Predicting sustainable food consumption across borders based on the theory of planned behavior: A meta-analytic structural equation model

Abstract

Interest in sustainable food consumption has gradually increased over the previous third decades. Despite substantial studies addressing various topics connected to sustainable food consumption, little research systematically evaluates which factors influence consumers’ purchase of sustainable food. We aim to integrate preliminary findings, compare four original and extended models of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) in the context of sustainable food consumption, and identify measurement and situational moderators using a meta-analytic structural equation modeling approach. The results show that attitude (ATT), subjective norms (SN), and perceived behavioral control (PBC) were most strongly positively correlated with a purchase intention (PI) of sustainable food. Furthermore, the analysis of the moderating effects revealed significant differences in the relationship between PBC and purchase behavior (PB) and between SN and PI in developing and developed countries. In addition, by comparing four original and extended TPB models, this study proposes a theoretical framework to affect customers’ PI of sustainable food. The findings of this study can be used as a foundation for company marketing and government environmental protection promotion.