Consumer intentions to reduce food waste in all-you-can-eat restaurants based on personal norm activation

Abstract

Norm activation theory (NAT) is a theoretical foundation often used by academics to explain behavioral intention in the context of pro-environmental consumer behavior. This research aimed to analyze the essential role of NAT in ascertaining consumer intentions to reduce food waste based on social marketing. The unit of analysis was an individual, namely consumers who have visited an "all-you-can-eat" restaurant in the last month during the research time and intend to visit again in the future. Primary data was collected using a questionnaire instrument which was created and distributed online. Furthermore, the Likert scaling technique with five answer options was used to measure each item of the latent variable measurement. This research used purposive sampling with a size of 500 respondents, and the quality of the measurement was tested using confirmatory factor analysis. The covariance-based structural equation modeling (SEM) technique was used to test the hypotheses. The results showed that personal norm as the core of NAT can be active when consumers feel they are responsible for the negative impacts of food waste. Active personal norm has a significant effect on behavioral intentions and the formation of consumer intentions to reduce food waste. Contextually, the implementation of NAT to reduce food waste with a focus on the social marketing approach is the essential originality of this research. Further research will be more comprehensive if it involves actual behavioral factors as a translation of intentions.