Current Agriculture, Food & Resource Issues
G. Hailu, E. W. Goddard and S. R. Jeffrey
A Conceptual Behavioural Model:
Theory of Planned Behaviour (TpB)
With its foundation in social psychology literature, the theory of planned behaviour (TpB)
is the model most widely used to describe and measure a DM’s attitude toward an object,
his or her behavioural intention and his or her behaviour. In this study the use of the TpB
allows the incorporation of the DM’s perception, preference, experience, belief,
facilitating conditions and social pressure in the measurement of attitude toward debt and
its impact on the resulting capital structure (Matthews et al., 1994). The theory of planned
behaviour has been applied to predict behaviour in diverse contexts from managerial
performance benchmarking (Hill, Mann and Wearing, 1996), consumer purchasing
(Brinberg and Cummings, 1983), cigarette use (Budd, 1986) and effects of advertising on
attitude (Berger and Mitchell, 1989) to capital strucure decision making processes
(Matthews et al., 1994), among others.
The TpB states that an individual’s behaviour can be predicted if observers know
(1) his or her attitude toward a particular behaviour, (2) his or her intention to perform the
behaviour, (3) his or her beliefs with respect to the consequences of performing that
behaviour and (4) the social norms which govern that behaviour (Ajzen, 1991). Behaviour
is a function of intention to perform and perceived behavioural control (or ability to
perform the behaviour). Figure 1 depicts the relationship between intention and behaviour.
Subjective
Normative
beliefs
Behavioural
beliefs
Attitude towards
behaviour
Perceive d
behaviours I control
Figure 1 Theory of planned behaviour (Azjen, 1991).
The individual’s intention to perform a given behaviour (e.g., intention to increase
debt capital) is a central construct in the theory of planned behaviour and reflects how
individuals are motivated to try to perform the behaviour in question (Ajzen, 1991).
Basically, the TpB (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975) states that human behaviour is determined
by the formation of prior intentions, and that intentions are formed on the basis of a
weighted combination of attitudinal (A) and normative (SN) factors. According to Ajzen
(1991), an individual DM’s behavioural intention is affected by the attitude toward the
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