Consumer reactions to food safety scandals: A research model and moderating effects

Author(s):  
Camilla Barbarossa

Food safety scandals are recurring events in the food industry worldwide. Consumers and companies are not immune to these incidents. However, there is a paucity of studies that examine consumer responses toward food companies involved in food safety scandals. This chapter attempts to address these issues. First, it provides theoretical bases for the psychological mechanisms through which consumers form judgments of blame toward food brands involved in food safety scandals. Second, it clarifies how attributions of blame negatively affect relevant consumer non-behavioural responses (emotions and attitude) and behavioural responses (purchase intention, word-of-mouth, and boycott) toward faulty food brands. Third, it provides a literature review of the most relevant consumer-related, brand-related, and context-related variables, which may influence the psychological mechanisms of blame attribution, and subsequent non-behavioural and behavioural responses, in the context of a food safety incident.

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 362-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camilla Barbarossa ◽  
Patrick De Pelsmacker ◽  
Ingrid Moons

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate “how” and “when” the stereotypes of competence and warmth, that are evoked by a foreign company’s country-of-origin (COO), affect blame attributions and/or attitudes toward a company’s products when a company is involved in a product-harm crisis. Design/methodology/approach Study 1 (n=883) analyzes the psychological mechanisms through which perceived COO competence and warmth differently affect blame attributions and evaluative responses. Study 2 (n=1,640) replicates Study 1’s findings, and it also investigates how consumer ethnocentrism, animosity toward a country, and product category characteristics moderate the hypothesized COO’s effects. Findings COO competence leads to more favorable attitudes toward the involved company’s products. This effect increases when the company sells high-involvement or utilitarian products. COO warmth leads to more favorable attitudes toward the involved company’s products directly as well as indirectly by diminishing blame attributions. These effects increase when consumers are highly ethnocentric, or the animosity toward a foreign country is high. Originality/value This paper frames the investigation of COO stereotypes in a new theoretical and empirical setting, specifically, a product-harm crisis. It demonstrates that consumers differently evaluate a potential wrongdoing company and its harmful products in a product-harm crisis based on their perceptions of a company’s COO competence and warmth. Finally, it defines the moderating effects of individual, consumer-country-related and product characteristics on the hypothesized COO effects.


Author(s):  
Ronnie Pangan ◽  
Jaehak Shim

Businesses should use Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) marketing communications to show genuine support for stakeholders affected by the Covid19 pandemic. Two forms of CSR marketing communications were focused on: cause-related marketing (CRM) and cause sponsorship (CS). This research looked into how CRM and CS impact customer responses to: a) like/join the company's Facebook page, b) exchange CSR activities through eWOM (electronic word-of-mouth), and c) intention to buy the company's products and services (purchase intention). The company-cause fit was the dependent variable that was tested against the three responses. A survey-based within-subjects experiment of CRM and CS x 2 (good fit / bad fit) was conducted on active Facebook users aged 18 to 64 years old. Ten (10) pre-selected firms from the Philippines' Top 30 Businesses were listed, These companies released both CRM and CS Facebook posts. The CRM posts were shown to half of the sample size (n=136), while the CS posts were shown to the other half (n=136) and rated by a questionnaire. This research suggested models based on regression analysis and modeling that would advise companies how to better conduct CRM and CS online operations in order to maximize investments, especially during periods of crisis like the Covid19 pandemic.


2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (7) ◽  
pp. 905-920 ◽  
Author(s):  
Freya De Keyzer ◽  
Nathalie Dens ◽  
Patrick De Pelsmacker

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the boundary conditions of the effect of the valence of word-of-mouth on social networking sites (sWOM) on consumer responses (attitude toward the service provider, purchase intention and positive word-of-mouth intention). Specifically, the authors examine two moderators: the tone of voice (factual vs emotional) of the sWOM and service type (utilitarian vs hedonic) of the service that the sWOM is about. Design/methodology/approach A 2 (message valence: positive vs negative) × 2 (tone of voice: factual vs emotional) × 2 (service type: utilitarian vs hedonic) full-factorial between-subjects online experiment with 400 respondents was conducted and the data were analyzed using Hayes’ PROCESS macro. Findings The results show that message valence exerts a greater impact on consumer responses with factual sWOM messages compared to emotional ones. Furthermore, the impact of message valence is stronger for hedonic services compared to utilitarian services. In contrast to the authors’ expectations, there is no significant impact of matching the tone of voice to the service type. Practical implications First, for sWOM senders, factual messages are found to be more influential: backing an sWOM up with arguments and specific details increases the chance of it affecting consumers’ responses. As a result, marketers, especially of predominantly hedonic services, should encourage their followers and customers to spread positive factual sWOM about their service. Originality/value The study tests two previously unstudied moderating variables that affect the relationship between message valence and consumer responses to sWOM messages. Moreover, this study provides interesting insights for marketers and bloggers or reviewers.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 250
Author(s):  
Saniatun Nurhasah ◽  
Jono M Munandar ◽  
Muhammad Syamsun

