Ends Justify Means? Organic Cotton Products' Purchasing Motivations
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Ends Justify Means? Organic Cotton Products’ Purchasing
Motivations
Nai-Hua Chen
Department of Information Management, Chienkuo Technology University, Changhua, Taiwan.
E-mail: nhc@cc.ctu.edu.tw
Sherrie Wei
Department of International Business Administration, Chienkuo Technology University, Changhua,
Taiwan. E-mail: sswei@ctu.edu.tw
ABSTRACT
In green marketing, the motivations for purchasing environmentally friendly products are often elusive,
e.g., altruism mixed with some egoism, or a mixed-up means and ends. The purpose of this study was
to apply the means–end-chain framework to build a model for the different motivations that consumers
would have in favor of organic cotton products in Taiwan. Three hierarchical levels of means–end were
included in the framework for organic cotton products: product attributes, consequences of using products
possessing certain attributes, and fulfillment of personal values achieved through positive consequences
after using the organic product possessing certain attributes. A survey questionnaire was designed based
on product attributes and consequences identified from the Kahle, Beatty, and Homer’s List of Values
(LOVs; 1986) for respondents to rate their importance on a 5-point Likert scale. The LOVs included nine
values of common purchasing motivations, such as sense of belonging, excitement, and warm relationship
with others, etc. For the 399 usable cases, fuzzy logic association mining rules were applied. The findings
indicated that there were four significant routes by which respondents could achieve the personal value of
security. However, knowing respondents’ personal value of security as the ultimate motivation for favoring
organic cotton is only part of the picture. Only through a full understanding of different paths that lead
to security can firms effectively design communication strategies to reach potential consumers. [EconLit
Citations: C440, C610, M300, Q130]. C 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
1. INTRODUCTION
Consumers are increasingly concerned about the health implications as well as the environmen-
tal impact of the products that they use (Chen, 2009; Hustvedt & Dickson, 2009; Ingram, 2002).
More firms are not only offering apparel made of organic cotton, but also more stylish garments
to meet increasing market demand (Walzer, 2007). Like other organic products, organic cotton
is grown from nongenetically modified cotton seeds and without the use of synthetic fertilizers
and pesticides. Organic cotton is grown mainly in the United States (Ingram, 2002), India
(Rehber & Turhan, 2002), and Turkey (Turgut, Erdogan, Ates, Gokbulut, & Cutright, 2010).
According to the Fourth Annual Organic Exchange Farm and Fiber Report (Ferrigno, Lizarraga,
Nagarajan, Tovignan, & Truscott, 2009), organic cotton production grew a significant 20% from
2007–2008 to 175,113 metric tons (802,599 bales) grown on 625,000 acres (253,000 hectares).
Eco-labeled textile and apparel products are offered in the United States and Europe more
than anywhere else (Loureiro, McCluskey, & Mittelhammer, 2001). Such products are often
marketed directly from grower groups, such as the California Certified Organic Farmers and
the Texas Organic Cotton Cooperatives (Hustvedt & Dickson, 2009).
Despite the increasing demand for organic cotton products, the links between organic cotton
product attributes, their benefits—either altruistic (conservation) or self-interest (health)—and
personal values have not been well researched. Consumers vary greatly in the level of appre-
ciation of the health consequences of using the green products and environmental friendliness
of its production processes (Bonini & Oppenheim, 2008). This is partly evidenced in many
consumers’ lack of willingness to pay a premium for products that conform with conservation
principles (Hustvedt & Dickson, 2009; Johnston, Wessells, Donath, & Asche, 2001; Loureiro
Agribusiness, Vol. 28 (4) 440–450 (2012)
C 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/agr). DOI: 10.1002/agr.21308
440ORGANIC COTTON PRODUCTS’ PURCHASING MOTIVATIONS 441
& Lotade, 2005). Research has shown that products with certified labels for being environmen-
tally friendly during the manufacturing processes may induce different thinking processes and
behavior among segments of the market (Gil, Gracia, & Sánchez, 2000, Hartmann & Ibáñez,
2006; Straughan & Roberts 1999). Eco-labeling for products made of organic cotton is one
such instance where firms try to capitalize on favorable consumer evaluation and hence fetch
premium prices (Phau & Ong, 2007).
