Digital Transparency Signals and Responsible Purchase Intention in the Electronics Market: Perceived Green Authenticity as a Mediator and Greenwashing Skepticism as a Moderator

This study investigates the influence of circular-economy transparency (CET) on responsible purchase intention (RPI) within the electronics market, elucidating the mediating role of perceived green authenticity (PGA) and the boundary condition of greenwashing skepticism (GWS). We used PLS-SEM (SmartPLS 4) with bootstrapping to test direct effects, mediation, moderation, and moderated mediation on a cross-sectional online survey of 400 adult electronics customers in Saudi Arabia. The results indicate that CET positively predicts PGA and RPI, with PGA significantly enhancing RPI. This suggests that perceptions of authenticity convey a significant aspect of transparency's impact on responsible intentions. Nonetheless, GWS considerably diminishes the CET→PGA and PGA→RPI relationships and lessens the potency of the indirect CET→PGA→RPI pathway, indicating that skeptical consumers more rigorously disregard cues of transparency and authenticity. The model provides a strong description of the observed variance in both PGA and RPI, justifying its explanatory and predictive value. These results suggest that electronics brands and policymakers would do well to complement transparency programs with measurable, decision-relevant information disclosures and trust-enhancing procedures (e.g., traceability and third-party validation) in order to minimize distrust and enable responsible purchasing.