KEY FACTORS AFFECTING CONSUMER PURCHASE INTENTION A STUDY OF SAFE VEGETABLE IN HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY
International School of Business




Nguyen Thanh Huong

KEY FACTORS AFFECTING
CONSUMER PURCHASE INTENTION
A STUDY OF SAFE VEGETABLE IN
HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM

ID: 60340102


MASTER OF BUSINESS (Honours)
SUPERVISOR: Dr. Dinh Cong Khai






Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2012


ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First, I would like to express my gratitude and deepest appreciation to my research
supervisor, Dr. Dinh Cong Khai for his intensive support, valuable suggestions, guidance and

encouragement during the course of my dissertation.
Second, it is my very much gratitude to Prof. Nguyen Dinh Tho who exerts every effort in
guiding me as well as ISB students to implement research.
Third, I would like to thank all the participants as well as my colleagues, my friends who did
contribute to this research.
Last but not least, my sincere thanks are also to all the members of ISB School who are
always trying to create the best convenience for me as well as ISB students during the course.

Ho Chi Minh City, January 2
nd
2012



Nguyen Thanh Huong






Abstract

The food hygiene and safeness is a very serious problem in Vietnam currently. Many cases of
food poising throughout years, especially from vegetable with high content of pesticides and
prohibited toxics, make consumers really worried. The overusing pesticides and prohibited
toxics in vegetable production is extremely worrying consumers. Understanding the problem
as well as the potential of safe vegetable market, many investors are trying to bring safe
vegetable product to consumers. However, reality shows that consumers are not really
passionate with this product despite of they are really demanding for safe vegetable sources.

This research is to find out the key factors affecting consumer purchase intention for safe
vegetable product and result shows that the reason is because of safe vegetables’ price and
consumers’ trust for this product. Consumers perceive safe vegetable as high price product as
well as they don’t fully trust in safe vegetable product and that lower their purchase intention
for this product.
Keywords: Safe vegetable, purchase intention, trust, price perception, Ho Chi Minh City,
Vietnam



LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Research model 14
Figure 2. Research process 16



LIST OF TABLES
Table 1. Hypothesis summary 15
Table 2. Masurement scales for trust 16
Table 3. Measurement scales for price perception 17
Table 4. Measurement scales for appearance 17
Table 5. Measurement scales for purchase intention 18
Table 6. Sample specification 21
Table 7. Data coding 22
Table 8. Cronbach’s alpha result 24
Table 9. EFA result of independent variables 25
Table 10. EFA result of dependent variables 26
Table 11. Regression analysis for gender, Income and purchase intention 27
Table 12. Compare mean of purchase intention for income 28
Table 13. Compare mean of purchase intention for gender 29

Table 14. Test the impact of demographic factors 29
Table 15. Correlation among factors 29
Table 16. Regression analysis for Trust, Price, Appearance & Purchase intention 30
Table 17. Regression analysis for Trust, Price and Purchase intention 31
Table 18. Appearance and Purchase intention 33
Table 19. Correlation of Purchase intention and Price. 35






TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1. NTRODUCTION 1
1.1 RESEARCH BACKGROUND 1
1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT AND RESEARCH OBJECTIVE 2
1.3 BENIFIT OF RESEARCH 3
1.4 RESEARCH METHOD AND STRUCTURE 3
CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW AND RESEARCH MODEL 5
2.1 FUNDAMENTAL BEHAVIOUR THEORIES 5
2.2 PREVIOUS RESEARCHES REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES 8
2.2.1 Trust 9
2.2.2 Price perception 11
2.2.3 Safe vegetable appearance and consumers’ gender, income 12
2.3 RESEARCH MODEL 14
CHAPTER 3. RESEARCH METHODLOGY 16
3.1 RESEARCH PROCESS 16
3.2 DEFINING MEASUREMENT SCALES 17
3.2.1 Measurement scale for consumers’ trust on safe vegetable 17
3.2.2 Measurement scale for consumers’ price perception of safe vegetable . 17

3.2.3 Measurement scale for safe vegetable’s appearance 18
3.2.4 Measurement scale for consumers’ income and consumers’ gender 18
3.2.5 Measurement scale for consumer purchase intention for safe vegetable 18
3.3 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH 19
3.4 QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH 19
3.4.1 Sample for research 20



