Determinants of OF consumption: C ase study on Czech consumers

1. Determinants of OF consumption:Case study on Czech consumers Jan Urban, Milan Ščasny,Iva Zvěřinová Charles University Environment Center 8th International Conference of the European Society for Ecological Economics University of Ljubljana, Slovenia 30 June 2009

2. Outline of the presentation • Organic food consumption in the Czech Republic • The model and method • Hypotheses • The survey • Results • Conclusions

3. Organic food consumption in the Czech Republic

4. Organic food turnover per capita in the European Union in 2007 (€) Source:BÖLW 2009

5. P/C expenditures in the CZ on OF (€) 2005 2006 2007 Source: Václavík, 2008

6. Knowledge and purchase of organic foodin the Czech Republic • 5% of households purchase organic food regularly • 28% of households purchase organic food occasionally • 54% of households know organic food but do not purchase • 13% of households have not heard about organic food Source: Shopping Monitor (2008)

7. Reasons of organic food preference Source:Póč 2006

8. The model and method

9. Theory of planned behavior Behavioral Beliefs Attitudes toward the Behavior Normative Beliefs Subjective Norms Intention Behavior Perceived Behavioral Control Control Beliefs Real Control over Behavior • Background • variables • Socio-demographics • General attitudes etc. Ajzen (1991)

10. Critique of TPB • Social influences are adressed insuficiently in TBP (only as perceived social pressures from significant others) • Social values, altruism • TPB does not address habitualisation

11. Method • Structural equation modelling (SEM) • Testing of assumed theoretical matrices of interrelationships (variance-covariance matrix) against its empirical counterpart • Advantages • Can be used to test substantive theories (TPB model) • Alows us to work with latent variables • Explicitly takes into account measurment errors • Disadvantages • Theoretically sound model is needed • Risk of data-mining • Difficult to model discrete choice data

12. Survey and results

13. Data collectionand corroboration • Original survey conducted in 2008 • Adult population of Prague and Znojmo region in the Czech Republic • Structured interviews • Prague (N=333), Znojmo region (N=355) • Quota sampling (age, education, gender and size of the place) • Samples representative of the two regions • Merged data file (N=688)

14. Characteristics of the samples and target populations

15. Reasons of organic food purchase 100%=92 respondents (bought organic food in last 2 weeks), multinominal choice, ≠100%

16. Purchase of OF by the household Did you buy OF this year? 29 % # Did you buy OF over the last 2 week? 13 % # Average all 1.37€ # Average buyers 10.96 # Expenditures/ 14 days

17. Structure of organic food expenditures 100%=688 respondents (the whole sample), multinominal choice, tj. ≠100%

18. Behavioral Beliefs Attitudes toward the Behavior Normative Beliefs Subjective Norms Intention Behavior Perceived Behavioral Control Control Beliefs Real Control over Behavior Model of TPB • Background • variables • Socio-demographics • Generalvaluesetc. (Ajzen 1991)

19. Tested model Behavioral Beliefs Attitudes toward the Behavior Normative Beliefs Subjective Norms Intention Behavior Perceived Behavioral Control Control Beliefs Real Control over Behavior Habitualisation • Background • variables • Socio-demographics • General values etc. (Ajzen 1991)

20. MODEL 1

21. MODEL 1

22. MODEL 2

23. MODEL 2

24. MODEL 3

25. MODEL 3

26. MODEL 4

27. MODEL 4

28. Fit of the models • „Simple“ model based on TPB fits the data reasonably well • Including habitualization in the model does not worsen its fit •  habitualization plays an important role in the model of OF consumption • The model with latent variables provides some exploratory insights into mechanism driving organic food consumption • However, this model fits the data rather poorly

29. Conclusions /1/ • Conceptual model of TPB is a usefull tool for exporing organic food consumption • Attitudes seem to have highest impact on intent • Perceived barriers seem to have lowest impact both on intent and behavior • Only relatively small proportion of variability of behavior is explained (cca 18%)

30. Conclusions /2/ • Including habitualisation in the model is sound • Habitualisation increases proportion of explained varibility of intent by as much as explain 20% • Habitualisation has minimal effect on behavior (which we would expect)

31. Conclusions /3/ TBP elaborated… • Attitudes • Health-related attitudes by far the most important; envi-att. play a secondary role • Social norms • Social norms related to partner and friends have the highest effect • Social norms related to parents and kids are relatively secondary • Perceived barriers • Most important: insufficient availability of OF in grocery stores and supermarket • Price is a secondary barrier

32. Acknowledgement This research has been supported by National Czech Foundation GAČR No. 403/08/1694, Application of the model of environmentally significant behavior in the Czech Republic. We also gratefully acknowledge support from the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic, Grant No. 2D06029 "Distributional and social effects of structural policies" funded within National Research Program II. Also this support is gratefully acknowledged.

33. Thank you for your attention Jan Urban E-mail: jan.uban@czp.cuni.cz