Study on Communication Effect of Food Safety Risk in Social Media: the Influence of Response Effort Level on Consumption Willingness Change

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College of Economics & Management, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China

Abstract By constructing influence model for communication effect of food safety risk in social media environment, the influences of different response manners taken by relevant enterprises on consumers’ cognition and purchasing intention are analyzed, and influence mechanisms of response effort level, interaction and content reliability on consumers’ attitudes are revealed. Based on quasi-experimental study with three kinds of response effort levels, it is found that content reliability, interaction and effort degree of enterprise response under negative information of food safety event have significant impacts on communication effect and consumers’ purchasing intention.

Key words Food safety, Communication effect, Social media, Effort level, Purchase willingness

1 Introduction

In recent years, food production technology has been continuously upgraded, but food safety problems continue to emerge, which brings adverse influence on healthy development of food industry and causes huge threat to public health. For example, Sudan Red Incident, Leptin Incident and Melamine Incident,etc. aroused strong reaction and panic among the public, and also revealed severe situation of current food safety supervision in China.

After food safety event occurs, its relevant information often could form hot propagation effect in social media, and its risk is often magnified. But response measures taken by relevant enterprises have certain difference in initiative. It needs deeply analyzing and testing how these responses to affect consumers’ risk perception and purchasing intention, and the difference in communication effect and behavior influence brought by different response manners. In this paper, Fuxi Expired Meat Incident of Shanghai is taken as an example, and risk communication effects of relevant enterprises taking different response strategies after the event are analyzed, to explore action mechanism of response effort level in food safety risk communication in social media environment.

2 Related studies

2.1InteractionofsocialmediaThe emergence of new Internet media has largely broken the geographical restrictions on people’s communication, enhanced information exchange in modern society and had a far-reaching impact on people’s way of life and mode of communication. Social media (such as micro-blog, WeChat,etc.) is popular among netizens because of its efficient information dissemination and strong interaction, and it also becomes an important way of enterprises developing marketing and customer service activities.

Human-computer interaction is an important research direction in the field of interaction. As typical representative of social media, the use of micro-blog enhances people’s communication. It could explore interaction dimension from controllability, bidirectionality, individuality and responsiveness in academic circle.

At present, most of researches concentrate on interaction between enterprises and consumers, and there are fewer studies on interaction among consumers. Some scholars have proposed that interaction has basic characteristics of bidirectionality, but it lacks empirical discussion. Micro-blog marketing has basic characteristics of two-way communication, and the new marketing model also shows enterprises’ active response in meeting consumers’ demands. In this paper, it tries to analyze if meeting degree on information demands of consumers by enterprises could affect their purchase willingness.

2.2FoodsafetyandconsumptionbehaviorConsumers’ buying behavior of safe food is influenced by many factors, in which food safety risk awareness plays an important role. Zhang Xinetal. find that consumers’ purchase behavior on safe food is affected by per capita income level of consumer households, consumers’ information understanding and demand degree, consumption environment and price of safe food[1]. The research by Lu Yangetal. shows that consumers’ ages, education levels, familiarity with food safety and value on its price significantly affect their purchase behavior[2]. Liu Jundietal. find that consumers’ willingness to pay for food safety is affected by sexes, ages, subjective cognition degree and evaluation on food safety of consumers[3]. The research by Zhou Yinghengetal. shows that women are more likely to spend more on safe food than men, and consumers with low educational background will not accept high-priced safe food or only accept relatively low-priced safe food, while highly educated people are willing to pay high price for safe food[4]. Piggott studies the influence of safety information of pork, beef and chicken on meat consumption in the US market. The result shows that consumers tend to consider the price first when buying meat products, and then the safety of meat. But after major food safety event occurs, consumers’ consideration on food safety has been significantly improved[5]. Dierks thinks that consumers’ attitude is the most important factor of affecting purchase decision under normal situation, and trust has less impact. But under the background of food safety crisis, trust becomes the most important factor of affecting purchase decision[6]. Empirical analysis on recovery of milk powder and liquid milk purchase after Melamine Incident by Quan Shiwenetal. shows that consumers’ knowledge understanding, risk attitude and trust on information subject and way all significantly affect recovery of consumers’ willingness to buy[7].

