When bad becomes worse: unethical corporate behavior may hamper consumer acceptance of cultured meat

Vincent A. Rabl and Frédéric Basso

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Cultured meat is an emerging food innovation that promises to be a more sustainable alternative to conventional meat. However, despite its potential health, environmental and animal welfare benefits, research suggests that consumer acceptance of cultured meat is not assured. Across two pre-registered experimental studies (N = 456), this article investigates the extent to which two different credence characteristics, namely corporate social responsibility (Study 1) and food safety (Study 2), lead to halo-based inferences that may affect the consumer acceptance of cultured meat. Results indicate that, whereas the halo effect of positive corporate behavior is negligible, negative corporate behavior yields a substantial negative halo effect on consumers’ attitudes towards cultured meat, which in turn decreases acceptance of cultured meat. Findings also reveal that these negative halo-based inferences are heightened among consumers who value highly corporate social responsibility (Study 1) and food safety (Study 2). Overall, this article reveals an asymmetric halo effect by showing that people tend to react strongly to negative, but not to positive, information about a cultured meat company. The implications of the present research are discussed in the conclusion.

Keywords: consumer acceptance; credence characteristics; cultured meat; halo effects; sustainability; corporate behavior; Internal OA fund (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J01 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 18 pages
Date: 2021-06-15
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in Sustainability, 15, June, 2021, 13(12). ISSN: 2071-1050

Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/110789/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

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:ehl:lserod:110789

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager ().