Determinants of local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading: evidence from Tanzania

Matekele, Charles K.; Kileo, Neema Y.; Muna, Asumpta M. Article Determinants of local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading: evidence from Tanzania Cogent Business & Management Provided in Cooperation with: Taylor & Francis Group Suggested Citation: Matekele, Charles K.; Kileo, Neema Y.; Muna, Asumpta M. (2024) : Determinants of local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading: evidence from Tanzania, Cogent Business & Management, ISSN 2331-1975, Taylor & Francis, Abingdon, Vol. 11, Iss. 1, pp. 1-26, https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2024.2398192 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/326542 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. 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Matekele, Neema Y. Kileo & Asumpta M. Muna To cite this article: Charles K. Matekele, Neema Y. Kileo & Asumpta M. Muna (2024) Determinants of local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading: evidence from Tanzania, Cogent Business & Management, 11:1, 2398192, DOI: 10.1080/23311975.2024.2398192 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2024.2398192 © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group Published online: 02 Sep 2024. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 1476 View related articles View Crossmark data Citing articles: 3 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=oabm20 ManageMent | ReseaRch aRticle Cogent Business & ManageMent 2024, VoL. 11, no. 1, 2398192 Determinants of local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading: evidence from Tanzania charles K. Matekelea , neema Y. Kileob and asumpta M. Munac aDepartment of accounting and Finance, the Local government training institute (Lgti), Dodoma City, the united Republic of tanzania (uRt); bDepartment of Community Development, the Local government training institute (Lgti), Dodoma City, the united Republic of tanzania (uRt); cBank of tanzania (Bot) academy, Mwanza City, the united Republic of tanzania (uRt) ABSTRACT carbon trading is an emerging economic activity and research area significantly underserved in african countries, particularly sub-saharan africa (ssa). as such, studies examining carbon trading adoption are highly in droughts. guided by the theory of planned behavior, this study examines the determinants of local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading in tanzania. a cross-sectional survey design was used to collect data from 217 local communities in tanganyika District council, tanzania. Partial least squares structural equation Modelling (Pls-seM) was used to test the hypotheses. the results revealed that attitude, subjective norms, perceived cost, perceived benefit, and knowledge positively and significantly influenced local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading. Perceived behavioral control and social enterprise embeddedness indicated a positive but insignificant connection with local communities’ preferences for adopting carbon trading, while perceived local government authorities (lga) support revealed a negligible negative association. therefore, these results are valuable for promotion of countrywide local communities’ adoption, recognition, and implementation of carbon trading. Introduction Recently, there has been an increase in natural resource depletion as a result of environmental pollution caused by greenhouse gas emissions, ozone layer depletion, and rapid increases in climate change (lin & Wang, 2024; Ren etal., 2024; tang etal., 2023). this threatens natural resource sustainability for today and future generations (azam et al., 2023; chien etal., 2023; United nations, 2015). Based on this, local communities, government, and government institutions, non-governmental organizations, and private companies are highly encouraged to embrace the concept of carbon trading in their strategic agenda (sh. ahmad et al., 2022; ibrahim et al., 2023). carbon trading became more significantly prevailing due to its high consideration in the Paris agreement on climate change (Jia, 2023; Paris, 2015; Xiao et al., 2023). such agreements have introduced strict procedures and measures to reduce environmental pollution in developed, emerging, and developing countries (Van de graaf, 2017). On the other hand, it is recognized that the principal foundation of global warming originates from carbon dioxide emissions into the environment (Ren et al., 2024; sardar etal., 2024). Based on the fact that, global warming and climate change lead to adverse effects in environments and various countries, particularly developing and least developed nations, the adoption of carbon trading is recognized as the solution to such harmful effects (iqbal et al., 2020). since carbon trading deals with various trading, financial policies, and © 2024 the author(s). Published by informa uK Limited, trading as taylor & Francis group CONTACT Charles K. Matekele charles.mat[email protected]; matek[email protected] Department of accounting and Finance, the Local government training institute (Lgti), Dodoma City, the united Republic of tanzania (uRt) https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2024.2398192 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent. ARTICLE HISTORY Received 22 February 2024 Revised 11 august 2024 accepted 25 august 2024 KEYWORDS local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading; attitude; subjective norms; perceived benefit; knowledge; social enterprise embeddedness; tanzania SUBJECTS Finance; environmental economics; economics; african studies; hazards & Disasters; Business, Management and accounting; Rural Development; environment & the Developing World; sustainable Development 2 c. K. MateKele etal. investment activities based on reducing carbon emissions and their related derivatives, it plays a significant role in the economy (adediran & swaray, 2023; Zainuddin & hamzah, 2023). such role includes environmental protection, promotion of low-cost emission, development of sound carbon trading policies, and improvements in the livelihoods of local communities through the achievement of sustainable development goals (liu etal., 2023; Rodriguez lopez et al., 2017; Zhang etal., 2017; Zhou & li, 2019). Despite the promising potentials of carbon trading, its adoption is still in its infancy and is not promising, particularly in sub-saharan africa (ssa), tanzania inclusive (Kila etal., 2023; Osewe etal., 2023). For example, in tanzania, this is evidenced by the national guidelines for carbon trading of 2022 and its regulation of 2022 (United Republic of tanzania, 2022). such guidelines and regulations provide administrative, trading, and control procedures for carbon trading in tanzania. generally, the newness of the carbon trading regulatory frameworks in tanzania implies that carbon trading activities in the country are still not well known and are inadequately adopted. this allowed the current study to examine the determinants of local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading in tanzania while guided by the expanded theory of planned behavior. this theory has been applied by incorporating additional variables