MRKT 640 Week 4 Research Project: Outline Example

Full-Sentence Outline: Why Organic Food Intentions Outrun Purchases, a Theory of Planned Behavior Paper

Title, Thesis and Research Questions

Working title: Saying Yes, Buying No: The Theory of Planned Behavior and the Purchase of Organic Food.

Thesis: The theory of planned behavior predicts consumers' intentions to buy organic food well, but explaining actual purchases requires adding moral and identity factors before intention and situational factors after it, which tells marketers where to intervene.

Research question 1: How well do attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control predict intentions to buy organic food?

Research question 2: Why do many consumers who intend to buy organic food fail to do so, and what can marketers do about it?

Outline

I. Introduction (1.5 pages). The paper will show that organic food is a demanding test of a cognitive model of consumer decisions.

• 1. Organic food draws favorable attitudes from many consumers, yet purchases remain a modest share of what households spend on food (Hughner et al., 2007).
• 2. The theory of planned behavior is the most widely used model for explaining such decisions, and it holds that intentions drive behavior (Ajzen, 1991).
• 3. Because the gap between favorable attitudes and actual buying is wide in this market, organic food shows both what the theory explains and where it falls short.
• 4. The section will close with the thesis and the two research questions.

II. The Theory and Its Record (2 pages). The theory's three predictors explain a large share of intention but a smaller share of behavior.

• 1. Ajzen (1991) sets out the three predictors, whether the act looks worthwhile, whether valued others favor it and whether it feels doable, and argues that intention plus felt control predicts what people do.
• 2. Pooling 185 studies, Armitage and Conner (2001) put the model's reach at roughly two fifths of intention and a little over a quarter of behavior, with norms the weakest of the three predictors.
• 3. Behavior measured by self-report was explained better than observed behavior, a warning that applies to most organic food studies (Armitage & Conner, 2001).
• 4. The section will connect the theory to the textbook's chapters on attitudes and on motivation, which treat beliefs and evaluations as the building blocks of attitude.

III. The Theory Applied to Organic Food (2.5 pages). Studies of organic food broadly confirm the theory's predictions of intention.

• 1. A meta-analytic model of organic food studies supports the theory's robustness in this domain (Scalco et al., 2017).
• 2. In Finland, subjective norms shaped intentions by way of attitudes rather than directly (Tarkiainen & Sundqvist, 2005).
• 3. Personality traits related to food moderated the links between attitudes and intentions in Taiwan (Chen, 2007), and the theory was only partly supported among young consumers in India (Yadav & Pathak, 2016).
• 4. Health, availability and education shaped attitudes in a survey of 463 consumers (Paul & Rana, 2012), and a later review set out an agenda for the field (Rana & Paul, 2017).
• 5. The section will end by noting that nearly all of these studies stop at intention or at self-reported buying, which leaves the second research question open.

IV. What the Standard Model Leaves Out Before Intention (2 pages). Moral concerns, emotions and self-identity add to the prediction of intention.

• 1. Moral and affective attitudes improved prediction in three European countries (Arvola et al., 2008) and for organic apples and pizza (Dean et al., 2008).
• 2. Self-identity as an organic consumer added prediction beyond past behavior (Dean et al., 2012), and ethical self-identity predicted attitude and intention (Michaelidou & Hassan, 2008).
• 3. Values such as universalism and benevolence lie behind these attitudes (Aertsens et al., 2009), which connects the section to the textbook's treatment of self-concept.
• 4. A short table will compare the added variables, the foods studied, the countries and the gain in explained intention reported by each study.

V. The Gap Between Intention and Purchase (2.5 pages). The largest weakness of the theory in this market lies after intention.

• 1. Intentions leave much of behavior unexplained, and habits weaken their effect on routine behavior (Sheeran, 2002).
• 2. The gap can begin even earlier, between attitude and intention, when consumers doubt that their choices matter or that products are available (Vermeir & Verbeke, 2006).
• 3. Implementation intentions, actual control and the shopping situation explain why ethically minded consumers do not follow through (Carrington et al., 2010).
• 4. Price, limited availability and doubts about labels act as barriers at the shelf even for consumers with favorable attitudes (Hughner et al., 2007).
• 5. The section will argue that perceived behavioral control, measured in surveys, often differs from the control a shopper actually has in a crowded store at the end of a working day.

VI. Implications for Marketers (2 pages). Marketers can act at each point where intentions are lost.

• 1. Messages built on safety, identity and moral meaning may strengthen intentions more than general health claims (Michaelidou & Hassan, 2008).
• 2. Shelf placement, availability and price promotions can raise actual control at the point of purchase (Paul & Rana, 2012).
• 3. Planning prompts, such as shopping lists in grocery apps, can turn intentions into implementation intentions (Carrington et al., 2010).
• 4. Occasional buyers, who hold favorable attitudes but buy rarely, are the segment with the most to gain, since committed buyers already act and indifferent consumers lack the intention.
• 5. A short biblical integration will argue that truthful claims about organic benefits honor customers, who should not be persuaded by fear.