3.4.2 Data collection 20
3.4.3 Data analysis 21
CHAPTER 4. RESEACH RESULT AND FINDING DISCUSSION . 22
4.1 SAMPLE SPECIFICATION 22
4.2 DATA CODING 23
4.3 EVALUATION OF MEASUREMENT SCALES 24
4.3.1 Reliability evaluation – Cronbach’s alpha 24
4.3.2 Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) 25
4.3.2.1 Exploratory Factor Analysis for measurement scales of independent
factors (trust, price perception, appearance) 26
4.3.2.2 Exploratory Factor Analysis for measurement scales of dependent
factor (purchase intention) 27
4.4. REGRESSION ANALYSIS 28
4.4.1. Testing the impact of demographic factors (gender, income) 28
4.4.2. Testing relationship of trust, price, appearance and purchasing intention . 30
4.4.4. Regression analysis results 33
4.5 FINDING DISCUSSION 33
CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSION, IMPLICATION, LIMITATION AND
FUTURE RESEARCH 36
5.1. CONCLUSION 36
5.2. IMPLICATION 36

5.3. LIMITATION 37
5.4. FUTURE RESEARCH 38
APPENDIX 1: DETAILS OF INTERVIEWED CONSUMERS 45
APPENDIX 2: CRONBACH’S ALPHA RESULT 46
APPENDIX 3: EFA RESULT OF INDEPENDENT VARIABLES 49



APPENDIX 4: EFA RESULT OF DEPENDENT VARIABLES 51
APPENDIX 5: IMPACTION OF DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS 52
APPENDIX 6: REGRESSION ANALYSIS RESULT 55
APPENDIX 7: QUESTIONAIRE FORM 57

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CHAPTER 1. NTRODUCTION
1.1 RESEARCH BACKGROUND
In the recent years, rarely the word “safe vegetable” appears in the guidance of
agricultural production as well as there is never a moment in Vietnam the demand of
food safety and hygiene that extremely attracting consumers’ attention as today. The
increasingly use and abuse of pesticides in vegetable production in Vietnam is really
worrying the Vietnamese government as well as the local consumers.
Polluted environment, unsafe agricultural products and human health under threat are
the result of the overuse of pesticides for weeding and it becomes a very serious
problem in Vietnam currently (Khanh, as cited in Takuro et al., 2009, p.286). It was
reported in The Baomoi (“Safe vegetable problem”) that according to an authority
department, up to 80% of vegetable in the market does not meet food safety and
hygiene standards. A major concern today is the very popular abusing of pesticides in
Vietnam causing environment pollution, poisoned farm. The farmers due to lacking of

knowledge or for their own interest overuse pesticides or non-origin pesticides. A
study reported that Mekong Delta farmers do not only overuse pesticides but also
abuse several banned or restricted products in their vegetable weeding (Nguyen and
Tran, as cited in Luke and Steffanie, 2007, p.1).
Food safety issue becomes more and more serious. Reported by Samira (2012) that
there were 51 death cases from 175 food poisoning cases in Vietnam in 2010 in which
33,2% is from micro organization, 25,2% is from toxin, 10.4% is from chemical and
31.2% is unknown. It is also advised by a hospital in Ho Chi Minh city that 30% –
35% of the hospital’s cancer victims is from food poisoning.
The large numbers of food poisoning cases throughout years in Vietnam together with
the citizen’s increasing standard of living as well as the more concern about their
health, quality and safety of the food they eat create a strong demand of safe vegetable
product. That the demand for safe vegetable is growing rapidly over years creates
huge market opportunities for safe vegetable.
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1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT AND RESEARCH OBJECTIVE
Understanding the huge opportunities of safe vegetable market; many investors have
begun their investment to this market, however, a surprising reality shows that
investors are facing much difficulty in finding the output for this market, especially in
the context of safe vegetable supply has not met the demand. About supply and
demand of safe vegetable, The Fruit and Vegetable Research Institute reports that
despite the high demand for safe vegetable, there is only small portion of safe
vegetable production compared with ordinary vegetable. In 2009, safe vegetable
production area only accounted for 8.5% of the total area under vegetable production
in Viet Nam which absolutely could not meet consumers’ demand. Added in The
Vietnamplus (“high demand but still low consumption”) that the current productivity
of safe vegetable can only meet 20% of consumers’ demand, however, consumption is
very unstable and especially with low speed in profuse harvest. In the context of

