Describing the purchasing intention: For Swedish consumers regarding organic products

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DESCRIBING THE PURCHASING INTENTION

For Swedish consumers regarding organic products

BESKRIVNING AV KÖPINTENTIONER

För Svenska konsumenter gällande organiska produkter

Bachelor Degree Project in Business Administration Basic Level 15 Credits

Spring Term 2020

Authors: Jonas Andersson & Johan Vartanian Supervisor: Mikael Hernant

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Sammanfattning

Denna uppsats beskriver köpintentionen för ekologiska produkter och hur den kan påverkas. Studien kommer att använda sig utav Theory of Planned Behavior.

Målet med arbetet är att beskriva vad som påverkar en individs köpintention med hjälp av kvalitativ analys av semi-strukturerade intervjuer. Dessutom få en överblick hur ålder påverkar köpintentionen. Detta är ett aktuellt ämne och flertalet studier har gjorts kring ekologiska produkter men det finns utrymme för att komplettera med studier som riktar sig mot den svenska marknaden. Det finns anmärkningsvärt få kvalitativa studier som har gjorts på detta område och denna studie hjälper till att utjämna den obalansen.

Individers köpintention i denna studie var inte huvudsakligen driven av medvetenhet kring sin hälsa. Istället var det aspekten miljö som gjorde konsumenterna mer benägna att köpa ekologiska produkter. Detta motsäger föregående studier inom detta ämne. Det som regelbundet förhindrade köpintentionen var det högre priset på ekologiska produkter, vilket var ett förväntat resultat.

Abstract

This paper describes the purchasing intention of organic products and how they can be affected, this will be done with the help of the Theory of Planned Behavior.

The goal of this study is to describe what affects an individual's purchasing intentions with the help of a qualitative analysis of interviews as well as provide an overview of how age affects the purchasing intention. This is a contemporary subject and many studies have been done in this area, there is however need for additional studies to make these concepts more applicable to a Swedish market. Additionally, there is a distinct lack of qualitative studies in this subject and therefore this thesis contributes to the study field. The individuals purchasing intention in our study were not mainly driven by health consciousness by the consumer. Instead, our respondents were more prone to purchase organic products due to environmental concerns. This contradicts many previous studies done in this field. What frequently inhibited the purchasing intention was the higher pricing of organic products, this is an anticipated result.

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1. Introduction

The issue of consuming sustainably has been agreed upon by all member states of the United Nations in The Millennium Development Goals. At the Millennium Summit, sustainable consumption was mentioned as one of the core pillars to reach environmental sustainability (Marrakech Process Secretariat: UNDESA and UNEP, 2010). Dowd and Burke said in 2013, seeing as environmental aspects are essential when considering the welfare of the public, the concept of ethical consumerism has been growing over the last decade. Ethical consumerism was defined by Crane and Matten in 2004 as:

“The conscious and deliberate choice to make certain consumption choices due to personal and moral beliefs’’

By making these deliberate choices, customers are trying to influence the market by demonstrating a willingness to pay more for sustainable products. In other words, if the consumer depicts a willingness to pay a higher price to obtain a more sustainable product, the market will comply (Auger & Devinney, 2007). There has been an increase in

demand for organic products which numerous consumers see as a more environmentally friendly and healthier alternative to conventionally grown food (Williams & Hammitt, 2001).

“Public risk perceptions and demand for safer food are important factors shaping agricultural production practices in the United States.” (Williams & Hammitt, 2001)

These aspects in combination indicate a shift in end-user preference and societal pressure, from conventionally grown food to more sustainable organic substitutes.

1.1. Background

Once a customer enters a store to purchase a product there is most likely a choice to be made between a non-organic product and its organic counterpart. There is a considerable market for organic commodities (USDA, 2019) and all products labeled “organic” in the US. Organic products must abide by the requirements of the U.S. Department of

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Agriculture (USDA). Organic products are both grown and processed differently than their conventional counterparts.

The USDA's definition from 2007 is:

“Organic food is produced by farmers who emphasize the use of renewable resources and the conservation of soil and water to enhance environmental quality for future generations. Organic meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy products come from animals that are given no antibiotics or growth hormones. Organic food is produced without using most conventional pesticides; fertilizers made with synthetic ingredients or sewage sludge; bioengineering; or ionizing radiation. Before a product can be labeled ‘organic,’ a Government-approved certifier inspects the farm where the food is grown to make sure the farmer is following all the rules necessary to meet USDA organic standards. Companies that handle or process organic food before it gets to your local supermarket or restaurant must be certified. “

The growth of the market for organic foods in the US is illustrated in Graph 1 between the years 2005 and 2014, the data has been compiled by the United States Department of Agriculture. The estimated market value growth increase is around 250 percent over this period. The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences published an article concerning benefits and downsides with organically produced products. For example, one of the conclusions was that the farming method has contributed to an improvement of biodiversity on the farmland. Since organically produced food does not use dangerous pesticides the risk for the farmers involved is lessened. Downsides included, the higher price for organic food, diminished harvests, and that farmlands could be more susceptible to unwanted weeds (SLU, 2017).

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An example from the Swedish market is “Systembolaget”, they are the sole provider of strong alcoholic beverages in Sweden, and Graph 2 illustrates a strong increase of sales of organic products during the period 2005-2018.

In the paper byVan Liere and Dunlap (1980) they demonstrates that the younger generation is generally more aware of environmental issues compared to the elderly population. Earlier, the conjecture was that the elderly were more concerned with environmental issues but most studies demonstrated the contrary.

“Since solutions to environmental problems often are viewed as threatening the existing social order, possibly requiring substantial changes in traditional values, habitual behaviors, and existing institutions...it is logical to expect youth to support environmental reform and accept pro-environmental ideologies more readily than their elders.” (Van Liere & Dunlap, 1980)

Graph 1: Describes total sales of organic food in the US market 2005-2014.

Graph 2: The graph illustrates the annual sales of organic beverages in liters (l) at Systembolaget.

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There are numerous variations of gathering and processing information within today's markets as generations have adapted. It means that using age groups when examining organic products will allow for a more thorough examination of the intentions. The theory of planned behavior (TPB) by Ajzen in 1991 states that the individual's intention to purchase organic products can be examined through the three categories Attitude toward behavior, Subjective Norms, and Perceived behavioral control.