2.3FoodsafetyriskcommunicationinsocialmediaThe improvement of public concern about food safety has led many scholars to study such kind of issues, and social media plays an important role in food safety risk communication. Covelloetal. conclude development process of food safety risk into the historical process transforming from "one-way notification" to "common participation"[8]. Ulrich Beck thinks that public media could generate important influence on risk communication, and emphasizes valuing the roles of traditional and new media in risk communication, especially the application of new media could generate decisive influence on risk communication effect[9]. Lu Yeetal. think that Internet media can better help enterprises and governments to obtain the opinions and requirements of Internet users on food safety incidents, and promote more people to pay attention to food safety incidents[10]. Shi Anbin uses co-evolution model to discuss, and proposes that it should realize risk communication in the whole link of risk management and control, to promote two-way communication effectiveness of risk[11]. Now, enterprise risk management is not simply notifying public relevant information, but it should strengthen interaction and communication, thereby realizing construction of trust relationship between public and enterprise, government and enterprise, government and public via communication, and maintaining mutual trust relationship. Risk communication must be based on public trust, and quick and timely risk communication and feedback should be conducted[12].

There are more studies on food safety, consumers’ purchase willingness and information dissemination of social media, but it lacks research on two-way communication between enterprises and consumers and consumers’ purchase willingness under information shock of food safety event in social media environment. In this paper, interaction and reliability of information content are introduced to explore influence mechanism of information shock of food safety event on consumers’ purchase willingness from the visual angle of social media environment, and if the influence of corrective information issued by enterprises with different response effort levels in micro-blog situation on risk communication effect and consumers’ purchase willingness has the difference.

3 Research models and hypotheses

3.1Reliabilityofmicro-bloginformationcontentAs the emerging information carrier, micro-blog weakens difference evaluation due to different roles of people but enhances information content itself. For consumers, information with high reliability could enhance the positive or negative meaning of its content itself, while the influence of information with low reliability on consumers’ behavior will be very weak. Effect of information with high content reliability far exceeds that with low content reliability. It is assumed that when evaluation of information reliability by consumers is higher, consumers tend to not reduce buying the enterprise’s products.

Micro-blog enhances reliability of information content. Based on micro-blog, two-way communication between enterprise and consumer, consumers could be conducted. Reliability evaluation of micro-blog information also significantly affects evaluation of two-way risk communication effect between consumer and enterprise. The hypothesis is thus put forward. H1a: reliability evaluation on micro-blog negative information by consumers positively affects communication effect between consumer and enterprise. H1b: reliability evaluation on micro-blog negative information by consumers positively affects change of consumers’ purchase willingness.

3.2Enterprise’sresponseeffortlevelAfter crisis occurs, response source is enterprise itself and external subject, while external subject contains government, media and other corresponding social supervisory departments[13]. Internal response of enterprise is divided into four kinds according to effort level: refusal response, passive response, voluntary response and very hard response. Refusal response indicates that enterprise does not mention the event and refuses to undertake corresponding responsibility. Passive response indicates that enterprise has to explain the event under some pressure. Voluntary response indicates that enterprise actively undertakes responsibility for the event and responds to it. Very hard response indicates that enterprise not only undertakes responsibility for the incident, but also actively takes various ways to solve the consequences of the incident. The hypothesis is thus put forward. H2a: the higher the response effort level of enterprise, the higher the evaluation on enterprise’s communication effect by consumer. H2b: the higher the response effort level of enterprise, the stronger the purchase willingness of consumer. H2c: the higher the response effort level, the higher the evaluation on communication effect of enterprise. H2d: the higher the response effort level, the stronger the purchase willingness of consumer.

3.3EvaluationoninteractionbetweenenterpriseandconsumerLiuetal. see interaction as the process of mutual influence among opinion evaluation, information content and communication media[14]. Advertising communication is actually a process of public participation. Public accepts advertising information, thereby conducting content cognition and feedback of advertising products, and reaching two-way communication target of information[15]. Public participation degree affects the effect of information dissemination. Chen Jichang points out that interaction indicates information audiences establishing information interaction based on network carrier, and the interaction excites audiences joining in information transmission process, to achieve advertisers’ business goals[16].

