Exploring the promotion of voluntary eco-friendly policy participation: Focusing on the watching-eye effect

The purpose of this study is to suggest a strategy that encourages consumers of food delivery apps (FDA) to voluntarily participate in eco-friendly practices in order to reduce plastic waste in FDA. This study investigated the impact of the watching-eye effect on consumers’ attitudes toward eco-friendly strategies and their intention to participate in these strategies within the context of FDA. To test the impact of watching-eye effect, this study conducted a scenario-based, between-subjects experimental design. To analyze the data, a t-test and Hayes PROCESS Model 4 were conducted. The results of this study demonstrated that the presence of a watching eye (vs. the absence of a watching eye) positively affects consumers’ attitudes toward eco-friendly strategies and increases their willingness to participate in these strategies within the context of FDA. The attitude toward eco-friendly strategies mediated the impact of the watching-eye effect on willingness to participate in eco-friendly strategies.