Attitude toward behavior, Subjective Norms, Perceived behavioral control, and age can be seen as factors that affect an individual's intention.

Can this be applied to describe how individuals act when it comes to organic products? Can this theory, in addition to describing an individual’s intentions, help describe the difference between diffrent groups?

1.2. Problematizing

This study intends to describe consumer’s buying intentions regarding organic products. TPB is a proven theory to study this subject and over the last two decades, hundreds of empirical studies have concluded TPB’s significance for any behavioral research (Alam et al., 2019). Following papers are examples of studies that examine how consumer intentions are affected, regarding organic food with the help of TPB (Al-Swidi et al., 2014; Dowd & Burke, 2013; Tarkiainen & Sundqvist, 2005; Tsakiridou et al., 2008). Ajzen (1991) describes the three parts of TPB as Attitude toward behavior; The degree to which an individual has an agreeable or disagreeable assessment of the behavior.

Subjective norms; The belief concerning whether other individuals see the behavior as agreeable or disagreeable. Perceived behavioral control; A person's perception of the difficulty of performing a certain behavior.

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Rödiger and Hamm, (2015) state that in recent years interest toward organic food has increased both among consumers and academics, and the organic sector is expected to grow significantly in the future. Furthermore, they state that the number of organic food alternatives has been increasing every year. Companies can use this type of information to make their marketing mix more relevant and precis

Tarkiainen and Sundqvist, (2005) studied buying intentions in regard to organic bread and flour in Finland with the assistance of what they call “occasional organic consumers” and “regular organic food consumers”. They found that individuals who only

occasionally buy organic products tend to care significantly less regarding animal welfare, the environment, and food safety and more about convenience and price. This study was geographically close to Sweden but can be seen as quite dated for such a contemporary subject and a more recent study on Swedish consumers would be beneficial to improve marketing strategies for organic products on this market.

International markets have differences in distinctive target segments and usually, the basis for international segmentation is due to the fact that national characteristics vary greatly, especially, segmentation derived from culture (de Maya et al. 2011), the results in Figure 2 showcase some of the differences culturally that de Maya et al. found, as can be seen, the results vary wildly depending on what country is being studied. Hence it is important to have country-specific studies to have relevant information to the Swedish market. This is an explanation as well as an argument as to why studies about purchasing intentions are favorably done as locally as possible to get more exact and usable results. Figure 1: A recreation of Ajzen's theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991)

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Tsakiridou et al. did a study in 2008 aimed to identify how consumers in Greece looked at organic products with the help of TPB. It is slightly more recent when compared to Tarkiainen and Sundqvist, but aimed at a culture that is significantly different compared to the Swedish market and still quite old. Chwialkowska et al. (2020) state that countries that have a feminine culture care more about things, such as environmental values, and that they affect subjective norms and attitude towards sustainable behavior more than it would in a masculine country. Kalafatis et al. did a study in 1999 that compared

“consumers' intention to buy eco-friendly/green products” in Greece and the UK, they found that TPB is an excellent method to measure purchasing intention of organic products, but that it worked better on an established market, in other words, it showed better results in the UK than Greece. This is an older paper but it highlights that TPB has been used for the purpose of determining purchase intentions for organic products over a long time successfully.

What factors affect how individuals act when it comes to organic products, it might be that the most important aspect is possible health benefits as Hilverda et al. concluded in 2016, but Kalafatis found in 1999 that consumers will to do something good for the environment with their choice was the leading cause. There have been several studies done in different parts of the world that came to different conclusions, Tarkiainen and Sundqvist’s study was focused on solely supermarkets in southern Finland and

Tsakiridou et al. studied one specific Greek city. Therefore the authors of this study’s Figure 2: The results from De Maya et al. 2011.

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conclusion is that the country the study is performed in is of great importance when it comes to what aspects affect the consumer’s the most.

But many factors can affect an individual's purchasing intention, this is why companies often divide their marketing by some type of segmentation, examples of this can be found in Tarkiainen and Sundqvist (2005) who had “regular organic shoppers” and “occasional organic shoppers” as groups in their study. Bengston stated in 1994 that the values learned early in life tend to stay constant, and Pilcher said in 1994 that the way a person has been raised and the social status and safety is what is meaningful. Another factor could be the political and social climate of their youth as affecting factors (Lindgren et al. 2005). In other words, the age or generation of an individual is likely to affect their base purchasing intention, especially when the subject is fast-moving and contemporary. To the authors of this study’s knowledge, there have been no studies on this that have been done in Sweden and as a research subject, it is heavily dominated by quantitative studies. What this paper can assist this area of study with, is a qualitative approach that could turn up new interesting results because of the in-depth and nuanced answers that a qualitative study can generate. There is also the regional aspect, a company that wants to export to Sweden would not be that assisted by most of the studies mentioned above because the market environment could be different in Sweden. Since the research needs to be fairly recent and for a specific country to be very useful this means that further studies are needed in this field of study.

So, by providing a paper that focuses on the consumer’s intention to buy organic products and by having Age and groups as factors, interesting results could appear that have not previously been studied. Consumer patterns change often, especially in such a

contemporary subject as organic products, and this is something qualitative studies are good at finding.

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1.3. Research questions

1. How is the purchase intention for organic products affected when considering the Attitude toward behavior, Subjective Norms, and Perceived behavioral control in Sweden?

2. Can a distinction between different groups be found?

1.4. Purpose

The purpose of this study is to describe how to purchase intention for organic products that are affected by Attitude toward behavior, Subjective Norms, and Perceived

behavioral control and if there is a difference between different groups divided into intentions in regards to organic products as well as age, for the Swedish market. This study will help companies who are interested in providing organic products in Sweden, by presenting what consumers consider important for them and the difference between two age groups. A qualitative study facilitates the discovery of new significant factors that might not appear in a quantitative study, due to in-depth answers. and this could assist the academic side of TPB and provide new avenues to study.

1.5. Limitation

This study does not cover brands, products, or sales numbers. The focus is on the behavior regarding organic products and individuals in two age groups 20-30 and 50+, two age groups have been chosen because of the constraints of time and number of respondents, the age groups were chosen in a way that would potentially yield significant differences. Respondents will be chosen with the help of filter questions and it will not perfectly represent the population, this is to make sure not all respondents have the same opinions. The number of respondents in the study is 16. The authors of this study are aware that there are many more elements that can affect buying intentions than the ones mentioned in this study and that more respondents would be beneficial.

