UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN FINLAND Faculty of Social Sciences and Business Studies Business School
PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS DRIVING ONLINE PURCHASE INTENTION AN ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL COMMERCE ON ORGANIC FOODS CONSUMPTION
INTENTION
Master’s Thesis, Service Management Kim Cuong Thi, Vo (277176)
16th April 2019
Faculty
Faculty of Social Sciences and Business Studies
Department
Department of Business Author
Kim Cuong Thi, Vo
Supervisor
Tommi Laukkanen Title
Psychological factors driving online purchase intention – An analysis of social commerce organic foods consumption intention.
Main subject
Service Management
Level
Master’s Thesis
Date 16.05.2019
Number of pages 77 + 4
Abstract
This thesis aims to identify and analyze potential Vietnamese consumers’ perceptions toward purchasing organic foods on social commerce. The Theory of planned behaviour was applied and integrated with other behavioural theories to build an extended model predicting purchase intention on social commerce.
Quantitative data were collected from 385 responses through a self-administered structured questionnaire online and offline. In total, 261 qualified responses were analyzed using frequencies, descriptive statistics and Partial least squares structural equation modeling.
Empirical findings showed that Vietnamese consumers’ intention to purchase organic foods on social commerce was linked positively to attitude toward the behaviour and subjective norms. Consumers’ perceived information usefulness and perceived consequences were found indirectly affecting the intention to use social commerce for organic foods shopping.
Nevertheless, the intention to purchase organic foods on social commerce were not affected by perceived behavioural control.
This study lacks the qualitative depth and the employed sample were largely focus on Ho Chi Minh city area, therefore, the sampling technique to collected responses may impact external validity. The findings can benefit organic foods retailers in Vietnam to develop appropriate online sales and marketing strategies by attracting consumers awareness on social media networks.
The results of this study proved how social media can affect the development of organic foods growing market and promote online purchasing. The predicted power of the research model shows the insight into the relationship of information usefulness, behaviour consequences, and other psychological constructs to organic foods purchase intention, that have not yet extensive studied on social commerce environment in Vietnam.
Key words:
Purchase intention, organic food, social commerce, Facebook
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ... 6
1.1. RESEARCH BACKGROUND: ... 6
1.1.1. Social commerce (s-commerce): ... 6
1.1.2. SMPs establishing new way to study consumers’ behaviour: ... 7
1.1.3. S-commerce influences on Vietnamese market: ... 8
1.1.4. Consumer perceptions of organic foods: ... 9
1.2. KEY CONCEPTS: ... 12
1.3. RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: ... 12
1.4. RESEARCH APPROACH AND CONTEXT: ... 13
1.5. STRUCTURE OF THE STUDY ... 13
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ... 15
2.1. THEORY OF PLANNED BEHAVIOUR: ... 15
2.2. FOOD PRODUCT’S DIMENSIONS AND THEIR ASSOCIATED CHARACTERISTICS WITH RESEARCH MODEL: ... 18
2.3. THE RESEARCH MODEL AND HYPOTHESES DEVELOPMENT: ... 19
2.3.1. Conceptual model: ... 19
2.3.2. Perceived usefulness of social media information: ... 20
2.3.3. Perceived consequences: ... 23
2.3.4. Attitude toward intention to purchase: ... 25
2.3.5. Subjective norms (SN): ... 27
2.3.6. Perceived behavioural control (PBC): ... 29
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND DATA ANALYSIS ... 32
2.1. STUDY STRUCTURE: ... 32
2.2. QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN: ... 33
2.3. SAMPLE AND DATA COLLECTION: ... 38
2.3.1. Data collection procedure and results: ... 38
2.3.2. Study sample: ... 39
2.4. RESEARCH METHOD: ... 40
2.4.1. Partial least square – Structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) ... 40
2.4.2. Part 1: Measurement model evaluation. ... 41
2.4.3. Part 2: Structural model evaluation: ... 43
CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND FINDINGS ... 48
4.1. BACKGROUND INFORMATION: ... 48
4.2. DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS: ... 51
4.3. REFLECTIVE MEASUREMENT MODEL ASSESSMENT: ... 53
4.4. STRUCTURAL MODEL ASSESSMENT: ... 55
4.5. MEDIATING ANALYSIS: ... 61
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS ... 63
5.1. THEORETICAL CONCLUSION: ... 63
5.2. MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS AND LIMITATIONS OF THE RESEARCH: ... 65
REFERENCE ... 68
List of figures
FIGURE 1:THE MOST ACTIVE SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS IN VIETNAM 2018(WEARESOCIAL
2018). ... 9
FIGURE 2:THEORY OF PLANNED BEHAVIOUR AND BACKGROUND FACTORS (IAJZEN 2005,135) ... 17
FIGURE 3:THE PROPOSED RESEARCH MODEL ... 31
FIGURE 4:PATH MODEL COEFFICIENTS ... 57
List of tables TABLE 1:HYPOTHESES MEASUREMENT ... 32
TABLE 2:SUMMARY OF MEASUREMENT ITEMS ... 35
TABLE 3:RESPONDENTS BACKGROUND INFORMATION ... 48
TABLE 4:PURCHASING FREQUENCY ... 49
TABLE 5:LOCATION ... 50
TABLE 6:ORGANIC FOODS MONTHLY SPENDING ... 50
TABLE 7:WHICH SOCIAL NETWORK(S) ARE YOU CURRENTLY PARTICIPATING? ... 51
TABLE 8:DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS ... 52
TABLE 9:OUTER LOADINGS &CROSS LOADINGS ANALYSIS ... 53
TABLE 10:CRONBACH’S ALPHA AND COMPOSITE RELIABILITY. ... 54
TABLE 11:HETEROTRAIT-MONOTRAIT RATIO (HTMT) ... 55
TABLE 12:MODEL FIT ... 55
TABLE 13:INNER VARIANCE INFLATION FACTOR (VIF) VALUES. ... 56
TABLE 14:PATH COEFFICIENTS RELATIONSHIPS ... 57
TABLE 15:R-SQUARE VALUES ... 59
TABLE 16:EFFECT SIZES F-SQUARE FOR THE DIRECT PATHS ... 60
TABLE 17:BLINDFOLDING RESULTS ... 61
TABLE 18:SIGNIFICANT ANALYSIS OF TOTAL DIRECT AND INDIRECT EFFECTS ... 61
TABLE 19:SPECIFIC INDIRECT EFFECTS ... 62
Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1. Research background:
1.1.1. Social commerce (s-commerce):
In a new era of Web 2.0 and social media platforms (SMPs) that advanced by Internet technology, business shifts from shop-centric model with locally brick-and-mortar stores to customer-centric model with virtual stores via Internet, changing the focus from geographical identity to global identity (KPMG International 2017). This phenomenon drives many companies to establish their virtual stores in order to attract more customers (Chen, Hsu, and Lin 2010, 1007). According to a PWC/SAP report, 73 per cent of companies in the retail sector use websites to generate sales (PWC 2017), showing that Electronic commerce (e-commerce) has become a major trend (T.-P. Liang and Lai 2002, 431), causing changes of consumer’s buying process and purchase intention (Frutos, Giones, and Miralles 2014, 1). The business activities in Internet expand from websites to social media, establish the new sub-concept of e- commerce: social commerce (s-commerce). S-commerce concept has been identified in different contexts depending on their applications, such as advertising, and consumer relationship management (Alalwan et al. 2017, 1181). As an indispensable part of e-commerce, social media platforms (SMPs) such as Facebook, YouTube, etc. have steadily developed their influence on online business world (Kim and Kim 2018, 38).