supply has not met demand, there should have been no issue for the product output.
However, the reality of safe vegetable market is totally different that make us
confused if consumers don’t care about their health though keep complaining of the
safety of vegetable, or if there are factors which strongly impact and restrain their
purchasing for this product. If those factors are really existing then we worry what
they are. Therefore, the aim of this research is to find out the key factors affecting
consumer purchase intention for safe vegetable. The research questions are following:
• What are the key factors affecting consumer purchase intention for safe
vegetable in Ho Chi Minh?
• And how do they impact on consumer purchase intention?
The object of the research will be consumers of vegetable market in Ho Chi Minh
City.


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1.3 BENIFIT OF RESEARCH
With the consumers in this alarming period of food safety and hygiene, they are more
and more starving for safe vegetable product. With the Vietnamese government, food
safety issue related to vegetable is currently a headache to them and the Government
has strived to increase the production area as well as productivity of safe vegetable to
bring this product to the citizen as much as possible. With investors in safe vegetable
market, finding ways to solve the problem of their product output is their first priority
to recover their balance in this market. Hence, if the factors impacting and restraining
consumer purchase intention for safe vegetable can be discovered and among them, if
there are some that the government as well as investors can solve then it would in
some aspects benefit the society as well as investors. Consumers will have more
chance of approaching safe vegetable; vegetable related food safety issue become less
headache to government; investors can solve problem of their product output as well

as expand their business and market for safe vegetable. Hence, it is really necessary
that investors as well as the government should understand those factors for their
problem solving.
1.4 RESEARCH METHOD AND STRUCTURE
This research employs a combined method comprising 5 steps:
• Step 1: Review the literatures on determinants of consumer purchase intention
with special attention to those conducted in the context of safe vegetable in
Vietnam. From this, define a list of possible determinants as well as hypotheses
and research model.
• Step 2: Define measurement scales for the research concepts.
• Step 3: Perform qualitative research to evaluate measurement scales
• Step 4: Perform official quantitative research.
• Step 5: Code and analyze data
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Corresponding to this process below structure is proposed for this research:
• Chapter 1: Introduction to introduce research background, research problem,
research objective, research question as well as benefit of the research.
• Chapter 2: Literature review. This chapter reviews theories and selects the
research’s factors as well as formulates the research hypotheses and model.
• Chapter 3: Research methodology. This chapter provides general idea how the
research is designed and implemented.
• Chapter 4: Data analysis, result and finding discussion. This chapter translates
data collected from survey, analyses data as well as discusses the result finding
in connection with theory.
• Chapter 5: Conclusion, implication, limitation and future research. This
Chapter concludes the research finding, provides implication, further
suggestion as well as research limitation.
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Page 5

CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW AND RESEARCH MODEL
2.1 FUNDAMENTAL BEHAVIOUR THEORIES
In order to understand why consumers purchase safe vegetable, we will firstly look at
the two very basic behaviour theories called Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) and
Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB).
The TRA is developed by Ajzen and Fishbein in 1980, and after that the TPB is
developed by Ajzen in 1991. Both the two theories explain how a person leads to
certain behaviour. The central factor in the theories is the individual’s intention to
perform a given behaviour.
According to Ajzen (1991, p.181) “intentions are assumed to capture the motivational
factors that influence a behaviour, they are indications of how hard people are willing
to try, of how much of an effort they are planning to exert, in order to perform the
behaviour”. And he makes further emphasis that “when people have the stronger
intention to engage in the behaviour, they will more likely to perform the behaviour”
(Ajzen, 1991, p.181). Added by Samin et al. (2012, p.206) that “intention is the
person’s motivation in the sense of his or her intention to perform behaviour. Further
definition for purchase intention is “what we think we will buy” (Park, as cited in
Samin et al., 2012, p.206). Purchase intention can also be defined as the decision to
act or physiological action that shows an individual’s behaviour according to the
product (Wang & Yang, as cited in Samin et al., 2012, p.206). Dodds et al. (1991)
suggested that purchase intention represents the possibility for consumers to buy a
product (as cited in Long and Ching, 2010, p.20). Long and Ching also conclude
“purchase intention stands for what we would like to buy in future” (Long and Ching,
2010, p.20).
According to the TRA, a person’s behavioural intention is determined by the two basis
components which are attitude toward behaviour and subjective norm. These two
factors will directly affect an individual’s behavioural intention and then consequently
affect his or her behaviour (Sudin, Geoffrey and Hanudin, 2009, p.68)

