The role of variety seeking in consumers’ fish consumption: a study in Sri Lanka

Abstract

The primary purpose of this study was to explore the role of variety seeking behaviour towards fish consumption frequency. Second, it aimed to investigate how personality related factors; variety seeking tendency (related to food and personality) and perceived behavioural control affect the nature of variety seeking behaviour. Third, to investigate how product and motivational related factors; attitudes, health involvement and perceived risk affect the nature of variety seeking behaviour and fish consumption in the Sri Lankan context. In line with Hoyer and Ridgway (1984) proposed framework, a conceptual framework was developed with the constructs of variety seeking behaviour, variety seeking tendency (related to food and personality), perceived behavioural control, attitudes, health involvement, perceived risk and fish consumption frequency to achieve the objectives. A questionnaire survey was conducted using a convenience sample of 250 consumers in Galle in Sri Lanka. The items used to measure the constructs were either taken or adopted from the previous research studies. Confirmatory factor analysis and Structural Equation Modeling in AMOS 16.0 were employed to analysis the data. This study found that variety seeking behaviour plays a vital role in fish consumption frequency among consumers. The findings confirmed the theory that variety seeking tendency as a general personality trait positively influences the variety seeking tendency related to food (VST Food) while specific VST Food showing a significant effect on fish consumption frequency. Health involvement was found to be positively significant with fish consumption frequency as well as with the VST Food while having an insignificant relationship with the variety seeking behaviour. Conveneinec/ availability, price/ value and knowledge were not significant indicators of perceived control. Nevertheless, PBC and perceived risk act as a barrier for variety seeking behaviour. However, the effect of perceive risk on the fish consumption frequency was negligible. Surprisingly, attitudes did not have a significant impact on either fish consumption frquency or variety seeking behaviour. The main reason for this is probably skewness of the data set. Practical implications drawn from this research are that fish marketers should tap the consumers’s intrinsic desire for variation through providing different fish species in to the market place. Further, it is suggested that providing information on the most commonly eaten fish species by the government authorities through mass media will reduce the perceived risk and PBC associated with variation of fish and stimulate the health involvement towards variation of fish consumption. This research has contributed to fill the gap in variety seeking behaviour literature in which specifically incorporating effect of both personal related and product/ motivational related factors. This research was based on a convenience sample of consumers which did not represent the whole population, thus the results could not generalize to Sri Lanka. Future research should uncover additional individual and product related factors and their interactions which may relevant to explain variety seeking behaviour.

Keywords: Variety seeking behaviour, variety seeking tendency, health involvement, PBC, attitudes, perceived risk, fish consumption frequency, Sri Lanka