Determinants of Intention to Purchase Chicken in Italy: The

Role of Consumer Risk Perception and Trust in Different Information

Sources

• Aim

– Explain how purchasing intensions are influenced by different levels of risk perception and trust in food safety information

• Reason to choose chicken

– Widely consumed product

– Usually not associated with high risks

– Chicken consumption is not as sensitive as beef

• SN: how one should act in response to the views or thoughts of others

• PCB: people’s confidence in their ability to perform the behavior

• Theory of Planned Behavior• Trust and knowledge

III

I• I TRA• II PCB• III SPARTA

• No clear causal relationship between perceived risk and attitudes towards buying chicken

• Risk perception is treated as a separate construct from other outcome beliefs (Grunter and Frewer, 1998)

• Interpersonal trust– perceived presence or absence of particular traits in the source

– Relationship between information source and target source

• Social trust– feature of the multifaceted social processes underlying people’s

choices and the way individuals and organization are assigned management responsibilities

– Willingness to rely on those who have responsibility for making decisions

• Trust affects risk perceptions

• Specific trust– Trust specifically related to a given referrant or to a given hazard

• General trust– The belief that most people are trustworthy most of the time

• Social trust e.g. trust in food-chain actors and other policy actors

• Interpersonal trust e.g. trust in information media

• Questionnaire– Understanding food consumption habits

– Lifestyle patterns, trust towards several actors in the supply chain, and risk perception for human health

– Socio-demographic information

• Validation of questionnaire through pilot study

• Final survey in Italy– 580 face to face interviews

– Random location sampling

– Systematic sampling for respondent selection

• Structural equation modelling

• Maximum likelihood used to estimate the SEM parameters

• Chi-square and root mean square error of approximation

• RMSEA with threshold of 0.8 for success of fit

• Global attitude towards buying chicken for one’s own household– Good-bad

– Disagreeable-agreeable

– Convenient-inconvenient

– Ethical-unethical

– Seven point scales

• Attitude beliefs– Likert scale of 1 to 7

– Food Practices and value• Taste

• Popularity within the household

• Good value for money

• Easy to combine all ingredients

– Ethical concerns

– Safety attributes

– convenience

• Risk Belief1. A list of morbidity factors risks associated with chicken, e.g.

Salmonella

2. Long term health risks due to eating chicken, e.g. cholesterol

3. The analysis shows that there are no clear division between short and long term risks associated

• Subjective norms1. Responses were measured on a scale of 1-7 to get a single factor, i.e. single item on expectation of approval

• Intention to Purchase1. Was measured on how likely a person is to buy fresh or frozen chicken once in a week

• General Trust– ‘‘If given a chance, most people would try to take advantage of you.’’

– ‘‘Most people are too busy looking out for themselves to be helpful.’’

– You can’t trust strangers anymore.’’

– ‘‘I never rely on other people.’’

• Risk Knowledge– Knowledge of risks that were associated with eating chicken

• Trust in food chain, policy factors and media– Trust was elicited by asking them to chose between a set of options

which provides information about potential risks associated with eating chicken

• Sample amounts to 580 individuals with equal amount of males and females

• The results shows that on an average the respondents buy food for their household’s consumption every week

• However they do not buy chicken every week

• On an average they buy I kg of chicken

• The favourite places for buy chicken are super markets and butchers

• Consumers believe that consumers have several good properties like it tastes good

• They also believed that it is a healthy food with low cholesterol content and fat

• Not easy to prepare

• It is dangerous for one’s health because of growth hormones present in it and antibiotics used in breeding process

• Intention to purchase are significantly influenced by attitudes to purchase and subjective norm

• Attitude is determined by the beliefs about the role of chicken in food practices, risk perceptions, and to a lesser extent, by convenience

• So, the attitude to purchase becomes stronger if chicken is a appreciated and popular product with convenience

• Perceived risk of health problem directly affects the buying intention

• The estimated regression coefficients suggest that knowledge of hazards makes people more aware of the possible dangers and increases risk perception

• Trust in media like internet and radio affects the risk perception

• Risk perception appears to be another important determinant of the global attitude towards buying chicken, even in a day to day context

• Thus, factors affecting risk play a crucial, although indirect, role in explaining attitudes and related behavioural intentions

• On the other hand, trust in information sources seem to play an ambiguous role in Italy

• The results of this modelling exercise emphasizes that building a reputation of trustworthiness is a prerequisite to spread confidence among consumers

• Further research is needed on these issues to investigate how these patterns of relationship are stable with respect to other behavioural contexts or whether further causal paths should be added to the model

• Moreover, the relationship between trust in information sources and trust in institutions should be further explored, possibly accounting for other psychological, social, and cultural aspects