial motivation into sustainability behavior, clarifying how value laden drivers shape attitude formation and subsequent intention. Practically, findings offer actionable guidance for universities, local cooperatives, and policymakers to design youth-oriented interventions that build knowledge, leverage social influence, and reduce perceived barriers to action through curriculum modules, peer-led campaigns, and community partnerships. By positioning students as locally embedded catalysts, these interventions can translate intention into concrete advocacy and education activities that support responsible, certified palm oil. Overall, the study highlights how empowering students as sustainability multipliers can accelerate grassroots transitions consistent with Indonesia’s climate and development goals, while providing a scalable behavioral framework for similar resource-dependent regions.
Downloads
References
Ajzen I. 1991. The theory of planned behavior. Organ Behav Hum Decis Process. 50(2):179–211 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/074959789190020T. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/0749-5978(91)90020-Armitage CJ, Conner M. 2001. Efficacy of the Theory of Planned Behaviour: a meta-analytic review. Br J Soc Psychol. 40(Pt 4):471–499. https://doi.org/10.1348/014466601164939
Assefa Y, Tilwani SA, Moges BT, Majeed H. 2025. Unpacking student engagement and its mediating role in predicting the relationship between self-determination and academic satisfaction among undergraduate students in higher education. Soc Sci Humanit Open. 12:101797 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S259029112500525X. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssaho.2025.101797
Djibo O, Maman M. 2019. Determinants of agricultural technology adoption: Farm households evidence from Niger. J Dev Agric Econ. 11:15–23. https://doi.org/10.5897/JDAE2018.0998
Fishbein M, Ajzen I. 2010. Predicting and Changing Behavior: The Reasoned Action Approach. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203838020
Fornell C, Larcker DF. 1981. Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. J Mark Res. 18(1):39–50
Grant AM. 2007. Relational job design and the motivation to make a prosocial difference. Acad Manag Rev. 32(2):393–417
Hair J, Hult GTM, Ringle C, Sarstedt M. 2022. A Primer on Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM).
Hayadi BH, Hariguna T. 2025. Determinants of Student Engagement and Behavioral Intention towards Mobile Learning Platforms. Contemp Educ Technol. 17(1)
Heilmayr R, Carlson KM, Benedict JJ. 2020. Deforestation spillovers from oil palm sustainability certification. Environ Res Lett. 15(7):75002
Henseler J, Ringle CM, Sarstedt M. 2015. A new criterion for assessing discriminant validity in variance-based structural equation modeling. J Acad Mark Sci. 43(1):115–135
Hofstede G. 2011. Dimensionalizing cultures: The Hofstede model in context. Online readings Psychol Cult. 2(1):8
Hospes O. 2014. Marking the success or end of global multi-stakeholder governance? The rise of national sustainability standards in Indonesia and Brazil for palm oil and soy. Agric Human Values. 31(3):425–437
Hsieh C-H, Yang J-Y, Huang C-W, Chin WCB. 2023. The effect of water sound level in virtual reality: A study of restorative benefits in young adults through immersive natural environments. J Environ Psychol. 88:102012
Leeuw A, Valois P, Ajzen I, Schmidt P. 2015. Using the theory of planned behavior to identify key beliefs underlying pro-environmental behavior in high-school students: Implications for educational interventions. J Environ Psychol. 42. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2015.03.005
Li C et al. 2025. Research on the Influencing Factors of College Students’ Willingness-to-Pay for Carbon Offsets in the Context of Climate Change. Sustainability. 17(6):2678
Lucarelli C, Mazzoli C, Severini S. 2020. Applying the theory of planned behavior to examine pro-environmental behavior: the moderating effect of COVID-19 beliefs. Sustainability. 12(24):10556
Molenaar JW et al. 2013. Diagnostic study on Indonesian oil palm smallholders: developing a better understanding of their performance and potential. Int Financ Corp World Bank Gr. [published online ahead of print]
Nguyen H-AT et al. 2022. Social Environmental Factors affecting students’ green living behaviour: A cross country empirical study at ASEAN. Available SSRN 5019607. [published online ahead of print]
Nurhidayati S, Sukri A. 2025. Validation of Students’ Green Behavior Instrument Based on Local Potential Using Structural Equation Modeling With Smart Partial Least Squares. Eur J Educ Res. 14(1)
Obidzinski K, Andriani R, Komarudin H, Andrianto A. 2012. Environmental and social impacts of oil palm plantations and their implications for biofuel production in Indonesia. Ecol Soc. 17(1)
Rioux SM, Penner LA. 2001. The causes of organizational citizenship behavior: a motivational analysis. J Appl Psychol. 86(6):1306
Schouten G, Glasbergen P. 2011. Creating legitimacy in global private governance: The case of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil. Ecol Econ. 70(11):1891–1899
Schwartz SH. 2012. An overview of the Schwartz theory of basic values. Online readings Psychol Cult. 2(1):11
Sun Y, Liu L. 2023. Structural equation modeling of university students’ academic resilience academic well-being, personality and educational attainment in online classes with Tencent Meeting application in China: Investigating the role of student engagement. BMC Psychol. 11(1):347
Sundaraja CS et al. 2021. Can consumers do it all? An exploration of factors that influence the purchase of sustainable palm oil products. J Food Prod Mark. 27(5):223–242
Tabanao EG V, Barnido DD, Pableo JC. 2025. Youth engagement in environmental sustainability: Bridging action and awareness for SDG 11. Ignatian Int J Multidiscip Res. 3(2)
Triandis HC. 1995. A theoretical framework for the study of diversity. In: Diversity in organizations: New perspectives for a changing workplace. SAGE Publications, Inc.; p 11–36
Varni A, Thai CL, Jamaleddine S. 2024. Using an Instagram campaign to influence knowledge, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and behavioral intentions for sustainable behaviors. Front Psychol. 15:1377211
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Yasminnasywa Iskandar, Thifal Yumna Nazihah, Abdullah Haidar
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
