Does Consumption of Organic Foods Contribute to Korean Consumers’ Subjective Well-Being?

Abstract

The current study used the value-attitude-behavior hierarchical framework as a theoretical foundation to investigate how consumers’ personal values and attitudes influence organic food consumption intention and behavior and how organic food consumption contributes to their perceived subjective well-being. The responses from a total of 420 Korean consumers were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Results of this study indicated that universalism was positively related to attitudes toward environmental and psychological consequences of organic food consumption, whereas benevolence was positively related to attitudes toward health-related consequences. Further, intentions to consume organic foods were positively influenced by attitudes toward health-related and psychological consequences from consuming organic foods, and a positive, significant relation between the intention and the behavior regarding organic food consumption was revealed. Lastly, it was found that organic food consumption significantly affected consumers’ physical, psychological, and social well-being perceptions. Research contributions were discussed, and managerial implications were offered in the conclusions.

Social Feedback Loop in the Organic Food Purchase Decision-Making Process

“…The combined methodological approach used helped to show that, apart from the importance of the self-transcendence values and feedback loop in the newly developed structural model, it is individuals' attitudes that affect purchase intention, which, together with perceived behavioral control, lead to organic food buying. Our findings are consistent with existing studies that examine a value-attitudebehavior relationship in organic purchasing [33][34][35] as well as those exploring the effect of social norms on consumer behavior [15,66]. The study's original contribution to the theory pertains to the inclusion of the social feedback loop in the domain of organic food, where we show that a model that lacks the two-way interaction and accompanying compounding effect of social norms and individual behavior is likely to underestimate the proposed relationships and forecasts for a greener future in specific countries.…”

“…Due to their abstract nature, values affect behaviors indirectly through some mediating concepts, such as attitudes [22,23]. A value-attitude-behavior relationship has been identified in several organic food contexts [33][34][35]. The number of studies applying the theory of basic human values [25,31] has reported that self-transcendence values (universalism and benevolence) are significant factors in consumers' organic food purchase decisions [5,[35][36][37].…”

The Potential Influence of Organic Food Consumption and Intention-Behavior Gap on Consumers’ Subjective Wellbeing

“…Additionally, food characteristics (162), such as sensory attributes, quality, origin and packaging, were of the most related hinders behind OIBG. "Time pressure" during shopping was also one of the salient mentioned causes behind OIBG (31). Consumers' negative emotions towards organic products, such as disappointment and dissatisfaction, had a role to play at the marketplace (26).…”

“…Investigating how organic food impacts consumers' health and emotions has been an interesting core for plenty of previous and current research. However, studying the effect of organic food on subjective wellbeing has been scarce comparing to health and emotional aspects [30,31]. Thus, a more clear understanding of this relationship is currently needed [29,32].…”

Community Supported Agriculture as a Driver of Food-Related Well-Being

“…Buying local food provides space for a sense of community by fostering interaction with producers or other like-minded consumers [66]. Echoing other studies' concerns there are links between social well-being and organic products [67].…”