ANTECEDENTS OF PURCHASE INTENTION TOWARD ORGANIC FOOD A STUDY OF YOUNG CONSUMERS IN VIETNAM Nguyen Thi Tuyet Mai Nguyen Minh Chau Le Minh Duc Pham Ngoc Mai Vu Khanh Huyen Tran Nguyen Ha Ngoc National[.]
ANTECEDENTS OF PURCHASE INTENTION TOWARD ORGANIC FOOD: A STUDY OF YOUNG CONSUMERS IN VIETNAM Nguyen Thi Tuyet Mai Nguyen Minh Chau Le Minh Duc Pham Ngoc Mai Vu Khanh Huyen Tran Nguyen Ha Ngoc National Economic University, Vietnam Phan Thanh Hung University of Labor and Social Affairs, Hanoi - Vietnam Abstract This study aims to investigate some factors influencing purchase intention toward organic food among young consumers in Vietnam, an emerging economy The extended Theory of Planned Behavior was used as theoretical framework for this study In order to test the proposed model and hypotheses, a survey was conducted on a sample including 370 young consumers in Hanoi, the capital city of Vietnam The findings of structural equation modeling indicate that attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control toward organic food purchase are positively related to purchase intention In addition, health consciousness, trust in labeling and certification, and modern self are found to be significant predictors of attitude toward buying organic food The research findings were discussed and future research directions were provided Keywords: Organic food, purchase intention, health consciousness, modern self, trust, Theory of Planned Behavior, young consumers, Vietnam 176 Antecedents of purchase intention toward organic food: A study of young consumers in Vietnam Introduction The environment issues such as climate change and pollution have drawn much attention from consumers and have significant impact on their purchase behaviors in both developed and developing countries With regard to food-purchasing behavior, consumers have been concerned about the environmental effects of pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and food safety that lead to their remarkably increasing interest in organic food (Hughner et al., 2007) The market of organic food products has become more popular worldwide and is considered as an emerging market (cf Wang and Tsai, 2014) Similar to many other emerging economies, where rapid economic growth is often at the expense of the environment, Vietnam has been facing challenges of environmental depletion With regard to food sector, food safety scandals related to such issues as agrochemical contaminations, pesticide residues and unsafe-processed food regularly appear on popular media news in Vietnam This has resulted in growing concerns and anxiety among consumers regarding food safety (Wertheim-Heck and Spaargaren, 2016) Many consumers feel confused and doubtful when shopping daily for food As a result, consumers are now becoming more active in seeking for healthier and safer food, and organic food has shown advantages over the conventional ones in this aspect Organic food now is increasingly available in modern channels such as supermarkets and organic food stores in the cities like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh city Urban consumers become more familiar with some store brands where they can find organic food such as Vinmart (a supermarket chain of Vingroup), TH, Clever Food, Orfarm, Sói Biển (Sea Wolf food store), and Bác Tôm As the consumption of organic food is becoming an emerging trend, this is meaningful to examine this phenomenon 177 in the context of Vietnam where the knowledge about organic food and consumer buying behavior toward this product is still very modest The growing levels of concerns and anxiety regarding food safety issues among consumers in emerging economies like Vietnam has captured significant attention from both practitioners and academic scholars (Ortega and Tschirley, 2017; Thøgersen et al., 2015; Truong and Yap, 2012; Wertheim-Heck and Spaargaren, 2016) However, in academic marketing literature, it is noted that the research interest in organic topics, including organic food purchase behavior is still limited (Doorn and Verhoef, 2015), especially in the context of developing and emerging economies (Liang, 2014) In this study, we propose an extended Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) as a theoretical framework to investigate the antecedents of intention to purchase organic food among young urban Vietnamese consumers Specifically, in addition to three antecedents purchase intention (PI) from the TPB model (i.e., attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control toward buying organic food), we integrate three factors regarding consumer characteristics as antecedents of attitude toward organic food purchase into the model These antecedents include health consciousness (HC), trust in labeling and certifications (TR), and modern self (MS), of which the first two factors have become prominent, and the third one is specifically associated with the economic transformation process in the context of an emerging and transitional economy of Vietnam This research is expected to contribute to