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn (SMPs) have rapidly become imperative channels for global marketing communications, occupying great interest of company leaders and academic researchers (Duffett 2015, 499). SMPs stands out as publication or the presence of online environment, they enhance the interaction between social networks, blogs, internet websites, forums and wikis (Akman and Mishra 2017, 356). While e-commerce develops as a very broad term currently, this study wants to focus on new arising of SMPs and their impacts on consumer purchasing behaviours.
Social commerce impacts to interaction between companies and customers:
Containing different application dimensions, previous papers had indicated the importance of social media (SM) as the e-commerce sites by enhancing two-way interaction between companies and their customers therefore strengthening the attachment between customers and
brands, supporting information search, interactivity, promotion, and affecting consumer buying behaviour (Alalwan et al. 2017, 1182–83). More specifically, SMPs establish interaction at personal level between seller and buyer (Alalwan et al. 2017, 1183) Individuals can express attitudes, showing personal opinions toward a concerned product or service by writing reviews, enabling the awareness for communication and information search of other users that shopping for desired products (Elwalda, Lü, and Ali 2016, 306).
SMPs are among the rich sources of information for consumers references when it comes to purchase decision. The online interaction between companies and their customers combined with available information (reviews, posts, comments about products, products descriptions, etc.) has enhanced effective electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), directly influenced consumers’ decision, and created enormous opportunity for marketing planners (Oliveira, Huertas, and Lin 2016; Duffett 2015). The users’ views, opinion, feedbacks and so forth that left in social media sites significantly predict behaviour and perception of consumers (Alalwan et al. 2017, 1183).
1.1.2. SMPs establishing new way to study consumers’ behaviour:
The complex of human performance behaviour is difficult to capture despite the investment efforts in technology therefore affecting to business result (Carroll 2002, 225). The study of Carroll (2002, 228) recommended that instead of altering human behaviour, organizations should concentrate on developing a comprehensive understanding of their online consumers behaviours in order to design the online business model that reflects those behaviours and fulfils their customer’s needs. These knowledges may also hold the potential for predicting the future behaviour (Carroll 2002, 228).
Understanding of consumer’s needs is crucial to achieve expected business performance (Gudigantala, Bicen, and Eom 2016, 84; Gerrikagoitia et al. 2015, 75). In virtual environment, s-commerce establishes new opportunity for getting insights of potential customers by combining e-commerce with collaborative functions of SM. More specifically, the interaction via SMPs supports purchase decision while platform technology service, virtual information/relationships strongly affect purchase intention (Duffett 2015, 503; Bai, Yao, and Dou 2015).
Furthermore, SMPs reveal the opportunity to investigate consumers purchase intention and behaviour on the Internet through the interaction, as well as economic and psychological incentives (Darley, Blankson, and Luethge 2010, 109). For example, SM platforms assisting online communication at personal level between firms and customers, enable products or services distribution in lower prices and develop consumers loyalty, being ideal environment for studying purchase intention of specific product or service (Bai, Yao, and Dou 2015; Duffett 2015).
As an example, Facebook is the most widely used Internet platform for social and marketing communication (Di Pietro and Pantano 2012, 18–19), accounting for 85% transactions in social commerce (Duffett 2015, 500). According to Global social media research summary for 2018 of Smart Insight, Facebook has the largest number of active users (2 billion) globally (Chaffey 2018). It means that Facebook has a majority market share compared to 1.5 billion active users of YouTube and 1.3 billion users of WhatsApp, the second and third largest social networks in the world respectively (Chaffey 2018). Making this channel far more popular among Internet users than other platforms such as Twitter or Instagram (Fredrickson 2017). The SMP tools (rating, review, referrals, sharing shopping activities, product/services discussion forums and communities, etc.) effectively connect brands with consumers (Shin 2013). For instance, empirical research showed a significant proportion of consumers (20%) connected to brands through Facebook for receiving discounts (Shin 2013, 52).
Previous study predicted that s-commerce will become the mainstream of the next e-commerce wave (Shin 2013, 52), however, s-commerce industry also faces the challenge of service design that satisfying consumers’ needs, therefore by understanding the motive and influenced factors that related to consumer purchase intention, marketers and managers can accurately plan their s-commerce strategies that best fit for the business.
1.1.3. S-commerce influences on Vietnamese market:
Vietnam is the country with young population (median age is 30,9 years old) who spend averagely more than two hours daily to surf social media (Wearesocial 2018). Vietnam is rank 16th among the top 20countries that have Internet users with 38 million social network users (VNS 2017). According to Financial Times, Vietnam has 35 million digital consumers which increase 63% in the period 2016 – 2017 (Reed 2018).The most active SMPs in Vietnam is Facebook (51%), following are YouTube, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn (Wearesocial 2018).
Figure 1:The most active social media platforms in Vietnam 2018 (Wearesocial 2018).
The number of consumers engaging with firms through their websites and SMPs has grown, small retailers starting to establish their virtual stores on SMPs and receiving high awareness from local consumers (Dat 2018). The market research of the 620 Vietnamese indicated that Facebook, Zalo and Instagram are the most popular social media, including for online shopping (43% respondents indicated shopping on Facebook, and 18% mentioned Instagram) (Kengo 2018). Indeed, SMPs obviously have great potential in leveraging e-commerce in a developing market like Vietnam, by expanding the consumer market from physical to virtual, enhancing communication and user interaction in real time, improving interactive social collaboration, and last but not least, influencing purchase intention and behaviour (Leong, Jaafar, and Ainin 2018, 160).
1.1.4. Consumer perceptions of organic foods:
Food quality and safety have received increasing attention from consumers in Vietnam nowadays. Recent concerns about food safety issues are reported including poor cultivation practices, pesticides are overused and misused, the use of contaminated water and fertilizer soil (My et al. 2017; Le Quynh Chau et al. 2014) leading for the needs of a sustainable agricultural and consumption system. Meanwhile, green consumption in Vietnam has not received a precise
awareness, but with the prospect of a young population, the country is still a potential market for green products such as organic foods agriculture (Nga 2017).
