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Grounded in the theory of mental budgeting, this paper aims to investigate how the regret and perfectionism of exposition attendees influences their purchasing strategy.

This research collected on-site data at a well-established specialty food exposition in China. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were applied to test the proposed model.

The findings confirm the effect of psychological mechanism (regret and perfectionism) on exposition attendees’ purchasing strategy as one that boosts/impairs their confidence in purchasing healthy food at the exposition. Specifically, regret and perfectionism show differential contributions to purchasing strategy dimensions. Variety seeking has a positive effect, whereas price consciousness has a negative effect, on purchase confidence.

Event organizers and exhibitors should understand attendees’ consumption-related psychological mechanism and devise effective management and marketing strategies for optimal consumption experiences at expositions. They can create an informative and worry-free experience that facilitates a pleasant thought process to reduce uncertainty in attendees’ on-site decision-making.

The current research pioneered a unique model conceptualizing the important, yet underexplored, phenomenon of purchasing mechanism in the exposition setting. Addressing the emerging interest in food expositions, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first for examining purchasing mechanism from the perspective of mental budgeting, providing insightful knowledge about how the psychological mechanism affects exposition attendees’ pre-purchase evaluation and confidence toward purchasing healthy food at expositions.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the potential of digital displays to enhance consumers’ shopping experience and sustainable consumption by more specifically informing consumers on the origin and sustainability of products.

An experimental field study was conducted in the Supermarket of the Future at the World Expo where sustainability information was displayed on interactive screens. There were three experimental groups: supermarket visitors who were put in a sustainability mind-set, supermarket visitors without a sustainability mind-set activation and non-visitors.

Store visitors extensively used the interactive displays, they intent to behave more sustainable in the future, and act more sustainable outside the food domain. Sustainability information through digital displays thus triggers consumers to think more about environmental concerns. Consumers who were activated to process sustainability information before entering the supermarket, show increased interest in the innovative shopping concept. Strong evidence that the increased interest translates into more sustainable consumer choices in the supermarket itself is lacking.

The authors obtain insight in consumer use of sustainability information presented on interactive displays in a retail environment and how this in turn affects behaviour. The study reveals that consumers can successfully be motivated to become more sustainable through interactive displays.

We argue that in order to address the contemporary challenges that organizations and societies are facing, the field of organization development (OD) requires frameworks and skills to focus on the eco-system as the level of analysis. In a world that has become economically, socially, and technologically highly connected, approaches that foster the optimization of specific actors in the eco-system, such as individual corporations, result in sub-optimization of the sustainability of the natural and social system because there is insufficient offset to the ego-centric purposes of the focal organization. We discuss the need for OD to broaden focus to deal with technological advances that enable new ways of organizing at the eco-system level, and to deal with the challenges to sustainable development. Case examples from healthcare and the agri-foods industry illustrate the kinds of development approaches that are required for the development of healthy eco-systems. We do not suggest fundamental changes in the identity of the field of organizational development. In fact, we demonstrate the need to dig deeply into the open systems and socio-technical roots of the field, and to translate the traditional values and approaches of OD to continue to be relevant in today’s dynamic interdependent world.

Rice consumption per capita in many Asian countries is decreasing constantly, but American and European citizens are eating more rice nowadays. A preference study among consumers was carried out with the aim of determining new rice product characteristics in order to support export of Thai rice. This paper aims to report the results

The research was based on both secondary and primary data collection. The secondary data included exploratory surveys of rice and its products which were conducted in some of Thailand's potential rice export markets. Exploratory primary data were collected through qualitative focus group research. A quantitative questionnaire with 1,128 consumers of target nationalities was conducted to access consumer attitudes and preferences with respect to rice and rice products.

Rice products were grouped with factor analysis and could be characterized by convenience (explained variance 33.9 per cent), grain variety (21.2 per cent), and tradition/naturalness (12.8 per cent). Rotated factor score plot of the preference for rice products among different nationalities showed a similarity in the preference for the tradition/natural products. Convenient products were preferred in higher income Asian countries and the non‐rice eating countries. These three product categories were correlated with consumers' ideas concerning the health‐supporting character of processed food.

Consumers' rice preferences differed greatly among nationalities. Rice exporters have to understand these different preferences in order to offer the right products to their customers. Assuming consumer preferences to be comparable to one's own country's preference can cause new product failure. This paper confirms existing differences and presents details and backgrounds of these differences.

Ethnic food is a pivotal polysemic artifact, yet commonly studied based on experience. This leaves an eclipse in understanding its overall significance and implications. The purpose of this paper is to explore the interactions of experience, intimacy and embodiment from the lens of alternative tourism and Asia as a destination image.

The authors conducted four focus group that include Asians who take experiential learning trips and spiritual journeys across Asia-Pacific.

Alternative tourists promote the growth of ethnic foodies who value impact which they determine as quality food-scape, longitudinal caring interactions with and the constant assurance of consuming food which are safe and healthy to their physical, emotional and spiritual well-being.

Although our research does not employ any quantitative technique and devoid of inferential analysis, the rich qualitative data offer insights for further work that benefit ethnic food industry.

Industry and policy makers are encouraged to generate contextual solutions for management of the ethnic food industry. Ethnic food consumption may flourish if the industry leads its growth through a post-modernist approach.

A broad perspective in growing the frontiers of ethnic food tourism beyond the landscape of an economic or consumerism-dominated approach would benefit the cross-mobility of quality talents and skills as this fosters cross-cultural literacy.

The authors develop the Ethnic Foodies Perspective-Ethnic Food Destination Image Matrix as a pathway to further motivate knowledge cross-fertilization in ethnic food tourism studies and leverage on the transdisciplinary science, innovation, socio- and sensuous geographic arena. A constellation of ethnic food innovation should link the economic side of exotic differentiation and heritage with food processing, safety and traceability.