enhancing our knowledge of an important buying behavior, organic food purchase, in an Asian emerging country where, to our best understanding, the topic has received only modest research attention In this paper, following the introduction section, we first present a theoretical background and hypotheses We then discuss the research methodology, followed by the research results Finally, we discuss the findings and provide implications Future research directions are also suggested 178 Theoretical background and hypotheses The research context Vietnam is an emerging country in Southeast Asia with large population of more than 96 million people The country has implemented economic transition since 1986, moving toward market-oriented economy, and it has achieved impressive economic growth rates over the past years However, together with the economic development Vietnam has been facing hazards regarding environmental degradation Food safety is one of the serious issues related to depleted environment that Vietnamese consumers have increasingly been concerned about This has led to increasing demand for organic food among many Vietnamese consumers, especially affluent families However, domestic consumption of organic food in Vietnam is still considered at a low level, partly due to modest income levels (Truong and Yap, 2012) Hanoi is a capital city of Vietnam, where food safety anxiety among consumers is paramount (Wertheim-Heck and Spaargaren, 2016) The retailing system in Hanoi has been developed considerably toward modernization with rapid growth of modern distribution outlets such as supermarkets, retail store chains and online channel where variety of foods including organic food can be found Hanoi is also an interesting and meaningful location that has attracted many previous studies examining various consumer behaviors in the context of an emerging and transitioning economy of Vietnam (e.g., Nguyen et al., 2003; Nguyen and Smith, 2012; Nguyen and Nguyen, 2017) Vietnam is a country with young population Increasing number of Vietnamese young consumers in cities play an active role in the new consumption culture (Pham and Richards, 2015) Past research has suggested that young consumers are important because they are more concerned and responsible pertaining to the environment and environmental protection issues They are more receptive to new ideas and new products such as organic food In 179 Vietnam, the knowledge of organic food is still limited and the purchase toward these products is just an emerging trend Young urban Vietnamese consumers are expected to be an important group who are more likely to be the driving force and pioneers in environmentally friendly behaviors such as organic food purchase In this study, the young urban consumers are selected to serve our research purpose regarding understanding factors influencing consumer intention to buy organic food In this study, we focus on organic food, an important type of green products In the literature, organic food has been considered as those products that are grown using methods and materials without the use of toxic pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers (cf., Lee at al., 2015) In line with that, according to Liang (2014), organic food refers to the products produced without artificial pesticides or chemicals It has been suggested that organic food and conventional food are basically different regarding the production methods, and organic food refers to those are produced through a natural system that enhances biological cycles, reduces pollution, and simultaneously providing livestock and farmers a safe and healthy environment (cf., Truong and Yap, 2012) On the basis of previous studies, in this study, organic food is defines as the environmentally friendly products that are produced and processed using methods and materials without using toxic pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers and chemicals This study attempts to investigate the antecedents driving the intention to buy organic food among young urban consumers in an emerging country of Vietnam, with the emphasis on the role of several consumer characteristics in predicting attitude toward organic food purchase Antecedents of purchase intention toward organic food Attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control toward organic food purchase 180 In literature, the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1991) is a well-applied model that has been proven successful in predicting and explaining various behaviors across a variety of domains, especially those under volitional control In consumer research, previous studies have extensively employed TPB to explain consumer behaviors, including environmentally friendly purchase behavior (e.g., Chan 2001; Lee et al., 2015; see Godin, G and Kok, 1996 as well) In the field of food purchase behavior, Ajzen (1991)’s TPB model has been proved to be appropriate model to explain consumers’ food selecting behavior (e.g., Chen, 2007; Lee et al., 2015; Liang, 2014) This study also employs the