Business Opportunity of Organic Food : investigating the Impact of Motivational and Barrier Factors on Consumers Purchasing Attitude and Intention Towards Organic Food

Abstract

The organic food industry has experienced rapid growth in recent years, with more and more consumers choosing to purchase organic products. Before the 2000s, the subject wasn’t a big concern, but it has become an important issue in recent years. The objective of this study was to analyze consumers’ behavior towards purchasing organic food products through different variables. The author applied a deductive approach and mono method through a survey in form of quantitative questionnaire. Multiple variables were addressed to see if there were any significant relationships. Respondents’ Purchasing Attitude is impacted by three motivations which are Personal Health (significance level 0,055), Regional Production (0,001) and Organic Food Quality (0,004). Finally, Subjective Norms (<0,001) is influencing Purchasing Attitude as well, which means that respondents are influenced by what people are saying about organic food like their relatives, the government or media. On the other hand, the dependent variable Purchasing Intention is also influenced by variables such as Nutrition Value, Regional Production, Personal Health, Organic Food Price and Organic Food Availability, all with a high significance (<0,01). The results demonstrated that consumers are impacted by different factors with a high significance level: personal health, organic food quality, regional production and subjective norms. However, they are influenced negatively because of the price and the availability of the products. Future work would benefit from a bigger sample and could use a qualitative questionnaire to deepen the understanding of consumers’ attitudes and intentions.