namely perceived local government authorities’ (lgas) support, perceived benefit, social enterprise embeddedness, perceived cost, and knowledge of carbon trading. as advocated by ajzen (1991), aisaiti et al. (2019), and Jebarajakirthy et al. (2014), these variables were added to reinforce the predictive capacity of the model and create suitable grounds for the application of the theory of planned behavior. More precisely, the inclusion of perceived lga support is grounded in the fact that government support is an important motivating factor in promoting the adoption of innovative and sustainable financing strategies, such as carbon trading (Fan et al., 2022; li & gao, 2022; lin & huang, 2022). lgas facilitate the adoption and implementation of carbon trading (United Republic of tanzania, 2022). since the activities of local communities in tanzania, such as carbon trading are under the approval and guidance of lgas, successful carbon trading adoption rests much on lga’s support. On the other hand, to inspire local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading, it is necessary to understand the role of social enterprises such as carbon trading dealers in promoting entrepreneurial activities in rural areas (aisaiti et al., 2019; nowak & Raffaelli, 2022; sipahi Dongul & artantaş, 2023). this implies that incorporating social enterprises into this study offers a room for understanding the role of carbon trading companies in embedding social enterprises while undertaking carbon trading, thus ensuring the sustainability of carbon trading projects. additionally, the perceived benefits, costs, and knowledge of carbon trading are essential for effectively adopting carbon trading among local communities (tan et al., 2019). this originates from the fact that customers always evaluate the adoption of a matter of concern when guided by perceived direct or indirect benefits and costs. this is vastly embraced in the perceived knowledge related to such adoption (Jafar etal., 2023; li etal., 2019). Presently, diminutive efforts have been undertaken to integrate such constructs to examine local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading. therefore, based on these arguments, the recent study intends to investigate the determinants of local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading while grounded in the extended theory of planned behavior. additionally, most prior studies have been undertaken in the context of developed nations such as china, europe, and the United states of america (Khan et al., 2022; lee et al., 2023; Zhou, & li et al., 2019; Rodriguez lopez et al., 2017; tan et al., 2019). the major focus of these studies has been on the progress and challenges of carbon markets and finance, personal carbon trading, green finance and economic decarbonization, carbon trading effects and trading behavior, carbon pricing, cOViD-19, and financial literacy. Others paid attention to carbon mitigation and carbon trading technologies (Yadav et al., 2023), carbon emissions, carbon trading and tax policy (ayad et al., 2023), and carbon emissions determinants (Dehdar etal., 2023). these studies reveal limited research that has examined intentions to adopt carbon trading while guided by the theory of planned behavior among local communities, particularly in least-developed countries such as tanzania. this has created a knowledge gap for this study since empirical evidence on carbon trading adoption is in drought. therefore, this study fills such a gap by employing the theory of planned behavior with additional constructs. since carbon trading is still an emerging economic activity and a novel concept among local communities and policymakers in least-developed countries, such as tanzania, accordingly, the present study pursues to make the ensuing contributions to the prevailing literature. Firstly, the current study is among cOgent BUsiness & ManageMent 3 the limited studies examining local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading in ssa. Based on this, it adds value to the limited literature on carbon trading in the least developed countries such as tanzania, characterized by emerging regulations and frameworks related to carbon finance. secondly, it offers environmental and economic implications related to the sustainable protection of the forests among local communities as the primary base for carbon trading. in doing so, the sustainability of forest resources for present and future generations will be promoted. thirdly, according to researchers’ understanding and knowledge, the existing study is a fresh study that considers theory of planned behaviour to explain local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading in ssa, particularly tanzania. this offers a new contribution to the literature related with sustainable financing, primarily carbon trading, in the context of african countries, like tanzania. Moreover, consideration of perceived benefit, cost, knowledge, lgas support and social enterprise embeddedness in the study’s model provides managerial and practical implications among local communities, academia and practitioners. generally, considering these contributions, this study intends to examines the determinants of local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading in tanzania. the following section reviews the literature on the proposed hypotheses and methodology used to execute the study. this is followed by an analysis of the data and discussion of the findings in the third and fourth sections. the last section provides the conclusions, implications, and gaps for further studies. Literature review Guiding theory the current study employs the theory of planned behavior, as ajzen (1991) advocated, to explain the determinants of local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading in tanzania. the theory of planned behavior deals with individuals’ assessments of various issues influencing behavior, intentions, attitudes to undertake such behavior, and social norms and values employed to perform such behavior. For numerous years, the theory of planned behavior has been used in various fields to describe the rationality of human behavior (Matekele et al., 2024; Muwanga et al., 2024). Based on its application, it is recognized that people choose how they should behave in advance, act on that choice, and think about the conclusion they need to achieve; thus, their behavior is influenced by intentions (akhter etal., 2024; Fu, 2024). this implies that a person’s objectives and goals determine a person’s behavior. according to the theory of planned behavior, three fundamental variables were considered. explicitly, it considers perceived behavioral controls, attitudes, and subjective norms while explaining individuals’ intentions to perform a certain action. its application in the context of carbon trading originates from the premise that local communities make rational decisions, and the decision to adopt carbon trading is deliberate and not impulsive (tao et al., 2021). awareness of the drivers of local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading is essential for establishing the social, economic, and environmental implications of carbon trading among local communities. to explain this, the behavior of local