Understanding the cross-cultural chicken consumers' behavior

Abstract

Concerns for human health and food safety are gaining momentum in emerging and developing nations as well as in food research due to the reputations that products have established over time. Understanding cross-cultural consumers' purchasing behaviour for chicken meat (CM) could provide valuable insights into the global food sector since it is the most consumed meat worldwide. This study examines the effect of buying features (BF), culture factors, behavioural attitudes (BA), subjective norms (SN) and perceived behavioural control (BC) on CM actual purchase behaviour (APB) in China and Sierra Leone. Primary data were sourced from 588 Chinese and 410 Sierra Leonean participants. We adopt structural equation modelling (SEM) to verify the model and test the associations between the variables. The SEM results confirm that BF, BA, SN and BC stimulate customers' intent and actual purchase of CM in both nations. The findings indicate that cultural factors (CF) significantly moderates the association between the independent constructs (BF, BA, SN and BC) and APB in Sierra Leonean markets. This study provides significant insights for chicken industry stakeholders that can help them increase CM sales along the supply chain via a marketing strategy focused on cultural and psychological factors.

Keywords

• buying features
• behavioural attitudes
• chicken meat
• cultural factors
• consumer behaviour