TPB model as a theoretical foundation to investigate the antecedents of purchase intention toward organic food among young urban Vietnamese consumers The central factor in the TPB model, behavioral intention construct plays the role as a powerful predictor of the behavior (Ajzen, 2011) In our study, we focus on explaining the consumers’ purchase intention (PI), rather than the behavior The TPB model indicates three important antecedents of behavioral intention, including attitude toward the behavior, subjective norms, and the perceived behavioral control (Ajzen, 1991) In this study, based on the TPB model, attitude (ATT) refers to the consumer’s positive or negative evaluation of organic food purchase The second variable from the TPPB model, subjective norms (SN) can be defined as the perceived social pressure that encourages one to engage in buying organic food The third variable, perceived behavioral control (PBC) refers to the difficulty or ease perceived by an individual to perform the purchase of organic food Previous studies have provided empirical evidence for supporting the positive impact of the antecedents from the TPB model on purchase intention with regard to green products in general, and organic food in particular (e.g., Chen, 2007; Lee et al., 2015; Liang, 2014; Liang, 2016) Although the findings regarding the impact of the three antecedents from the TPB have been inconsistent and dependent on the specific research context, generally these 181 variables have been found to have direct and positive impact on PI For example, the findings from a recent study by Lee at al (2015) examining consumer motives for purchasing organic coffee in the context of urban South Korea show that all three antecedents of the TPB model were significant predictors of PI, of which PBC was found to have weakest impact on PI When studying Finnish consumers in buying organic food, the findings from a study by Tarkianen and Sundqvist (2005), while confirming the role of attitude toward organic food purchase as a significant predictor of PI, subjective norms were found to have indirect impact on PI through ATT In the context of buying organic food online of Taiwaness consumers, Liang (2014) found that all three TPB’s variables were significantly related to PI with the highest prediction magnitude of ATT and the lowest one of SN However, the findings from another study of organic food purchase among urban Taiwanese by Teng and Wang (2015) show that SN was more powerful than ATT in predicting PI On the basis of the above arguments, in this study, we re-test the relationships between three important variables of the TPB model and purchase intention toward organic food in the context of urban Vietnam We expect to see the similar findings pertaining to the significantly positive impact of these antecedents on PI Therefore, we propose the following hypotheses H1: The consumer attitude toward organic food purchase is positively related to organic food purchase intention H2: The consumer subjective norm toward organic food purchase is positively related to organic food purchase intention H3: The consumer perceived behavioral control toward organic food purchase is positively related to organic food purchase intention Variables regarding consumer characteristics 182 Although the TPB model has been well researched in the literature, its sufficiency in explaining consumer intentions and behaviors is still being questioned (Lee at al., 2015) Previous studies have sought to extend the TPB model by incorporating new variables with the purpose of understanding better the intention and behavior in the specific research context (Joshi and Rahman 2016; Nguyen and Nguyen, 2017; Teng and Wang, 2015) In the context of organic food purchase, consumers’ concerns for health and consumer trust have been considered as important factors and among the most predominant motives (Lee et al., 2015; Tarkiainen and Sundqvist, 2005; Teng and Wang, 2015) Thus, we find it important to incorporate health consciousness and consumer trust into our research model as antecedents of organic food purchase behavior In addition, the important role of self-concept in shaping consumer behaviors has long been investigated in literature In this study, we also examine the role of modern self (Nguyen et al., 2009), an important and interesting individual difference variable that is associated with the specific context of a transitional economy of Vietnam Health consciousness It has been suggested that healthiness has become an important determinant for food purchases, and the concern for health improvement is one of main reasons for consumers to buy organic food (cf., Chen, 2009) Organic foods are generally marketed and perceived as being more nutritious, healthier, and safer compared with the conventional alternatives (Chen, 2009; Teng and Wang, 2015) Therefore, many consumers have more favorable attitude toward organic food regarding its better health benefits Previous studies have examined the relationship between health consciousness and attitude toward organic