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2. Theoretical framework

2.1. Theoretical background

The theory that will be used for this study is TPB, intentions are the best predictors of behavior, and the stronger the intention is to perform a certain behavior, the more likely a person is to perform said behavior (Ajzen, 1991) (See Figure 1 for the illustrated model).

2.2. Applying the theory of planned behavior

TPB has been utilized to predict a wide range of consumer behavior (Sheppard et al., 1988). One of the more prominent studies was made by Tarkiainen and Sundqvist (2005), they examined organic food sales concerning bread and flour in Finland. A more recent study has been made by Marija Ham et al. in 2015 that investigated how family and friends affect your buying behavior. Liang performed a study in 2014 where food purchasing online was analyzed through TPB’s three factors. Another example of how TPB has been used to examine purchasing intentions can be found in Hilverda et al. (2016), they studied key motives to buy organic foods. This study will be using age groups to see if there is a difference in buying intentions and what affects most strongly between the two age groups defined. Young urban people that have higher education tend to be more pro-environment and sustainability and usually against things that could harm the environment such as mining, grazing, and logging (Rudzitis, 1999).

Our theoretical framework will build on TPB’s three categories Attitude toward behavior, Subjective Norms, and Perceived behavioral control a visual representation can be seen in Figure 1, and elements will be formed based on these three categories. The elements will be studied and how they affect the categories in TPB and how these in turn affect intention.

2.3. Attitude toward behavior

Attitude toward behavior in TPB can be seen as an attitude which in this narrative refers to whether or not an individual has a favorable or unfavorable evaluation of the possible outcomes that could come from performing the behavior (Lamorte, 2019). Chosen elements connected to Attitude toward behavior are presented in Figure 2, and it is not the first version of the elements affecting Attitude towards behavior the authors designed.

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It went through a refining process where the name, number, and descriptions of the elements were amended to what can be seen in Figure 3 today. These four elements were chosen by the authors by studying previous research on the subject of elements that affect the buying intention towards organic products. The criteria to be chosen as an element was that the subject was proven to have an effect in previous research and that it did not resemble any other element too closely (then it would be added into that element). The authors are aware that many other subjects could be affecting the Attitude towards behavior, but the four that have been presented here are elements that have been proven to be relevant to the subject of purchasing intention of organic products and differentiated

from the other elements. 2.3.1. Health

Consumers who can reflect and see the perceived health benefits with organic products will purchase them more frequently and can lead to a positive loop where their healthy choice means more consumption of organic products (Hilverda et al., 2016). Previous studies demonstrate clear indications that healthy food is one of the strongest buying motives concerning organic products (Chinnici et al., 2002; Hilverda et al., 2016; Williams & Hammitt, 2001; Zanoli & Naspetti, 2002).

Consumer’s attitude toward health is one of the two most prominent aspects when studying intentions to buy organic products, according to a study conducted in Greece. Personal health is a subject that concerns consumers and they seek information about products and their effects beforehand, especially older people tend to be willing to pay more for organic products compared to younger people. Almost all participants in the Figure 3: A visual representation of the elements the authors of this study consider affect the aspect of Attitude toward behavior in TPB.

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study (94.5 percent) thought that food safety was a very important issue and 84,6 percent viewed organic products as a healthier alternative (Tsakiridou et al., 2008). Prentice et al. state in 2019 that food that is grown in an organic fashion is generally seen as healthier as well as being more nutritious and safe.

Health will, therefore, be one of the elements to examine when analyzing and describing the consumer’s intentions.

2.3.2. Nature

Consumers' higher interests in environmental welfare are one of the strongest driving forces for the purchase of environmentally friendly products and as a result, would, therefore, be more likely to engage in environmentally friendly activities

“Heightened concern for the environment resulted in more chances of buying eco-friendly products” (Yadav & Pathak, 2016).

Numerous studies have concluded that acting in an environmentally friendly way is a key part of the intention when it comes to the buying intention of organic products (Bengston, 1994; Rudzitis, 1999; Kalafatis et al., in 1999, Yadav & Pathak, 2016). Yadav & Pathak found 2016 that young consumers have a concerned attitude when it comes to

environmental issues, and furthermore that they have a positive attitude towards organic products. Environmental concern can have a direct impact on sustainable consumption (Laureti & Benedetti, 2018). Previous studies have found links between environmental concerns and the attitude towards sustainable products (Han et al., 2010), the purchasing intentions when it comes to sustainable products (Lee et al., 2014), sustainable energy usage (Salmela & Varho, 2006), conservation and recycling (Nguyen et al., 2016), and, environmentally friendly purchases (Chan & Lau, 2000; Kalafatis et al., 1999).

Consumers who are highly concerned with the environment are more willing to pay a higher price for products that conform to their values (Pagiaslis & Krontalis, 2014). It is necessary to consider how buyers view the environment, to interpret how they would act when it comes to shopping organically, this study added Nature as an element that could affect attitude in the model.

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2.3.3. Value

Low-income households might face a challenge when it comes to buying organic products. The higher price for organic products might make purchasing them infeasible. Because of the extra money, you spend on organic products could have been saved or used to purchase other products (Shepherd et al., 1996). Boccaletti and Nardella, 2000; Zanoli and Naspetti, 2002: Tregear et al., 1994; Magnusson et al., 2001 all performed studies that came to the result that the high price for organic products is one of the key factors as to why consumers do not buy organic products. Younger consumers have stronger buying intentions, but their actual purchasing power is low, which leads to less consumption (Tsakiridou et al., 2008). The paper by Zanoli and Naspetti (2002) states that price gets mentioned by 87 percent of the total asked participants as a factor concerning organic products, compared to 66 percent for non-organic products.

Furthermore, the higher price for organic products takes up a significant amount in the economies of regular families, which was 74 percent of the time in their conducted study. The authors stated that lower prices and more distribution can lead to an increase in demand for organic products (Zanoli & Naspetti, 2002). The case of demand being lowered because of higher prices is a result that was presented in a paper by Boccaletti and Nardella (2000) where they state that the willingness to pay for an organic product is determined by your income. The higher the income is, the more likely the consumer is to purchase organic products (Boccaletti & Nardella, 2000).