Prior literature has suggested that the ‘regular consumers of organic food’ perceived their consumption habit as ‘a way of life’ due to their ideology value system related to personality measures, attitudes, and consumption behaviour (Hughner et al. 2007, 96). As suggested in Hughner et al. (2007) synthesized study, the main research themes of organic foods consumption are health, food safety, environmental protection, animal welfare, local community supporting; on the contrary, the reasons make consumers resist to consume organic foods are mainly high price, product availability. Hughner et al. (2007) indicated that the consumer’s motive of purchasing organic products of prior research can be classified into nine topics. They are:
• Health: considered to be the primary reason consumer purchase behaviour. This motive bases on the belief that organic foods are more nutritious, as well as the chemical substances in conventional food held different long-term and unknown effects on health.
• Better tastes: basing on the assumption that because organic foods are more expensive than conventional food, so that it has higher quality and better taste.
• Environmental concern: the attitude toward purchasing organic foods are affected by the notion of chemical substances that used in conventional food is harmful for the environment. However, this concern is not a critical element that driving customer purchase as the perception of ‘good health’ and ‘better taste’.
• Food safety: food concerns are the cause that forms the perception that organic farming methods are safer than the conventional farming methods, hence, food safety is one of the reasons influence the purchase decision of consumers.
• Animal welfare: the expectation of better animal welfare motivates consumer to buy organic product, is identified in prior research. The concern is multileveled construct and relates to the nutritional and social concern elements.
• Supporting local economy and helping the sustainable traditional cooking: the belief of supporting local business is also a motivation of consumers because they believe that organic foods are produced locally by small and family-owned farms.
The other reasons are less popular or requiring more empirical study to explain the effects on intention to purchase, including beliefs that organic foods are wholesome, fashionable, curiosity, or the relation of the past.
The perceptions of consumers are influenced by their needs, values and expectations so that some factors such as culture, living environment, knowledge can influence on the perceptions of purchasing organic foods in different ways (Truong, Yap, and Ineson 2012, 532).
Considering “price” as an example, consumers usually perceive that organic foods have higher price than conventional foods, this notion can be the main obstacle that affects the willingness to purchase despite the fact that high price acceptance level will increase when consumer’s reference of organic and conventional products are provide (Hughner et al. 2007; Soler, Gil, and Sánchez 2002).
Organic foods market arises and grows continuously during the years despite the economic downturn (Nasir and Karakaya 2014, 263). This segment expands widely from all over the world from Europe to Asian and other continents in which Germany, France, Denmark are the biggest consumption market of organic foods (Nasir and Karakaya 2014, 263), but Asian region occupies a low volume of organic food sales globally (only 6%) (Scarttergood 2017). According to Scarttergood (2017) on foodnavigator-asia.com, organic food consumption in Asian countries such as China is not driving by the consumers’ trust in the products’ benefits but the food safety fears. In recent years, there are surging concerns about toxic substances on food, increasing demand of food safety, as well as individual physical and mental health consciousness (A. R.-D. Liang 2014, 587).
Comparing to organic foods market in Europe or North America, Vietnamese organic foods market is immature. The most common issue is the availability of distribution channels, consumers hardly recognize the organic foods distributed on the own shelves in Vietnamese supermarkets (Scarttergood 2017). However, Vietnamese consumers are more aware of the existing of products with organic certifications comparing to the past, due to the highly concerns of the safety of foods which relating to promoting healthiness as well as the sustainable of production and society (Truong, Yap, and Ineson 2012, 535).
1.2. Key concepts:
• Behaviour: defined as observable events that mean they must take place in a certain context and at a given point in time and most of them are directed at some target. So that behaviour is the combination of four factors including the performed action, the target of the action, the context that the action is conducted, and the time that the action is performed (Fishbein and Ajzen 2010, 29).
• Social commerce (s-commerce): is subset of ecommerce includes activities and transactions that delivered via social media environment (Hajli et al. 2017, 134). It is the combination of social media practices and Web 2.0 technologies that become popular tools to socialize and share commercial related-information (Lin, Li, and Wang 2017, 190).
• Social media: there are challenges to conceptualize “social media” due to the speed of related technology which is expanding and evolving a wide range of device types in the activities, as well as facilitating the various form of online communication (Obar and Wildman 2015). For a simple concept, social media are online media which support social interaction and user contribution, and assist in the online buying and sell of products and services (Shin 2013, 52).
• Facebook: is a social networking site found in 2004 which users can create profiles featuring personal information, interests, photos, etc., and can connect with other users as ‘friend’ or connect with a variety of activities (Smith, Fischer, and Yongjian 2012, 103).
1.3. Research objective:
With regards to the background of the development of s-commerce and organic foods sectors, this thesis would like to investigate how psychological incentives drive consumers to purchase organic foods via s-commerce environment. The insights of online shopper’s behavioural intention on s-commerce and the influences of organic foods characteristics are explored. The paper employs the most widely used behavioural theory - the Theory of Planned behaviour (TPB) (I Ajzen 2005) and its extended theoretical variables to investigate Vietnamese purchase intentions on organic foods via s-commerce. The empirical research is conducted from the consumer’s perspective collecting through self-administered online survey, which is distributed in the largest city in Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh city. Therefore, the research question is established as follow:
• How do psychological incentives influence consumers purchase intentions of organic foods in social commerce?
In addition, there are sub-questions which will help to answer the main question:
• What are the main factors that associated with consumers’ intention to shop via social commerce sites?
• How these factors influence Vietnamese consumers’ purchase intentions via social media platforms?
1.4. Research approach and context:
In order to investigate organic foods purchasing intention of Vietnamese customers on s- commerce, this paper takes a closer examination at the current consumer behaviour literatures, social commerce literatures and a practical context of organic foods market in Vietnam to enhance the knowledge of online shopping toward organic foods products. The results therefore should also provide the valuable empirical evidence for social marketers and organic firms that can possibly develop effective strategies leading to success of virtual sales of this commodity.
The research framework bases on previous insights of online purchase behaviour utilized on TPB (I Ajzen 2005) with references to its extended models combining with the research on Vietnamese organic foods consumption behaviour. Quantitative approach is naturally for this study in identifying and exploring the key determinants of buying intentions of consumers in Vietnam.
The study investigates Vietnamese consumers who participate in social commerce as a market place for organic foods shopping. It means that the respondent is naturally a members of a social media network (particularly on Facebook, Instagram, Zalo, or Viber), and being a potential online shopping consumer. Consequently, the study utilizes the advantages of the largest social networks used by Vietnamese people to identify the impact of online social communities to organic foods market. It is inevitable that studies about online consumer behaviour are rich, but due to the knowledge of this current study on purchase intention, the investigate of Vietnamese consumers in s-commerce on organic foods is not yet explored.