<p><em>ABSTRACT</em></p><p><em>Indonesia is one of the largest Moslem population countries in the world. It leads to the increasing of halal product demand in Indonesia. The awareness to consume halal product becomes a large market potential for producers to produce their halal products. Nowadays, halal is not only purely about religion matter, but also about business and trade. The objective of this study is to investigate the factors affecting customers on purchasing halal buying interest on processed food. We use a purposive sampling method with 109 respondents who are customers of the supermarkets and minimarkets in Bogor City/District, Indonesia. While data analysis is done by SEM-PLS method, this study uses brand image, perceived quality, perceived value, halal certification, health reason, halal awareness, and halal marketing as the factors which are affecting the halal purchase intention of the customers. The result showed that health reason, halal awareness, and perceived value have a significant and positive direct effect on purchasing intention. Halal marketing also shows a significant and positive effect on purchasing intention. While halal marketing shows a negative and significant effect on purchasing intention. The food safety, halal certification, brand image, and perceived quality show the same effect which has no direct effect on purchasing intention. Furthermore, food safety has an indirect effect on purchasing intention through health reason. Halal certification has an indirect effect on minat beli through brand image variable. Meanwhile, brand image and perceived quality have an indirect effect through perceived value variable on purchasing intention.</em></p><p><em><br /></em></p><p>ABSTRAK</p><p>Indonesia adalah salah satu negara dengan populasi Muslim terbesar di dunia. Hal ini menyebabkan meningkatnya permintaan produk halal di Indonesia. Kesadaran untuk mengkonsumsi produk halal menjadi potensi pasar yang besar bagi produsen untuk memproduksi produk halal mereka. Saat ini, halal tidak hanya murni soal agama, tapi juga soal bisnis dan perdagangan. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui faktor-faktor yang mempengaruhi minat pelanggan dalam membeli pada makanan olahan halal. Kami menggunakan metode voluntery sampling dengan 109 responden yang merupakan pelanggan supermarket dan minimarket di Kota/Kabupaten Bogor, Indonesia. Sedangkan analisis data dilakukan dengan metode SEM-PLS. Penelitian ini menggunakan citra merek, persepsi kualitas, persepsi nilai, sertifikasi halal, kesehatan, kesadaran halal, dan Pemasaran halal sebagai faktor yang mempengaruhi niat pembelian halal pelanggan. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa kesadaran halal, alasan kesehatan, dan persepsi nilai berpengaruh positif dan signifikan terhadap niat beli. Pemasaran halal juga menunjukkan efek positif dan signifikan terhadap niat beli. Sedangkan pemasaran halal menunjukkan efek negatif dan signifikan terhadap niat beli. Keamanan pangan, sertifikasi halal, citra merek, dan kualitas yang dirasakan menunjukkan efek yang sama yang tidak berpengaruh langsung pada niat beli. Selanjutnya, keamanan pangan berpengaruh tidak langsung terhadap niat beli melalui alasan kesehatan. Sertifikasi halal memiliki efek tidak langsung terhadap niat beli melalui variabel citra merek. Sedangkan citra merek dan persepsi kualitasmemiliki pengaruh tidak langsung melalui persepsi nilai variable terhadap niat beli.</p>


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 365-374
Author(s):  
Edy Purwanto ◽  
Aryo Wibisono

This study aims to test the influence of country of origin image and word of mouth on perceived quality. Then, the country of origin image and word of mouth and perceived quality on purchase intention of digital camera from Japan. The number of samples in this research are 230 respondents taken by purposive sampling method. Analysis of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) is used to test the hypothesis. The results of this study showed that country of origin image and word of mouth have a positive and significant effect on perceived quality. Then, Word of mouth and perceived quality have a positive and significant effect on purchase intention but a country of origin image has no significant effect on purchase intention. 


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