Research has also indicated that consumers’ product knowledge often derives from their
cognition of values embedded in product attributes and/or the consequences of using the
product (Reynolds & Whitlark, 1995). Consumer value formation may stem from the bundle
of attributes that the product possesses, which could be tangible or intangible (Kotler, 2002;
McColl-Kennedy & Kiel, 2000). Product attributes identified in the literature included packag-
ing, color, price, quality, brand, even the service level and reputation of the seller (Pitts, Wong,
& Whalen, 1991; Stanton, Etzel, & Michael, 1991). Product attributes are intermediate values
that consumers perceive to achieve final ends of benefits rather than risks (Peter, Olson, &
Grunert, 1993; Pieters, Baumgartner, & Allen, 1995; Woodruff, 1997). In other words, many
consumers tend to evaluate products based on the benefits arising from consuming the goods
rather than based on product attributes alone. In the case of organic cotton products, product
attributes of intermediate value may include comfort, health, conservation, etc. (Walzer, 2007).
It has been recognized that there are two kinds of consequences from using a product: func-
tional and social psychological consequences (Gutman, 1982; McColl-Kennedy & Kiel, 2000).
Functional consequences allow users to feel the direct and tangible benefits. For example, or-
ganic cotton apparel is gentle to the skin, and mineral water is healthier than a carbonated
drink. Social psychological consequences are intangible benefits, for example, possessing prod-
ucts of well-known brands gives one social status (Peter & Olson, 2002). Wearing organic cotton
products might be desirable as the behavior is consistent with an idealistic self-image.
Consumers’ social psychological benefits from consuming a product are linked to how they
personally perceive the value of the product. A person’s general beliefs and values affect his or
her attitudes toward specific things and often serve as an information filter (Beatty, Homer, &
Kahle, 1991). Research has also shown that product values can be instrumental or terminal.
Instrumental values are cognition of preferences or choices, such as versatility of life style,
belief in independence, and confidence about the value that products or services may bring
to the consumer. Terminal values are what the final state of products and services can bring
to consumers. Examples of this could be, peace of mind, emotional satisfaction, and the
like (Rokeach, 1968, 1973; Zanoli & Napetti, 2002). Many consumer studies have tried to
measure personal values, including the Rokeach Value Survey (RVS; Rokeach, 1973), Values
and Lifestyles (VALS; Michell, 1983), and List of Values (LOVs; Kahle et al., 1986).
In the context of this study, consumer motivation to purchase organic cotton products could
be elaborated in terms of organic cotton attributes, tangible and intangible consequences from
using the product, and instrumental and terminal values from consuming the organic cotton
products. The “means–end chain” (MEC) framework ties these concepts together and are
represented in a hierarchical value map of purchasing motivation in Figure 1. The hierarchy
consists of six levels, from the most tangible to the most abstract: tangible product attributes,
intangible product attributes, functional consequences, social psychological consequences from
consuming the product, instrumental values, and terminal values from consuming the product.
Figure 1 Six levels of the means–end framework (adapted from Gutman, 1982).