VII. Conclusion (1 page). The conclusion will restate the thesis and draw the paper's answers together.

• 1. The answer to the first research question will be that the theory predicts organic food intentions well, especially through attitude.
• 2. The answer to the second will be that intentions are lost both before they form, through doubt and low availability, and after, through habit and the shopping situation.
• 3. The conclusion will name the most important gap for future research, the shortage of studies that observe purchases rather than self-reports.

Feedback Applied

Instructor feedback on the annotated bibliography asked the group to evaluate each source's method, not only summarize it, and to tie sources to sections. The outline responds by naming a source for every supporting point and by planning a comparison table in section IV. Two sources were added after feedback, Chen (2007) and Rana and Paul (2017), to strengthen the coverage of studies outside Europe and of recent reviews.

Total allotment: 13.5 pages, within the 10-to-15-page range. The group will also prepare a title page, an abstract of about 150 words and a reference page, none of which count toward the allotment. The final reference list is expected to grow beyond these 17 sources as the draft identifies gaps, particularly field studies that record actual purchases. Drafting assignments: sections I and VII, Member 1; II and III, Member 2; IV, Member 3; V, Member 4; VI and editing, Member 5.

References

Aertsens, J., Verbeke, W., Mondelaers, K., & Van Huylenbroeck, G. (2009). Personal determinants of organic food consumption: A review. British Food Journal, 111(10), 1140-1167. https://doi.org/10.1108/00070700910992961

Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50(2), 179-211. https://doi.org/10.1016/0749-5978(91)90020-T

Armitage, C. J., & Conner, M. (2001). Efficacy of the theory of planned behaviour: A meta-analytic review. British Journal of Social Psychology, 40(4), 471-499. https://doi.org/10.1348/014466601164939

Arvola, A., Vassallo, M., Dean, M., Lampila, P., Saba, A., Lähteenmäki, L., & Shepherd, R. (2008). Predicting intentions to purchase organic food: The role of affective and moral attitudes in the theory of planned behaviour. Appetite, 50(2-3), 443-454. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2007.09.010

Carrington, M. J., Neville, B. A., & Whitwell, G. J. (2010). Why ethical consumers don't walk their talk: Towards a framework for understanding the gap between the ethical purchase intentions and actual buying behaviour of ethically minded consumers. Journal of Business Ethics, 97(1), 139-158. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-010-0501-6

Chen, M.-F. (2007). Consumer attitudes and purchase intentions in relation to organic foods in Taiwan: Moderating effects of food-related personality traits. Food Quality and Preference, 18(7), 1008-1021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodqual.2007.04.004

Dean, M., Raats, M. M., & Shepherd, R. (2008). Moral concerns and consumer choice of fresh and processed organic foods. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 38(8), 2088-2107. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2008.00382.x

Dean, M., Raats, M. M., & Shepherd, R. (2012). The role of self-identity, past behavior, and their interaction in predicting intention to purchase fresh and processed organic food. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 42(3), 669-688. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2011.00796.x

Hughner, R. S., McDonagh, P., Prothero, A., Shultz, C. J., & Stanton, J. (2007). Who are organic food consumers? A compilation and review of why people purchase organic food. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 6(2-3), 94-110. https://doi.org/10.1002/cb.210

Michaelidou, N., & Hassan, L. M. (2008). The role of health consciousness, food safety concern and ethical identity on attitudes and intentions towards organic food. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 32(2), 163-170. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1470-6431.2007.00619.x

Paul, J., & Rana, J. (2012). Consumer behavior and purchase intention for organic food. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 29(6), 412-422. https://doi.org/10.1108/07363761211259223

Rana, J., & Paul, J. (2017). Consumer behavior and purchase intention for organic food: A review and research agenda. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 38, 157-165. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2017.06.004

Scalco, A., Noventa, S., Sartori, R., & Ceschi, A. (2017). Predicting organic food consumption: A meta-analytic structural equation model based on the theory of planned behavior. Appetite, 112, 235-248. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2017.02.007

Sheeran, P. (2002). Intention-behavior relations: A conceptual and empirical review. European Review of Social Psychology, 12(1), 1-36. https://doi.org/10.1080/14792772143000003

Tarkiainen, A., & Sundqvist, S. (2005). Subjective norms, attitudes and intentions of Finnish consumers in buying organic food. British Food Journal, 107(11), 808-822. https://doi.org/10.1108/00070700510629760

Vermeir, I., & Verbeke, W. (2006). Sustainable food consumption: Exploring the consumer "attitude-behavioral intention" gap. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 19(2), 169-194. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-005-5485-3

Yadav, R., & Pathak, G. S. (2016). Intention to purchase organic food among young consumers: Evidences from a developing nation. Appetite, 96, 122-128. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2015.09.017