Influence of Source Credibility on Consumer Acceptance of Genetically Modified Foods in China

Mingyang Zhang, Chao Chen, Wuyang Hu, Lijun Chen and Jintao Zhan
Additional contact information
Mingyang Zhang: School of Economics and Management, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing 210044, China
Chao Chen: College of Economics & Management, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China
Lijun Chen: College of Economics & Management, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China
Jintao Zhan: College of Economics & Management, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China

Sustainability, 2016, vol. 8, issue 9, 1-16

Abstract: This paper examines the reasoning mechanism behind the consumer acceptance of genetically modified foods (GMFs) in China, and investigates influence of source credibility on consumer acceptance of GMFs. Based on the original Persuasion Model—which was developed by Carl Hovland, an American psychologist and pioneer in the study of communication and its effect on attitudes and beliefs—we conducted a survey using multistage sampling from 1167 urban residents, which were proportionally selected from six cities in three economic regions (south, central, and north) in the Jiangsu province through face to face interviews. Mixed-process regression that could correct endogeneity and ordered probit model were used to test the impact of source credibility on consumers’ acceptance of GMFs. Our major finding was that consumer acceptance of GMFs is affected by such factors as information source credibility, general attitudes, gender, and education levels. The reliability of biotechnology research institutes, government offices devoted to management of GM organisms (GMOs), and GMO technological experts have expedited urban consumer acceptance of GM soybean oil. However, public acceptance can also decrease as faith in the environmental organization. We also found that ignorance of the endogeneity of above mentioned source significantly undervalued its effect on consumers’ acceptance. Moreover, the remaining three sources (non-GMO experts, food companies, and anonymous information found on the Internet) had almost no effect on consumer acceptance. Surprisingly, the more educated people in our survey were more skeptical towards GMFs. Our results contribute to the behavioral literature on consumer attitudes toward GMFs by developing a reasoning mechanism determining consumer acceptance of GMFs. Particularly, this paper quantitatively studied the influence of different source credibility on consumer acceptance of GMFs by using mixed-process regression to correct endogeneity in information sources, while taking into consideration of information asymmetry and specific preference in the use of information sources.

Keywords: China; source credibility; genetically modified foods; consumer acceptance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/9/899/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/9/899/ (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:jsusta:v:8:y:2016:i:9:p:899-:d:77460

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

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