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Ajzen (1991, p.188) defines attitude toward the behaviour as “the degree to which a
person has a favourable or unfavourable evaluation or appraisal of the behaviour in
question”. A person will hold a favourable attitude toward performing the behaviour if
he or she believes that positive outcomes will be mostly achieved if performing a
given behaviour and vice versa (Sudin et al., 2009, p.68). The more favourable
attitude toward performing a behaviour a person is holding, the stronger intention he
or she will make to perform the behaviour (Ajzen, 1991, p.181 ). Sudin et al. (2009,
p.68) terms the beliefs that underlie a person’s attitude toward the behaviour are
behavioural beliefs.
Ajzen also refers subjective norm as “the perceived social pressure to perform or not
to perform the behaviour” (Ajzen, 1991, p.188). Teresa, Bonnie and Yingjiao (2005,
p.407) makes more explanation for subjective norm as “a function of an individual’s
beliefs that specific individuals or groups think he/she should or should not perform
the behaviour”. Added by Sudin et al. (2009, p.68) that “ a person who believes that
most referents with whom he is motivated to comply think he should perform the
behaviour will receive social pressure to do so”.
In another way, the TRA says that the more favourable attitude a person is holding
toward performing behaviour, the higher intention he or she will perform it. Or the
more a person perceives social pressure to perform behaviour, the more likely his or
her intention to perform it will increase.
However, the TRA also has its limitation to explain why in some case, a person holds
a very favourable attitude toward performing behaviour as well as perceives a very
strong social pressure to perform the behaviour; he or she still does not have intention
or holds a very low intention to perform the behaviour.
To solve the TRA’s limitation, Ajzen develops another theory called Theory of
Planned Behaviour. “Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) is an extension of the
theory of reasoned action (TRA) made necessary by the original model’s limitations in

dealing with behaviours over which people have incomplete volitional control”
(Ajzen, 1991, p.181). The TPB is developed by adding one more component which is
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called perceived behavioural control to the TRA. Then in the TPB model, an
individual’s behavioural intention is a function of three basis components which are
attitude toward the behaviour, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control.
Ajzen (1991, p.188) refers perceived behavioural control in the TPB model as “people
perception of the ease or difficulty of performing the behaviour of interest”. The
importance of actual behaviour control is self evident: the resources and opportunities
available to a person must to some extent dictate the likelihood of behavioural
achievement.
The TPB solves the limitation of the TRA by its ability to explain why in some
scenarios, people hold a great favourable attitude toward performing behaviour as well
as perceive strong social pressure to perform the behaviour but they still don’t perform
the behaviour. Those scenarios are explained by the TPB that because people perceive
obstacles or difficulty in performing the behaviour. Or the perception of having low
capacity to perform the behaviour also lowers a person’s behavioural intention and
consequently makes him or her not performing the behaviour. Those TPB calls
perceived behavioural control.
The TRA and TPB have been applied extensively in food studies as well as in other
industries as service, banking They have also been used by many researchers to
predict consumer purchase intention for a specific product. For example, Teresa et al.
(2006) uses TRA and TPB to predict purchase intention of a controversial luxury
apparel product, Syed (2011) uses TPB to study consumer purchase behaviour for
halal food, Anssi and Sanna (2005) also uses them to study consumer’s organic food
buying behaviour According to Anssi and Sanna (2005, p.809), in the past studies
on organic food buying behaviour the role of subjective norms, which refers to the
perceived social pressure to perform or not to perform the behaviour, has often been

