Sustainability concerns on consumers’ attitude towards short food supply chains: an empirical Investigation

Wang, Meng, Kumar, Vikas, Ruan, Ximing, Saad, Mohammed, Garza-Reyes, Jose Arturo and Kumar, Anil (2022) Sustainability concerns on consumers’ attitude towards short food supply chains: an empirical Investigation. Operations Management Research, 15. pp. 76-92. ISSN 1936-9735

Preview

Text Sustainability-Concerns-on-Consumers-Attitude-Towards-Short-Food-Supply-Chains.pdf - Accepted Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives 4.0. Download (683kB) | Preview

Abstract / Description

While industrialized agro-food supply systems have gained tremendous success in recent decades, it has been increasingly criticized for its adverse environmental and social impact. Amongst this criticism, Short Food Supply Chains (SFSCs) have emerged as a promising sustainable alternative to the industrialized agri-food supply systems. In recent years there have been some attempts to explore the relationship between SFSCs and sustainability, but these are mostly theoretical discussions and lacks empirical validation. This study, therefore, attempts to provide empirical validation of the SFSCs and sustainability linkages. Additionally, from the theoretical perspective, our work extends the traditional triple bottom line constructs and explores two extra dimensions of sustainability in the food supply chain system, namely, governance and culture, thus exploring five dimensions of sustainability. Furthermore, while SFSCs have proven to improve farmers’ livelihoods and reconnect producers with consumers, little or no attention has been given to understand the consumers' attitudes towards the SFSC practices. Therefore, this study aims to explore the customers’ attitudes towards participating in SFSCs through the concept of a moral economy and personal relationship. Based on the 532 valid responses from Chinese consumers, our study shows that all five pillars of sustainability, moral economy and Chinese relationship have a positive influence on consumers’ participation in SFSCs. With its intuitive benefits, the economic pillar emerged as the most approved factor by the participants. Interestingly our findings show that the social aspect is less prominent than others, which is contrary to existing studies conducted in developed countries.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	short food supply chains; five pillars; sustainability; empirical study; China; moral economy
Subjects:	600 Technology > 650 Management & auxiliary services
Department:	Guildhall School of Business and Law
Depositing User:	Anil Kumar
Date Deposited:	06 Mar 2021 12:12
Last Modified:	29 Sep 2022 13:27
URI:	https://repository.londonmet.ac.uk/id/eprint/6388

Downloads

Actions (login required)

View Item