Purchasing organic food with social commerce: An integrated food-technology consumption values perspective

Abstract

Organic products may have several health benefits for consumers. Nevertheless, even in the age of social commerce, and the communication affordances of social networking sites, consumers are not always informed regarding such benefits. As such, we examine how the characteristics of social commerce and organic foods can work in tandem to influence organic products purchase intentions. We develop a model based on the theory of consumption values and test it empirically. The results show that interactivity, recommendations, and feedback are important social commerce characteristics (affordances), while food safety and eco-friendliness are key organic food characteristics. Such social commerce and organic food characteristics interact and serve as inputs for functional value and emotional value assessments, which in turn, drive purchase intentions of organic foods via social commerce. The findings also show that functional value is more instrumental in this process; and that there is also a significant difference between males and females in the formation of purchase intention. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.