Elsevier

Food Quality and Preference

Volume 62, December 2017, Pages 190-198
Food Quality and Preference

Organic consumption behavior: A social identification perspective

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodqual.2017.07.009Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Organic product cognitions influence organic consumer identification (OCI).

  • Organic product cognitions affect environmental consumer identification – OCI link.

  • OCI exerts a stronger impact on consumer loyalty when social norms are low.

  • OCI exerts a stronger impact on consumer loyalty when perceived prices are high.

Abstract

Consumer demand for organic food and non-food products has been growing dramatically. This study examines organic consumption behavior from a social identification perspective. Focusing on the central role of organic consumer identification (OCI), or the extent to which individuals categorize themselves as organic consumers, this study theorizes and empirically establishes environmental consumer identification, organic product-related cognitions (i.e., organic product familiarity and trustworthiness), and their interactions as key antecedents of OCI. As importantly, we show that the positive effect of OCI on consumer loyalty to organic products is contingent upon both prevailing social norms of organic consumption and the perceived price of organic products. In establishing these relationships, this study paints a more nuanced, comprehensive and generalizable picture of what drives consumer social identification and what are its consequences in the domain of organic consumption. It offers several important implications for theory and practice.

Introduction

Consumer demand for organic products has been growing dramatically, worldwide (European Parliament Think Tank, 2015, Organic Trade Association, 2015); the global organic food market is projected to have an annual growth rate of over 16% during 2015–2020 (PRnewswire, 2015). Interestingly, due to the unique and distinctive values, beliefs and behaviors associated with the consumption of organic products, such as being environmental friendly (U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2007), consumers are increasingly using organic consumption to not just meet their functional needs (e.g., health, nutrition) but to actually enact their identities and express their core values. As Schifferstein and Ophuis (1998, p. 119) insightfully comment, organic consumption is “part of a way of life. It results from an ideology, connected to a particular value system that affects personality measures, attitudes, and consumption behavior.” Not surprisingly, then, some research has started to link organic consumption to consumers’ higher-level personal and social identity-related needs (Bartels and Reinders, 2010, Dean et al., 2012, Krystallis et al., 2012). Little is known, however, about how these social identity-related processes might interact, as they must undoubtedly do, with, and even be determined by, both consumers’ organic product-related cognitions (Bauer et al., 2013, Hughner et al., 2007) and the social pressures they feel to engage in organic consumption (Dean et al., 2012).

This paper draws upon both research on social identity and identification (Ashforth et al., 2008, Bartels and Hoogendam, 2011, Bhattacharya and Sen, 2003) along with that on organic consumption (Bauer et al., 2013, Hughner et al., 2007) to locate the social identity processes guiding organic consumption in the broader product- and socially-defined context of such behavior, articulating more precisely, thus, the role of these social identity processes in organic consumption. Specifically, we focus on the central role of organic consumer identification (OCI) (Bartels and Reinders, 2010, Bartels and Reinders, 2016), or the extent to which individuals categorize themselves as organic consumers (i.e., a group of consumers who hold similar consumption-related beliefs and values, and demonstrate a preference for organic products), theorizing environmental consumer identification, organic product-related cognitions (i.e., organic product familiarity and trustworthiness), and their interactions as key antecedents of OCI. As importantly, we examine the moderating roles of both prevailing social norms of organic consumption and the perceived price of organic products in the relationship between OCI and consumer loyalty to organic products.

