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The effects of country-of-origin (COO) cues on product evaluations are well documented. However, research on the relative effects of COO compared to other geographical indicators, such as region-of-origin (ROO), on food purchases is still limited. This study investigates how geographical origin labels influence consumers' perceptions of product value and authenticity of foreign food, as well as subsequent purchase intention (PI) and willingness to pay premium prices (WTPPP). The moderating role of health consciousness on these relationships is also examined due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

This study uses a between-subjects experimental design conducted with 300 middle- and high-income Chinese consumers aged between 25 and 50 years. Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modelling.

Whilst under both COO and ROO cues, all five product values positively influenced consumers' WTPPP, only functional, economic and novelty values influenced PI. The ROO cue performed significantly better than the COO cue in eliciting functional, economic and novelty value perceptions, which triggered stronger PI and willingness to pay a premium price. These relationships were mediated by product authenticity (PA) and moderated by consumers' health consciousness (HC).

Because food labels provide salient product information that facilitates consumers' evaluation of products, marketers should assess which product value perceptions they wish to enhance and then choose the appropriate geographical indicators for their labelling strategies.

This study identifies the effects of COO and ROO cues on product values, authenticity, PI and WTPPP. It also provides valuable insights into the role of HC on consumers' purchase decisions, which also aids in understanding the impact of global crises on food purchases.

Building on associative priming, anthropomorphism and biophilia theories, this study aims to explain that a natural–organic (that shows a natural object) and an anthropomorphised natural–organic logo (that shows an anthropomorphised natural object) both act as primes and imbue specific product value perceptions, which subsequently influence willingness to pay a premium price when products have not been used by or are unfamiliar to consumers.

Two between-subjects experiments were conducted with different products (one with real, but unfamiliar to consumers brand and another with a fictitious brand). Structural equation modelling was used to test the hypotheses.

Experimental studies showed that natural–organic logos evoked stronger utilitarian (functional and economic) value perceptions, which triggered greater willingness to pay a premium price compared to anthropomorphised natural–organic logos. The effect of hedonic (emotional and novelty) values on willingness to pay a premium price was stronger when an anthropomorphised natural–organic logo was used.

This research offers novel theoretical contributions highlighting the importance of careful logo design to imbue desired value perceptions when products have not been consumed or trialled.

Anthropomorphised natural–organic and natural–organic logos can provide different benefits to brand managers and can be used strategically to form desired value perceptions before products are consumed. Brands that wish to enhance premium pricing via hedonic values should consider using an anthropomorphised natural–organic logo. Natural–organic logos may be more suitable for brands that want to emphasise superior utilitarian values.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research provides the first empirical assessment of the differential effects of the two forms of natural–organic logos on value perceptions and willingness to pay premium price.

Extended from Hofstede’s cultural framework, this study investigated the differences between the Australian (representing the Western culture) and Chinese (representing the Eastern Culture) consumers in regard to their attention paid to product attribute cues presented on food labels and the degree of such attention controlling for an individual-level moderator of product involvement.

Data were collected using face-to-face interviews with semi-structured questionnaires for both Australian and Chinese samples. The questionnaire data were analysed using factorial between-groups analysis of variance (ANOVA) to investigate the influence of culture and product involvement on the attention paid/degree of attention to product nature-related (e.g. brand name), product assurance-related (e.g. country-of-origin) and health-related attribute (e.g. nutritional panel) cues.

The findings revealed that Chinese consumers, as compared to Australian consumers, paid attention to more product-assurance cues (i.e. country of origin) and health-related cues (i.e. bioactivity indicators). The degrees of attention to these cues were also greater among Chinese consumers than for Australian consumers. Product involvement moderated the relationship between culture and attention towards product nature and product assurance-related cues.

Results from this study enable exporters to customize their labelling design by strategically including label information that is more salient to certain export markets.

This study offers a novel insight into the impact of culture on consumers’ attention to food product attributes and the interaction effects of product involvement on these relationships, hitherto underexplored.

One of the significant components of a firm's overall sustainability is establishing and nurturing governance. This study attempts to understand how politically connected firms maintain sustainability measures in terms of risk-taking strategies. This paper has two purposes. The first purpose is to provide empirical evidence on the politically connected (PC) firms' corporate risk-taking and performance. The second purpose is to investigate the moderating impact of PC firms' risk on corporate performance.

To conduct the analysis to test our hypothesis efficiently, data has been collected from Bloomberg and annual reports of all Malaysian PC and non-PC companies. The final sample comprises 561 firms over the investigation period 2010–2019. The methodology entails Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regressions of the impact of the PC firms on corporate risk-taking and performance. The authors also conduct t-tests of the equality of means of corporate risk-taking and performance between PC and non-PC companies.

The authors’ results show that politically connected firms undertake significant less corporate risk and relish higher financial performance than their counterparts. It implicatively insinuates that the presence of a politician on the board enables the management to mitigate the risk-taking, which makes the firms more profitable. The authors’ results corroborate network theory, suggesting that political ties alleviate the agency issue and safeguard the shareholders' interest.

The study's results were important as they highlighted the sustainable development of PC and non-PC companies, offering insights to researchers, policymakers, regulators, financial report users, investors, environmental unions, employees, clients and society.

This paper is novel since it is unique in evaluating sustainable practice in PC and non-PC firms.