1. Introduction
Globally, the food sector is facing tremendous challenges in meeting consumer preferences, ensuring food security for the teeming population, and mitigating global warming. As a result of environmental concerns and global warming, customers are steadily demanding ecologically friendly food items. Food demand in many developing and emerging countries is rapidly undergoing a profound transformation as consumers diversify their diets towards the consumption of quality and environmentally friendly food products such as organic and green food, meat, vegetables, and fruits [
1,
2]. As such, meat consumption has substantially increased in demand [
3,
4], and consumers are showing a growing interest in white meat, especially broilers, which is largely substituted for other types of meat [
5,
6]. The increase in meat consumption is driven by broiler consumption, which has taken center-stage on environmental concerns and product quality. In recent years, China has seen a sharp increase in its consumption of broilers, which is the second most consumed meat after pork. The yearly consumption of chicken increased from 13.73 to 15.47 million tons between 2019 and 2020, as well as the per capita consumption, which rose from 12.15 kg to 13.93 kg [
6,
7]. Sierra Leonean broiler per capita consumption has surged from 4.14 to 4.31 kg from 2018 to 2020 with a rate of increase of 4.12%, and is the major animal protein consumed [
7]. The spectacular growth in broiler consumption in emerging and developing countries reflects the changes in consumers’ attitudes due to the acquisition of knowledge about the quality of broiler meat [
6]. The rapid transition of consumers towards more broiler consumption is therefore desirable and has come under more and more critique as a result of large scale production, environmental pollution, emergence of the avian flu in Asia and other parts of the world, indiscriminate use of drugs, feed additives, and antimicrobials [
8]. These issues have resulted in multidimensional economic impacts facing the production system, such as massive deaths of birds, a bad reputation for the broiler industry, food safety scandals, attenuated consumer confidence in their chicken consumption, as well as environmental degradation [
6,
9,
10].
Moreover, the food system also plays a significant role in greenhouse gas emissions. For instance, about 1/3 of all greenhouse gas emissions were derived from food production systems [
11,
12]. Consequently, consumers have become increasingly aware and concerned about their health issues caused by environmental deterioration [
13,
14]. In addition, environmental problems including global warming, climate change, and water, land, and air pollution have adverse effects on food production, and consumers have become increasingly aware of environmental problems, which have become an important topic among researchers, governments, and organizations [
15,
16].
In recent years, the persistence of climate change caused by severe global warming and air pollution has become a serious social concern in many countries, including China and Sierra Leone. Consumers are aware of the negative effects of environmental deterioration, such as rapid deforestation due to irresponsible consumption and the expansion of cities around the world, from which China and Sierra Leone are not exempt. Therefore, broiler industries need more information on how consumers value these effects in high-quality food purchasing decisions with respect to environmental concerns, which enhances the effectiveness of high-quality food marketing strategies.
With regard to environmental issues, the government of Sierra Leone, headed by President Julius Maada Bio, signed a treaty at the 26th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations (UN) framework on climate change in order to implement urgent measures to improve the country’s rapid degradation of forests and global warming issues. With a review of the drafted 13th Five-Year Plan [
13] by the Chinese government, China is also committed to sustainable development. Concerns and awareness among consumers about their environment and the food they consume are leading them to change and adjust their usual buying behaviors with the aim of protecting the natural environment, ecosystems, and health, which has led to the creation of a new concept in food marketing literature known as high-quality food purchase intention and behavior [
17,
18,
19,
20]. In this study, high-quality food consists of both organic and green foods that are free from antibiotic residues, and ethical issues are taken into consideration during the production processes. Furthermore, green agriculture is significantly contributing to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals proposed by the United Nations, especially regarding sustainable consumption and production [
21].
Prolific research in the determinants of purchase intention for high-quality food such as organic and green has been done over the past four decades in several contexts, which include: the way food products are purchased [
22,
23], differences in consumer perception [
24,
25], the influence of culture on purchase intention [
26,
27,
28,
29,
30], and factors influencing their choices at the time of purchase and willingness to pay for quality meat [
31,
32,
33,
34]. Despite a vast number of empirical studies that have predicted the antecedent of purchase intentions for high-quality food in emerging and developed countries, their findings have not reached an agreement with respect to the major determinants of consumer purchase intentions for quality food [
35,
36,
37]. Furthermore, findings regarding the influence of antecedent variables on high-quality purchase behavior remain weak and sometimes controversial [
13,
38].