Based on this, Value should be an essential element to analyze. 2.3.4. Supply

When it comes to supply a reason for not buying organic products can be that they are already satisfied by the current supply. A study was conducted by Radman (2005) it measured how satisfied customers were with the supply of organic products and the results were that 62 percent of the respondents: appear to not know if they were satisfied (27 percent), or were not satisfied with the supply that was available (38 percent). It is also known that organic products has to be accessible to the consumer or else the demand will simply decrease (Rana & Paul, 2017). Availability was found to be an issue for organic products in general according to Magnusson et al. (2001). The attitude toward the offered supply is an important element in the buying process. The supply of organic

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products must not only meet the criteria to be called organic but also meet the market demand when it comes to supply and price.

This category was chosen because of frequently lacking alternatives in conventional stores. Consumers might want to purchase an organic product but feels like none of the offered alternatives fits their criteria or there simply is none at all being sold. With this as background, the element Supply has been chosen.

2.4. Subjective norms

Subjective norms from TPB are created from the social pressure a person perceives to act in a specific way, as well as how much or little this person wishes to comply with these people or groups (Marija Ham et al., 2015). This means that your friends and family can easily affect how you decide to act in a specific situation. Generally, the stronger the subjective norm is regarding a behavior, the stronger the intention will be for the person to engage in behavior after consideration (Ajzen, 1991). Ajzen explains it in his paper from 1991 as:

“[...] subjective norm; it refers to the perceived social pressure to perform or not to perform the behavior.” (Ajzen, 1991)

The chosen elements connected to Subjective norms are presented in Figure 3, it is not the first version of the elements affecting Subjective norms the authors designed. It went through a refining process where the name, number, and descriptions of the elements were amended to what can be seen in Figure 4 today. These two elements were chosen by the authors by studying previous research on the subject of elements that affect the

buying intention towards organic products. The criteria to be chosen as an element was that the subject was proven to have an effect in previous research and that it did not resemble any other element too closely (then it would be added into that element). The authors are aware that many other subjects could be affecting the Subjective norms, but the two that have been presented here are elements that have been proven to be relevant to the subject of purchasing intention of organic products and differentiated from the other elements.

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When it comes to Subjective norms, there have been previous studies done by Shimp and Kavas (1984), Vallerand et al. (1992), Chang (1998), and Tarkiainen and Sundqvist (2005) that all cover the subject on how attitude and Subjective norms are related. Several authors theorize that TPB needs to be modified because of this, Tarkiainen and Sundqvist performed a quantitative analysis in southern Finland concerning organic bread and flour, and they found that:

“Based on the results, it can be said that consumers’ intentions to buy organic food can be predicted with their attitudes (R2=0.558), which can further be predicted by subjective norms (R2=0.374), and those behavioral intentions reliably predict self‐reported behavior (R2=0.824).”

Chang (1998) states that:

“If this relationship exists, the effect of the significant other on attitude formation cannot be ignored.”

According to research done by Al-Swidi et al. (2014), they found that Subjective norms have a much more substantial role in forming intentions than what previous research generally perceived. They found that:

“Subjective norms have a direct significant impact on buying intentions.” In addition to how Subjective norms can affect attitude and the authors state that these results strengthen the study done by Tarkiainen and Sundqvist (2005).

Figure 4: A visual representation of the elements the authors of this study consider affect the aspect of Subjective norms in TPB.

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This study will use the perspective of TPB and not adjust for multicollinearity. The authors are aware that subjective norms influence the attitude, but chose to regard them as separate entities and only study subjective norms directly.

2.4.1. Expectations

The Expectations factor generally lies as a base in how an end-user perceives the social pressure, this will assist in describing the consumer intention and will be examined in our model. Stronger social pressure about acting sustainably then it increases willingness to pay a premium price for organic products and also increase the time people spend

searching for organic products (Mhlophe, 2016). One significant factor is presented in the study made by Bengston in 1994, that values learned early in life tend to stay stable throughout one's life. This is necessary to take into account because of how much greater of a presence the notion of sustainability has in today's society compared to just a few generations ago, this is also a reason to look at the age perspective. Rokeach stated already in 1973 that a certain way of acting can be preferable to other ways of

acting, and that the expectations of society impact how people act on an individual level. Kim et al. reached a similar conclusion in 2018:

“In addition to the possible effects related to product attributes, demand for organic food may also be driven by social pressure.”

Differences have been found between cultural groups by Han (2018) in a study comparing American and South Korean consumers. The paper states that the South Koreans were more affected by social pressure and the Americans were not, therefore it could be of importance to implement the element Expectations to study how this affects Swedish consumers.

2.4.2. Knowledge

According to a study by Hughner et al. in 2007 there have been many studies that have shown that there are a number of barriers that prevent the consumer from buying organic alternatives. They include things like a higher price, worse taste, a lack of knowledge about the product. Szolnoki & Hauck stated in 2020 that those who are interested in and have gathered knowledge about organic products will consume more organic wine. They continue to state that a person that is involved and knowledgeable about an organic

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product will consume the said product. Furthermore, they state that they consider all consumers of non-organic wine to be potential future consumers of organic wine because they found that a lack of knowledge and information seems to be the some of the main reasons for consumers choosing non-organic wines. The reason why the element of “Knowledge” is studied, is due to the fact that principle could be applied to most other organic product.

2.5. Perceived behavioral control

Ajzen (2002) states that perceived behavioral control is responsible for a significant part of the behavior of the consumer and that it can be divided into perceived self‐efficacy and perceived controllability. Ajzen continues to state that perceived self‐efficacy covers the degree of challenge that is part of performing the behavior and perceived controllability is how much of the behavior that is up to the shopper.

The chosen elements connected to Perceived behavioral control is presented in Figure 5, it is not the first version of the elements affecting Perceived behavioral control the authors designed. It went through a refining process where the name, number, and descriptions of the elements were amended to what can be seen in Figure 5 today. These two elements were chosen by the authors by studying previous research on the subject of elements that affect the buying intention towards organic products. The criteria to be chosen as an element was that the subject was proven to have an effect in previous research and that it did not resemble any other element too closely (then it would be added into that element). The authors are aware that many other subjects could be

affecting the Perceived behavioral control, but the two that have been presented here are elements that have been proven to be relevant to the subject of purchasing intention of organic products and differentiated from the other elements.

