Norwegian Consumers Research Articles

The EMF uncertainty problem related to mobile phones: where do consumers place their trust?

AbstractThis paper addresses the uncertainty problem, i.e. cases characterized by lack of knowledge or scientific uncertainty. In such situations, it can be hard for consumers to ‘voice’ or practise consumer power. One field characterized by the uncertainty problem is electromagnetic radiation. An explicit goal of this study has been to articulate Norwegian consumers' practices, attitudes and beliefs regarding electromagnetic radiation from mobile phones to public authorities and consumer policy makers.The study was based on 1000 telephone interviews collected in 2008. Today, experts disagree on the potential health effects of radiation from electromagnetic fields (EMF), as well as standards for safe limits of exposure to mobile phones, base stations and wireless telecommunication systems. In addition, complicated technology and extremely rapid product development and diffusion leave consumers' security considerations to their own beliefs and trust. Whether or not electromagnetic radiation from mobile phones constitutes a health hazard will not be addressed in this paper. Rather, it will focus on how consumers react to this situation of uncertainty.The material reveals four main ways in which consumers can solve what we have named the EMF uncertainty problem: the confident and comfortable way, the sceptical and cautious way, the responsible and good citizen way, and finally, the neglecting way.The paper also discusses the precautionary principle related to EMF. Who should be precautionary: the public authorities, the mobile phone industry or the consumers themselves? We believe that a consistent governmental precautionary policy in combination with consumers taking their own precautionary measures is a viable solution. In this way, all consumers would be addressed and aided when navigating this field of uncertainty.

Eliciting consumers' willingness to pay for organic and welfare-labelled salmon in a non-hypothetical choice experiment

In this study, we use a non-hypothetical choice experiment to elicit Norwegian consumers' willingness to pay a price premium for organic and animal welfare-labelled salmon. A total of 115 Norwegian consumers were recruited for a choice experiment in which they had to choose between farmed salmon produced under three different production regimes. The salmon used in the experiment were conventional, organic, and Freedom Food salmon, certified by an animal welfare organization. In order to reveal consumers' true preferences for the products, a nonhypothetical choice experiment was carried out. The experiment consisted of 30 choice scenarios, where each scenario mimics a shopping situation with two alternative packages of salmon. The packages varied with respect to production method, colour, and price. Real economic incentives were imposed by letting each consumer randomly draw one out of 30 choice scenarios to be binding, and then executing the sale of the package that he or she had chosen under that scenario. Our results show that the average consumer preferred organic and Freedom Food salmon to the otherwise identical salmon from conventional salmon farms. Further, he or she was willing to pay a price premium of approximately 2 euros per kg (15%) for organic and Freedom Food salmon, compared with conventional salmon of the same colour. Owing to feed restrictions, the organic salmon were much paler then the conventional and Freedom Food salmon, which resulted in a mean willingness to pay (WTP) for the pale organic salmon significantly below the mean WTP for conventional and Freedom Food salmon. Hence, it is very important for the success of organic salmon that the organic feed producers will be able to produce an organic feed with good pigmentation ability at an acceptable price. The results in this paper indicate that consumers are willing to pay to improve animal welfare and reduce undesirable environmental effects from fish farming. Consequently, eco-labelling of farmed seafood such as animal welfare-labelled salmon and organic certified salmon might become an important differentiation strategy in the future. However, it is also shown that the producers of alternatively labelled seafood products must consider the aesthetic properties of their products and that labelled products of inferior appearance are unlikely to achieve the necessary price premium. Finally, it is shown how real choice experiments can be used to elicit consumers' WTP for multiple product attributes including the colour of the fish, improved fish welfare, and environmental improvements.

Special Section on “Nanotechnologies and the Consumer”

JCP Editors Lucia A. Reisch (Copenhagen Business School (CBS)) and Hans-W. Micklitz (European University Institute (EUI)) were organising a conference on “Nanotechnologies and the Consumer” which was held on the 5/6 December 2008 at the EUI in Florence. The conference brought together academics from a broad range of disciplines, namely: economics, history, natural science, law, and political science as well as policy makers and NGOs from all over Europe. The objective was to discuss the impact of nanotechnologies on consumer policy and law. The sessions were organized around the three topics: nano-ethics; the concept of risk in nanotechnologies; and policy and regulatory instruments. These topics were discussed within the fields of food, medical products, chemicals and pesticides, consumer products, and sustainable products. The Special Section compiles two law papers presented at the Florence conference: The article by Roger Brownsword discusses whether we need a distinctive “nano-ethics” and what the ethical issues of nanotechnologies are. Geraint Howells analyses the impact of product liability law on nanotechnologies. Furthermore, Harald Throne-Holst and Pal Strandbakken contribute with a note on how Norwegian consumers react to nano-enabled products in the absence of a regulatory framework. This Special Section is intended to launch further scholarly and political debate on “nanotechnologies and the consumer” and will hopefully inspire contributions to future issues of the Journal of Consumer Policy. J Consum Policy (2009) 32:353 DOI 10.1007/s10603-009-9113-x

Rationnement alimentaire pendant la seconde guerre mondiale : Un cas particulier de consommation durable ?