In examining these relationships, our research paints a precise, nuanced, comprehensive and generalizable picture of what drives consumer social identification and what are its consequences in the domain of organic consumption. In particular, our paper contributes to the extant literature in two key ways. First, it advances our incipient understanding of what drives OCI (Bartels & Hoogendam, 2011) by implicating organic product-related cognitions as not only a direct antecedent of OCI but also a positive moderator of the link between multiple levels of social identification, namely, that between the broader, higher level environmental consumer identification and the more specific OCI. Aside from establishing the interactive roles of a consumer’s higher-level social identity and their more specific product-related cognitions in driving organic consumption, our study sheds light on a key process – OCI – underlying the previously documented positive effects of organic product beliefs on organic purchase behavior (Hughner et al., 2007, McEachern and Mcclean, 2002). More generally, by explicating the interactive effect of both motivational (i.e., environmental consumer identification) and cognitive factors (i.e., organic product related cognitions) on OCI, this paper underscores the contingent and dynamic nature of this construct.

Second, this paper advances our extant sense for the consequences of OCI by establishing two key moderating factors. Building on the few studies that have documented a positive relationship between OCI, on the one hand, and organic product purchase, on the other (Bartels and Reinders, 2010, Bartels and Reinders, 2016), our research implicates both aspects of the social environment (i.e., social norms) and the product (i.e., the perceived price of organic products) as moderators of this positive relationship. Specifically, our finding points to social norms and OCI as substitutive mechanisms influencing organic product loyalty, with OCI having a smaller effect when social norms of organic consumption are high. The result on the moderating role of perceived price suggests, quite interestingly, that higher prices of organic products might reinforce the identity-expressive function of organic consumption, thus increasing the effect of social identification on organic product loyalty. Taken together, these findings paint, again, a more contingent picture of the OCI – organic consumption link.

Next, we draw on the literature streams at the intersection of social identification (Bhattacharya and Sen, 2003, Kang et al., 2015) and organic consumption behavior (Bauer et al., 2013, Hughner et al., 2007, Padel and Foster, 2005) to theorize about the role of OCI in organic consumption, deriving predictions about its key antecedents and outcomes. We then present the multi-country field study that tests these predictions. We end with a discussion of the theoretical and managerial implications of our findings, as well as limitations of our study and avenues for further research.

Section snippets

Conceptual framework and hypothesis development

OCI enables individuals to express their social identities, and specifically, their consumption-related ideals and values (e.g., environmental preservation, protecting animal welfare, supporting natural, chemical-free products; Bartels and Reinders, 2010, Krystallis et al., 2012, Padel and Foster, 2005). In this section, we develop a conceptual framework delineating the antecedents and outcomes of OCI (see Fig. 1). Two categories of antecedents are identified: organic product-related cognitions

Sample and procedures

To test our hypotheses, we conducted a longitudinal online panel study among consumers in the Netherlands, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, and Australia. We used a multi-country sample to test the robustness and generalizability of our conceptual model. These countries are selected due to the similarities in the market conditions and growth of organic products (European Parliament Think Tank, 2015, PRnewswire, 2015), as well as economic development stage. In December

Hypotheses tests

To test the hypotheses, we used path analyses in AMOS 23. The overall model demonstrates a good fit: Chi-square = 412.18, df = 37; the root mean square residual (RMR) = 0.05; the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.07; the comparative fit index (CFI)=0.95; and the Tucker Lewis Index (TLI) = 0.91. Table 4 shows the standardized regression weights of the hypothesized path model.

H1, in which we argued for a positive effect of organic product familiarity on OCI, is confirmed (β = 0.27, p < 

Theoretical implications

Due to the significant increase in organic consumption over recent years, it has received increased attention from both scholars and practitioners. Interestingly, however, investigations into the lower-level functional and the higher-level identity-related motives for organic product consumption, while surely inextricably linked in the real world, have largely diverged. This study attempts to bridge these parallel research streams by locating a key, identity-based driver of organic consumption

Conclusions

Using a global sample of actual organic product consumers, this study establishes organic product familiarity and organic product trustworthiness not only as antecedents of OCI, but also positive moderators of the link between environmental consumer identification and OCI. On the outcome side, we find OCI to drive organic consumption behavior (i.e., both psychological loyalty and actual purchase). More importantly, the effect of OCI on loyalty is contingent on both social norms and the

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