Product knowledge as a facilitator of organic purchase intention in emerging markets: Empirical evidence from India

Abstract

Climate change due to anthropogenic activities is a major cause of concern. To support and implement the ongoing research and development in the field of sustainable production, it is equally imperative to examine the drivers of sustainable consumption. The present study addressed the gap in the literature by examining the individual effects of two types of product knowledge i.e., consumers’ subjective and objective knowledge in shaping their organic purchase intentions, in light of the theory of planned behavior. The data was obtained through self-administered questionnaires from 611 respondents from the emerging and fast-growing organic market of India. Structural equation modeling was employed to analyze the data. The model was found to be a good fit for the data and explained 69.9% variance in organic purchase intention. We found that organic purchase attitude and intention were majorly influenced by subjective norm and perceived price of organic products. Organic purchase attitude was found to have a partial mediating effect on the subjective norm to intention relationship, and a full mediating effect on the perceived price to intention relationship. Interestingly, subjective knowledge was found to have an insignificant impact on consumer attitude and intention. Objective knowledge, on the other hand, played a crucial role in strengthening the relationship between attitude and intention, and weakening the relationship between perceived price and attitude. Furthermore, we found a very weak correlation (r = 0.11) between subjective and objective knowledge, which points at the confusion and misinformation about organic products that might be prevailing among consumers. The findings of the study significantly contribute to the literature and may be utilized by the marketers and policymakers in formulating strategies and policies to foster organic consumption. This may be achieved by developing favourable attitude and intention among consumers through creating awareness regarding the benefits of organic consumption.