neglected or not included in the research model. This could be because of its low
impact on consumer’s organic food purchasing behaviour. Same in this research for
consumer purchase intention of safe vegetable, we also neglect subjective norm in our
research model.
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2.2 PREVIOUS RESEARCHES REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES
In Hsiang-tai, Stephanie and Alan (2000)’s study about factors that influence the
purchasing decision for fresh potatoes of consumer in the New England market, the
researchers proposes a model of eight key factors affecting consumer purchase
decision for fresh potatoes which are: (1)Appearance of the potatoes, (2)Price, (3)Size
of the potatoes, (4)Region where the potatoes were grown, (5)Type of potatoes,
(6)Product inspection certification on the bag, (7)Prior experience with the product,
(8)A money back guarantee if not satisfying. Besides that, demographic factors as
consumer’s age, sex, income and household size are also included in his model. In
general, the research results confirm that product appearance is the most influential
characteristic, then types of potatoes and size receive high important rating. Price is
moderately important but less crucial than appearance, size and type However, the
importance rate of those most influential factors is different among respondents’
gender, age, income (Hsiang-tai et al., 2000, p.51-52). Other researches proposes more
factors as degree of knowledge of product, purchase place, degree of trust in product
certification, price perception, trust in product, product information, package
information, brand awareness that could affect purchase intention for a specific
product.
In Andrew (2006)’s research about “quality and safety in the traditional horticultural
marketing chains of Asia”, he concludes appearance is one of the most important
factors affecting consumer purchase (Andrew, 2006, p.21). A small survey for
consumers in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam also conducted by Andrew says that
consumers do have intention to purchase safe vegetable; however, consumption of

safe vegetable is only 5% of consumer’s total vegetable consumption regardless of
past fatalities from consuming conventional vegetables. The reasons declared by
consumers are there is “a lack of conviction that such vegetables were indeed safer”
and safe vegetable has high price (Andrew, 2006, p.22)
Therefore, in our research model, we will only focus on some major factors that could
most impact on consumer purchase intention for safe vegetable in Ho Chi Minh city,
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Vietnam. They are trust, price perception, safe vegetable appearance, and
demographic factors as consumers’ age and income. More review for those selected
factors will be following.
2.2.1 Trust
As cited in Carmina and Carlos (2011, p.283):
Moorman et al. (1993) defined trust as “a willingness to rely on an exchange
partner in whom one has confidence”, proposing, additionally, trust as a belief,
confidence, or expectation about an exchange partner’s trustworthiness that
results from the partner’s expertise, reliability, or intentionality.
Carmina and Carlos (2011, p.283) also states “in the context of food products, trust is
closely linked to other basic concepts of marketing, like safety and perceived risk, and
others such as nutrition and health”.
Mapping trust to TPB framework, we can say that trust is a belief underlying
consumer’s attitude toward their purchase behaviour and therefore, trust can
potentially be considered as an important factor that affects consumer purchasing
intention. Carmina and Carlos (2011)’s research result about “consequences of
consumer trust in PDO food products” says that trust affects consumer’s satisfaction
and consequently affects consumer purchase intention for PDO food products.
In general, we can make assumption that trust plays an impact on consumer purchase
intention.
Back to Vietnam market, vegetable can be considered as indispensable food product

to every Vietnamese family’s meal and consumers can not stop consuming vegetable.
However, in Vietnam the food safety issue is extremely alerting consumers currently
that causes a strong demand for safe vegetable. Many cases of food poisoning caused
by insecticide inside vegetable or high concentrate of existing growth stimulating
substances in vegetable. According to Young, Miri & Junghoon (2008, p.168) that
“after facing serious food safety incidents, consumers have become increasingly
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concerned with quality and safety of foods they eat”, they will try to look for
sufficient information before making food purchase decision. Consumers will look at
purchasing branded, quality insurance for their risk reducing strategies in their
purchasing. However, resource of information of safe vegetable in Vietnam is
currently so limited that makes consumers very confused when purchasing this
product. Most of safe vegetable products do not have any certification that causes
losing consumers’ trust. Currently, only 20% of safe vegetable is sold in
supermarkets and safe vegetable shops, the majority is sold in traditional markets in a
jumble with ordinary vegetable. There is no special figure to distinguish between safe
vegetable and ordinary vegetable except that safe vegetable is well packed in nylon
pack and labelled with name of production companies. There is no figure other than
that to convince consumers about safe vegetable is really safe and that make them
really worried when purchasing this product. Stated by Ms. Nguyen Thanh Tam, a
consumer in Ho Chi Minh city, that “I usually buy food, vegetable in a traditional
market nearby my house, there they are also selling vegetable called safe vegetable
packed in nylon pack with label and producer name but I still do worry if they are
really safe vegetable. I still buy this product only by placing my confidence in the
seller’s honest”. From this review, we may assume that consumers are holding an
unfavourable attitude for safe vegetable product, they don’t really trust in safe
vegetable product and that lowers their purchase intention for this product.
From literature review together with the current status of safe vegetable in Viet Nam,

