Green influencers' characteristics: scale development, validation and their impact on followers' behaviors

Purpose As the environmental crisis becomes increasingly serious, green influencers have emerged as important actors in promoting pro-environmental behavior and green consumption. However, the key characteristics of green influencers remain unclear, and standardized measurement tools to assess them are lacking. Adopting an audience perception perspective, this study develops a measurement scale to systematically assess the defining characteristics of green influencers. Design/methodology/approach We employed an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design, which comprises an initial qualitative study followed by three subsequent quantitative studies. In Study 1, a grounded-theory approach was adopted to analyze semi-structured interviews with 30 followers of green influencers in China. In Study 2, exploratory factor analysis and reliability analysis were conducted to refine the measurement scale. Study 3 verified these dimensions through confirmatory factor analysis. Finally, Study 4 examined the impact of green influencers' characteristics on followers' pro-environmental behavior and green consumption intention. Findings Study 1 identified five initial dimensions of green influencers' characteristics: authenticity, equality, self-benefit framing, instructive, and expertise. Study 2 developed a 20-item scale measuring these five dimensions, demonstrating good reliability and validity. Study 3 confirmed the scale's stability and validity through confirmatory factor analysis, with satisfactory model fit across diverse samples. Study 4 revealed that green influencers' self-benefit framing and equality positively enhanced followers' pro-environmental behaviors, whereas self-benefit framing, expertise and instructive significantly predicted green consumption intentions. Originality/value This study updates and expands the research in the field of green influencers, provides a new understanding of the green influencer characteristic dimensions, and introduces a valid and reliable measurement tool to provide feasible recommendations for enhancing the effectiveness of green influencers in facilitating environmental behaviors.