Nor Farizal Mohammed^1♣, María-Elena Sánchez-del-Río-Vázquez², Carlos Rodríguez-Rad², María-Ángeles Revilla-Camacho²

¹Accounting Research Institute, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Malaysia
²Universidad de Sevilla (Spain)

ABSTRACT

The advancement of sustainable transport modes is a central challenge highlighted by the United Nations 2030 Agenda’s Sustainable Development Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities. While governments increasingly invest in sustainable mobility infrastructure, the effectiveness of such initiatives depends on user adoption, raising concerns regarding public sector accountability. Accordingly, this study aims to fill the gap in the literature regarding how to accelerate the diffusion of sustainable mobility modes, particularly in developing countries in the East. Therefore, this paper aims to examine how perceived impacts of the mobility modes on city sustainability, customer forces, and product forces influence the intention to adopt sustainable transport modes among young Malaysians in Puncak Alam. An empirical study was conducted using the partial least squares (PLS) method. The findings reveal that perceived impacts have a significant influence on young people’s intention to use sustainable mobility modes. Similarly, customer forces have a notable effect on user intention, whereas product forces are less significant. Consequently, to enhance the likelihood of success, public and private organisations should focus on strengthening customer-related factors and effectively communicating the positive impacts of these transport modes at the local level. This study extends sustainability performance measurement literature by positioning user adoption intention as a leading non-financial indicator of SDG effectiveness.

Keywords: Sustainability; Mobility; Adoption Forces; Diffusion; Market-Based Management