food (e.g., Chen, 2009; Tarkiainen and Sundqvist, 2005) The construct of health consciousness (HC) refers to an individual’s readiness to something to his/her own health (Chen, 2009) In line with this, according to Jayanti and Burns (1998), HC can be defined as the degree to which health concerns are integrated into an individual’s daily 183 activities Past research have provided mixed empirical findings pertaining to the positive impact of HC on attitude toward organic food purchase For example, the findings from Chen (2009) confirmed the important role of HC in predicting Taiwanese consumers’ ATT toward organic food purchase, while the study of Tarkiainen and Sundqvist (2005) could not find empirical support for the relationship between HC and ATT for Finnish consumers In Vietnam nowadays, consumers can see and hear the news in various media regarding the issues such as dirty and un-safe food, toxic chemicals used in producing and processing food that cause serious health problems This has led to growing level of concerns for health when consumers buy food daily Organic food have been introduced to Vietnamese market with the image of clean, safe, healthy and also expensive Many young urban Vietnamese have become emerging consumers with higher income levels and better knowledge including knowledge of organic food It is expected that when they are more concerned about their health, they are more likely to hold positive attitude toward organic food purchase Based on the above discussion, the following hypothesis is presented H4: Health consciousness is positively related to the consumer attitude toward organic food purchase Trust in labeling and certification Trust can be defined as the degree of readiness to rely on one subject matter according to the confidence of its credibility, benevolence and capability (Hart et al, 1997) In this study, we employ the construct of trust in labeling and certification (TR) that refers to the degree of an individual’s readiness to rely on organic labels and certification With regards to the organic food market, the certification seal as well as place of origin play a role as indicators, asserting products to be naturally-grown and pesticide-free (Atkinson and Rosenthal, 2014; Krystallis and Chryssohoidis, 2005) It is noted that organic food labeling is indeed an important factor that helps create a positive image for organic food (Liang, 2016) Al-Swide et al (2014) also stated that positive attitude toward 184 label of product enhances consumer reliability and trust in the product In the literature, trust has been found to be positive predictor of attitude toward organic coffee (Lee at al., 2015) With regard to organic food, the positive relationship between TR – ATT was also found in a study by Teng and wang (2015) In the context of Vietnam, where many consumers seem still to be confused about whether the organic labels and certifications are genuine or not, we expect that the more young consumers trust in organic labeling and certification the more likely they have positive attitude toward organic food purchase Thus, we present the following hypothesis H5: Trust in labeling and certification is positively related to organic food purchase intention Modern self In the context of Asian transitional economies, Nguyen et al (2009) have developed the scale ‘perceptions of self’ including two self aspects, perception of traditional self and perception of modern self that are considered to coexist in each individual In past research, these aspects of self have been treated as separate variables In the context of buying organic food, the construct ‘modern self’ (MS) shows potential contribution to organic food purchase According to Nguyen et al (2009), MS refers to “the degree to which an individual’s self-concept is consistent with the norms, values, and beliefs imported from more developed countries after economic transition began” (p 207) Specifically, MS places importance on modern values and beliefs imported from more developed countries Consumers holding a high level of MS often belong to the group of younger and higher educated people with higher income These consumers tend to be more open to new things and are more likely to be active in buying and consuming new products, using new and modern distribution channels (Nguyen et al., 2009) Therefore, the modern consumers are expected to have positive attitude toward buying organic food, new, on-trend, better quality 185 ... behavioral control toward buying organic food) , we integrate three factors regarding consumer characteristics as antecedents of attitude toward organic food purchase into the model These antecedents. .. emerging country of Vietnam, with the emphasis on the role of several consumer characteristics in predicting attitude toward organic food purchase Antecedents of purchase intention toward organic. .. where variety of foods including organic food can be found Hanoi is also an interesting and meaningful location that has attracted many previous studies examining various consumer behaviors in the