communities can be examined by applying the theory of planned behavior. Because it offers predictions about a person’s intentions to behave in a manner at a certain place and time, it is an appropriate theory to explain local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading. the suitability of the theory of planned behavior in carbon trading studies has been advocated by several researchers, including Fu (2024), Jose and sia (2022), si et al. (2020), and tao et al. (2021). Previous behavioral studies have considered expanded models of the theory of planned behavior to examine customers’ intentions to purchase and use various services and products. such studies include aslam etal. (2020), Bhutto etal. (2020), hameed etal. (2019), Matekele etal. (2024), Waris and hameed (2020), Waris etal. (2021) and Uslu etal. (2023). these studies have demonstrated the applicability of the theory of planned behavior in various contexts, including green finance and environmental issues, providing reasonable grounds for this study to apply the theory of planned behavior. therefore, in addition to the three indicators of the theory of planned behavior, the current study introduced perceived lga support, social enterprise embeddedness, and knowledge of carbon trading, as well as perceived costs and benefits, as additional constructs to explain local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading. the application of additional constructs is necessary because when the theory of planned behavior is 4 c. K. MateKele etal. used in settings not originally developed, additional indicators must be considered (aisaiti et al., 2019; Fielding et al., 2008; Jebarajakirthy et al., 2014). also, as per Jebarajakirthy et al. (2014), additional variables contribute to improvements in the model’s predictive capacity. Hypotheses development Attitude towards carbon trading attitude is an individual’s negative or positive effect on behavior when undertaking a certain activity (ajzen, 1991; alshari & lokhande, 2022). Being one of the three elements of the theory of planned behavior, it has been recognized as a significant factor in explaining various predictions and adoption intentions among different individuals. For example, Bananuka et al. (2019), lujja, Mohammad, and hassan (2018), and Zaremohzzabieh et al. (2022) collectively established that attitude is positively explained by islamic banking adoption, and youths’ intentions to engage in agricultural activities. similarly, other studies have reported the existence of a positive and significant connection between attitude, personal carbon allowances (Jagers et al., 2017), carbon sequestration (thompson & hansen, 2012), voluntary personal carbon trading and offsetting arrangements (tan et al., 2019; tao et al., 2021), carbon economy (sun & Wu, 2024), and intention to adopt low-carbon means of transport (cai etal., 2019; Fu, 2024). Based on the stated empirical evidence, the current study proposes the following hypothesis: h1: attitude towards carbon trading positively influences local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading Subjective norms towards carbon trading subjective norms are perceived social pressures for individuals to perform or not perform a specific behavior (ajzen, 1991). From the perspective of the present study, subjective norms take place in the form of local communities’ perceptions, including the influence of close individuals, friends, and family members who can sway various people to participate or not participate in carbon trading activities. subjective norms are among the three significant elements of the planned behavior theory, which explains the behaviors of numerous individuals, such as local communities (chan et al., 2022; tavakoly sany et al., 2023). according to ajzen (1991), subjective norms originate from the values and customs that communities maintain in their daily activities. such norms and values influence societies’ involvement in various issues, including carbon trading (greisel et al., 2023; Kaba et al., 2023; neubaum et al., 2023). Recognizing this, some prior studies have documented that subjective norms predict customers’ intentions to construct eco-friendly houses (Jose & sia, 2022), green customer citizenship behaviors (Van tonder etal., 2023), personal privacy regulation in social media (neubaum etal., 2023) and use of islamic banking (Bananuka et al., 2019). additionally, it has been reported that subjective norms are positively connected with voluntary carbon offsetting (tao et al., 2021), personal carbon trading schemes (guo, chen, long, & Zou, 2021), and climate change (Zhang etal., 2024). since local communities’ participation in carbon trading activities can be informed by molding the general public’s perception and mindset, it is important to understand how subjective norms explain local communities’ motivations to adopt carbon trading. Based on the above, this study recognizes that: h2: subjective norms over carbon trading positively influence local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading Perceived behavioral control over carbon trading Perceived behavioral control originates from the perceived ease or difficulty of various individuals involved in the activities under consideration (ajzen, 1991). in other words, perceived behavioral control implies that the more an individual believes that the performance of the behavior is within his or her control, the greater the possibility of performing in that way (Zaremohzzabieh etal., 2022). acikgoz etal. (2023), Baluku et al. (2023), and nogueira et al. (2023) concluded that the perceived behavioral control of various individuals positively determines their purchasing intentions. Based on the theory of planned behavior, sayal and singh (2020) stated that the more substantial the control an individual possesses cOgent BUsiness & ManageMent 5 with fewer complications, the greater the individual’s intentions to engage in a related activity. some of the empirically related studies such as cai etal. (2019), Prete etal. (2017), si etal. (2020) and Wang etal. (2016), documented that perceived behavioral control has a positive and significant correlation with local communities’ intentions to adopt and use low-carbon bicycles, hybrid electric vehicles, and energy efficiency. in the setting of carbon trading, it is expected that local communities’ intentions to look for carbon trading activities are highly affected by their perceived behavioral control of carbon trading activities. Moreover, in the circumstances of this study, when local communities anticipate that their involvement in carbon trading will bring favorable community and environmental benefits, including the protection of natural resources accompanied by limited challenges, their intention to participate in carbon trading will increase. therefore, it is expected that: h3: Perceived behavioral control over carbon trading positively influences local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading. Perceived cost Perceived cost is among the significant factors affecting customers’ intention to adopt a product or service, including carbon trading (asmy etal., 2019; Owusu etal., 2021). this implies that local communities’ readiness to adopt carbon trading becomes very high