Explaining Chinese Consumers' Green Food Purchase Intentions during the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Extended Theory of Planned Behaviour

Abstract

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has strongly influenced consumers' habits and behaviours, creating a more sustainable and healthier era of consumption. Hence, there is a potential for further expanding the green food sector in China. The theory of planned behaviour (TPB) is one widely used framework to explain consumers' food choices. Considering consumers' internal norms, their perceptions of green food attributes, and the shifting consumer behaviour, our study has extended the TPB framework (E-TPB) by adding constructs of moral attitude, health consciousness, and the impact of COVID-19 (IOC). The results of structural equation modelling among 360 functional samples revealed that the E-TPB model has a superior explanatory and predictive power, compared with the original TPB model regarding Chinese consumers' green food buying intentions in the current and post-pandemic periods. The path analysis demonstrated that attitude, perceived behavioural control, moral attitude, health consciousness, and IOC have significant positive effects on green food purchase intentions. However, the association between subjective norm and purchase intention varies within the TPB and E-TPB models, which showed a non-significant impact in E-TPB. These findings can generate more suitable managerial implications to promote green food consumption in China during the current and post-pandemic periods.

Keywords: COVID-19; Chinese consumer; E-TPB; TPB; green food; purchase intention.

Figure 1

Research model: the white blocks are variables in the standard TPB model; the grey blocks and the white blocks are variables in the E-TPB model; H1, Hypothesis 1; H2, Hypothesis 2; H3, Hypothesis 3; H4, Hypothesis 4; H5, Hypothesis 5; H6, Hypothesis 6; H7, Hypothesis 7.

Figure 2

The overview of responses (n = 360): X-axis, seven-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = somewhat disagree, 4 = neither agree nor disagree, 5 = somewhat agree, 6 = agree, 7 = strongly agree); Y-axis, number of responses; AT, attitude; SN, subjective norm; PBC, perceived behavioural control; MA, moral attitude; HC, health consciousness; IOC, impact of COVID-19; PI, purchase intention.