Sustainability motivation and subjective well-being: an investigation of customer citizenship behavior in online food delivery in Vietnam

This research explores the relationship between consumers' sustainability motivation and their subjective well-being. Drawing on Self-Determination Theory and value co-creation literature, this study examines how intrinsic motivation affects the positive psychological outcome in online food delivery services. Observations were gathered from 298 Vietnamese consumers who used to order food via mobile applications, and then applied Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to analyze data. The findings confirmed that sustainability motivation significantly positively influences customer citizenship behavior. And, perceived contribution to others' welfare was found to positively affect subjective well-being, validating its mediating role in the relationship between customer citizenship behavior and subjective well-being. In addition, platform trust moderates the relationship between customer citizenship behavior and perceived contribution to others' welfare, highlighting its importance in fostering prosocial behaviors within the platform. These results extend value co-creation theory by explaining how intrinsic motivation is transformed into customer behaviors and heightened subjective well-being in digital platforms. These outcomes offer practical directions for platform managers who have been seeking to build trust, enhance transparency, and feature users’ positive contributions to encourage responsible engagement and long-term value co-creation.