when there is a low perceived cost of carbon trading. some perceived costs associated with local communities’ involvement in carbon trading include forest protection costs, such as security costs, community relocation costs, and opportunity costs for communities surrounding the forests (United Republic of tanzania, [URt], 2022). Others include financial compensation costs to forest and land owners for lost revenue originating from rewarding land use, leading to the conversion of plantations and agricultural land into protected land for carbon trading activities (Fleischman et al., 2021). Based on this, tan et al. (2019) concluded that costs related to the implementation of carbon trading projects demonstrated a positive connection with a public willingness to accept carbon trading. this shows that when carbon trading companies incur most of the costs, participation intentions among local communities become very high. in addition, Zhao et al. (2018) and Zhang and Feng (2022) documented that the presence of carbon trading companies with a high willingness to incur carbon trading costs stimulates the readiness of interested parties, such as local communities’ engagement in carbon trading activities. since carbon trading is still a new economic activity among local communities in most african countries, including tanzania, reviewed previous works such as tan etal. (2019) and Zhao etal. (2018) offer suitable grounds among local communities to have the willingness to join in carbon trading, as the perceived costs are borne by carbon dealers. generally, perceived carbon trading costs, in one way or another, affect local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading. Because carbon trading companies incur large costs, such a situation is believed to encourage local communities to adopt carbon trading. hence, this study contributes to the following hypothesis: h4: Perceived cost positively influences local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading. Social enterprise embeddedness social enterprise embeddedness deals with the embracement and provision of social entrepreneurial support, which aligns with the improvement in the lives of local communities (aisaiti al., 2019; sipahi Dongul & artantaş, 2023). this implies that in the context of carbon trading, the embeddedness of social enterprises occurs when parties involved in buying carbon from local communities are involved in entrepreneurial activities that support social missions. in doing so, carbon dealers make local communities share their profits from carbon trading activities, as if they are shareholders of that entity. hillman et al. (2018) pointed out that social enterprises are the primary drivers of communities to accept and implement innovations in their local areas, including the adoption of carbon trading. since social enterprises such as carbon trading dealers are highly concerned with satisfying local needs, which benefit the whole community, the embeddedness of social enterprises in carbon trading activities contributes to the effective adoption of carbon trading. hiteva and sovacool (2017) determined that social innovations, such as the embeddedness of social enterprises, promote high to low carbon emissions in various local communities. this also agrees with healy and Barry (2017), who 6 c. K. MateKele etal. found that the embeddedness of social enterprises has a positive effect on the transition to low-carbon energy. this infers that social enterprise embeddedness adds value to the provision of community support, especially marginalized and communities negatively affected by carbon emissions. similarly, Becker et al. (2017) put forward that the initiatives of carbon dealers create positive impacts among various vulnerable communities due to the embracement of social movements, such as the provision of entrepreneurial support and market-related information. according to Doherty et al. (2014), Matekele etal. (2024), nowak and Raffaelli (2022), and Wang etal. (2015), the value of local communities is highly improved when enterprises such as carbon dealers embrace social enterprises through the integration of entrepreneurial activities, which in turn ensures the business sustainability and welfare of the local communities. supporting this, aisaiti etal. (2019), Barraket etal. (2022), Jia (2023) and Korsgaard etal.,(2022) determined that the quality of lives of most of the vulnerable local communities is highly improved when enterprises such as carbon trading companies embrace social enterprise embeddedness in their various projects. in this case, carbon trading companies buy carbon from local communities and provide social entrepreneurial support to related communities. this leads to the following hypothesis. h5: embeddedness of social enterprise positively influences local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading Perceived benefits the perceived benefits of carbon trading include various benefits emanating from local communities’ adoption of carbon trading. the adoption of innovations, such as carbon trading among communities and consumers, is highly influenced by the degree of perceived direct and indirect benefits of such innovations (loh & hassan, 2022). this is in agreement with the theory of planned behavior, which suggests that the existence of satisfaction, usefulness, and value originating from related intentions positively impacts purchasing intentions (i.e., involvement in carbon trading) (ajzen, 1991; Bobkina & Domínguez Romero, 2022; Khare, 2023). some previous studies, such as Maestre-andrés etal. (2019) and guzman and clapp (2017), suggest that public acceptability of carbon trading activities increases when revenue originating from carbon trading is redistributed among local communities. this indicates that when such revenue is used to benefit vulnerable communities, mainly by financing social and environmental development projects, the acceptability of carbon trading becomes very high. Based on this, when local communities are significantly engaged in harvesting the benefits of carbon trading in their local areas in terms of mitigating climate risk and delivering social and family goals, such as recreation, health, and education services, their intentions to adopt and implement carbon trading will be great. therefore, we state the following: h6: Perceived benefits positively influence local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading. Perceived LGAs’ support Perceived lga support refers to facilitating conditions that create environments that enable the provision of technical support among local communities, mainly from lgas. according to linge etal. (2023), such conditions involve the degree to which local communities believe in the capacity of government entities and officials to provide technical and operational infrastructure for adopting innovative financing like carbon trading. More specifically, the perceived lga support in the current study denotes various government incentives and enables regulatory environments predominantly related to effective carbon trading operations. this indicates that the success of local communities in adopting carbon trading significantly depends on the support received from their lgas. Fan etal. (2022) and li and gao (2022) documented