An analysis of local food adoption in business events: a transaction cost economics approach

Abstract

This dissertation aims to investigate antecedents of local food adoption business events, particularly in Thailand. In this study, the role of Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) will be examined in the theoretical framework of Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) by identifying how Transaction Costs affect universities and colleges’ Attitudes, Subjective Norms, Perceived Behavior Control and Behavioral Intentions toward local food adoption in business events and further influence universities and colleges’ Actual Behavior of local food adoption behavior in meetings. By doing so, research objectives of the study are to: Firstly, this study investigates antecedents of local food adoption in universities and colleges in Thailand. This study employs questionnaire as the instrument tool to get universities and colleges’ perception of local food adoption. This study applies the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), consisting of Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Path analysis to validate the measurement model and structural model respectively. The results of the study reveal that the Transaction Costs have strong negative influences on Behavioral Intentions of local food adoption. Attitudes, Perceived Behavioral Control and Behavioral Intentions have influences on Behavioral Intentions of local food adoption. Secondly, this study uses the econometric technique to estimate universities and colleges’ local food adoption behavior. The regression results suggest that only focused f on the pure Theory of Planned Behavior cannot improve the predictability of economic agents’ decision-making behavior. In contrast, the additional economic construct, namely Transaction Costs of local food adoption behavior have significant correlation in universities’ behavioral intention of local food adoption behavior, among which information cost is found to be the most significant influence on the local food adoption behavior in universities and colleges’ business events in Thailand. Therefore, it is suggested that stakeholders or policy makers should facilitate the information channels of local food, thus alleviating the local food searching information costs and encouraging the local food adoption behavior.