Agribusiness DOI 10.1002/agr442 CHEN AND WEI MEC offers a theoretical structure capable of linking consumers’ values to product attributes and hence their buying behavior. The purpose of this study is to use the framework of MEC to first analyze the reasons why potential consumers and prospective consumers in Taiwan purchased or were likely to purchase organic cotton products, which are generally explicitly labeled. This study also segments re- spondents based on the strength of associations between organic cotton product attributes and functional consequences and between consequences and personal values from consumption or potential consumption of them. The methodologies used in this study include market basket analysis (MBA), fuzzy association rules to evaluate the association levels between product at- tributes, evaluation of potential consumption consequences, and perception of values from use and potential use of organic cotton products. Being generally sold with more than a 25% premium over comparable nonorganic products, the market for organic cotton products grows faster in developed economies (Walzer, 2007). Taiwan has a sound economy with per capita income of US $19,175 in 2010 or over US $30,000 after adjustment for living standards. Although the precise market size for organic cotton products in Taiwan is not available, the current market is quite small. Nevertheless, there exists a rather certain niche market (Chen, 2009). It appears that one main reason for consuming organic cotton is for a religious cause, e.g., a Buddhist group, having over 60 retail chain stores in Taiwan, has successfully marketed organic food and fiber products (Wei, Shih, & Wei, 2007). Among the organic cotton products, one line that sold well was cloths to filter fluids, such as tea, coffee, and soy drink. Another likely source of organic cotton consumption in Taiwan is from those expatriates who have been intensively exposed to conservation concepts while staying overseas. As more expatriates return to Taiwan, it is likely that the demand for organic cotton products may grow, though very slowly, either because of their own conservation values or their influence in spreading their conservation values. Although currently the Taiwan market is small, with more effort and promotion through in-depth understanding of purchasing (or nonpurchasing) motivations by consumer segments, it has the potential to grow faster. 2. DATA COLLECTION AND METHODOLOGY Evaluating MEC is a sequential stage process. It contains three steps: (a) eliciting the most relevant attributes among respondents, (b) using a laddering process to reveal the links between attributes to consequences and values, and (c) deriving the hierarchical value map to express results from the ladders (Reynolds & Whitlark, 1995). Laddering is a very elaborative process as it involves initially asking respondents about the features of products that they see. The interviewer then leads respondents to abstraction by asking why that feature is important. A sequence of concepts can then be linked in a “ladder.” Collecting data (qualitative) through a laddering process requires well-trained interviewers and is very time-consuming when larger scale data is desirable, such as over 100 cases (Reynolds & Gutman, 1988). As an alternative, Ter Hofstede, Audenaert, Steenkamp, and Wedel (1998) suggested a quantitative approach to data collection and analysis by using the association pattern technique (APT) with log-linear models of a means–end chain when larger scale data is desirable for making inferences. The probabilities of links were modeled by a log-linear regression. As this study is intended for making generalizations, a combination of qualitative and quantitative data collection processes is used that is explained below. As the first step of data collection in this study, the relevant attributes and consequences of using organic cotton products were obtained from collating Web-based comments made by those who, for whatever reasons, are interested in organic cotton products. By using a key- word search, such as “organic cotton blog,” “organic cotton directory,” “organic cotton Q&A” (by shops that carry organic cotton lines), discussions on nearly all aspects of organic cotton were reviewed from about 15 sites. All the comments—census rather than sampling—collected between late 2008 and early 2009 were included for first-stage analysis. We established five product attribute motivations for using organic cotton from qualitative comments made by the Agribusiness DOI 10.1002/agr
ORGANIC COTTON PRODUCTS’ PURCHASING MOTIVATIONS 443 “Web public.” We categorized the product attributes that the Web public saw in organic cotton into five categories: brand, product origin, quality of material, feel of touch, and no chemi- cal residue. Using the same process, four consequence motivations were deemed present by the authors: comfort, hypo-allergy, conservation, and health concern. The authors judged the “lad- der” or hierarchy of these attributes, i.e., which motivations belong to product attributes, and which motivations belong to the next ladder of product consequences. All of the nine product attributes and consequences identified were included in a questionnaire later for respondents to rate for their importance levels. For the third level of purchasing motivations and personal values, there was little expression from Web comments. It is possible that Taiwanese consumers are not adept at revealing sentiments even though they were there and needed to be solicited. There is potential bias and lack of control in the review of Web-based comments to identify product attributes and purchasing motivations. For example, some comments could be made by manufacturers and retailers, not consumers. To a certain extent, this potential bias was challenged in the quantitative analysis at two later stages of this study. First, respondents in the quantitative part of the analysis were asked to rate the importance level of all three ladders of purchasing motivations (five product attributes, four consequences, and nine values). When associations between levels of motivations were below a certain level (e.g., support
444 CHEN AND WEI
is the association rule. The association rule is applied to market basket analysis to measure
the associations between products and customers. The association pattern technique used
in this study is the Apriori mining algorithm. The first step of the Apriori algorithm is to
find the frequent item sets from the transactional database. The second step is to remove
low-frequency item sets based on the predefined minimum support level (defined below, e.g.,
removing support level < 0.3). Finally, association rules are generated that satisfy the predefined
minimum confidence from a given database (Agrawal & Srikant, 1994).