that government support is an essential driving factor in stimulating the adoption of innovative and green finance, such as carbon trading among local communities. local communities need technical support and guidance from lga experts regarding their intention to adopt carbon trading. this is mainly related to providing training and skills, project proposal write-ups, and procedures related to the intention to adopt carbon trading (URt, 2022). lin and huang (2022) determined that government support and intervention substantially decreased carbon emissions. supporting this, hu et al. (2023); Pan et al. cOgent BUsiness & ManageMent 7 (2022); and Wan et al. (2021) collectively stated that government participation in forms of supervision and provision of incentives and subsidies creates enabling environments for effective adoption and implementation of various carbon trading schemes. Furthermore, gao etal. (2022) pointed out that reliable government participation and motivation creates political trust, which in turn positively influences public acceptance of carbon trading. to achieve this, guo et al. (2019) highlighted that government agencies and departments must embrace motivating policies to guide carbon-trading communities. lin and Jia (2019) emphasized that when government authorities penalize carbon trading companies because of not fulfilling their agreements, carbon emission reduction is guaranteed, hence motivating local communities to adopt carbon trading. generally, local communities’ belief in government support increases when government authorities provide the support required for carbon trading adoption. in addition, previous studies related to behavioral intentions have documented that the availability of better and more reliable government support contributes positively to various adoption intentions, including carbon trading inclusive (Baptista & Oliveira, 2015; Mohd thas thaker etal., 2022). Based on these arguments, it is stated that: h7: Perceived lgas support positively influences local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading Knowledge Possession of knowledge related to carbon trading among local communities plays a significant role in their intentions to adopt carbon trading (savin et al., 2024; Ying & sovacool, 2021). in this study, this is mainly related to a general understanding and awareness of carbon trading activities and their means of participation. some of the empirical evidence, including De Kimpe etal. (2022), liao etal. (2022), and Roh etal. (2022), highlighted that the intentions of being involved in various activities like carbon trading are significantly influenced by potential participants’ perceived knowledge and understanding. this is also evidenced by other studies such as Jafar etal. (2023), nautiyal and lal (2022), and Zhou etal. (2022), which documented that purchasing intentions and perceived knowledge are positively related. Furthermore, previous studies have reported the existence of positive connotations between knowledge, voluntary carbon offsetting (haug & hassinggaard, 2023), carbon acquisition and responsiveness (Dally et al., 2020), carbon neutrality, and personal carbon trading (Zhang & Feng, 2022), emission trading scheme (alias et al., 2023) and carbon trading policy (gao et al., 2022). Based on these arguments, the following hypothesis is stated: h8: Knowledge positively influences local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading Methodology Study settings this study was conducted in the United Republic of tanzania (URt), east africa. it is one of the least developed countries and has demonstrated improvements in income, human assets, economic, and environmental vulnerability (United nations, 2023). in addition, URt is the wealthiest country in east africa regarding wide varieties of forests, with 51.6 percent of the forest area (World Bank, 2020). this is very far when compared with the rest of east african countries, specifically Uganda and Kenya, which account for 11.7 percent and 6.3 percent of forest areas, respectively (Osewe etal., 2023). Based on this, URt offers suitable grounds for carbon trading activities. More explicitly, the recent study was conducted at the tanganyika District council in the Katavi region involving Mwese, Katuma, lugonesi, Kagunga, Mpembe, and lwega villages. the selection of the stated villages was attributed to the areas in which carbon trading is significantly practiced after being initially introduced by carbon tanzania. Moreover, local communities in such areas have considerable experience of being involved in carbon trading. Based on these facts, local communities in the tanganyika District council provide a suitable basis for examining the determinants of their intentions to adopt carbon trading. 14 c. K. MateKele etal. perceived behavioural control (PBc) (β = 0.057, p = 0.159, and t = 1.412) and social enterprise embeddedness (see) (β = 0.066, p = 0.197, and t = 1.293) had a positive but insignificant correlation with iact. this implies that based on the study’s hypotheses, h3 and h5 are statistically rejected. the results also revealed that perceived lga support (Pls) (β=-0.009, p = 0.880, and t = 0.151) negatively influenced iact. this makes h7 unsupported; hence, it is rejected. in addition, as shown in table 7, the values of the confidence interval have no zeros between them. this implies that the study’s model is significant and suitable for explaining the intentions of local communities to adopt carbon trading. Discussion of findings this study examined the determinants of local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading in tanzania while guided by the expanded theory of planned behavior. it was reported that the relationship between attitude and local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading was positively significant. this means that attitudes play an important role in local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading, since local communities in tanzania have a positive mindset towards carbon trading activities. Based on study’s results, local communities’ attitudes originating from interest in carbon trading, provision of positive recommendations about carbon trading to other people, peace of mind, and commitment to carbon trading have contributed to significant and positive outcomes. this also implies that carbon trading can work better among tanzanian local communities, leading to favorable considerations. these findings agree with guo, chen, long, and Zou (2021), Jin et al. (2020), and Pan and Pan (2020), who determined that the attitudes of urban residents towards carbon trading are enhanced when its implementation is well known and recognized. it was also revealed that subjective norms and local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading were positively related at a significant level. this suggests that local communities have high levels of good perceptions, encouraging them to participate in carbon trading activities. it also implies that available norms and customs, as upheld and encouraged by close individuals, friends, and family members, support the local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading. this also sends a message that for the effective adoption of carbon trading, it