1.5. Structure of the study
This paper is structured as follow. The first section is the background and reasons for conducting the research (Introduction). Second section is the review of theoretical literatures
including Theory of planned behaviour, other extended studies related to online consumers purchase intention and organic foods commerce. In this section, the theoretical foundation to build the research models are discussed.
Third section is the research methodology and data analysis description. In the fourth section, the results of empirical study are presented and theoretical conclusion, implications, evaluation of reliability and validity. Finally, the managerial contribution, limitation and future application will be presented.
Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
2.1. Theory of planned behaviour:
Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) (I Ajzen 2005) is the most applied social-psychological model that utilized for consumer intention and behaviour research. It received both successful employing and criticizing from a variety of published papers. According to Armitage and Conner (2001, 471) report on broad meta-analytic, the TPB predictors account for 27% and 39% variance of behaviour and intention respectively. TPB is extended from Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) which designed by Ajzen and Fishbein to examine the volitional behaviour and related to causal antecedents’ intentions to perform behaviour (I Ajzen 2005). A variety of research that applied TPB evidence that behavioural intentions are good predictor of respective behaviours, but in fact it does not provide many information about the causes of the behaviour (I Ajzen 2005). In the TPB, the roots of the behavioural intention and actual behaviour are theorized as beliefs that are discussed below.
The central focus of TPB is that an individual’s intents to perform a given behaviour (George 2004, 199), hence, “A person’s intention to perform (or not to perform) a behaviour is the most important immediate determinant of that action” (I Ajzen 2005). Ajzen (2005, 117) explains that human being behave in a sensible manner, he or she implicitly or explicitly considers the available information to make judgments for different actions. Acting as the motive of behaviour intentions of actual behaviour is influenced by three determinants: attitude toward behaviour, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control (Song and Zahedi 2005, 1220;
I Ajzen 2005, 117–26). Before that, the predictor “attitudes” has not been considered as a predictor of behaviour until social psychologists develop integrated models of behaviour with additional determinants (e.g. social norms, or intentions) (Armitage and Conner 2001, 471).
The determinants can be shortly explained as below:
• Attitudes toward the behaviour (attitude) stand for personal attitude of the individual’s positive or negative evaluation to perform the behaviour of interest.
• Subjective norms (SN) are personal perception of social pressure to perform (or not perform) the behaviour under consideration.
• Perceived behavioural control (PBC) is the sense of self-efficacy or ability to perform the behaviour of interest.
Being the most applied psychological theory on online consumer behaviour (I Ajzen 2005;
Armitage and Conner 2001, 471; Cheung, Chan, and Limayem 2005, 4), TPB is widely utilized to test consumers’ intentions and actual behaviour in Internet shopping. For instance, the theory is applied to research on willingness to buy grocery online (Hansen, Møller Jensen, and Stubbe Solgaard 2004), the influence of trustworthiness factors in intention toward online shopping behaviour (George 2004, 199). Besides, TPB is extended to examine specific case such as the influence of Facebook advertisings that visible on new feeds or wall posting to intention to purchase weight-lost product online (Raghupathi and Fogel 2013), or the online purchasing intention towards organic foods that associated with different lifestyle (A. R.-D. Liang 2014), or the importance of trust in Thai consumers’ perceptions toward green products (Nuttavuthisit and Thøgersen 2017).
According to TPB, personal beliefs provide the cognitive ground for behaviour, they are the reasons why people hold certain attitudes, subjective norms, PBC and why they conduct the behaviour in question (I Ajzen 2005, 137). Personal beliefs are classified as behavioural beliefs, normative beliefs, and control beliefs supporting the three TPB antecedents (Figure 2).
Attitudes toward behaviour are functioned by behavioural beliefs that relates to predict outcomes, or other possible attributes such as the cost which properly occurs when behaviour is conducted. Subjective norms are influenced under the vital normative beliefs that closely related to the influences of “general social pressures” that come from certain individuals or groups who given the motivation or discourage the behaviour performance. PBC are functioned by the control beliefs related to specific factors of power that causing the supports or preventions of the performance (Armitage and Conner 2001, 474; I Ajzen 2005, 137).
Each of the determinants of TPB has different influences on behavioural intention and actual behaviour depends on existing relevance beliefs of the individuals. For instance, Armitage and Conner (2001, 478) determine that subjective norms in TRA is considered the weakest predictors in different research and deliberately removed from some analysis. Indeed, the influences of both attitude and subjective norms on intention are varied, depends on the individual. It is because different individual has different social environment and cognitive beliefs that are possibly related to or influenced by different variables that connected to his or
her attitude or (/and) social norms. These variables can be age, gender, ethnicity, socio- economic status, education, nationality, religious affiliation, personality, mood, emotion, general attitudes and values, intelligence, group membership, past experiences, exposure to information, social support, coping skills, and so forth (I Ajzen 2005, 135). So that the effects of psychological incentives of TPB may have different research results depend on research context and measurement methods.
Although TPB creates the framework for investigating the psychology aspects of the human behaviour, it does not specify any particular beliefs that related to particular behaviour, hence different research needs to indicate the related beliefs (George 2004, 200). Armitage and Conner (2001, 475) suggest that TPB is adapted to predict the behaviours and intentions in a wide range of contexts.
Figure 2:Theory of Planned Behaviour and background factors (I Ajzen 2005, 135)
To conclude, the individual performance of particular behaviour is determined by that person intent to conduct the behaviour. That behaviour is more likely to conduct when the results are believed achievable (Armitage and Conner 2001, 472) which depends on individual positive or
negative evaluation of the behaviour (George 2004, 199). Predicting degree of TPB determinants can link to personal beliefs, expected outcomes, the consequences of the behaviour, or link to some other determinants such as cost of performing the behaviour (I Ajzen 2005, 123) therefore the utilization of those factors to figure out the individual’ judgment to perform the behaviour is important. With regards to the study context, food shopping via Internet is a “voluntary individual behaviour” that can be investigated by behavioural theories like TRA and TPB (Limayem, Khalifa, and Frini 2000, 423), as a result, the TPB incentives and other possible extended constructs are ideal for this paper’s structure.
2.2. Food product’s dimensions and their associated characteristics with research model:
Regarding to Grunert and Ramus (2005, 381), Internet can facilitate transactions among all kind of products including food, hence, Internet is lifting food industry to significant success and increasing high awareness of consumers to purchase food via online stores. It is because consumers’ favorited shopping process is largely defined by product characters relating to information adopted and personal alternatives evaluation. In Vietnam, the e-commerce penetration (the total online purchase against total population) is promising (35% in January 2018) with 46 million active SMPs users (Wearesocial 2018). Consequently, the success via online channels become closely related to the core characters of food stuff which are critical for the possibility of selling this kind of commodity via online channels (Grunert and Ramus 2005, 385).