Figure 53: A visual representation of the elements the authors of this study consider affect the aspect of Perceived behavioral control in TPB.

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2.5.1. Information

If there is a significant lack of presented information, the buyer is less likely to purchase the product. Which means that if a consumer is unable to gather the information they feel that they need, then they are much less likely to engage in that behavior. Availability of information can influence whether or not a customer buys a product, it may be viewed as more effort or adds value due to the perceived extra challenge (Liang et al. 2017).

According to Szolnoki and Hauck in 2020 the most important reason for German consumers to not buy organic wine is a lack of information.

The Agriculture and Food Agency Council of Agriculture in Taiwan introduced food traceability in 2019 that states that food businesses must provide the consumers with the production record, verification of organic food, a list of ingredients contained in the product, producers, country of origin, and several other things in their product

information. This is so consumers will have a larger source of information when buying products (Hsu et al., 2016). Teng and Wang undertook a study in 2015 in which they examined almost 700 consumers and they found that trust and attitude are the

intermediaries to associating the information given and the perceived knowledge of organic food. Furthermore, they state that a consumer's purchase intentions are affected by the grade of knowledge and information the individual possesses, if consumers are more knowing of organic products then the buying intention will be positively affected. With this as base the element of “Information” is added to the study, to examine whether or not the customers receive the information that they feel like they need or if it is so. 2.5.2. Truthfulness

Lee et al., 2019 states that buyers as a group commonly utilize different official

certifications made by third-party organizations to decide whether or not the product they are considering buying is the correct choice or not. The authors continue to state that the label organic has a set of rules and certifications inherent to it and that the consumers trust these certifications when they are gathering information. Nielsen stated in 2010 that distrust of organic claims and a general ambiguity around the effects that their actions have on the environment affects the individual's choices. Al-Swidi et al. also stated in

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their paper in 2014 that trust and labeling are some of the key components when it comes to the buying intention of organic products. Tung et al., 2012 found some skepticism against organic products and states that the mistrust of truthfulness in labeling is one of the fundamental barriers that stop some consumers from buying organic products. “Truthfulness” has been added to this study, which is a derivative of the information element. Truthfulness is seen as a separate subject because of its considerable

implications on the information element and was deemed to be a separate entity. Even if the consumers have all the information in the world, this might not matter in any way if they do not feel like they can trust the source of that information.

2.6. Applied model of TPB

With assistance from the chapter Applying the theory of planned behavior eight elements will be delineated, and these eight elements are what will be examined in this study (see Figure 6):

Attitude toward behavior in this study be measured with the following four elements:

 Health: How much does the personal health factor affect the decision of whether or not the consumer buys organic products?

Figure 6: This illustrates a model that has been created that is a derivative of the theory of planned behavior. It includes the 8 elements that will be examined concerning the intention to purchase organic products.

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 Nature: How much does the environmental factor affect the decision of whether or not the consumer buys organic products?

 Value: How does the price affect the consumer’s attitude toward buying organic products?

 Supply: Is the consumer content with the non-organic products that are available, or rebuff other products?

Subjective norms will be measured with the help of the following two elements:

 Expectations: Do you feel like your friends and family expect you to act in a certain way when considering shopping organically or not?

 Knowledge: Do you feel like you as a person is expected to be knowledgeable in regards to organic products?

Perceived behavioral control will be measured with the help of the following two elements:

 Information: Do you feel like you receive the information necessary to make an informed choice when you buy organically?

 Truthfulness: Do you feel like you trust what you read on organic products?

With the applied model, an analysis will be made with the 8 elements that are linked to the three areas (Attitude toward behavior, Subjective Norms, and Perceived behavioral control), that affect the consumer intention. With the help of the elements presented, an examination of the consumer intention when buying an organic product will be done. The next step is to analyze whether it is a strong or weak response. If a strong response is found then according to TPB the individuals are more likely to act on this intention. If a weak or even negative response is found, then the increase in market volume and market share of organic products might not be because of any aspect of planned behavior. It could be dependent on other variables such as impulse buying or just the increase in the number of organic products.

This study will help identify what parts of the buying process that is affecting the

consumer most strongly, and indicate what aspects are most pivotal in both a sustainable perspective as well as what companies can focus their marketing on.

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3. Method

3.1 Research approach

Our study was carried out using an abductive approach, which is a mixture of the inductive, and deductive approaches. The abductive approach alternates between theory and empirical data, as it is a dynamic process that makes it possible to discover new aspects during the course of the study (Alvehus, 2013). Deductive is theory-driven, while the inductive approach is based on empiricism and thus not theoretical. Then the study has examined consumer intentions, and it is in need of a mixture of induction and deduction. This, when the examination alternates between these two, results in an abductive approach.

3.2 Research method

The research methods we choose between are qualitative and quantitative. The qualitative method is about interpreting, describing, and has a focus focusing on the meaning

(Alvehus, 2013). Furthermore, Alvehus states that the interpretation of data is of

importance within the qualitative method, the goal is that the interviews conducted should contribute to additional knowledge in the field. The quantitative method is used where the data collected is measurable and the method is often structured. The disadvantage of the qualitative method is that it is time-consuming to design interview questions and perform individual interviews (Alvehus, 2013). Another disadvantage of the qualitative research method is that it can be subjective (Bryman & Bell, 2015). That the method can be seen as subjective means that the interviews performed can have been influenced by the authors having certain perceptions or expectations about the subject in question. Bryman and Bell (2015) also mention the ability to generalize as a problem, since it is difficult to repeat the studies in exactly the same way and that a small empirical base cannot

represent the population. Our study needed more complex and in-depth answers, because of this, the authors of this study considered the qualitative method to be a better fit.

3.3 Previous research

Secondary data has been collected in the form of scientific articles. Emerald, Business Source Premier, and Google Scholar have been used to search for relevant scientific articles. This has been used to give us objective and credible information. Keywords used

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to produce relevant scientific articles are for example organic food, organic foods impact on health, consumer belief organic food, attitude, control, consumer intentions, purchase intention, Swedish consumers.

