Religiosity and food waste reduction intentions: A conceptual model

Abstract

Are religious consumers less wasteful? If so, to what extent and by what mechanisms does religiosity motivate consumers to reduce food waste? To address these questions, this study proposes a conceptual model and evaluates it empirically using PLS‐SEM and data from 583 consumers. The results reveal that religiosity encourages food waste reduction. Specifically, religiosity is positively related to consumer attitudes, activism and personal and subjective norms to reduce food waste. Consumers’ activism and personal norms are significant mediating mechanisms that convey the impact of religiosity on food waste reduction intentions. Interestingly, however, consumers’ attitudes and subjective norms show no significant effects on their food waste reduction intentions. In addition, perceived behavioural control (PBC) appears to be an important determinant of consumer intentions, but it plays a direct role rather than a moderating role. These results extend the previous literature by (a) proposing novel intervening mechanisms to explain the understudied religiosity‐consumer behaviour relationship and (b) shedding light on the controversy regarding the additive versus moderating effect of PBC. Ultimately, this study provides a basis for religious‐based interventions for policy makers and marketers as well as ideas to motivate food waste reduction at the consumer level.

The Impact of Religiosity and Food Consumption Culture on Food Waste Intention in Saudi Arabia

“…On the other side, Visschers et al [55] argued that behavioral intentions of prohibiting food waste could predict food waste behavior. More specifically, studies confirmed a positive and direct relationship between personal attitude and food waste reduction intention [5,13,54]. This is due to the advantages perceived by individuals of reducing food waste, like saving money .…”

“…The food waste literature has shown some established factors that influence food waste intention and motivates people to reduce wasted food. Among the motives for reducing wasted food, the role of religiosity gained the attention of researchers but this research area is still under research [13]. Religiosity is one of the key components of social behavior and directly and indirectly influences consumers and society [16].…”

“…This is because people in households could not judge one another since household food waste is not visible to others, while a restaurant setting is public; hence, people can affect and judge the behavior of others. This normative component can be further enhanced by religiosity in the food waste context [13].…”

“…In addition, religion helps to meet the needs of people for affiliation [59]. Consequently, by achieving religious requirements and/or imitating the behavior patterns of religious people, religious people can be motivated to reduce wasted food from a compliance perspective [13].…”

“…There is growing research, recently, on the role of religiosity in sustainable consumer behavior e.g., [9][10][11][12][13]. Religiosity as a motivating factor to reduce food waste is very important because most of the world's people are affiliated with some form of religion [14].…”