Classified as “convenience goods”, food in general is habitually and jointly purchased (Grunert and Ramus 2005, 384). Consequently, a food shopping trip contains limited efforts of consumers who normally would prefer to purchase several products at once, or the behaviour is habitual implementation. Meanwhile, certain preferences for favorited food brands still be hold and influenced by the individual purchasing interests. These features define the degree of willing to perform the actual shopping behaviour, as well as the requirement of preference information that may occur when the shopping process starts. For implementing the process, considerable mental and physical efforts are required including the ability of interactivity (i.e.
helping in designing repeated shopping list), and logical capability (i.e. choosing over favorited brand or product) (Grunert and Ramus 2005, 384).
Furthermore, food stuffs are mainly marketed by their health benefits which are invisible to consumers, causing the requirement of precise explanation for purchasing decision (Grunert and Ramus 2005). This is critical factor in organic foods market due to the fact that characters of the products need to be clarified for increasing consumers awareness and driving their demand. The information can related to certified labelling, non-chemical production process, and animal welfare certified, etc.(Grunert and Ramus 2005, 384–85). More interestingly, the requirement for information is satisfied easier nowadays by search functions available on the Internet. Product information is needed for early adopters’ judgment about the product that within their criteria; or consumers with less knowledge to update their product benefit information (Park and Kim 2008, 400). Information available online is performed under different forms such as product descriptions, consumer reviews and comments. These are perceived as electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) and can comply with various consumer segment (Park and Kim 2008, 400). EWOM can create great impact to consumer’s choice therefore it is valuable to investigate the usefulness of information within social commerce and its impacts to consumer’s shopping habit.
The third factor that driven consumer to purchase for food online is convenience-added for home shopping activity. Grunert and Ramus (2005, 387–90) suggested that this element depends on consumers’ desire and ability to engage in Internet shopping, because there are different reasons for considering online shopping is convenience including saving time from not making the physical trip to grocery shops, avoid the heavy basket to carry home, home delivery service, ability to compare price between different sellers. These factors are associated with recognized consequences when the buying behaviour is performed by consumers.
2.3. The research model and hypotheses development:
2.3.1. Conceptual model:
As already discussed, the present research paper adopts the Theory of Planned Behaviour of Ajzen (2005) with the reference to other behavioural theories including Theory of Reasoned Action (Fishbein and Ajzen 2010) and Technology Acceptance Model (Davis 1989a) from previous published works. The study resulting in the model consist of TPB psychological intensives: attitude toward behaviour, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control extending with two new constructs: perceived information usefulness, and perceived consequences. The research positions to investigate various driven factors of Vietnamese
consumers in shopping for organic foods via s-commerce like Facebook and Zalo that significantly affect to this rising online shopping.
In other to clarify the psychological incentives relating to purchase intentions on social network communities specially for organic products, the literatures relating to online commerce of food, behavioural theories, in addition to social commerce were studied. It has to be noted that in the context of s-commerce, shoppers are also social network active users who already have certain experiences and skills to interact with the systems, and possibly enjoy shopping online.
Different research papers have applied and extended the TPB with satisfactory results on it predictive powers relating to Facebook network or social commerce in general (Cheung and Lee 2010; Shin 2013; Al-Debei, Al-Lozi, and Papazafeiropoulou 2013; Di Pietro and Pantano 2012; Akman and Mishra 2017). Besides, TPB are largely employed in food research via Internet environment (A. R.-D. Liang 2014; Raghupathi and Fogel 2013; Grunert and Ramus 2005; George 2004; Nuttavuthisit and Thøgersen 2017; Truong, Yap, and Ineson 2012) as well as research on intention and behaviour to use Facebook and the impact of this social network (Oliveira, Huertas, and Lin 2016; Duffett 2015; Al-Debei, Al-Lozi, and Papazafeiropoulou 2013).
The above mention literatures clearly have the strong evidences to support the objectives of this study. The combination between social commerce and organic foods consumption has created an interesting situation that how the bustling modern life can be in harmony with the values of self-responsibility for health, environmentalism of individuals.
2.3.2. Perceived usefulness of social media information:
Regarding to food and social network characteristics which have been discussed, information related to the products or services is crucial for online shopping. Grunert and Ramus (2005, 393) suggest that beliefs regarded to food shopping via Internet correlated with exposing to sequences of relevant information, conscious intentions toward the action, comprehensive existing knowledge and experiences that available in memory. Online consumers can adopt information relating to topics of organic foods by reviews, blogs of experts, basic knowledge from official websites and fan pages, or referring to other shoppers’ experiences and so on.
Specifically, empirical study showed that Vietnamese consumers are lacking of knowledge and understanding about organic food, production process regulation, and certification system,
causing the level of confident in consumption is low (Truong, Yap, and Ineson 2012; My et al.
2017). As a consequence, consumers normally search for products’ posts and reviews from other users in order to feel confidence about their decision before purchasing a product or service (Erkan and Evans 2016, 47).
Due to the society structure and tradition, Vietnameses usually establish their trust on the safety of foods at the vendor levels, they purchase foods from the acquainted vendors at traditional markets or outlets, and trust on the provided information from these vendors (Wertheim-Heck and Spaargaren 2016, 666). Although government authorities have established the national basic standard for organic products since 2006, but the regulation systems, policies for developing and monitoring the market, as well as quality certified system are not yet completed (Wertheim-Heck and Spaargaren 2016, 666). The certified symbols which normally showed on the package, relating to the labelling uncertainty when consumers have little or no confidence over the information that provided (Canavari et al. 2002, 226). Meanwhile, there are positive signs of the local market when demand for organic vegetables are rising, especially in high income families (Truong, Yap, and Ineson 2012, 537) and may be for other kinds of organic foods in the near future.
These existing concerns about safety foods and green products have led to the development of social media forums, which are especially important in information obtaining and influencing among “young dual income nuclear family households’, who have certain awareness of food safety and online shopping (Wertheim-Heck and Spaargaren 2016, 666). The certified organic for the food is critical information in virtual environment because consumers cannot technically distinguish conventional and organic foods without certified labels (Nuttavuthisit and Thøgersen 2017, 324). E-commerce and social commerce can be the solution, not only for providing information such as product descriptions, reviews, recommendations which posted by other users and organic foods experts but also becoming the new distribution channel.
Prior study revealed the closed relation between consumption habit and the possibility of organic foods online commerce (A. R.-D. Liang 2014). Through social commerce channels, consumers are connected, listened to, understood and engaged with other buyers as well as providers, that not only enhance the shopping experiences but also future purchase decision (Ng 2013, 609). For instance, Facebook, as the most popular SMPs, provides an ideal online environment for socialization between shoppers, increases the coherent information sources and
supports ability to buy, stimulates consumers in investigating further than just the provided contents, strengthens their choice, and satisfy their information needs (Di Pietro and Pantano 2012, 20–21). Communications such as recommendation, referrals, and conversations within the Facebook consumer networks lead to better decision marking therefore creating huge word- of-mouth marketing effects, social capital building and advocacy of brand (Leong, Jaafar, and Ainin 2018, 161). Especially, online reviews have been a source for obtaining information between users and from those opinions the evaluation of products or services are built. eWOM has become important information source that having the significant impact on the purchase behaviour (Lee, Park, and Han 2008, 341; Li et al. 2013, 103). Previous research on ecommerce via Website determines that providing feedback function lead to lower traffic but higher sales (Limayem, Khalifa, and Frini 2000, 422).