is necessary to engage various persons who play significant roles in influencing the decisions of local communities. the theory of planned behavior supports this (ajzen, 1991) and prior empirical studies, including greisel etal. (2023), neubaum etal. (2023), and Jose and sia (2022). these studies have concluded that subjective norms predict customers’ intentions regarding constructing eco-friendly houses, using solar energy, and personal privacy. Based on these findings Table 6. Model fit summary. saturated model estimated model sRMR 0.020 0.020 d_uLs 1.313 1.313 d_g 4.665 4.665 Chi-square 487.283 487.283 nFi 0.834 0.834 Source: sMaRtPLs4 output. Table 7. Hypotheses testing. Hypotheses Relationships Path coefficients t statistics P Values f2Q2 Confidence interval status Lower bound upper bound H1at -> iaCt 0.154 2.296 0.022 1.023 0.721 0.023 0.285 accepted H2sn -> iaCt 0.182 2.211 0.028 1.025 0.724 −0.006 0.328 accepted H3PBC -> iaCt 0.057 1.412 0.159 0.009 0.649 −0.030 0.129 Rejected H4PC -> iaCt 0.174 2.364 0.018 1.043 0.715 0.048 0.333 accepted H5see -> iaCt 0.066 1.293 0.197 0.009 0.670 −0.025 0.159 Rejected H6PB -> iaCt 0.200 2.294 0.022 1.026 0.737 0.010 0.357 accepted H7PLs -> iaCt −0.009 0.151 0.88 0.000 0.721 −0.136 0.101 Rejected H8Kn -> iaCt 0.174 2.227 0.026 1.037 0.725 0.005 0.315 accepted R2 = 0.965; Q2=0.748 Source: sMaRtPLs4 output. cOgent BUsiness & ManageMent 15 and the conclusions of empirical studies, the adoption of carbon trading is significantly molded by the general public’s perception and mindset originating from available norms and customs. in general, these findings have implications for carbon dealers and government authorities regarding the considerations of various social norms affecting the countrywide adoption of carbon trading. such norms include influences from close friends and family members, encouragement and support from the general community, and a desire to be like peer communities. additionally, perceived costs and local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading are positively and significantly connected. this indicates that the cost involved in adopting carbon trading is relatively low, contributing to local communities’ readiness to accept carbon trading. More precisely, this specifies that perceived local communities’ costs related to the adoption of carbon trading, such as forest maintenance costs, local communities’ participation and commitment costs, and procedural costs, have a Figure 2. structural Model. Source: smartPLs4 output. 16 c. K. MateKele etal. positive and substantial contribution towards the adoption of carbon trading. these findings suggest that local communities are less concerned about carbon trading costs because they feel highly relaxed and confident about approaching carbon trading companies to establish carbon trading activities. this is in agreement with gao et al. (2022) and tan et al. (2019), who concluded that public willingness to accept carbon trading is positively and significantly driven by carbon trading implementation costs. since carbon trading companies incur high costs related with introduction of carbon trading projects, Zhao etal. (2018) and Zhang and Feng (2022) emphasize that the existence of carbon trading companies that are ready to bear adoption and implementation costs encourages the adoption of carbon trading among local communities. also, these results are consistent with those of Fleischman etal. (2021), who revealed that carbon trading companies significantly incur carbon trading costs and lower local communities’ costs. according to loh and hassan (2022), such situations encourage local communities to embrace carbon trading activities quickly. Furthermore, the findings show that perceived benefits positively and significantly influence local communities’ intention to adopt carbon trading. this means that local communities in tanzania perceive the adoption of carbon trading to bring more benefits and potential to their daily lives. Based on these results, some of the notable direct benefits arising from the adoption of carbon trading include an increase in family income, improvements in living standards, and provision of employment among local communities. Others include financial inclusion, promotion of local businesses, natural resource protection, and a rise in national income. Based these benefits, prior studies including gao etal. (2022), guzman and clapp (2017), and Maestre-andrés et al. (2019), highlighted that redistribution of carbon trading revenue among local communities benefits vulnerable groups. this predominantly involves financing various social and environmental projects such as health, education, and climate change mitigation. in doing so, the social, economic, and environmental implications will be realized among the involved communities and the country. Furthermore, knowledge of carbon trading was found to have a positive and significant connection with the intentions of local communities to adopt carbon trading. this directs that when local communities possess general knowledge and understanding of various activities related to carbon trading, their intention to adopt carbon trading increases. More obviously, these findings indicate that local communities have adequate knowledge and understanding of carbon trading, mainly in places where carbon trading is conducted and preliminary requirements for the application and management of carbon trading. these findings have important implications for carbon trading dealers, lgas, and environmental activists in offering mass sensitization and education on the mechanisms of carbon trading. this could be achieved by providing education through numerous social media, schools, village meetings, and universities and colleges. in doing so, the masses will be highly educated and capacitated about carbon trading, thereby increasing its adoption by local communities. to achieve this, Peng et al. (2022) and Ying and sovacool (2021) concluded that to increase carbon trading adoption, the creation of private and public sector awareness on implementing carbon trading is inevitable. this is in agreement with De Kimpe et al. (2022), liao et al. (2022), and Roh et al. (2022), who highlighted that perceived knowledge and understanding significantly drive customers’ intentions to be involved in various activities. this was similarly evinced by Jafar etal. (2023), nautiyal and lal (2022), and Zhou et al. (2022). it was found that perceived behavioural control has a positive but insignificant connection with local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading. this indicates that local communities have lower control over carbon trading activities. this could arise from complications originating from the mechanism of carbon sales and buying in international markets, thereby creating challenges for local communities. in addition, limited transparency and accountability related with carbon trading in various carbon markets, may have caused these outcomes. this indicates that carbon trading activities do not bring favorable behavioral and environmental benefits at the local level. these findings are inconsistent with those of acikgoz et al. (2023), Baluku et al. (2023), nogueira et al. (2023), sayal and singh (2020), and Zaremohzzabieh