Consumers' purchase intention of wild freshwater fish in China from the perspective of ecological protection

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate consumers' purchase intention of wild freshwater fish. Facing the endangering ecology in the Yangtze River Basin, the Chinese government has implemented a ten-year fishing ban policy to protect the wild freshwater fishery resources from 2020. In this context, such questions are raised as how do consumers react to this and are they willing to reduce or even refuse to purchase wild freshwater fish to protect the aquatic biological resources in the Yangtze River Basin?

Design/methodology/approach

A total of 1,235 consumers from eight provinces (including two province-level municipalities) in the Yangtze River Basin filled out the online questionnaires. The data (n = 1,096) are analyzed by structural equation model (SEM) to verify the relationships between the variables.

Findings

The results show that subjective norm is the strongest direct determinant of purchase intention, followed by personal norm, attitude, environmental concern and perceived behavioral control. It is also found that attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control and environmental concern have significant effects on personal norm which plays a significant mediating role in forming purchase intention. On this basis, specific policy recommendations are proposed.

Originality/value

This paper investigates consumers' purchase intention from the perspective of ecological protection and obtains a more comprehensive explanation of the purchase intention by combining the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and theory of norm activation.

Citation

Chen, T. and Wang, H. (2022), "Consumers' purchase intention of wild freshwater fish in China from the perspective of ecological protection", British Food Journal, Vol. 124 No. 10, pp. 3308-3322. https://doi.org/10.1108/BFJ-05-2021-0596