In academic research, the relationship between users reviews and purchase intention has been examined widely. For instance, recommendations posted by users is distinctive as they significant influence the potential consumers (Lee, Park, and Han 2008, 341; Yang, Sarathy, and Lee 2016, 67). Online product reviews are perceived as the endorsement of the previous user who willing to help and having experiences with the products or services (Li et al. 2013, 103). Negative reviews are indicated to have more effects to attitude on consumers than positive reviews, and caused less favorable attitude toward buying behaviour when the frequency of negative information is high (Yang, Sarathy, and Lee 2016, 67).
There are 50 billion comments posted on Facebook pages monthly and one-third (32%) of Facebook users interact with brands regularly (Osman 2018). Obviously, Facebook is a giant channel for information such as eWOM reach Internet users. According to See-To and Ho (2014, 188), eWOM can influence to consumers’ purchase intention in many different ways including direct impact, moderate by different trust’s aspects and moderate by value co-creation process. The online reviews, additionally, are showed significant effect on purchase intention of consumers who are both experts and novices (Park and Kim 2008, 406). Importantly, Grunert and Ramus (2005, 392) suggest that peer reviews play a crucial role in technology adoption and Internet shopping therefore they are an important determinant to study online selling of food.
Prior study show that attitude and purchase intention of users are learned between them through written messages and attitude toward information usefulness is positively affect purchase intention (Gunawan and Huarng 2015, 2238).
It is clearly that social commerce is not merely a market place but also the environment for consumers achieve concerned information about interested products and services, resulting in positively influence on intention to purchase as showed in prior studies. The study of Larcker and Lessig (1980) had suggested the dimensions of perceived usefulness of information (perceived importance and perceived useableness) to empirically test the effect on decision making in information systems management. However, the empirical testing of internal consistency and construct validity needed further investigation (Larcker and Lessig 1980). Later study about Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) (Davis 1989a), ‘perceived usefulness’ was defined as representing for personal beliefs on particular system that possibly enhance that person’s performance. Consumers are relatively less knowledgeable so that they desire for information on benefits of product evaluation (Park and Kim 2008). In other studies, TAM had been merged Information Acceptance model to investigate the effects of online information to consumers’ purchase intention with a supported results (Erkan and Evans 2016), and to examine the impact of perceived information in traceable meat consumption behaviour (Buaprommee and Polyorat 2016).
With regards to the mentioned literatures about the impacts of information available on SMPs, and how usefulness of information in SMPs perceived by consumers, this thesis would like to extend the TPB with a new construct: perceived usefulness of information in social media, shortly is “perceived information usefulness”. Combined with the other factors of TPB, the study examines the effects of this construct to “attitude, subjective norms and perceived behaviour control”, and directly to PI. Consequently, the hypothesis is formed as follow:
H1a: Perceived information usefulness will positively affect attitude toward purchase intention in s-commerce for organic food.
H1b: Perceived information usefulness will positively affect subjective norms.
H1c: Perceived information usefulness will positively affect consumers’ PBC.
H1d: Perceived information usefulness positively affect intention to purchase organic products via s-commerce.
2.3.3. Perceived consequences:
Another added construct is borrowed from previous research of Limayem, Khalifa, and Frini (2000) about consumers behaviour of purchasing via Internet. Their study extended the TPB
with new psychological determinant “perceived consequences”, to investigate the specific consequences of online shopping that driving Internet users to perform their behaviour (Limayem, Khalifa, and Frini 2000, 423). Base on the study results, perceived consequences significantly affect both attitude and intention of Internet shopping, especially on attitude.
Relying on the hypothesis that presented in the study of Limayem, Khalifa, and Frini (2000),
“consequences” are the awareness of consumers about different factors such as the benefits of time saving, convenience shopping, risk of breach and privacy violation, customer care services, comparative prices, and products function. Different with TPB arguments that the consequences are completely mediated by attitude. Finding the possibility effect of individual acknowledgment on the behaviour consequences that consumers learn through shopping via social networks (Limayem, Khalifa, and Frini 2000).
The changing in family structure has led to the adoption of new shopping option including supermarket, 24/7 convenience stores, and online shopping. Even though traditional markets still play an important part in Vietnamese culture and daily life, the adaptation in shopping method is easy to recognized due to the transformation in household management structure (Wertheim-Heck and Spaargaren 2016). It is Vietnamese females who mainly shop for food, taking care of the family, handling household tasks in the past; nowadays they also participate in working force of the country. This modification results in the scarcity of time due to working hours during the weeks day, less time for food shopping than before, and the male are more involved in this shopping habit (rising from 5% to nearly 30% practitioners) (Wertheim-Heck and Spaargaren 2016, 667).
In addition, integrating online shopping with limited free time within the day is more likely possible for working female than travelling to physical venue for shopping foods daily as before; hence the physical shopping may be conducted only once or twice per week (Wertheim- Heck and Spaargaren 2016, 667). Beside time saving benefit, the tendency of ordering safe foods online among younger Vietnamese is expected to grow (Wertheim-Heck and Spaargaren 2016). A. R.-D. Liang (2014, 600) suggests that in order to promote the sales of organic foods online, consumers’ positive attitudes toward purchasing should be increased. Recent focus group research had suggested the convenience of shopping online such as always available at any time, the shopping is made without leaving home, and less stressful during rush hour (Ramus and Nielsen 2005, 340).
As a conclusion, effects of the consequences of transformations in Vietnamese household structure, food shopping options, market maturing, and food safety anxiety are admitted by consumers and potentially affected purchasing behavioural intention. These previous literatures enhance the understanding of primary factors that affect online shopping behaviour, however, the further study in new contexts are essential. Therefore, the factor “perceived consequences”
relation with purchase intention on organic foods as well as other TPB factors via s-commerce is proposed. The hypotheses are established as follow:
H2a: Perceived consequences will positively affect attitude toward purchase intention in s-commerce for organic food.
H2b: Perceived consequences will positively affect subjective norms.
H2c: Perceived consequences will positively affect consumers’ PBC.
H2d: Perceived consequences food will positive affect customer intention to purchase organic foods via s-commerce.
