The Impact of Reference Groups’ Recommendations on Attitude towards Organic Foods and Purchase Intention with Health Consciousness as a Mediator

Abstract

Previous research has explored different aspects of reference groups, health consciousness, consumer attitude towards organic foods, and purchase intentions, but no research evidence is available on theoretical relationships among those said constructs. This research aims to investigate the impact of reference groups’ recommendations of health advice on health consciousness, attitude towards organic foods, and finally on purchase intention of organic foods. Besides, it investigates the mediation role of health consciousness on the relationship between reference groups’ recommendations and attitudes towards organic foods. This research is a positivistic study and uses a questionnaire to collect the data using a convenience sample of 126. A structural equation analysis is used to analyze the data based on SPSS and Amos 23. According to the findings, reference groups’ recommendation of health advice has a significant positive impact on health consciousness and also on attitude towards organic foods. Finally, attitude towards organic foods impacts purchase intention of organic foods. Further, it is found that health consciousness partially mediates the relationship between reference groups’ recommendations on health advice and attitude towards organic foods. The present research has bridged the theoretical and empirical gaps that existed in the literature on the said relationships. The research provides a significant original contribution to organic food marketing by shedding light on how to increase the purchase intention of organic foods.