When Consumers are in Doubt, You Better Watch Out! The Moderating Role of Consumer Skepticism and Subjective Knowledge in the Context of Organic Food Consumption

Abstract

Despite numerous scholarly attempts, there is a lack of consensus regarding the relevance of various factors influencing consumer’s intention to purchase organic food. The purpose of this study is to asses the impact of subjective and personal norms on consumer attitude toward buying organic food. Moreover, this study aims to explore the moderating role of contextual factors - product knowledge and consumer scepticism on the norms- attitude link. Data were collected through an online survey on a sample of 212 organic food buyers in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Moderated regression analysis was used to test the hypothesized relations between the constructs of interest. Findings indicate the subjective and personal norms are positively and significantly related to consumer attitude toward organic food purchases. Also, our findings revealed that product knowledge strengthens the subjective norms-attitude relationship, while consumer scepticism toward organic food claims weakens the subjective norms-attitude link. This study informs producers, marketers, and policy-makers about the relative importance of norms, scepticism, and knowledge in the context of organic food consumption.

Cognition, Value Perception and Purchase Intention of Organic Food—Evidence from China’s Organic Milk Market

“…Therefore, this paper focuses on the intensity of the purchase intention: a small number of samples with no purchase intention were excluded in the empirical study, and 1113 samples were used in the regression analysis. According to the previous hypotheses and empirical research experience, the dependent variable (purchase intention) was set to the classified ordered continuous variable [1][2][3][4][5], and the ordered Logit model (Ologit) was used to estimate in this paper.…”

“…With the prominence of environmental and food safety problems, the practice of organic agriculture and organic food have aroused great interest in the past decades [1]. The consumption of organic food is regarded as a kind of pro-environmental behavior because of its benefits to environmental protection, public health and the interests of future generations [2,3], and has gradually become a new fashion trend [4]. Organic farming is now carried out in 178 countries according to relevant reports, and global sales have increased from $7.9 billion in 2000 to $89.7 billion in 2016 [5].…”

Consumer’s Waste Classification Intention in China: An Extended Theory of Planned Behavior Model

“…Studies have found that when consumers have more knowledge of organic food, they become more dependent on themselves in forming their attitudes, and subsequently making decisions. In other words, consumer knowledge has a moderating effect on the impact that attitudes have on organic food purchase decisions [67]. The higher the level of knowledge of consumers, the more confident they are in their behavior [65].…”

“…Secondly, this study contributes an extension to the TPB model. The TPB model is often used to analyze consumers' sustainable consumption [35], 'green' consumption [49], and organic food consumption [67], but it is rarely used to study the waste classification behavior of consumers. In particular, waste classification has been widely implemented in China, and the extended TPB model helps in the in-depth study of the behavioral mechanisms around waste classification.…”

“…Thirdly, in this study, there was no consideration made of subgroups among the consumers in the study when looking at consumer attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. In reality, consumer heterogeneity has an impact on consumer behavior [67]. In future research, the acceptance of government publicity by different types of consumers should be considered, as well as the impact this has on their behavioral intentions towards waste classification.…”