3.4 How the interviews were constructed

There are different types of interview forms, they can be structured, unstructured, or semi-structured (Alvehus, 2013). A structured interview consists of questions that are determined before the interview takes place and that in some cases there may be ready-made response alternatives that the respondent can choose between. This format can in some cases generate shorter interviews. An unstructured interview is according to

Alvehus (2013) is more open to a theme and the conversation should be controlled by the individual being interviewed. Semi-structured interviews have been conducted, where we as interviewers are basing our questions on a so-called questionnaire (see Appendix 1). The reason this interview method was chosen was that it would give us, the freedom to ask follow-up questions and the ability to change the order of or remove questions that have been answered earlier in the interview. This also allows the respondents to ask about the questions if something is unclear, this lessens misunderstandings. The authors of this study have designed their interview questions with their own analysis model as a basis. The model consists of three parts, which then branches out to eight different elements that will be analyzed, which is Health, Nature, Value, Supply, Expectations, Knowledge, Information and Truthfulness, these eight parts are essential to the study and are what our empirical gathering of information will be focused on. The interview guide is then

divided into different parts, one battery of questions to examine the consumer’s initial perceived intention and one for the eight elements, this increased the structure of the interview, this also simplified the transcription work.

The authors had their theory in mind when designing the interview questions. This is to be able to direct most of the interview to focus those questions that relate to the theory. The first step in the analysis model is Health, based on previous research gathered on this subject questions were created. One of the questions in the Health element was if the respondents would describe an organic product as to be healthier to them, and what reasons they had for this. This would then be repeated for the other seven elements.

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According to TPB, if the individual’s intentions towards a behavior are strong, then there is a greater chance they will perform said behavior.

The perceived intention toward organic products laid the foundation for the interview, the respondents would be asked: “next time you go shopping, how likely is it that you will be actively searching for organic alternatives?”. This was to give the authors an

approximation of their intention and allow us to continue the interview in an organic way about the aspect of organic food the respondent actually felt was important to them first, if none fit, the questions would be asked from top to bottom.This was to get a picture of the respondents' attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control, which is difficult to ask since most consumers do not have a reference frame for how their, for example, perceived behavioral control is affecting them.

The questions have been designed in such a way that they should not be leading the respondent in a certain direction to get a specific answer. They have also been structured and designed to be as clear as possible to minimize the risk of misunderstanding. One of the goals was to try to catch underlying factors that might not be linked by previous studies to this field of research, this is to not only receive answers to those questions that we explicitly asked. The ambition was also to capture the actual respondent’s opinions without affecting them.

3.5 Selecting respondents

The idea from the beginning of the study was to interview 20 individuals within the limited time period. A reason why we started with the intention to have a total of 20 respondents instead of 10 like the university recommended, is because we interviewed consumers and not experts which means a larger sample size might be better. Guest et al. (2006) state that a sample of 15 is the smallest acceptable sample size. We decided that the number of interviews was sufficient at 16. This decision was taken because of a significant spread between our respondents was reached at this point, as well as the time constraints present.

The authors of this study have used a so-called strategic selection. This includes that we can select individuals with the traits they believe are important for the outcome of the study (Alvehus, 2013). Examples of different characteristics are age and occupation. The

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reason for that was that we wanted a spread of the respondents over two age groups with different perceived intentions.

3.6 Respondents

Since we choose to have all our respondents as anonymous, they will henceforth be referred to by the chronological order they were interviewed in. The respondent that was interviewed first is: Nr 1 and so on all the way to 16 in the first column, and this will be the only way the respondents are referred to. Before any questions concerning the elements were asked we asked our respondents filter questions to assure that we got respondents with differing opinions so that contrast can be observed. Then a

categorization of the respondents was made based on by their intentions, and three groups were formed strong, moderate (mod) and weak, this can bee seen in the Intention (Int) column of Table 1. This was made to be able to compare different groups of respondents, as well as a way to put them into more homogenous groups to easier see trends. These three groups will be referred to throughout the study as Strong/strong buying intentions, Moderate/moderate buying intention, and Weak/weak buying intention. In the third column is the respondents age group, either they are in the 20-30 group or the 50+ group.

Table 1: This table illustrates a summary of the respondent’s intentions after a series of filter questions were asked.

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3.7 Performing interviews

All of the respondents gave us permission to record the interviews, this gave us the chance to listen through and not miss out on important statements. It gave us a focus on the conversation instead of trying to remember what the respondent said and how they actually expressed themselves. Bryman and Bell (2015) said that recording interviews can help with the analysis of the collected data. All interviews were started by informing the respondents about our study. Kvale and Brinkmann (2009) state that an introduction about the study they are about to participate in can help the respondents to give more clear and useful responses. A reason for this was to give the respondent an insight into what was being studied, in addition, to bring ease confidence to the respondents, and they were also informed about their anonymity, after that the consumer was asked if he or she would be placed in the age group 20-30 or 50+.

The interviews were conducted via telephone or other online alternatives with voice options such as “Messenger” or “ZOOM”, due to the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak that occurred during this time period.

3.8 Ethical questions

It was important that our respondents understood that participation in our study was voluntary. To get truthful responses from our respondents we chose that all respondents would be anonymous. According to Bryman and Bell (2015), this is one of the important ethical aspects to consider. The respondents are referred to as 1, 2, 3, and so on all the way to 16, to be able to distinguish between them. Having all of our respondents anonymous might affect the credibility of our study, but the anonymity could lead the respondents to provide us with more credible answers and allow the respondents to state their opinions more openly since it can not be traced back to them.

3.9 Trustworthiness and Validity

Kvale and Brinkmann (2009) argue that trustworthiness is about how possible it is for another researcher to replicate the study performed. Factors that may influence this are how we ask follow-up questions to our respondents and how much time is given to the

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respondents to respond. This was in our interviews varied, which can reduce the credibility of the study. Therefore, it is of great importance that the interviewers try to keep within the limits stated, in order to reduce the differences between the interviews. Kvale and Brinkmann also state (2009) that keeping within the limits is something that the interviewers should keep in mind, but it should not govern the interviews fully. Because it can actually have a negative impact on those interviewing by limiting the possible creativity and it might also reduce a person's will to improvise during an ongoing interview.

