Antecedents of Consumer Food Waste Reduction Behavior: Psychological and Financial Concerns through the Lens of the Theory of Interpersonal Behavior

Saman Attiq, Amanda M. Y. Chu, Rauf I. Azam, Wing-Keung Wong and Sumia Mumtaz
Additional contact information
Saman Attiq: Air University School of Management, Air University Islamabad, Islamabad 54000, Pakistan
Amanda M. Y. Chu: Department of Social Sciences, The Education University of Hong Kong, Tai Po, Hong Kong
Rauf I. Azam: Punjab University of Technology Rasul, Punjab 50380, Pakistan
Sumia Mumtaz: Air University School of Management, Air University Islamabad, Islamabad 54000, Pakistan

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 23, 1-18

Abstract: This study sought to investigate the role of consumers’ emotional, cognitive, and financial concerns in the development of food waste reduction, reuse, and recycling behavior among restaurant patrons. Food waste in restaurants is a major problem for the food service industry, and it is a growing source of concern in developing countries, where eating out is becoming increasingly popular. A large portion of restaurant food waste in these markets originates from the plates of customers, highlighting the importance of consumer behavior changes in reducing waste. The current study has used a quantitative approach to analyze the impact of anticipated negative emotion of guilt, awareness of consequences, habit, and financial concern on food waste reduction behaviors, i.e., reduce, reuse, and recycle. The study collected 492 responses and data is analyzed for hypotheses testing through Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modelling. The findings showed that anticipated negative emotions of guilt, awareness of consequences, habit, and financial concern have a significant impact on restaurants’ consumer food waste reduction behaviors. Managers, policymakers, and researchers interested in resolving the food waste problem will find the study useful. Other topics discussed include the implications and limitations as well as possible future research directions.

Keywords: food waste; anticipated negative emotion; awareness of consequences; habit; financial concerns; waste reduction behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/23/12457/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/23/12457/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:23:p:12457-:d:688807

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().