we hypothesize that consumer purchase intention for safe vegetable is positively
affected by trust. The more consumers trust in safe vegetable, the more likely they will
increase their purchase intention for this product. So our first hypothesis is defined as
following:
H1. There is a positive relationship of consumers’ trust in safe vegetable and their safe
vegetable purchase intention.
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2.2.2 Price perception
As defined by Ajzen (1991, p.188) in his TPB model, “perceived behavioural control
refers to people perception of the ease or difficulty of performing the behaviour of
interest”. He makes more explanation for perceived behavioural control as “the
customer’s personal view of his or her capability to carry out certain behaviour”
(Ajzen, as cited in Zeinab and Seyedeh, 2012, p.100) and “can account for
considerable variance in behavioural intention and action” (Ajzen, as cited in Anssi
and Sanna, 2005, p.810). In the studies of consumer purchase behaviour for organic
product, Tregear (1994) concludes that price does high affect in consumer purchase
for this product, that the “product’s relative higher price has been practically most
important for not buying organic product” (Tregear, as cited in Anssi and Sanna,
2005, p.811). Price is an obstacle to consumer purchase for organic product; high
price will lower consumers’ capacity of purchasing for the product, especially low
income consumers, and it makes consumers perceive the impossibility to purchase
organic food product, makes them feel uneasy or difficult in performing their purchase
decision for the product (Anssi and Sanna, 2005, p.811). In the study of Zeinab and
Seyedeh (2012) about “main factors influencing purchasing behaviour of organic
product in Malaysia”, he views price as one of the elements of perceived behavioural
control for its ability to limit the purchases of consumers, he also says numerous
consumers place their purchases mainly base on price (Zienab and Seyedeh, 2012,
p.106). Therefore, we can assume that price highly impacts on consumer purchase

intention for a product.
According to Bich Diep (2012), average income of Vietnamese is 1300 USD/year in
2011 that can be considered low. And with the saving habit of the Vietnamese, it is
easily to understand that the majority of Vietnamese tend to pay much consideration
in their spending. And that safe vegetable’ price is always high, especially much more
expensive than conventional vegetable can make it really sensitive to consumers and it
could be rated as one of the major obstacle to their purchase intention for this product.
Andrew (2006, p.22) also reports in his study of consumers in Ho Chi Minh city,
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Vietnam that one of the reasons declared by consumers of not buying safe vegetable
product is because of its high price.
However, consumers have their different price perception (Ehrenberg, as cited in
Terasa et al., 2005, p.408). This could be understood in the way that some consumers
when they have limited financial resources, price is their first priority and they may
tend to consider safe vegetable as expensive, therefore, that would lower their
purchase intention for safe vegetable. However, others may think that the
expensiveness of safe vegetable is worthy in return for its quality and consequently,
they don’t perceive safe vegetable is expensive product.
In general assumption for Vietnam, safe vegetable’s high price can be an obstacle to
consumer purchase intention. However, it is incorrect to mean that consumers
perceive safe vegetable as expensive product. Every consumer has his or her
individual price perception for safe vegetable. This leads to assumption that if
consumers perceive safe vegetable as expensive product, they will lower their
purchase intention for it and vice versa. With this assumption, we propose hypothesis
as following:
H2. There is a positive relationship of consumers’ price perception for safe vegetable
and consumer purchase intention. The positive relationship is defined in the way that
the more inexpensive consumers think safe vegetable is, the more likely they will

