Antecedents of Trust in Organic Foods: The Mediating Role of Food Related Personality Traits

Samia Ayyub, Xuhui Wang, Muhammad Asif and Rana Muhammad Ayyub
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Samia Ayyub: School of Business Administration, Dongbei University of Finance and Economics, Dalian 116025, China
Xuhui Wang: School of Business Administration, Dongbei University of Finance and Economics, Dalian 116025, China
Muhammad Asif: Department of Economics & Business Management, University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Lahore 54000, Pakistan
Rana Muhammad Ayyub: Department of Economics & Business Management, University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Lahore 54000, Pakistan

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 10, 1-17

Abstract: The current study focuses on identifying the factors responsible for building trust in organic foods. This study also attempted to establish the mediating role of food-related personality traits in building such trust. The quantitative data was collected from the Liaoning province of China through a structured questionnaire ( n = 420). Established scales were adopted for measuring constructs. The Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to test the hypotheses. The results indicated that consumer trust towards retailers was found to be highly significant in creating trust of customers regarding organic food products, followed by information on the label. The trust of consumers towards food manufacturer was also found to be a significant predictor, while the perceived knowledge of customers about organic food products was found to be a weak contributor towards building trust. Furthermore, food-related personality traits were found to mediate the hypothesized model. This study extends the literature on trust in organic food consumption by intending to provide a detailed analysis of the factors that build trust in organic food consumption in China. The findings of this study will help producers, retailers, and marketers to identify the appropriate strategies to establish and improve the consumer trust in organic food.

Keywords: trust; organic foods; food neophobia; food involvement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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