Applying decomposed theory of planned behaviour (DTPB) in predicting individual’s intention to purchase halal personal care products: the moderating role of spiritual intelligence / Sulaiman Nawawi

A great deal of research has been conducted to predict the factors that may influence individual’s intention to purchase halal personal care products. Numerous models such as theory of reasoned action (TRA) and theory of planned behaviour (TPB) have been applied and proposed to enhance the understanding of this issue. While the researcher may use any of these models, the decomposed theory of planned behaviour (DTPB) has, however, attracted the researcher’s attention. Although DTPB was specifically tailored to understand the adoption of information technology (IT), antecedents such as interpersonal referents, self-efficacy, and resource-facilitating conditions can still be applied into research of other natures including that of halal personal care products. Therefore, this study will provide an interesting platform to explore the robustness of the theory in predicting one’s behavioural intention within different research area, thus, contributing to our understanding of the factors that may influence individual’s intention to purchase halal personal care products. By decomposing the attitudinal, normative, and perceived control beliefs into relevant multi-dimensional constructs, the researcher could expect to have a higher predictive power and a more precise understandings of the determinants of behaviour. Additionally, the understanding of this particular theory was further extended by integrating the moderating role of spiritual intelligence into the framework, thus, providing a significant contribution to the body of knowledge and literatures on halal personal care products. Using the self-administered questionnaires as the main approach for data collection, 450 questionnaires were distributed to Muslim respondents over the age of 20 to 60 years old at six major cities in Klang Valley namely Kuala Lumpur, Klang, Kajang, Subang Jaya, Petaling Jaya and Shah Alam. Meanwhile, the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 24.0 was employed to analyse the preliminary data in this study. On the other hand, the variance-based Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) using SmartPLS 3.0 was used to examine the measurement model, structural model, and moderation analysis. Overall, the results of the study indicated that the model provided a good understanding of factors that influence individual’s intention to purchase halal personal care products. Approximately, 48% of the total variance on behavioural intention was explained. Specifically, the attitudinal-decomposed factors, the social-decomposed factors, and the control-decomposed factors were found to have a significant positive effect on attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioural control respectively. It was also revealed that one’s intention to purchase halal personal care products was significantly and positively influenced by attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioural control. As expected, spiritual intelligence was found to have moderated the positive effect of the independent constructs (i.e. subjective norm and perceived behavioural control) on intention to purchase. However, the positive effect of attitude and intention to purchase was not found to have been moderated by spiritual intelligence. Although all the five research objectives in this study were accomplished, not all the research hypotheses were fully supported. Of the 13 hypotheses, 12 hypotheses were supported, while the remaining one hypothesis (H4) was not supported. Based on the findings, implications to practice and academic research were offered. Limitations of the study and directions for future research were also discussed.