2.3.4. Attitude toward intention to purchase:
Attitude toward the behaviour has been indicated positively influences on behavioural intention (I Ajzen 2005; Al-Debei, Al-Lozi, and Papazafeiropoulou 2013). Attitude toward behaviour is conceptualized by personal perceived negative or positive value of the behaviour results (I Ajzen 2005). Indeed, attitude is evaluative in nature because its critical characteristic is “bipolar evaluative dimension”, containing the tendency of support or against the psychological object (Fishbein and Ajzen 2010, 76). This characteristic largely defines which measurement scale is suitable to apply for evaluating the predicting ability of attitude toward a behaviour. Fishbein and Ajzen (2010, 78) have indicated that beside the two dimensions of attitude relating to favor or disfavor, good or bad, like or dislike toward the concept, object or behaviour, researchers also identified the “effect” dimension that may influence attitude. This dimension largely related to mood adjective or emotion inventories.
To investigate this incentive, prior published papers have evidenced that attitude has strong capable to predict purchase intention in virtual world. The general idea behind attitude toward purchasing organic foods via s-commerce assumes that participants are the network users therefore they have certain experience of with the systems and the marketplace available within.
Attitude in this research context refers to the evaluation of consumers who simultaneously participating in SMPs, knowing and using the SMPs shopping features.
An instance is the study on online grocery buying intention, attitude was the most significant predictor (Hansen, Møller Jensen, and Stubbe Solgaard 2004, 546–47). In the study of purchasing behaviour on organic foods online, there are important characteristics including communication, attitudes (Hansen, Møller Jensen, and Stubbe Solgaard 2004), and information explanation (Grunert and Ramus 2005). Among those factors, attitude has been evidenced strong influence on consumers purchase behaviour regards to organic product (Maloney et al.
2014, 312).
On the other hand, attitude is a hypothetical construct that unable to analyze by direct observation but from measurable responses (Icek Ajzen 2011, 3). The willingness to purchase organic foods bases on different motives such as “healthy” and “wholesome” with the perceptions that the chemical substances from conventional food may hold the unwilling effects on health, or organic foods is more nutrition rich, as a result, health concern is a good predictor for attitude toward organic foods purchasing behaviour (Hughner et al. 2007, 101). The difference of attitude toward organic and conventional attribute has been the key impact of intention to purchase from brick-and-mortar shop to e-commerce (Hughner et al. 2007; Paul and Rana 2012) (A. R.-D. Liang 2014, 587–607); even so this factor influence in s-commerce towards purchase intention of organic foods needs further investigation.
Meanwhile, SMPs enable user’s communication with online communities through its social networking services, for this reason, users are more engaging to interact. Prior finding shows that s-commerce is perceived as both e-commerce channel and SMPs by consumers therefore it includes shopping, entertainment, education and information (Shin 2013, 59). In short, the positive attitude of consumers towards using SMPs and their commercial features hold the possibility to enhance food retailing, creating the new opportunity for organic products. The study on food shopping on the Internet are crucial for food sector (Grunert and Ramus 2005, 398) and there are limited research about organic foods purchase behaviour via s-commerce.
Consumers’ attitude toward purchase intention of organic products in the SMPs context was tested base on the perspective of prior literatures of organic foods online and online purchasing behaviour. The hypothesis is formed as follow.
H3: Attitude of shoppers toward social commerce will positively affect intention to purchase organic foods via the channel.
2.3.5. Subjective norms (SN):
The second determinant in the TPB - subjective norms - is functioned by the normative beliefs which related to particular individuals or groups, who may approve or disapprove the behavioural performance (I Ajzen 2005, 124–25). Subjective norms were found to have significant effect on individual’s behavioural intention and actual behaviour (Shin 2013, 61).
According to social impact theory, the level of importance and closed relationship of a group to an individual is associated with the likelihood of that individual performs in compliance with the group normative pressure (Akman and Mishra 2017, 364). The normative beliefs about referenced individuals’ opinion will create the subjective norms that put the pressure on the person to conduct or avoid the behaviour (I Ajzen 2005, 124).
The effects of SN on intention were identified with different level in previous empirical studies.
Prior research about Facebook intensive using showed that 83% respondents had the tendency to share their purchase information with friends on their social network, that leading to higher degree of purchase decision made (nearly 67% of them take purchase decision based on the recommendation) (Leong, Jaafar, and Ainin 2018, 161). The normative beliefs which related to other individuals, who “liked” the commercial Facebook page, a photo of item posted by other users, have exhibited directly influence on purchase intention although the result need further testing in a practical context (Leong, Jaafar, and Ainin 2018, 161). The effects of SN on both intention and behaviour are strongly demonstrated in the study results of Shin (2013, 62) about trust via social commerce. In contrast, SN shows a weak predicting powers in compared with the other predictors of TPB in the study of multi-interaction on Facebook (Al-Debei, Al-Lozi, and Papazafeiropoulou 2013, 46).
In s-commerce environment, SN was asserted to have high influence on intention to purchase.
In Shin (2013, 61) studies about the relationship between SN and other variables, the results demonstrated that SN had significant impacts on both intention and behaviour in s-commerce because the interaction in SMPs was not merely communication, it added values to products and services. Indeed, users who shops in SMPs are more exposed to significant others’
influences during their social interaction, resulting in the influential effects on their intentions
(Cheung and Lee 2010, 28). With regards to having the mediating role in s-commerce, shoppers may seek for the confirmation by other opinions before the final decision are made (Shin 2013, 60–61). It is suggested by empirical findings that SN as mediating and moderating variable is notable in s-commerce context thus SN was determined in different dimensions beside social and psychological pressures (Shin 2013, 61–64).
Food consumption is assumed influencing by the perception of important groups that related to that individual, evidencing that the SN is important determinant in prior study of individual purchase intention (A. R.-D. Liang 2014, 590). Foodstuffs are not only for hunger satisfaction but also represent for a communication instrument between individual and others, for that reason, the opinions of whom considered as important group to an individual may be referred and affect the intention to perform or not perform the behaviour (A. R.-D. Liang 2014, 588). It was suggested that when consumers have the intention to purchase organic foods online, the opinions of others that considered important to them are evaluated, and inter-related perceived behavioural control could positively affect their intention to implement the behaviours (A. R.- D. Liang 2014, 590).
S-commerce features generally have created a variety competitive advantages for organic firms such as the opportunities for small and medium size business to compete in the consumer market. In this field, Shin (2013, 62) study results asserted the crucial role of SN toward intention and behaviour on engaging with s-commerce systems. This finding is compliance with Cheung and Lee (2010, 27) statistical study results that SN is notably influence intention to use an online social networking site. Furthermore, Grunert and Ramus (2005, 392) suggest that intention of shopping for food via Internet was affected by peer views. These findings were the useful implication to strengthen the assumption that shoppers in SMPs are not simply shopping for their desired items but also exposing within their interaction with others, therefore their intention to buy organic foods is affected by significant others. In Facebook network, for example, individual have broadly connected with both important individuals that they interact in the network, and in physical world; and may be also with others from social community and experts of the field.