This article explores some of the strategies applied by consumers for making-do during the Second World War in Norway. By reducing waste, using various substitutes and exploiting underused natural resources such as wild plants, birds, and alternative marine sources of nutrition, Norwegian consumers adapted their diet to a situation of food scarcity. However, their everyday consumption was primarily governed by the regulatory framework installed for dealing with the crisis, namely the rationing system. By 1942, almost all common foods had been placed under rationing. Despite of the many bureaucratic inconveniences of this system, it was largely supported by consumers, who accepted it as a socially just mechanism for distributing scarce resources. The article brings up the question of how far the willingness of consumers to accept rationing was a unique experience of the war, or whether one might imagine a similar design for purposes of sustainable consumption.

The dynamics of consumer behaviour: On habit, discontent, and other fish to fry

Recent research has drawn attention to the role of past behaviour and habit in the overall structure of consumer behaviour. We argue that in cross-sectional data past behaviour and habit must be confounded with present beliefs and attitudes when the behaviour in question has been enacted numerous times before. To disentangle the effects, longitudinal data were collected from a large panel of Norwegian consumers (effective N=4184) in 1996, 2000, and 2004. Cross-lagged panel analysis indicated that higher consumption of traditional seafood led to increasingly negative evaluations of the product supply. These negative evaluations, in turn, prompted substitution of traditional seafood with newly available, processed seafood products and an increasing dominance of aqua-cultured species. The theoretical discussion focuses on the inability of static models of consumer behaviour (in particular, the theory of planned behaviour) to capture such dynamic effects. Marketing and policy implications related to the changing structure of the seafood market are outlined.

Animal welfare according to Norwegian consumers and producers: definitions and implications.

The objective of this article is to present the definitions of animal welfare that emerged from a qualitative study of Norwegian consumers and producers. Two questions are discussed: 1) How do consumers and producers define good farm animal welfare? 2) How do consumers and producers view the role of animal welfare regulations and labelling? Results from this study suggest that these two groups share fundamental values underpinning their conceptions. For both consumers and producers, a good life for farm animals tends to be a negotiation between care, freedom and economy. Drawing upon the theoretical discussion of how food quality attributes are established in alternative food networks and through increased regulations, we suggest that animal welfare regulations and food labelling may change producers’ and consumers’ definitions of animal welfare. This may lead to a shift of focus from 'well-treated farm animals' to a more abstract and standardised notion, where animals are perceived as 'well-produced food commodities'.

Extrapolating experimental-auction results using a stated choice survey

Summary During the last decade, experimental auctions and stated choice (SC) surveys have been widely used to study food demand. These methods have complementary strengths and weaknesses. Experimental auctions are limited by the availability of products and the use of locally recruited participants, whereas SC surveys lack real economic incentives. We use an SC survey to extrapolate the results of an experimental auction to hypothetical products with non-existing attribute combinations and to a representative sample of Norwegian consumers. The method is illustrated using Norwegian consumers’ preferences for country-of-origin and hormone status for beef.

An Investigation of the Effect of Provocative Imagery on Norwegian and Thai Consumers' Attitudes Toward Products: A Cross-Cultural Study

SUMMARY Despite growing interest and research in cross-cultural advertising, little has been done to address the influence of provocation on consumers' attitudes. This research investigates the effect of provocative imagery on Norwegian and Thai consumers' attitudes toward products. This study focuses on cross-cultural advertising using a nested experiment designed to investigate the impact of the provocative contents of a print advertisement on the two different cultural groups. One hundred adult subjects per culture were asked to rate two different products (Walkman and chocolate). For each culture, an experiment group (Group A) and a control group (Group B) was established. Significant differences in product ratings and attitudes were found between the groups for each culture. Norwegian respondents' attitudes were on average more negative than Thai respondents' attitudes when exposed to the provocative imagery. The findings suggest the need for advertisers to consider the impact of such provocative mat...

