Organic food consumption in China: the moderating role of inertia

Abstract

Abstract. Despite the progressive development of the organic food sector across Taiwan Strait, little is known about how consumers' self congruity will influence organic food decision through various degrees of attitude and whether or not consumers with various degrees of inertia will vary in their intention to buy organic foods. The current study aims to examine the effect of consumption self congruity on behavioral intention related to organic food consumption under the mediating role of attitude as well as the moderating role of inertia. Research data were collected from organic food consumers across Taiwan Strait via a questionnaire survey, eventually obtaining 500 valid questionnaires for analysis. This study tested the overall model fit and hypotheses through structural equation modeling method (SEM). The results show that consumer attitude significantly mediates the effects of self congruity on organic food purchase intention. Moreover, the moderating effect of inertia is statistical significance, indicating that the relationship between attitude and purchase intention becomes weaker in the condition of consumers with higher degree of inertia. Several implications and suggestions are also discussed for organic food providers and marketers.

Why are agri-food systems resistant to new directions of change? A systematic review

“…Findings also show how attitudinal and cultural drivers create inertia among consumers (Chen et al, 2021;Jacobsen and Dulsrud, 2007;Obih and Baiyegunhi, 2017;Webb and Byrd-Bredbenner, 2015;Yen, 2018), keeping them "stuck" along certain patterns of consumption. For example, the decision to purchase and consume food is influenced by "cultural understandings" (Rudolf Messner et al, 2021), values and habits which are part of the individual's lifestyle -creating patterns of purchase that align and reinforce a particular trajectory (i.e.…”

“…More recently, the term "inertia" has also surfaced in social sciences (Stål, 2015), to describe a disinclination towards change in agri-food. It is used in a complementary and overlapping manner to the idea of lock-in and path-dependency: at individual level, it is used interchangeably with "lock-in" to describe individuals' disinclination towards change (Tonkin et al, 2018;Yen, 2018); at system level, it is often used as a synonym of path-dependency, to indicate how routines, social habits, infrastructure, organisational logics etc. slow or sometimes halt a change in direction in agri-food systems (Dury et al, 2019a;Leach et al, 2020).…”

“…Another point worthy of notice was the use of the keywords in the selected documents. 'Inertia' was, overall, usually referred mostly to consumers' attitudes and purchasing patterns (Yen, 2018) (Chen et al, 2021). The term was only marginally used to describe resistance to change at the system level (Dury et al, 2019b).…”

“…Consumers' attitudes exert influence across the agri-food system as demands often reinforce the industrial agriculture, production-oriented development, demanding that cheap varied food should be made available all year round (IPES, 2016; Messner, Johnson and Richards, 2021), and often preferring processed, imported foods (e.g. snacks and exotic fruits) to locally available, more sustainable alternatives (Obih and Baiyegunhi, 2017;Yen, 2018).…”

The role of marketing stimuli and attitude in determining post-COVID buying decisions toward organic food products: evidence from retail consumers in Beijing, China

“…No doubt, this is a huge opportunity for organic food producers and suppliers in China, yet the proportion of consumption by Chinese consumers still remains relatively low (Liu et al, 2023). Due to the premium pricing of organic food products and weak marketing efforts in China, the sales of organic food products are merely just 0.02% of the total food sales despite the strong market growth (Yen, 2018). Noteworthily, organic agriculture farming and supply in China is expanding but at a slow rate caused by the country's large geographical span which causes difficulties for producers to develop a large-scale organic food industry chain.…”