Interactive evaluation indicates that consumers evaluate if openness and interaction of the issued information by enterprise could make them freely express opinions. Stronger interaction could obtain better interactive evaluation, and the realized communication is better. Evaluation of enterprise communication effect by consumer significantly affects his willingness to buy product. The hypothesis is thus put forward. H3a: interactive evaluation on enterprise by consumer positively affects consumer’s evaluation on communication effect. H3b: interactive evaluation on enterprise by consumer positively affects consumer’s willingness to repurchase enterprise products.

3.4EvaluationoncommunicationeffectbetweenenterpriseandconsumerIn essence, the process of information communication between enterprises and consumers can also be regarded as an advertising communication. Philip Kotler divides advertising effect into sales effect and communication effect. Sales effect indicates if content of advertising information could increase sales for enterprises, while communication effect indicates information exchange result between enterprise and consumer obtained by advertising diffusion[17]. Through the reception of advertising information, the audience’s perception may change. According to different influence ranges, actual advertising effect has economic, psychological and social effects. Lavidgeetal. propose advertising six-stratum theory, and divide the psychological state of the receiver of advertisement into knowing→cognition→hobby→preference→trust→purchase taking sale objective as the basis, to realize the assessment on advertising effect by stage transformation[18].

Evaluation on communication effect between enterprise and consumer is conducted from the perspective of consumers, and evaluation result is directly related to changes in consumer attitudes, further affecting consumption willingness and behavior. The hypothesis is thus put forward. H4a: evaluation of communication effectiveness of enterprise statements significantly and positively affects consumers’ repurchase willingness; H4b: evaluation on communication effect of passive response type of enterprise affects consumers’ repurchase willingness; H4c: evaluation of communication effectiveness of enterprise statements affects consumers’ repurchase willingness.

3.5InterpersonaltrustTrust is achieved through social interaction. Only by completing the establishment of trust relationship, can people have a consistent goal and cognition in their communication activities. People with higher trust degree are more likely to generate trust in communication. When the part of consumers accept negative information of food safety, they feel higher food safety risk due to higher trust tendency. For the revised information by enterprise, their felt food safety risk could decline due to higher sense of trust. Consumer’s interpersonal trust tendency significantly affects reliability evaluation of information content and communication effect of food safety risk. The hypothesis is thus put forward. H5a: consumer’s interpersonal trust significantly affects reliability evaluation of information content by consumer. H5b: consumer’s interpersonal trust significantly affects effect evaluation of risk communication. Research model is shown as Fig.1.

Fig.1Researchmodel

4 Questionnaire design and data

4.1DesignofexperimentalstimulusmaterialIn this paper, response effort degree indicates effort degree of enterprise taking response after food safety event, including refusal response, passive response, voluntary response, and very hard response.

Since refusal response indicates that enterprise does not take any information communication measures, without information feedback on society, response under the latter three kinds of effort degrees is taken as experimental scenario for experimental design and analysis. Based on three kinds of scenarios, experimental stimulus material is designed. Passive response only contains general description information, without reporting hotline, and there is no content of communication with users in social media. Besides basic information, voluntary response also displays reporting hotline, but does not communicate and interact with users in comment. Very hard response displays reporting hotline, opens comments and forwarding functions, and actively interacts with users in social media. In experiment, three sets of questionnaires are divided according to effort level of enterprise response, and each set of questionnaire contains two stimulant materials. Among them, the first stimulant material is negative information description on "Fuxi Expired Meat" Event issued by news media blogger, and the second stimulant material is corrective information on the event issued by enterprise official micro-blog with different interaction intensity.

4.2ScaledesignThe study involves nine variables, which contains seven unmeasurable latent variables, and they are interpersonal trust, purchasing intention after accepting negative information, communication effect, interaction, response effort level of enterprise, content reliability evaluation, and purchasing willingness after enterprise response. Scales for these variables all use Richter 7-point scale.

Evaluation and measurement on reliability of micro-blog information content by consumers. User’s perception on micro-blog information mainly contains perception on professionalism, reliability, unbiasedness and accuracy of information. In this paper, user’s perception on micro-blog information mainly measures consumers’ trust in the content of micro-blog information. The measurement of the part mainly refers to design of information perception by Zhang Yuanyi[19].

Evaluation of enterprise response effort level, and influence of crisis and its response manner on consumers’ attitude and purchase willingness. The study refers to four kinds of basic response manners of enterprise proposed by Kabaketal., and they are refusal response, passive response, voluntary response, and very hard response from low to high[13].