Hofstede’s cultural dimensions have been applied in international marketing, and country is frequently used as a proxy for culture to measure consumers purchase behavior at group level [
28]. According to Sohiba and Kang [
30], the most suitable way to measure culture is at an individual level because buying involves an individual oriented one-person action. A lot of studies have been conducted on the impact of culture on consumers’ purchase behaviors and most researchers agree that culture influences consumer behavior [
28,
39]. Although, several cross-cultural studies found in the existing literature, measuring the impact of culture on purchase behavior, used Hofstede’s cultural dimensions such as power distance, long-term orientation, masculinity–femininity, and individualism–collectivism [
20,
26,
29,
40]. However, a majority of these studies were conducted in developed nations and few in emerging countries, possibly due to the concern of food quality [
28,
29]. As such, lack of focus in developing countries, particularly African countries, is indicated in the literature [
41]. Additionally, Hofstede’s cultural dimensions are quite limited in the literature, particularly in terms of individuals’ purchase intentions toward high-quality products in emerging and developing countries, despite its importance in consumer purchasing decisions [
30,
41]. Nevertheless, previous studies have incorporated Hofstede’s culture dimensions focusing on the relationship between purchase behavior and individualism–collectivism or power distance [
20,
42]. Most of this research suggested a need to expand the investigation of the impact of Hofstede’s culture dimensions on purchasing intention beyond power distance, individualism, and collectivism [
20]. Moreover, de Morais Watanabe et al. [
43] revealed that these dimensions, such as individualism–collectivism and power distance, do not fully explain the influence of culture on food purchasing behavior. Yet, Sreen et al. [
20] showed that other Hofstede’s culture dimensions might give essential insights into consumer behavior that could provide a better understanding of consumers’ purchasing behavior of food quality. Based on the literature, there is a need to broaden the dimensions to understand purchasing behavior for quality food products and to ascertain that new dimensions could extend the understanding of purchasing intention of high-quality broilers. To address these gaps, we conducted an in-depth empirical study using uncertainty avoidance in a cross-cultural perspective which has been employed in few empirical purchase intentions [
28,
29,
30].
This research focused on two important countries: one with a potential emerging market and a low level of uncertainty avoidance (China) and one developing country with a high level of uncertainty avoidance (Sierra Leone), because both countries have diverse cultures and a wide range of consumer preference for environmentally friendly food products [
44]. According to Hofstede [
45], uncertainty avoidance is the extent to which an individual engages in particular behaviors to maintain a comfortable situation or environment, or is the degree to which a person feels threatened by an ambiguous and unknown situation or environment, and to what extent they attempt to avoid this situation. When new food products are introduced to the market, consumers feel uneasy about the new products, although various societies display different levels of uncertainty avoidance. For example, consumer attitudes are less bigoted and more competitive in nations with a low degree of UA. These groups are competitive in taking on any challenges. Low-level uncertainty avoidance cultures are also seen as being considerate, less aggressive, accepting of individual risk, and welcoming of new technology. China’s distinct score in uncertainty avoidance (30 percent) implies that Chinese consumers are flexible toward uncertainty and ambiguity because of the trust and confidence they have in broiler products imported from Hong Kong and the United States of America (USA). They perceive that meat products imported from those countries are more environmentally friendly and safer. In contrast, societies with a high level of uncertainty avoidance culture are usually described as being intolerable, unwilling to embrace change, and more likely to uphold the existing law. Consumers in these groups avoid conflict, value compromise, and rely more on perceived risk. Consumers in Sierra Leone are more likely to avoid risk due to their high-level uncertainty avoidance score (50 percent) [
46]. Despite the fact that consumer preferences differ, research has shown that societies with a high propensity to avoid uncertainty will tend to resist change. Based on Hofstede’s cultural dimension scores, the characteristics of uncertainty avoidance in China and Sierra Leone differ, and their effects are expected to diverge in relation to high-quality broiler purchase behavior. Making comparisons and examining the differences between two distinct cultural groups with regard to their purchase behavior for environmental concerns for high-quality broilers has not been fully investigated.
Figure 1 shows the cultural dimensions’ comparative scores between China and Sierra Leone.
