Firm’s Decisions Based on Consumers’ Choices in Ecocertified Food Markets

Abstract

The present paper proposes a framework for examining whether a food production enterprise, attempting to build an ecocertification strategy, connects the creation of environmental value with the creation of economic value, balancing environmental sustainability with economic sustainability. More specifically, the paper combines demand theory with a discreet choice consumers’ model in an embryonic ecocertified food market, to examine whether economic value is created and to identify the determinants of this value creation. An empirical investigation of the model using consumer data indicates that a variety of factors, such as consumer’s age and profession, family’s income and purchasing strategy, product quality association in consumers’ mind and the retailing outlet, play an important role in shaping the respondents’ intention to pay for the ecofriendliness of products. The proposed framework can help enterprise management to balance the consumers’ and enterprise owners’ claims in cases where certification schemes or standards exist that enable enterprises to communicate social responsibility to their customers.