Two commonly used association rules are the support and the confidence rules. Normally in
symbols, the expression of the association rule if A happens then B happens is written as A →
B, where A and B are attributes or factors under study. The definition of support is a relative
frequency to indicate the proportion of both A and B have happened, or Supp (A → B) =
|DA ∩ DB |/|D|,where |DA ∩ DB | is the transaction contains both A and B, and |D| represents
the cardinality of a database.
The confidence rule is a relative frequency to indicate the proportion of transactions in which
the support rule is observed given A has happened. The confidence rule is defined as Conf
(A → B) = |DA ∩ DB |/|DA |. The confidence indicates the conditional probability of B with
respect to A.
4. EXPANDING THE ASSOCIATION MINING RULE BY FUZZY LOGIC
The fuzzy set theory is widely used in intelligent systems for its ability to model inherent
vagueness in nature. The framework of today’s fuzzy systems was developed by Zadeh in 1965.
Since then, scientists adopted the fuzzy system into application systems in automatic control
systems such as washing machines (Mendel, 1995). The membership function may be s-type, z-
type, triangular, trapezoidal, Gaussian, etc. The degree of membership denotes the possibility of
the 5-lvel Likert scale importance levels. According to our study problem, when the importance
value is high, then the membership possibility is high. Therefore, the membership function
adopted in this study is the s-type membership function as we are interested in classifying
whether respondents belong to the “important” or “unimportant” membership of purchasing
motivation factors. The membership function is defined as
⎧
⎪
⎪ x−L 2 L+H
⎪
⎨ 2 , if L ≤ x ≤
H−L 2
μ(x) =
⎪
⎪ U−x 2 L+H
⎪
⎩1 − 2 , if < x ≤ H,
H−L 2
where L(=1) is the lower bound and H(=5) is the upper bound.
The traditional Apriori algorithm explained above handles binary data, e.g., belonging or
not belonging to a set of membership under observation. However, in a real-life application,
databases may contain other attribute values besides 0 and 1, (e.g., 1–5 levels in a Likert scale).
Fuzzy set can handle these kinds of databases by defining membership through probabilistic
assessment of the membership of elements in a set (membership of importance/unimportance
in this study). The transformation from 5-level-scale data to continuous data of probability
is shown in Figure 2. Generally, the fuzzy set maps the universe of discourse to a set of real
numbers, which denote the membership of the universe of discourse elements in the set (Kumar,
2005).
Let Ai be the ith fuzzy sets defined in the universe xe by membership function μAi : xe → [0,1]
and B be the fuzzy set defined in the universe ye by membership function μB : ye → [0,1]. Xe
and ye are the eth instance multiitem of input and output, respectively. The measure of support
Agribusiness DOI 10.1002/agrORGANIC COTTON PRODUCTS’ PURCHASING MOTIVATIONS 445
Figure 2 Transforming 5-point-scale importance/unimportance data into importance/unimportance
membership function.
for fuzzy rule R as defined by Rutkowska (2002):
1
N
support(R) = T μA (xe ), μB (ye )
N
e=1
and the confidence for fuzzy rule R is defined as
N
T μA (xe ), I (μA (xe ), μB (ye )
e=1
conf(R) = ,
N
T (μA (x ))
e
e=1
where N is the size of database, μA (xe ) = mini μAi (xe ), T is the product T-norm, and the
Dienes’ S-implication I(a, b) = max{1 − a,b}.