Validity involves, that the chosen method examines what the study aims to do to investigate (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009). This means that what we as writers wanted to study should also be what is being studied and that we have chosen the right method to reach this goal. We chose to use a qualitative method to perform our study, to answer our questions we are dependent on getting in-depth answers, this choice also gave us the opportunity to ask follow-up questions if any answers needed clarifications, as well as clear up any misunderstandings within the questions themselves.

3.10 Reliability, Transferability, Dependability, and Confirmation.

The authors of this study chose to review the study's reliability, transferability,

dependability, and confirmation which are the criteria that Bryman and Bell (2015) states are important.

The reliability criteria are about what can affect when conducting a study that involves consumer intentions, behavior, and different perspectives. This means that we must be able to argue that our approach is the correct one in this setting, this is to help assure the readers of this study of the credibility of our study. Furthermore, we must be compliant with the guidelines for us as authors.

The transferability of the study concerns how the study is conducted and if this can be repeated. Qualitative research focuses on the in-depth answers of theindividuals, which means that the transferability is about whether the studycan be implemented in a different setting, and if the results would be roughly the same (Bryman & Bell, 2015). The ability to repeat the steps taken by us as can be something that is of great importance to our study, since we examine consumer intentions which are individual and depends on the chosen respondents, which means that the data collected will likely have significant

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differences even if all steps taken were the same since the interviews are not of a large enough sample to be able to generalize the answers for a population. So the only thing making it possible to get similar results would be the transferability of the study.

Dependability is about reporting your methodology step by step, this is to create a greater degree of replicability (Bryman & Bell, 2015). We have therefore tried to be clear in informing how our study was conducted.

Confirmation according to Bryman and Bell (2015) is about the ability to show that the authors have acted in good faith. So we have to make it transparent and that we have tried to not be biased and not let our own values and opinions guide the study in the form of its design and the conclusions that have emerged.

3.11 Approach to data analysis

When the empirical data had been gathered, the next step was to analyze it to connect it to our theoretical reference frame. The first step is to go from raw data to proofread data with the help of transcription. After that, the proofread data should be commented on and finally, the commented data should be annotated on. This will facilitate the data

organization.

The second step is to analyze our empirical data by creating labels based on the responses from the interviews by using thematization to discover trends and other reoccurring themes, this data can be found from the processed data from the step before. These labels will then be put into a table to help organize the respondent’s answers regarding the different aspects. Labels will be based on the eight elements in the model and can be seen as subgroups. This method is useful when you have to be aware of different perspectives when analyzing the data and look for in-depth answers. Qualitative studies are based on collected data, from, for example, interviews. The collected data is initially difficult to get an overview of when there are answers from several respondents who have different views and perspectives. We choose to find themes in the text. Themes and codes allow you to find similarities and differences in qualitative content analysis (Vaismoradi et al., 2016). Our respondents have been divided into different groups according to their answers for an overview. Our theoretical reference frame was the foundation of our interview guide, this allowed us to continue our analysis by dividing it into the same

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headings as our theoretical framework, in order to get a clear structure which makes it easier to find themes in the answers.

3.12 Method criticism

Something that can be criticized is how authentic the consumer’s answers in the interview were. We cannot know if all the respondents answered truthfully, or if they wanted to appear more environmentally aware and informed than they really were. However, it is impossible to know, therefore it is required that we trust the answers our respondents have given us. We used strategic selection in order to get consumers in different age groups and with different views, this means that this cannot be seen as a view of the population and will not give generalizable results. We took the number of respondents who felt reasonable to process within our time limit, even though a larger amount of respondents would have made trends clearer. Another limit to the study was that we had to define our respondents in age groups, 20-30 and 50+ since there were not enough respondents to get a slice from all age groups, this means that we only get responses from two segments of the population, this makes the results less generalizable. Another

criticism could be that the data we have gathered and presented is only topical to today's market, the empirical data we have collected is mainly useful in today's market since organic products is a very contemporary subject te views and opinions can differ wildly even if only a short amount of time has passed. Before we started conducting the interviews, it was discussed if a pilot interview could be made. No pilot interview was performed, it could have affected the result if a pilot interview was performed with the intent to develop the interview guide prior to starting the data gathering.

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4. Results

A summary of what was said regarding the different elements by the sixteen respondents will be presented below.

The questionnaire guide used in the interviews can be found in Appendix 1.

Our study began with a short set of questions regarding the intention to purchase different types of organic products to gather a rough estimate of the respondent’s intention before digging deeper into the eight elements. The result was that half (8) of the respondents had strong buying intentions towards organic products. One third (5) had a moderate

intention, and the rest (3) had weak buying intentions. All moderate intention responses came from the 50+ age group and all of the responses with a weak buying intention came from the 20-30 age group.

The quotes used in the following chapters were originally in Swedish and have been translated by the authors into English.

4.1 Intentions and age

This study's data collection commenced by asking the respondents a series of filter questions to make sure not all answers would be the same. Data consists of sixteen interviews, split between two age groups, 8 in the 20-30 group, and 8 in the 50+ group. Respondents were chosen with the help of filter questions and this was to make sure that differentiation could be found and different opinions studied, a visual representation can be seen in Table 1.

Respondents 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 14, 15, and 16 (in Table 1) all gave answers that indicate a strong buying intention towards organic products. Their answers were similar to the quotes below.

“I will definitely look for organic products.” (4)

“It is very likely that I will be looking for organic alternatives.” (6) “If I put it on some kind of scale I would say it is very likely.” (7) “I purchase almost solely organic products.” (14)

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Respondents 1, 2, 3, 10, and 13 (can be seen as strong in Table 1) resulted in a moderate buying intention, no strong answers. Their answers were similar to the quotes below.

“I like the idea of organic farming, but it is not really something for me, I buy it sometimes if it looks nice.” (1)

“I might look for organic products, but it is not definite.” (2)

“I do not really care about whether a product is organic or not.” (10) Respondents 5, 11, and 12 (can be seen as red in Table 1) had weak buying intentions towards organic products when their answers to the filter questions were examined.

“Overall there are not many organic products at all.” & “There is no reason to not buy organic products if it was not for the toll it takes on my personal economy.” (5)

“It is not likely that I look for organic products.” (11)

“It is a fairly small chance that I will look for organic products.” (12)

4.2. Attitude toward behavior

4.2.1. Health

The first element in the modified TPB model is Health, a series of labels (a statement that was repeated at least twice) could be seen through the interviews.

