Exploring the Influence of Digital Communication Tools on Reputation and Loyalty: A Study of Agri-food Firms

Emanuela Conti (), Linda Gabbianelli () and Tonino Pencarelli ()
Additional contact information
Emanuela Conti: Carlo Bo University of Urbino
Linda Gabbianelli: University of Modena and Reggio Emilia
Tonino Pencarelli: Carlo Bo University of Urbino

A chapter in Embracing Sustainability Management Through Excellence in Services, 2024, pp 75-89 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Since the issue of food safety is increasingly critical for the population’s purchasing and consumption decisions, communicating these aspects to the market is becoming a critical success factor for competing in global agri-food markets. This is particularly true for digital marketing communication. However, there is little attention in the marketing and management literature on the role played by digital communication of health and food safety in agri-food SMEs. In this respect, the purpose of this research is to investigate how digital communication impacts business reputation and customer loyalty, from the entrepreneurial perspective. Data were collected from 270 Italian firms operating in the agri-food industry from March to May 2022 through an online questionnaire. Descriptive statistics and regression analysis were performed. Results highlight that some digital communication tools positively influence reputation and loyalty from the entrepreneur’s perspective. In particular, websites positively influence reputation while websites and email positively influence loyalty. As all research, also our study has limitations: the main one is that we collected data from a single European country and the results cannot be generalized. At the authors’ knowledge, no previous studies have investigated the level of adoption of digital communication tools by Agri-food SMEs and tested the influence of these tools on business reputation and customer loyalty.

Keywords: Food safety; Communication; Digital communication; Agri-Food firms; SMEs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

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:spr:prbchp:978-3-031-65115-1_4

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783031651151

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-65115-1_4

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().