etal. (2022). these studies have established that perceived behavioral control and intentions to engage in behavioral activities, such as purchasing intentions, are positively and significantly related. cOgent BUsiness & ManageMent 17 in the case of an insignificant association between social enterprise embeddedness and local communities’ intention to adopt carbon trading, results indicate that carbon trading companies do not offer social implications to local communities. this implies that parties engaged in carbon trading are not directly involved in providing entrepreneurial support to promote social missions. this also designates existence of limited embeddedness of social enterprises by carbon trading companies among local communities. the novelty of the concept of social enterprise embeddedness among local communities and the general public could have contributed to these results. this contradicts previous studies, including Becker et al. (2017), healy and Barry (2017), hillman et al. (2018), hiteva and sovacool (2017), and Matekele et al. (2024). these studies suggest that introducing innovative financing such as carbon trading helps to embrace social enterprises among communities. Furthermore, aisaiti et al. (2019), Barraket etal. (2022), Jia (2023), Korsgaard etal. (2022), and nowak and Raffaelli (2022) reveal that improvements in the livelihoods of communities are positively explained by the embeddedness of social enterprises. generally, based on these differences, which could be explained by the newness of carbon trading in various least-developed countries such as tanzania, carbon trading companies should rethink their means of embeddedness of social enterprises. this will assist in creating social implications for local communities and the general public. Finally, the findings show the existence of an insignificant and negative affiliation between perceived lga support and local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading. this entails inadequate facilitating conditions from lgas, which offer an enabling environment for carbon trading activities among local communities. in addition, these outcomes indicate limited technical support and guidance from lga experts related to carbon trading. a plausible reason for these results could be the local communities’ limited trust in lga support and regulations. this implies that inadequate trust in the support received from lgas inhibits local communities’ motivations to accept and participate in carbon trading. consequently, local communities may overlook lga regulations and policies because of the limited trust and support from the government. as a result, perceived lgas have a minor negative effect on local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading. these findings do not agree with those of Baptista and Oliveira (2015) and Mohd thas thaker etal. (2022), who determined the presence of a positive and significant connection between behavioral intentions and facilitating conditions, such as support from government authorities. Conclusion, implications and areas for future studies Conclusion this study examined the determinants of local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading in tanzania. it was highly driven by limited studies on carbon trading in least-developed countries, such as tanzania, which is rich in natural resources related to forests. guided by the theory of planned behavior, this study aimed to examine the influence of attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control on local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading. Furthermore, additional constructs, such as perceived lga support, social enterprise embeddedness, perceived benefit, knowledge, and perceived cost were also considered. according to the results, attitude, subjective norms, perceived cost, perceived benefit, and knowledge are substantial predictors of local communities’ intention to adopt carbon trading. Moreover, the findings show that perceived behavioral control and social enterprise embeddedness have a positive but insignificant correlation with the intentions of local communities to adopt carbon trading. Finally, the results reveal that perceived lga support and local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading are insignificantly and negatively interrelated. these results are valuable for policymakers endeavoring to promote countrywide local communities’ adoption, recognition, and implementation of carbon trading through the provisions of controls and regulations of the primary drivers of local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading. Implications of the study the results of this study contribute to the limited literature on carbon trading in developing and least developed economies in several ways. Firstly, the findings of this study put forward that attitude, subjective norms, 18 c. K. MateKele etal. perceived cost, perceived benefit, and knowledge are important predictors of local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading in tanzania. this informs academics, practitioners, and policymakers that to ensure the effective adoption of carbon trading, it is essential to provide adequate local community awareness through mass sensitization. this will assist in creating a suitable appreciation of the benefits of carbon trading, while creating a positive attitude and mindset among local communities. in addition, carbon trading mass sensitization will influence influential decision-makers, community leaders, and local communities to have a familiar voice and understanding of carbon trading activities. in doing so, public and local communities’ attitudes and subjective norms are embraced in carbon trading adoption procedures. hence, this has practical implications for academics, carbon trading dealers, and policymakers. in addition, this study offers theoretical implications originating from applying the theory of planned behavior to carbon trading activities. this emanates from the findings, which show the suitability of theory of planned behavior while accompanied by additional constructs. this is evidenced by the positive and significant effects of subjective norms, attitudes, perceived costs, perceived benefits, and knowledge of local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading. this implies that the current study significantly contributes to the theory of planned behavior, which can be extended by employing additional constructs in the context of carbon trading. since the perceived benefits of carbon trading have demonstrated a significant connection with local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading, it has managerial implications regarding political and administrative accountability among lga officials including councilors, council management teams, ward and village executive officers, and village committees. this originates from the view that administrative and political reforms among lgas are inevitable for local communities to enjoy carbon-trading benefits. When lga officials are socially, politically, and administratively accountable while demonstrating transparency in using collected revenue from carbon trading, local communities will enjoy the expected benefits from their involvement in carbon