5. RESULTS
Of the 399 valid cases, about 68% of the respondents were women and 32% men. Close to half
of the respondents were married. About 96% of them had tertiary education or above (which is
not unusual in Taiwan). Close to half of the respondents were below the age of 30, indicating a
younger sample. Only 57 out of the 394, or 15% of the respondents had purchased organic cotton
products before. For those who had not purchased organic products, about 54% of them did
not know about such products. In these situations, a brief explanation was given to respondents
and they were advised to go over the written introduction regarding the production process
of organic cotton that appears at the top of the survey questionnaire. Because the survey
was carried out by a one-to-one, face-to-face procedure, the interviewer only started asking
questions when the respondent was comfortable to continue with the questionnaire. Most of
Agribusiness DOI 10.1002/agr446 CHEN AND WEI these people knew about organic foods and it was not difficult for them to comprehend organic cotton products. To recap, five motivations for product attributes and four motivations for functional con- sequences surfaced from Web-based qualitative comments by organic cotton advocates or consumers. Nine value motivations of LOVs were identified in the literature and deemed useful for this study. All of the elements in the three levels of hierarchy were included for evaluation of their link strength. The results of associations, which have support > 0.5 and confidence > 0.7, between elements of the three levels of hierarchy are shown in Figure 3. The top three strong links between consequence and attribute levels (in darker arrows) are observed be- tween hypo-allergy and material, the feeling of touch, and no chemical residue. The strong links between value and functional levels are between security and comfort, hypo-allergy, and conservation. The analysis so far looked at links between consequences and attributes, and between values and consequences separately. For example, the probability of the consequence “hypo-allergy” happens given “origin” has happened, conf(μorigin → μhypo-allergy ) = P(μhypo-allergy |μorigin ) = 0.787. And the probability of the value “security” happens given “comfort” has happened, conf(μhypo-allergy → μsecurity ) = P(μsecurity |μhypo-allergy ) = 0.779. In the following analysis, whose results are shown in Figure 4, we looked at the three levels of hierarchy in a more integrated way. For example, the probability of “security” happens given both “comfort” and “origin” have jointly happened, conf(μorigin ∩ μhypo-allergy → μsecurity ) = P(μsecurity |μhypo-allergy ,μorigin ) = 0.785. Note that Figure 3 Confidence between attributes and consequences, and between consequences and values (Dark arrows indicates top 3 highest links of confidence levels). Agribusiness DOI 10.1002/agr
ORGANIC COTTON PRODUCTS’ PURCHASING MOTIVATIONS 447
Figure 4 Significant means–end routes (support > 0.5, confidence > 0.6) between levels of purchasing
motivations.
conf(μorigin ∩ μhypo-allergy → μsecurity ) = conf(μorigin → μhypo-allergy ) × conf(μhypo-allergy →
μsecurity ) (The former is 0.785 and the latter is 0.787 × 0.779 = 0.6131).
Figure 4 shows four significant (defined as support > 0.5, confidence > 0.6) link routes of
means–end relationship between product attributes, functional consequences, and values. They
are summarized in a different format in Table 1. Although there were four different routes, all led
to security being the ultimate personal value for using organic cotton products; in other words,
there were four perceived means to achieve the same end of security by different respondents.