increase their purchase intention for safe vegetable.
2.2.3 Safe vegetable appearance and consumers’ gender, income
Over years, there were many studies on factors affecting consumer purchase intention
for foods consumption. The factors as well as their importance may be different from
countries to countries, periods to periods However, over the years in food
consumption, product appearance and price are considered as “the two most influence
factors” (Vance Publications, as cited in Hsiang-tai et al., 2000, p.47). Said by Robert
Shewfelt, professor of food science at the University of Georgia's Center for Food
Safety and Quality Enhancement, most consumers aren't willing even to consider
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buying something that does not have a pleasant appearance (Pratt, 1993). Andrew
(2006, p.21) also concludes that appearance is one of the most important factors
affecting consumer purchase for fruit and vegetable in Asian markets. Therefore, in
this research, we propose hypothesis as following:
H3: There is a positive relationship of safe vegetable’s appearance and consumer
purchase intention
According to Ajzen (1991) says about his TPB model, “attitude toward behaviour,
subjective norm and perceived behavioural control are considered to be central for
predicting the understanding human behaviour”. However, he also proposes some
other factors which he calls “external variables” that may affect people behaviour. The
suggested external variables are personality traits, demographic factors (Ajzen, as
cited Teresa et al., 2005, p.408). Hence, in this research, we will consider
demographic factors (consumers’ income and gender) as control variables.

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2.3 RESEARCH MODEL

From the literature review and research hypotheses, the model is as follows:









Figure 1. Research model
In which:
Trust: consumers’ trust for safe vegetable
Price perception: consumers’ price perception for safe vegetable whether safe
vegetable is inexpensive or not.
Appearance: safe vegetable appearance according to consumers’ perception.
Income: consumers’ income
Gender: consumers’ gender
Purchase intention: consumer purchase intention for safe vegetable.

Appearance


Purchase intention
Price perception

Trust
H1 (+)
H2 (+)
H3 (+)

Demographic variables:
Consumers’ gender
Consumers’ income
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Table 1
Hypothesis summary
Hypothesis Statement
H1
There is a positive relationship of consumers’ trust in safe vegetable and
their safe vegetable purchase intention. The more consumers trust in safe
vegetable, the more likely they will increase their purchase intention for
this product
H2
There is a positive relationship of consumers’ price perception for safe
vegetable and consumer purchase intention. The positive relationship is
defined in the way that the more inexpensive consumers think safe
vegetable is, the more likely they will increase their purchase intention
for safe vegetable
H3
There is a positive relationship of safe vegetable’s appearance and
consumer purchase intention

Student: Nguyen Thanh Huong Supervisor: Dr. Dinh Cong Khai
Page 16

CHAPTER 3. RESEARCH METHODLOGY
Chapter 2 reviewed literature and proposes hypotheses and research model. Chapter 3
will present how the research was implemented. This chapter composes of three main

steps: step (1) defining measurement scales, step (2) performing qualitative research
and step (3) implementing quantitative research.
3.1 RESEARCH PROCESS
This study is conducted with process is as follows:


Problem
definition
Literature
review
Hypotheses
& Model
Measurement scale
in English
Measurement scale
in Vietnamese
Qualitative research
(to validate
measurement scale
in Vietnamese
)
Final measurement
scale in Vietnamese
Questionnaire
forming
Sampling
Data collection
Data analysis
Managerial
implications

Figure 2. Research process
Student: Nguyen Thanh Huong Supervisor: Dr. Dinh Cong Khai
Page 17


3.2 DEFINING MEASUREMENT SCALES
Measurement scales were defined from research hypotheses and model. There are five
research concepts in this research which are trust, price perception, appearance,
consumers’ gender and income.
The measurement scales used to measure the concepts are the existing measurement
scales in the world. These measurement scales were used in many previous qualified
researches which are published in reputed international magazines.
3.2.1 Measurement scale for consumers’ trust on safe vegetable
Consumers’ trust on safe vegetable (briefly called trust) was measured by overall
evaluating consumers about their trust toward safe vegetable product. The
measurement scales were adapted from Carmina and Carlos (2011) and Mei-Fang
(2009).
Table 2
Measurement scales for trust

1. I think safe vegetable is trustworthy
2. The quality of the safe vegetable is trustworthy
3. I trust safe vegetable have no harmful effects
3.2.2 Measurement scale for consumers’ price perception of safe vegetable
Consumers’ price perception of safe vegetable (briefly called price perception)
measures how consumers perceive price of safe vegetable; whether they think safe
vegetable is expensive or not expensive. The measurement scales for this concept
were adapted from Mei-Fang (2009).