The role of brand reputation in organic food consumption: A behavioral reasoning perspective

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2018.01.002Get rights and content

Highlights

  • We examine the mechanisms through which customer values affect organic food consumption.

  • Customer values are positively (negatively) related to reasons for (against) consuming organic food.

  • Reasons for consuming organic food partially mediate values - attitude relationship when brand reputation is low.

  • Reasons for consuming organic food fully mediate values - attitude relationship when brand reputation is high.

Abstract

This study examines the role of brand reputation in influencing organic food consumption. Specifically, we adopted the behavioral reasoning theory framework and examined the mechanisms by which consumers’ values affect their attitude and intention to consume organic food under varying levels of brand reputation. To test the theoretical framework, we recruited 617 respondents from Amazon's Mechanical Turk (Mturk) platform. The analysis found general support for the application of behavioral reasoning theory in the organic food consumption context. The results revealed that the relationship between consumer values and attitude is partially (fully) mediated by consumer reasoning in low (high) brand reputation conditions.

Introduction

The consumption of organic food has grown exponentially worldwide in the past decade (Rana and Paul, 2017). Consequently, studies on the drivers of organic food consumption have attracted increasing interest from scholars and practitioners alike. Previous studies on this topic have examined the socio-psychological drivers of organic food consumption, such as health awareness, concerns over animal welfare, and concerns over the societal and environmental impacts of food sourcing and processing (Magnusson et al., 2003, Padel and Foster, 2005, Pearson et al., 2011, Rana and Paul, 2017). While the availability of organic food products in local supermarkets has increased in recent years, there is a gap in the marketing literature regarding the driving factors of organic food consumption, particularly from a branding perspective (Richetin et al., 2016). Indeed, “there is a pressing need to discuss the marketing and retailing activities related to organic food” (Rana and Paul, 2017, p.162).

While the importance of brands in affecting food consumption in general has been examined in the literature (Anselmsson et al., 2014, Sjostrom et al., 2014), few studies have examined the role of brand reputation in organic food consumption. This is an important research gap because the effects of branding on consumers’ general food consumption may not be generalizable to the organic food context. For example, if a consumer has a favorable attitude towards a specific food brand, he/she may not necessarily have a positive attitude towards consuming organic food launched by the company under the same brand. Therefore, brands may decide to launch a sub-brand to enter the organic food market (Horovitz, 2003). It is therefore the interest of this study to examine how brand reputation interacts with other socio-psychological drivers of organic food consumption (i.e. values and reasons) in influencing consumers’ attitude and intention to consume organic food.

The aim of this study was to develop a theoretical framework for organic food consumption on the basis of behavioral reasoning theory (hereafter BRT) (Westaby, 2005, Claudy et al., 2013). BRT suggests that an individual's behavior is influenced by a person's reasoning, which in turn affects his or her values, attitudes, intentions and behavior (Westaby, 2005). Specifically, this study makes two contributions to the body of literature. First, this study examined the mechanisms by which consumer values affect attitude and intention to consume organic food, through the mediating role of consumer reasoning. While the BRT has been employed in prior studies (e.g. Claudy et al., 2015; Westaby, 2005) to examine the relationship between values and attitude, no studies have examined the mediating role of consumer reasoning (i.e. ‘reasons for’ and ‘reasons against’) in this relationship. Second, the study examines whether the relationship between values, reasoning, and attitude are consistent across low and high brand reputation conditions. The examination of these boundary conditions is important as it helps researchers and practitioners alike to understand the role of branding in affecting the drivers of organic food consumption.

Section snippets

Behavioral reasoning theory

Prior studies have examined organic food consumption from a diverse theoretical lens, including the Theory of Planned Behavior, Theory of Reasoned Action (Thøgersen and Ölander, 2006, Maloney et al., 2014, Tarkiainen and Sundqvist, 2005, Paul et al., 2016), Attitude-Behavior-Context Theory (Zepeda and Deal, 2009), Means End Choice model (Zanoli and Naspetti, 2002), and Sequential Process Model (Sierra et al., 2015). While these theories have their merits in explaining organic food consumption,

Data collection

This study used organic breakfast cereals as the product context. This product category was chosen due to their strong presence in the U.S. market. A recent study by Nielsen revealed that ready-to-eat cereal products can be found in 90% of all U.S. households (Peltz, 2016). Indeed, after India and China, the U.S. is the world's third largest producer of organic cereal (Willer and Lernoud, 2016), and has the largest food retail sector in the world, with sales totaling $486 billion in 2017 (U.S.

Measurement model

We conducted confirmatory factor analysis using Mplus 7.0 to assess the reliability and validity of the constructs. Table 1 outlines the psychometric properties of all constructs. The measurement model has good fit with the data as reflected in the fit indices: χ2/df (292.226/180) = 1.62, Root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = .045, Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = .984, and Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) = .981. As revealed in Table 2, the square root of average variance extracted for each

Discussion of findings

Organic food products are quickly gaining momentum and this study is one of the first to examine the role that brand reputation plays in influencing organic food consumption behavior. This study generated several key findings that have relevant theoretical and managerial implications discussed below. First, consistent with prior empirical studies using the BRT framework (Claudy et al., 2013, Claudy et al., 2015), this study found that consumer values have significant effects on consumer

Conclusions, limitations, and future research directions

This study has contributed to theory and practice by examining the mechanisms and boundary conditions through which values affect consumer attitude and intention to consume organic food. Specifically, this research has contributed to the existing literature by expanding on prior studies on consumer values (Baker et al., 2004, Hughner et al., 2007, Onyango et al., 2007) and attitudes (Lockie et al., 2002, Al-Swidi et al., 2014) toward organic food consumption, by examining how the relationships

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    1

    Jessica Ryan is a graduate student at Deakin University, Australia. Her main research interests are in the area of organic food consumption and the effects of branding on consumer behavior.

    2

    Riza Casidy is a Senior Lecturer of Marketing at the Department of Marketing, Deakin University, Australia. His major research interest areas and ongoing studies are about consumer-brand relationships, consumer responses to service failure, and the role of religion in consumer behavior. His work has been published in leading marketing journals including the Journal of Service Research, Industrial Marketing Management, Tourism Management, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Journal of Brand Management, and Journal of Strategic Marketing amongst others.

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