Investigating Behavioural Factors Affecting on Green Brand Equity in the Food Industry

The move towards industrialization of cities, population growth, deforestation and in general non-optimal and incorrect use of natural resources, etc. has caused the environment to face a serious crisis. Environmental destruction will have adverse consequences both in the short and long term. Air pollution, extinction of animal species, are among these consequences. Therefore nowadays, environmental protection issue is considered to be so important that has caused fundamental changes in behavior, interest, and preferences of the human societies. So all over the world, many people are interested in having green behavior, both in their personal and work life and in their relationships with others. In this regard, consumers and customers of products and services have obliged organizations to shift their approach to a sustainable one. Accordingly, having a green brand and increasing the value of green brand in today's world is a competitive advantage. The current research thus aimed at investigating the behavioral factors (green brand image, green trust, green satisfaction, green loyalty, green affect) influencing the green brand equity in the food industry.  

In this study, the researcher attempts to identify the effect of behavioral factors on green brand equity in the food industry. Accordingly, the research method in this study is descriptive-survey. In addition, necessary information from library and field studies was collected. The subjects of this study were people living in Tehran, so 480 cases were selected through cluster random sampling. In fact, in this study, the second, fifth, thirteenth and twenty-second districts of Tehran were selected and 4 neighborhoods were chosen from each district and a research questionnaire was distributed in those neighborhoods. In this study, a standard questionnaire was used to measure variables. The validity and reliability of the research instrument were also assessed through construct validity and Cronbach's alpha and composite reliability. The results showed that the validity and reliability of the research tool were desirable. Also, the required data from the statistical population were collected from July 2018 to January 2019. The data was analyzed by SPSS and PLS software.

The results of descriptive data analysis showed that the highest frequency in terms of gender is related to women, the highest frequency in terms of age is related to between 25-31, the highest frequency in terms of education is related to master, the highest frequency in terms of income is related to 2 million, the highest frequency in terms of knowledge of green brand is related to average, the highest frequency in terms of the use of green brand is related to average and finally the highest frequency in terms of choosing the preferred eco-friendly brand from the respondents is related to MC. In order to test the hypotheses, first the normality of data distribution was measured that for this purpose, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used. Since the calculated values for each of the variables were less than 0.05, it can be said that the distribution of research data was not normal. To evaluate the research model, the goodness of fit index was used and the calculations showed that the model fit is strong. Finally hypothesis test results showed that green brand image (0.399), green trust (0.199), green satisfaction (-0.157), and green loyalty (0.166) had impact on green brand equity, and the impact of green effect on green brand equity from the viewpoint of the research population was not confirmed. Additionally, it was concluded that behavioral factors (0.578) have effect on green brand equity in this research.

In general, it can be said that, green issues of individuals and organizations around the world has become inevitable due to the current environmental conditions, so ignoring it will have negative consequences such as air pollution, decreased soil quality, reduced revenue, reduced customers, reduced brand equity, isolation and finally the bankruptcy of the organization and failure to achieve sustainable development. But this while supporting the principles of the environmental subjects and its promotion in the organization and all its products and services make the stakeholders of organization aware of the goodwill of the organization about carrying out his social responsibility subjects. So by promoting it, loyalty and commitment of the stakeholders will increase and at last the green brand equity of the organization will improve. In this regard, it is recommended for organizations in the food industry to implement environmental performance policies in their field to gain a competitive advantage in the market and use the results of related research to implement them.