Consumer Innovativeness and Organic Food Purchase Intentions

Abstract

Abstract The purpose of this chapter is to explore the mediating effect of consumer attitude towards purchasing organic food and moderating effect of consumer innovativeness on the intention to purchase organic food. A consumer survey was conducted with a specific focus on buyers of organic food products in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Data were collected during December 2016 via an online survey, eventually obtaining 173 valid questionnaires for analysis. The indirect effect of organic food knowledge, subjective norm, personal norm, organic food availability, attitude towards organic food and organic food scepticism on intention to purchase organic food was tested using the PROCESS Macro in SPSS. The results revealed that organic food knowledge, subjective norm, personal norm, attitude towards organic food have indirect effects on consumer intention to purchase organic food. Moreover, findings suggest that attitude towards organic food purchase mediates the link between these four factors and consumer’s intention to purchase organic food. In addition, it was proven that consumer innovativeness positively moderates the attitude-purchase intention link in the context of organic food consumption. This chapter enhances the external validity of previous empirical findings beyond the Western European context. Further, it provides some important guidelines to the retailers to develop and implement marketing strategies for organic food products.