trading. hence, a high level of transparency and accountability among lga officials will lead to managerial implications related to carbon trading revenue. Furthermore, this study offers environmental and economic implications for local communities and the public. this arises from the sustainable protection of the environment resulting from the adoption of carbon trading among local communities. in doing so, the sustainability of natural resources like forests is highly guaranteed while promoting economic development for present and future generations. Finally, the current study introduces implications for lgas in managing forests, providing facilitating conditions, and supporting the adoption of carbon trading. this can be undertaken by setting clear and achievable environmental management goals and visions that cultivate the protection of forests through the adoption of carbon trading. additionally, this can be attained by developing and promoting sustainable collaboration among village governments, non-governmental organizations (ngOs), and lgas. through such collaborations, sustainable environmental management can be encouraged while creating suitable grounds for carbon trading adoption. Limitations and areas for future studies even though the current study brings important findings and implications related to the determinants of local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading in tanzania, it has some limitations that demand intervention. this study applied a cross-sectional survey design that was limited to not considering behavioral changes among local communities. to overcome this, it is recommended that future studies consider a longitudinal design, which will uncover behavioral changes among respondents. in addition, based on the limitations of survey instruments in terms of missing inner perceptions of the respondents and being quantitative, it is proposed that a qualitative approach should be applied in further research. this will help overcome the limitations of quantitative studies. the present study applied convenience sampling, a non-probability technique characterized by non-generalization of the results; next, studies should use probability sampling methods. this will assist in the generalization of the results. similarly, it was skewed to some extent among the local communities. additional studies should include private companies and government agencies which own and manage the various forests in tanzania. in doing so, the sampling frame will be greatly enlarged as the results of such inclusion, hence leading to more generalizations of the findings. cOgent BUsiness & ManageMent 19 Furthermore, the outcomes of this study may not apply to each developing and least developed economy because it was conducted in a single-country setting, tanzania. this means that there is a gap in replicating the current study in the remaining developing and least-developed nations. therefore, future studies will assist in determining the comparability of conclusions in various developing countries. Finally, this study examines the direct effect of the determinants of local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading in tanzania. Based on this, it is recommended that prospective studies introduce mediating and moderating effects to examine their indirect contributions to carbon trading adoption. this will add value in providing both effects explaining local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading and broadening empirical knowledge and insights. in general, except for these shortcomings, the results of the extant study still provide a significant empirical understanding of the drivers of local communities’ intentions to adopt carbon trading, supported by the extended theory of planned behavior. Authors’ contributions Charles K. Matekele conceived and designed this study. Matekele was principally responsible for data interpretation and manuscript drafting. he also coordinated with the authors and assumed the role of the corresponding author. he takes responsibility for the integrity and accuracy of the entire work, particularly overseeing the data collection and analysis. Neema Y. Kileo contributed considerably to the analysis and interpretation of the data. Kileo also provided intellectual input especially concerning carbon trading. Kileo is liable for the data analysis section and ensures methodological rigor. Asumpta M. Muna was involved in the conception of the research design and provided critical revisions to the manuscript for intellectual content, particularly carbon trading. Muna is answerable to the theoretical framework and ensures its relevance and robustness. Final approval and accountability all three authors critically reviewed and approved the final version of this manuscript for publication. Moreover, they agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work were appropriately investigated and resolved. By delineating these roles and responsibilities, we affirm that all the authors listed meet the icMJe criteria for authorship. Disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s). The SmartPLS software (version 4.0) authors used a 30-day trial version, which doesn’t necessitate a copyright license. Funding no funding was received. About the authors Charles K. Matekele is a lecturer (accounting, taxation and Finance) at the local government training institute (lgti) Dodoma, tanzania. he holds Msc. (accounting and Finance), Bcom(accounting), cPa(t), cPB(t), and he is a registered tax consultant. he is interested in innovative and sustainable financing, financial reporting, iPsass, auditing, risk and fraud management, taxation, forensic investigation and corporate governance. Neema Y. Kileo is a part-time tutorial assistant (climate change and livelihood) at the local government training institute (lgti) Dodoma, tanzania. she holds a Bachelor Degree in environmental Disasters Management. she is interested in climate change, carbon trading, adaptation and mitigation to climate change. Asumpta M. Muna is a lecturer (accounting, auditing, taxation and Finance) and head of communication and external link at the Bank of tanzania academy in Mwanza, tanzania. she is a PhD student at the University of Dodoma and holds an Msc.(Finance and investments), advanced Diploma in accounting, and acPa(t). her areas of 20 c. K. MateKele etal. interest in research and consultancy focus on financial reporting, corporate finance, taxation, auditing, insurance, and risk management. ORCID charles K. Matekele http://orcid.org/0009-0001-2077-8229 neema Y. Kileo http://orcid.org/0009-0009-8659-2580 asumpta M. Muna http://orcid.org/0009-0009-6979-8317 Data availability statement the data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, [cKM], upon reasonable request. References acikgoz, F., elwalda, a., & De Oliveira, M. J. (2023). curiosity on cutting-edge technology via theory of planned behavior and diffusion of innovation theory. International Journal of Information Management Data Insights, 3(1), 100152. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jjimei.2022.100152 adediran, i. a., & swaray, R. (2023). carbon trading amidst global uncertainty: the role of policy and geopolitical uncertainty. 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