Competent consumers? Consumer competence profiles in Norway

AbstractConsumer competence is increasingly important in today’s commercialized society. This paper refers to some main findings from a national representative survey on consumer competences and practices in Norway. To be a competent consumer, it is decisive to be informed about products and to be familiar with how markets function. In this paper, consumers’ self‐reported efforts to keep themselves informed about specific markets is treated as an indicator of consumer competence. First, the results indicate that Norwegian consumers’ competence, according to their own judgement, is rather mediocre. Second, different groups of consumers seem to have different consumer competence profiles. Accordingly, we find that some consumers are price‐conscious in their daily purchases, others are price‐conscious when they make their yearly dispositions in the financial markets, while a third group is community‐oriented and active in the environmentally friendly and ethical product markets. Third, the analysis indicates that consumer competence is an important indicator of how market‐rational and reflective consumers’ choices and practices are.

A country that never had a BSE crisis: Consensus and tensions in transforming the Norwegian food system

Norway is often described as a country where the safety of domestically produced food is not questioned and where there is a prevailing consensus about the division of responsibility for food safety. For this reason it was surprising to find that Norwegian consumers trust the safety of their meat less than do their British counterparts. This result is particularly interesting, as Norway is one of the few countries that has never experienced BSE, while Britain has been the country most affected by it. The data discussed in the article suggest that not having to cope with a BSE crisis meant that some problems within the Norwegian food safety system remained unresolved. This in turn has affected patterns of consumer trust. The article is based on the data collected for a comparative study on European consumers’ confidence in food safety.

Bioaccumulation of 137Cs in pelagic food webs in the Norwegian and Barents Seas

Knowledge and documentation of the levels of radioactive contamination in fish stocks important to Norwegian fisheries is of major importance to Norwegian consumers and fish export industry. In the present study, the bioaccumulation of caesium-137 ( 137Cs) has been investigated in marine food webs in the Barents and Norwegian Seas. The contents of 137Cs in the different organisms were generally low (<1 Bq kg −1 wet weight), but a marked bioaccumulation was apparent: The concentration of 137Cs was about 10-fold higher in the harbour porpoise Phocoena phocoena, representing the upper level of the food web, than in the amphipod Themisto sp., representing the lower level of the food web. The Concentration Factors (CF=Bq kg −1 wet weight/Bq l −1 seawater) increased from 10±3 for a mixed sample of krill and amphipods to 165±5 for harbour porpoises.

Consumer perceptions of pork in Denmark, Norway and Sweden

This study focused on how the consumer perceived the eating quality of pork. Detailed questionnaires were distributed to pork consumers (n=526) in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Multivariate statistical techniques were applied to investigate differences among the consumers. The consumers ranked flavour as the most important attribute. The most important reason for buying pork was its suitability for many dishes, and the least important reason was for serving pork at social occasions. The major differences among consumers occurred between countries and to a lesser extent within age and genders. Swedish consumers reported a higher consumption frequency and were more satisfied with pork quality (i.e. tenderness and juiciness) compared with Norwegian consumers (more aware of rancidity) and Danish consumers (more aware of tasteless flavour). Consumption frequency was related to texture and off-flavour. Consumers aged 16–35 were less likely to eat pork than those older than 35 years.

Consumer concern about food related health risks and their trust in experts

Theorists have claimed that we see an increased focus on risk in the society of today. Furthermore, the media has to an increasing degree focused on differences of opinion between various experts. It has been postulated that this may have led to a decline in the authority experts formerly possessed. With these theories as a point of departure, this paper presents results of a survey of consumer apprehension and valuations with regard to food‐related health risks. A survey of a representative sample of 1,050 Norwegian consumers above 15 years of age included questions pertaining to food safety, such as additives and contaminants, as well as nutritional aspects of the diet. Norwegian consumers were in general very much aware of the relationship between food and health, and also felt rather safe about these issues. A factor analysis of responses to different statements related to food and health identified two main factors, labelled “feeling of uncertainty” and “trust in experts.” More respondents expressed “trust in experts” than “feeling of uncertainty.” There were great variations between different consumer groups with regard to these factors, as well as their opinions on what aspects contribute to a healthy diet. Even though respondents expressed concern related to both the nutritional aspects of food and food safety issues, consumers felt a larger need for good and dependable information on the food safety issues.

Norwegians’ Opinions of a Healthy Diet in Different Stages of Life

The purpose of this study was to contribute to a deeper understanding of Norwegian consumers’ opinions of food and health and to discuss this in the light of nutritional guidelines. The data were collected through personal interviews and a precoded questionnaire on a random sample of 1048 persons representative of the Norwegian population. The results show that vegetables, potatoes, fruits, and fish have a strong position in the notion of a healthy diet. Even though the opinions about these foods were quite uniform, older consumers were more inclined than younger consumers to emphasize these foods (p < .01).The official advice to reduce dietary fat was less uniformly reflected in the opinions about foods rich in fat. Socioeconomic factors and variables expressing “trust in experts” and “feeling of uncertainty” were related to the opinions about fat- and protein-rich foods. Those who had small children in their households responded more often than others that they failed to buy the foods they considered to be healthy (p < .05).This study shows that it is important that nutritional advice be directed toward the different life situations of consumers, and that a special focus should be directed toward parents of small children.