The comparative analysis shows that China and Sierra Leone have a similar cultural pattern as the cultural dimensions’ scores are alike, particularly in individualism and uncertainty avoidance indices. Although there are significant differences in uncertainty avoidance indices, an earlier study highlighted the difference in uncertainty avoidance in consumer responses toward promotion framing for a cross-cultural study [
30,
44]. Based on Hofstede’s cultural dimension scores, the characteristics of uncertainty avoidance in China and Sierra Leone differ, and their effects are expected to diverge in relation to high-quality broiler purchase behavior. The distinct score of uncertainty avoidance research revealed that Chinese consumers are flexible toward uncertain risk and ambiguity. In contrast, Sierra Leone consumers are more likely to avoid risk.
The significance of selecting these two markets for investigation is supported by the tremendous increase in chicken consumption, cultural diversity, and concerns about food production that is environmentally benign. This situation illustrates the necessity of researching the significant aspects that could affect purchasing intention and customer behavior toward high-quality broilers in both China and Sierra Leone, where environmental concerns have become necessary factors in the food business. China is an emerging market with distinct cultural values, high economic growth, a wide range of food preferences, environmental concerns, and a perceptual swing from pork to broiler consumption. A low-income nation like Sierra Leone has a variety of cultural values and a wide range of customer preferences and environmental concerns. A deeper understanding of the broiler markets could be gained by looking at the mechanisms that influence consumer behavior in a cross-cultural context. Examining the mechanism that influences their purchase behavior for high-quality broilers in low-income countries with a high level of uncertainty and emerging countries with a high level of income and a low level of uncertainty avoidance could give insight into the broiler markets.
Therefore, the objectives of this study include: to investigate the impact of perceived environmental responsibility (PER), environmental knowledge (EK), new ecological paradigm (NEP), environmental collective efficacy (ECE), and uncertainty avoidance (UA) on high-quality broiler purchase intention (PI) and actual purchase behavior (APB) of China and Sierra Leone. Also, the study extends on the work of Lee [
13] by including the role perceived environmental responsibility and uncertainty avoidance toward high-quality broiler purchase. This study also investigated the moderating role of individual level of uncertainty avoidance between PER, EK, NEP, ECE, PI, and APB. Moreover, this study also examined whether consumers with low levels of UA (China) and consumers with high-levels of UA (Sierra Leone) are different in purchase intention and actual purchase behavior toward high-quality broiler. With regard to aforementioned objectives, the following research questions were raised.
Do PER, EK, NEP, ECE, and UA influence actual purchase behavior for high-quality broilers?
Does individual uncertainty avoidance play a significant role in moderating between the antecedent of purchase intention and actual purchase behavior toward high-quality broilers?
Are there differences between consumers with high-levels of UA and low-levels of UA with regard to high-quality broiler purchase intention and actual purchase behavior?
This research reviewed empirical literature pertaining to the relationships between the explanatory variable (antecedents) and high-quality food purchase behavior. Based on the existing literature, the study empirically examined the relationships among the antecedents (PER, EK, NEP, ECE, and UA) and high-quality PI as well as APB between Chinese and Sierra Leonean consumers. Also, the study tests the moderating role of UA on the relationship among PER, EK, NEP, ECE, and GPI in China and Sierra Leone because Hofstede classified China and Sierra Leone as countries characterized by low and high UA tendencies, respectively, and their impacts are expected to differ. The moderating impact of uncertainty avoidance on high-quality food purchase intention still remains at a rudimentary level.
Therefore, this study compared whether uncertainty avoidance positively moderates the effects of PER, EK, NEP, and ECE on high-quality broiler PI as well as APB in both countries. The study will contribute to international marketing research as it will be the first to analyze the moderating effects of uncertainty avoidance on the formation of high-quality food purchase intention and to compare the impacts of uncertainty avoidance on high-quality purchase intention between Chinese and Sierra Leone consumers. Therefore, the current research can generate new insight into the effects of uncertainty avoidance on high-quality food consumption. Furthermore, traders can use these findings to develop innovative marketing strategies to promote broiler consumption in China and Sierra Leone.
The remaining sections of this research are organized as follows: The theoretical and conceptual framework, including hypotheses development, are presented in
Section 2. Research methodology, which includes data collection, measurement, and data analysis, is presented in
Section 3.
Section 4 includes descriptive statistics and SEM,
Section 5 includes a discussion of the research findings and implications, and
Section 6 includes conclusions, research limitations, and future work.