Regarding to the current situation in Vietnam, the volume of people participate in online shopping is increasing and being affected by the food safety assumptions, giving the opportunity for organic foods market segment. With different thinking and practices,
Vietnamese people desperate to figure out the way to improve the quality of their food because of variety of scandals of ago-chemical abuse and the low level of trust on the ability of local government to control the food safety standards (Wertheim-Heck and Spaargaren 2016, 663).
In big urban area like Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh, citizens develop their own gardens on rooftops and balconies and acquire cultivation knowledge, material by companies within SMPs (Wertheim-Heck and Spaargaren 2016). Through different user groups on SMPs, people exchange knowledge and information for their concerned topics. Obviously, online shopping is leveraged by this communication about safe foods and organic foods shopping via SM forums.
The “virtual kinship relationship” is establish and food safety claim relied on personalized trust rather than qualification certified officially (Wertheim-Heck and Spaargaren 2016).
Overall, s-commerce is a vital factor that creates certain influences on Vietnamese consumers’
perspectives about organic foods online trading. Notably, the SM forums relating to food safety and shopping venue stand for a kind of virtual important group to individual, and to a certain degree pressurize on that individual purchase intention. The reviews of previous literatures have strengthened the assumption that SN has significant impact on the motivation to purchase intention on organic products on s-commerce stores, especially as the findings of Shin (2013).
Hence, the following hypothesis is presented:
H4: Subjective norms will positively influence customer intention to purchase organic foods product via s-commerce.
2.3.6. Perceived behavioural control (PBC):
PBC is described to influence both intention and behaviour thus this factor would be able to predict behaviours which are not under complete volitional control (I Ajzen 2005, 125–26) but the expected influences of the factor vary across behaviour and contexts (Armitage and Conner 2001, 472). Ajzen (2005, 118–19) explains that PBC can be more important for some behaviour than for others and some intentions only need one or two factors while others need all factors of TPB critically. As representing for the possible effects of the ability to actually control the achievement of behavioural goals, PBC has the motivational implication for intention, and expected that PBC and intention is associated. The TPB assumes the behaviour does not solely depend on motivation to conduct the action but also the appropriated control over the behaviour.
PBC can influence behaviour directly due to consideration of proxy or partial substitute for
actual control measurement. PBC does not apply in all cases because the individual may have limited information about the behaviour, the changing of requirement and available resources, or new element interferes the situation. As a result, the broken arrow in Figure 2 shows that the connection between PBC and behaviour arise due to the agreement between the perceptions of control and the person’s actual control over the behaviour (I Ajzen 2005, 118–26).
Due to the assumption that three determinants of TPB are functioned by beliefs of the presence or absence of the elements, which encourage or discourage the performance, past experiences and other information sources of the behaviour. These information are observed from friends or acquaintances, possibly increasing or decreasing the difficulty level of performing the behaviour (I Ajzen 2005, 125). Therefore, the control beliefs relate to the perception of ability to conduct a behaviour of interest. Researcher can implement direct measures by asking people about beliefs of their capacity to do the behaviour.
In previous papers about online commerce, PBC had slightly or small effect on online grocery purchasing intention, this is differ from the result of Ajzen (2005) that PBC significantly improved the prediction of intentions (Hansen, Møller Jensen, and Stubbe Solgaard 2004, 547).
PBC also does not indicate significant effects on intention to purchase weight-lost product (Raghupathi and Fogel 2013, 208). Base on the meta-analysis of Armitage and Conner (2001, 487–88), the influence of PBC over behaviour of the prior empirical findings are both “weak and unreliable” so that more studies are required to examine thoroughly this construct. In contrast, the previous study results on information technology usage intention show strong influence from PBC (Al-Debei, Al-Lozi, and Papazafeiropoulou 2013, 46; Hajli et al. 2015, 235).
It is suggested that PBC is based on past experiences, individual preferences and second-hand information (Hajli et al. 2015, 235) lead to the impacts on intention and behaviour may vary due to the research context. For instance, there are factors such as consumers perceived organic foods has higher price than conventional food, the appearance is less attractive, the availability is unstable, and product range is limited, etc. may create negative effects to customers (Duffett 2015, 103; Zagata 2012, 86). In the case of Vietnamese consumers, the lacking knowledge on this kind of food could be a barrier. PBC in SMPs stand for how easy or difficult of the performance which associate with the beliefs of ease to shop and ability to shop without any obstacles (Alzahrani et al. 2017, 249).
It is expected that s-commerce users have more experiences with required resources, skills for self-confident and be able to shop on SMPs, with the assumption that consumers have a certain knowledge and awareness on organic products in general which lead to higher behavioural intention to shop for organic foods via s-commerce. Accordingly, the hypotheses were built as follow:
H5: PBC will positively affect on consumers’ purchase intention toward organic foods products via social commerce stores.
In conclusion, the proposed research model includes three principle hypothesized links of TPB integrate with the new links for exploring the effects of these construct to intention to purchase organic foods via s-commerce. The proposed model, as a result, is formulated and presented in Figure 3 base on the preceding discussions.
Figure 3:The proposed research model
Purchase intention Perceived
Information Usefulness Perceived
Consequences
Perceived Behavioural Control Subjective
Norms Attitude
H1d H1a
H1b H1c H2a
H2b
H2c
H2d
H3
H4
H5
Chapter 3: Research methodology and data analysis
2.1. Study structure:
Taking Facebook as an example for a popular social media platform which is also social marketplace for users, small merchandisers and companies to establish their identities in virtual world. With respect to Vietnamese social network users, there are competitive environment for online socializing such as Zalo Apps, or Instagram network. However, Facebook have the largest community (figure1) and Facebook has developed well-suited features to the study’s objectives. Therefore, the online research is implemented mainly through Facebook network to distribute online self-administered survey.
To validate the study instrument, a pilot test is utilized. First of all, the questionnaire was built in English basing on the prior literatures and translating into Vietnamese and reviewed by local marketers. In the pilot phase, the questionnaire was built by the web-based survey questionnaire Google Form and distributed by email to respondents to complete the questionnaire and comment for the length, the format, the applied scales, content, and wording of the item. The objective of the pilot phase was to test on real consumers about the questionnaire and identify the items that need to be modified such as wording, translation consistency, to ensure the valuable questionnaire were built. In the second phase, the questionnaire was widely shared on the Facebook wall of Organic foods community groups and Organic foods online shops with the supporting of these group’s admins. In the questionnaire distribution phase, due to the low response rate online, the printed surveys were also applied for data collection in order to achieve the larger sample size. In the Table 1, the hypotheses and their casual paths was presented.
Table 1: Hypotheses measurement
Hypothesis Cause Effect
H1a
Perceived information usefulness
Attitude toward Intention to purchase
H1b Subjective Norms
H1c Perceived behavioural control