Consumers’ Environmental Behavior

The means applied to promote environmentally friendly behavior need to be evaluated. This study investigates the possibility that actions meant to improve recycling may have unintended consequences in fields other than the target behavior. The relation between self-reported environmental behaviors in several sectors is studied, with particular attention given to the question of whether increased recycling may develop into a compensatory behavior for less environmentally friendly behavior elsewhere. Results from a survey, including approximately 1,500 Norwegian consumers, are presented. No tendencies toward compensatory behavior are detected. Furthermore, the survey does not indicate that the introduction of measures meant to increase recycling brings increased attitudinal support for compensatory behavior. At the same time, the survey supports the view that there is no “general” environmental behavior among consumers. On the other hand, the correlations between different behaviors increase when the behaviors in question become more similar.

The BSE crisis and the reaction of Norwegian consumers

L'effet de l'ESB sur la demande de viande bovine en Norvège. L'éventuelle existence d'une relation entre la maladie de la vache folle et la maladie de Creutzfeldt-Jalcob a sérieusement entamé la confiance du consommateur quant à la garantie sanitaire de la viande bovine dans la plupart des pays européens en 1996. L'industrie norvégienne de la viande bovine n'a pas été exposée à l'ESB et, compte tenu des importations limitées, le risque de contamination y est relativement faible. Cependant, en raison d'une demande croissante de viande bovine, des prix à la baisse et d'une production constante, les importations ont eu tendance à augmenter au cours des dernières années. Ce changement, conjugué aux informations diffusées par les médias à propos de l'ESB, pourrait affecter la consommation norvégienne de viande de bœuf. Trois façons d'examiner si l'information médiatique concernant l'ESB en 1996 a eu un effet sur la demande de viande bovine en Norvège sont ici présentées. Un modèle à correction d'erreur pour la demande de viande de boeuf est estimé à partir de données quadrimestrielles, de 1984 à 1995. Il est utilisé pour prévoir la de¬ mande de viande bovine pour chacune des 3 périodes de 4 mois de 1996. Les écarts constatés entre les prévisions et les ventes enregistrées au cours de chaque période se situent dans l'intervalle attendu. Le modèle est ensuite réestimé sur toute la période, 1996 inclus. Un test prédictif de Chow est utilisé pour tester l'hypothèse de stabilité du modèle lorsque les nouvelles observations sont prises en compte : celle-ci n'est pas rejetée. Enfin, une variable muette est incluse dans le modèle pour tester la présence de changements dans l'élasticité-prix directe et l'élasticité-dépense. Là-encore, le test de stabilité n'est pas rejeté. Ainsi, ni le modèle de prédiction, ni le test de Chow, ni le test basé sur la variable muette n'indiquent que les informations diffusées par les médias concernant la relation ESB/maladie de Creutzfeld-Jacob aient suscité une perte de confiance chez le consommateur en 1996.

Consumer concern and behaviour regarding food and health in Norway

This study was undertaken to answer four questions. How widespread is the interest in health issues related to food among consumers in Norway? What types of food-related health risks are the consumers concerned about? How is the concern expressed among different groups and subgroups of the population? How is the interest in food and health expressed in terms of food behaviour? The paper is built on results from two nationwide consumer surveys in Norway: one telephone interview including 1,021 persons and one postal questionnaire including 13,857 persons. The data revealed that 72% of the consumers were very or rather concerned that the food they eat could be harmful to health. Contrary to results from some other studies, the majority of the Norwegian consumers (57%) were mostly concerned that the food they eat could contain too much fat. Even though the fat issue attracted most attention, many were also concerned about food additives (39%) and contaminants from environmental pollution (43%). Logistic regression analyses showed that the expression of concern is different in various subgroups of the population, divided according to age, income, education and place of residence, Data on food behaviour confirmed the heavy emphasis that consumers put on the fat issue and on additives in food.

Allocation of Time to Leisure Activities

A comparative study of the time use behavior of samples of American and Norwegian consumers uncovered significant relationships within and between countries in time expenditures. Females were found to specialize in home-oriented and males in career-oriented activities; the home orientation of females also affected the nature of their leisure. Furthermore, there were important differences between the two countries in leisure behavior.