Interestingly, the element conservation dropped as being a significant consequence from using
organic cotton products in the Taiwan market. Note that these four routes could be seen as four
different ways or criteria for segmenting respondents. For example, one segment showed that
those who regarded product origin being a significant product attribute saw his or her security
value as being achieved through the comfort function (164 respondents vs. 235 respondents who
were not in the target market for this line of segmentation). The second segment is consistent
TABLE 1. Four Segments Based on Significant Routes of a Means–End Relationship Between Three Levels of Purchasing Motivations
Route Functional Personal
Route Product attribute consequence value n∗ vs not n N
1 Origin → Comfort → Security 164 vs 235 399
2 Origin → hypo-allergy → Security 179 vs 220 399
3 Feeling of touch → hypo-allergy → Security 160 vs 239 399
4 No chemical residue → hypo-allergy → Security 149 vs 250 399
∗
Number of respondents in four segments with significant fuzzy association (support > 0.5, confidence > 0.6).
Agribusiness DOI 10.1002/agr448 CHEN AND WEI with those who regarded origin being a significant product attribute, but saw security being achieved through the hypo-allergy quality (179 respondents vs. 220 respondents).The third segment showed that respondents wanted the feeling of touch as it offered the hypo-allergy quality that led to security being the personal value (160 respondents vs. 239 respondents).The fourth segment showed that respondents saw no chemical residue being a desirable product attribute of organic cotton products as it also offered the hypo-allergy property, which in turn gave security to the users (149 vs. 250 respondents). The study demonstrated four segments based on how respondents saw their final personal value being achieved. The findings indicated all four segments resulted in security being an im- portant personal value for those who saw the reasons for using organic cotton products. How- ever, this aspect was only part of the picture. Only through a full understanding of the different paths that lead to security can firms effectively design communication strategies to potential and current cotton consumers of organic cotton products. Knowing the mechanism of the links between levels of purchasing motivations enables deep understanding of consumers’ thought processes. 6. CONCLUSIONS This study applied the means–end chain framework to build a model for understanding buy- ing motivations for organic cotton consumers and potential consumers. Traditionally, market segmentation is based on demographic, geographic, psychological, and behavioristic criteria. The results from this study in the Taiwan market indicated that respondents wanted the final personal value of security and that security could be achieved through four different routes. This indicates an alternative feasible way of segmenting consumers based on their perceptions of the means–end of consuming organic cotton products. The implication for firms, in the Taiwan case, is that effective communication through marketing campaigns for organic cotton products should address product attributes such as reliable product origin, feeling of touch, and absence of chemical residue, as well as functional consequences such as comfort and its hypoaller- genic quality. Emphasizing security alone does not tell potential customers how security can be achieved. To communicate to the segment who considered no chemical residue being significant, firms should have clear labels displaying chemical-free information. Likewise, to communicate to the segment who considered product origin being a significant attribute, detailed information and certification of product origin should be supplied. In today’s global economy, a detailed tag might look like “Designed in Country A with Material from Country B and Manufactured in Country C.” Another implication for managers is that a means–end-chain analysis could offer insights for value-adding opportunities and new product development based on the desirable product attributes, functional consequences, and personal values. Future research might include anal- ysis on how much potential consumers of different means–end routes are willing to pay. For example, in this study are consumers who perceive reliable product origin being important to the hypoallergenic aspect willing to pay more than those who perceive feeling of touch being important to hypoallergenic organic cotton products? The results of this study are limited to the Taiwan market; other markets are likely to have very different means-end-chains because personal values can be very different across cultures and regions although the understanding of lower-ladder product attributes may be similar. This study may be replicated in other markets to compare the thought process of consumers in different markets. This study is also of relevance to study consumer acceptance of garments made from other environmentally friendly material, such as bamboo, corn fibers, soy beans, and recycled material. Firms might be tempted to think the adoption of these new products would follow similar patterns for the same market. However, only through empirical work could such an inference be validated so that firms offering new products could effectively make promises, keep promises, and enable promises. Agribusiness DOI 10.1002/agr
ORGANIC COTTON PRODUCTS’ PURCHASING MOTIVATIONS 449
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank two reviewers’ comments which have assisted greatly in the
final version of this paper.
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