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Sustainable Organic Market Development with International Trade (SOMDwIT) Inter

Sustainable Organic Market Development with International Trade (SOMDwIT) Interview guide (WP2) Deliverable 2.2. Susanne Pedersen*, Eva Schwendel, Maria Paternoga, Jessica Aschemann-Witzel & John Thøgersen MAPP Centre, Department of Management, Aarhus BSS, Aarhus University, Bartholins Allé 10, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark *Corresponding author: Susanne Pedersen, suspe@mgmt.au.dk June 30, 2016 The SOMDwIT project is part of the Organic RDD 2.2 programme, which is coordinated by ICROFS (International Centre for Research in Organic Food Systems). The project is funded by the Green Development and Demonstration Programme under the Danish Ministry for the Environment and Food. The project runs from 1-1-2016 to 31-12-2017. Project homepage: www.icrofs.dk/forskning/dansk-forskning/organic-rdd-22/somdwit/ Introduction The purpose of SOMDwIT WP2 is to explore the influence of “made-in-Denmark” relatively to competing countries of origin on how organic food products are evaluated on quality dimensions that consumers perceive as important (both organic food in general and specific product categories) at important and emerging markets (Germany and France, China and Thailand). The exploration is based on a mixed-methods qualitative research approach in order to provide depth, insight and understanding into consumers’ behaviour, motivations and experiences (Malhotra, Birks, & Wills, 2012), and to understand the phenomenon of organic food consumption and country of origin effects in a wider context. The qualitative data collection employs two different qualitative methods: In-store interviews and focus groups. The two methods are utilized both to complement each other and to offset possible biases inherent to each individual method. Both methods are used to investigate the same phenomenon, namely the perception of country-of-origin for organic food products, but in a different context. A key characteristic of the in-store interviews is that consumers are intercepted at the point of purchase, where the possibilities for capturing what is accessible in the consumers’ mind in the buying situation are optimal, whereas focus groups allow capturing how consumers reason about this topic, and justify their choices, in conversation with peers, in a more in-depth discussion and elaboration process. By exploring consumers’ understanding, reasoning and preferences under such different constraints, it is possible yield an enriched and elaborated understanding of the phenomenon of interest and increase interpretability and validity of results (Greene, Caracelli, & Graham, 1989). In-store interviews The purpose of the in-store interviews is to obtain valid information about the criteria consumers use to evaluate (especially imported) organic food products by intercepting them at the point of purchase, where the cues they use to evaluate organic food products are naturally salient. By interviewing consumers in a natural buying situation, the ecological validity of results is strengthened. An important disadvantage of this approach is that many consumers may not want to be disturbed in a shopping situation, so in order to minimize the inconvenience to consumers the in-store interview guide was designed to not take more than 5 minutes of the consumers’ time. The in-store interview started with introducing the purpose of the interview and asking permission to audio-record it. Then six questions, with the consumers’ location in the store (aisle) and possible product choice (product category/product) in mind, followed: Questions about the consumers’ involvement in organic consumption, awareness of country of origin of organic products (referring to aisle), attention and attitudes towards imported products and the importance and preferences for organic products’ country of origin. To conclude, age, education and household size was asked and gender and location (aisle) was noted. In each of the four countries, the interview guide was translated from English to the local language and checked for congruence. Also, the local researchers were instructed carefully in how to make use of the interview guide. The interview guide is shown in English in Table 1. Focus groups The purpose of the focus groups is to stimulate an in-depth exploration of consumers’ underlying cognitive processes reflected in the perception of country-of-origin for organic food products. Focus groups are well suited to address a gap in existing research, as this non-directive open approach based on a relatively small group of people is able to provide a rich set of data about their perceptions, thoughts and impressions, where the researcher is not only able to observe their interactions in a social setting, but also has the possibility to ask for further clarification in order to gain more in-depth consumer insights. By conducting several focus groups, it is possible to compare results within groups and detect overall patterns and group variations. Moreover, focus groups provide data that arises in a relatively natural or indigenous form, as participants are only slightly influenced by the structure imposed by the researcher and research setting. Hence, a focus group interview simulates to a certain degree a ‘natural’ conversation with friends, family and acquaintances, which provides valuable data on how consumers justify their behaviour in front of others. This is especially relevant in the context of organic food, where research shows that consumers tend to post-rationalize their choices to defend paying for price premiums (Thøgersen, 2011). However, it is important to keep in mind that focus groups do not reveal how consumers will behave in an actual purchase situation, but rather shed light on their justification of their behaviour with reference to perceptions and attitudes. Projective interviewing techniques were included in the interview guide, since these encourage participants projecting “[…] their underlying motivations, beliefs, attitudes or feelings regarding the issues of concern” (Malhotra et al., 2012, p. 267). These techniques involve association tasks, where participants are presented with a stimulus and asked to state the first thing that comes to their mind (Malhotra et al., 2012), or interactive exercises that engage participants in thinking and concentration, which facilitates uncovering issues or opinions of which participants are not fully aware or not able to directly verbalize (O'Neill, 2003). The interview guide consists of a short introduction to the study presenting the aim, moderator and participants. Then, participants are asked questions relating to three main themes: Country associations, food associations and importance of country of origin. Questions relating to the first theme centres around general country associations and ranking of these countries involving a word association task. In the second theme, participants are asked to association the mentioned countries with food and also their strengths in food production. The last theme is about the importance of country of origin to the participants and their attention to and knowledge of country of origin of organic products are discussed. The same is trust in countries as organic food producers and organic labelling. To conclude, the participants are debriefed. The interview guide used in the focus groups are provided in Table 1.2. As with the in-store interview guide, the focus group interview guide was also translated into each local language and checked. Table 1: In-store interview guide Timing (Sec.) Internal purpose Questions: English Further question possibilities/clarifications To be noted in online questionnaire sheet (interviewer) Audio tape Comments I. Introduction 30 Catch customer's attention and create motivation to participate in the interview Hello, my name is ____ - may I just briefly disturb you? I am interviewing consumers to learn more about the consumption behaviour of different organic products. I saw that you just put ____ in your shopping basket, [OR] I see you are just looking at the [XY] shelf, ... can I ask you some brief questions about that? It will take a maximum of 5 minutes and of course, your answers will be treated confidentially. You would be of great help. Mention permission from store in case we do not get name badges 10 Ask for permission to audiotape Perfect! Would it be okay for you if I record your answers? x 2. Questioning Part (1) 10 Warm-up question Check for how engaged shoppers are in terms of organic purchases (for category) We are standing in front of the [X] counter, how often do you approx. buy organic here [category]? On a scale from 0-5, whereby 0 means 'never'. - What about other categories? x (2) 40 Identify the importance of organic products' country of origin (referring to aisle) Does it matter to you where your [vegetables / dairy / pork] come from? - Why / Why not? - How important? - Is this the same for all products? x (3) 30 Identify attention to imported products Some of these products, as e.g. [Y] are imported. Did you realize that? x - Check origin beforehand - If an imported organic product is just put into the basket, refer to that one (4) 40 Identify attitude towards imported products Do you buy some of these imported products sometimes, too? - Why / Why not? - For which products? x -5 30 Identify the importance of organic products' country of origin (referring to other products) Do you pay attention where your other organic products (other aisle) come from? - For which exactly? x (6) 60 Gain insights into preferred countries of origin Coming back the [veggie/meat/dairy] counter. If these [carrots / pork / milk] wasn't available from [country], from which country would you prefer to buy? - Why do your prefer this country? - Do you think uploads/Geographie/ interview-guide 2 .pdf