The labels seen in the Health will be explained below and visual representation can be seen in Table 2:

 Indifferent - They have no opinion on the matter on the Health element or consider it inconsequential.

 Reaction - The consumer thinks that organic products affect their personal health, but are skeptical of how large, or the cause of it.

 Important - Something the consumer considers to be of the highest importance.  Worker’s health - If the consumer buys organically due to it being beneficial to the

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 Local P - Stand for locally produced and refers to consumers that demonstrate the importance of products being locally produced.

 Swedish P - Stands for Swedish produced, and refers to consumers that considered Swedish produced products to be already healthy enough, and organically produced alternatives gave them no real feeling of being healthier.

 Fruits - Responders that considered organic fruits to be healthier compared to conventional fruits.

The respondents have been divided into three different groups depending on their initial personal statement of their intentions regarding organic products, these are strong buying intentions, moderate, and weak buying intentions.

Labels are something that has been mentioned by at least two different responders or more, in the health element for example three respondents mention worker health, and it is a label for the Health element because of that.

4.2.1.1. Consumers with Strong buying intentions

Respondents 4, 7, 15, and 16 were indifferent to the Health aspect, they did not consider organic food to be a personal health benefit for them.

“I do not think there is any great difference concerning my personal health, but it might have a greater effect on the animal’s health.” (4)

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”I think that it is better, but I do not believe it is that much better really, it is more that you support the workers and it is better for the people that produce.” (7)

Respondents 8 and 9 stated that it might affect their health but they answers were seen as unsure and therefore they were put in the label Reaction and 6 and 14 considered organic food to be Important for their personal health.

“I do not feel like most people see it as better, but I think that it probably is.” (9)

“You want to buy more organically because it is guaranteed to be better for both health and the environment.”(6)

Respondents 4, 8, and 15 considered locally produced foods to be more or at least as beneficial for them.

“I try to purchase most products sustainably, but I am not sure what is best organic food, or locally produced alternatives.” (4)

“I have a dilemma between choosing organically produced compared to locally produced products.” (15)

Respondents 4 and 15 stated that they consider Swedish produce in general, to be as healthy as organic food.

“I do not feel like organic food plays such a big part when it comes to my personal health, Swedish food, in general, tends to be healthy.”(4)

4.2.1.2. Consumers with Moderate buying intentions

In this group, there are few clear patterns, firstly all except respondent 1 considered organic products to be healthier than their conventional counterpart. Respondent 1 followed the pattern seen in the strong intentions group where individuals considered locally produced products to be at least equal to organic versions, and Swedish produce, in general, to be healthy enough that it did not feel like organic produce gave a health benefit.

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“I think that it is a good starting point for us consumers to think differently, but it gets a bit over the top when it is supposed to be organic and I believe that we could produce good products without going fully that strict towards it.” (1)

Respondent 3 thinks that organic products might be better in some cases such as certain fruits.

“If there are organic bananas, I buy them. Strong chemicals are used on shell fruits.” (3)

4.2.1.3. Consumers with Weak buying intentions No trends between the respondent’s answers. 4.2.1.4. Summary of the Health element

There was a high number of individuals in the strong and moderate buying intention groups who mentioned locally produced or Swedish produced food to have the same health benefits as organic products. There was a higher degree of indifference in the group with strong buying intention when it comes to personal health as a reason to purchase organically, the moderate group had an almost unanimous view that organic products are probably better or a little better.

In the group with weak buying intentions, an indifferent attitude can be observed, and a lack of knowledge drives this, respondent no 5 states that he is not sure if it is better but assume it is “A bit better, right?” (5).

4.2.1. Nature

The second element in the modified TPB model is Nature.

The labels seen in Nature will be explained below and visual representation can be seen in Table 3:

 Indifferent - The consumer has no opinion on the matter or considers it inconsequential.

 Reaction - The consumer thinks that organic products affect the nature around them, but are skeptical of how large, or the cause of it.

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 Important - The consumer considers this to be of the highest importance.

 Negatives - The consumer states one or several negative effects organic productions can have towards nature.

 Local P - The consumer states that locally produced alternatives might be better for the environment than organically grown options.

 Chemicals - The consumer mentions how different chemicals affect conventional farming and how they feel that it is a reason for them buying organic.

 Animal H - Animal health, one of the driving forces for the consumer to purchase organic produce is that it lets animals live a better life.

4.2.2.1. Consumers with Strong buying intentions

As can be seen in Table 3 the group with strong buying intentions, were split between the ones that had a Reaction and the ones that thought it was Important. Two (4 and 15) of the ones that thought it was Important and this was mentioned in conjunction with negatives inherent to organic farming as well as a statement concerning how locally produced might be the superior choice.

“I try to buy most products sustainably, but I am not sure what is best organic food, or locally produced alternatives.” (4)

Respondents 6, 14, and 15 stated that chemical usage in conventional farming is a reason to buy organic alternatives.

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“It is worth paying more for a product where I know it has fewer chemicals and it has been produced in a more environmentally friendly way.” (6)

“I buy organic products because there is less PCB.” (15)

The respondents that were put in the label Reaction had a much more muted view on this element and no real patterns were seen.

“It must be better right.” (9) “I think eco is better.” (7)

4.2.2.2. Consumers with Moderate buying intentions

No one is this group (50+), considered the Nature aspect to be Important, they were split between Indifferent and Reaction. Respondents 2, 3, and 10 mentioned that organic alternatives are better because they put fewer chemicals in the ground.

“I buy some organic products because I believe it puts less stress on nature so that it does not have to deal with as many chemicals.” (10)

Respondent 1 and 3 mentioned negatives inherent in organic farming.

“Organic farming takes up so much more area to produce the same amount of food.” (1)

“I believe that even though it is produced organically, toxins are still put in the ground, you will use more diesel and have to process the soil differently and more time.” (3)

4.2.2.3. Consumers with Weak buying intentions

The only worthwhile trend to mention here is that all three in this group stated that organic alternatives lead to better animal health.

“I purchase organic makeup because it has not been tested on animals.”(11) “I buy eggs from free walking chickens, it just feels nicer you know.” (12)

Describing the purchasing intention: For Swedish consumers regarding organic products