Interactive evaluation of on enterprise statement by consumers. The interaction of enterprises can be divided into three categories, and they are respectively user control, two-way communication and synchronization, and here it selects two-way communication. The part of measurement mainly refers to the research of Liuetal[14].

Interpersonal trust of consumer. Combining relevant data, we hope to explore the relationship among interpersonal trust of consumers, micro-blog information perception, and food safety risk perception. Therefore, the variable is introduced in the model. The part of measurement mainly refers to design of interpersonal trust scale (ITS).

Evaluation on enterprise’s communication effect by consumers. Evaluation on enterprise’s communication effect by consumers is an important influence factor of safety risk perception after food safety event, and also generates significant influence on consumers’ purchasing intention. The part of measurement mainly refers to the research of Lafferty[20].

Consumers’ purchasing intention. In this paper, change in consumers’ purchasing intention mainly indicates the behavior tendency of consumers decreasing to buy meat food. The part of measurement mainly refers to variable measurement scale by Fan Chunmeietal[7,21].

4.3QuestionnairecollectionSince the content of questionnaire is all stimulus material in micro-blog, it needs appointing that target group is micro-blog users. In this paper, the formal survey adopts the method of issuing experimental questionnaires online. 648 questionnaires are recovered, in which No.1 questionnaire 218 copies, No.2 questionnaire 210 copies, No.3 questionnaire 220. By checking questionnaire content, 87 copies of questionnaires with excessive regularity or self-contradiction are eliminated, and 561 copies of effective questionnaires are obtained finally.

5 Data analysis and model test

5.1ReliabilityandvalidityanalysisVia reliability analysis on data of sample scale, Cronbach’s Alpha coefficients of interpersonal trust, interaction, response effort level of enterprise, content reliability evaluation, enterprise trust, communication effect and purchase willingness are all more than 0.7 (Table 1). So, it could be thought that these scales pass reliability test.

KMO and Bartlett spheroid test of scale data show that each index pass significance test. On this basis, exploratory factor analysis is further conducted, and load of each factor is shown as Table 2. It is clear that the research scale has better constructive and differential validity.

Table1Reliabilityanalysis

Variable Cronbachs AlphaInterpersonal trust0.819Purchase willingness (before)0.928Interaction 0.837Response effort level0.839Content reliability0.816Communication effect0.851Purchase willingness (after) 0.917

Table2Factorloadofeachdeterminationitem

Item InterpersonaltrustPurchasewillingness (before)Responseeffort levelInteraction ContentreliabilityCommunicationeffectPurchasewillingness (after) Interpersonal trust 10.849Interpersonal trust 20.850Interpersonal trust 30.860Purchase willingness (before) 10.782Purchase willingness (before) 20.798Purchase willingness (before) 30.798Response effort level 10.834Response effort level 20.823Response effort level 30.815Interaction 10.840

(To be continued)

(Continued)

Item InterpersonaltrustPurchasewillingness (before)Responseeffort levelInteraction ContentreliabilityCommunicationeffectPurchasewillingness (after) Interaction 20.865Interaction 30.857Content reliability 10.839Content reliability 20.807Content reliability 30.830Communication effect 10.741Communication effect 20.758Communication effect 30.767Purchase willingness (after) 10.771Purchase willingness (after) 20.786Purchase willingness (after) 30.788

5.2SEManalysisofmodelAccording to hypothesis model of impact mechanism among interaction, enterprise effort response level, content reliability evaluation and purchase willingness in statements of three kinds of enterprises (effort response, voluntary response and passive response), test is conducted respectively, and whole fitting index of each model is better. Table 3 shows the influences of interaction, effort level of enterprise response, content reliability and interpersonal trust on purchase willingness via communication effect in micro-blog statements of three kinds of enterprises. Effort response type: communication effect plays partial mediation role among response effort level, content reliability evaluation and purchase willingness, and plays a full mediation role between interaction and purchase willingness. Voluntary response type: communication effect plays partial mediation role between response effort level and purchase willingness, and plays a full mediation role among content reliability evaluation, interaction and purchase willingness. Passive response type: communication effect plays partial mediation role among response effort level, content reliability and purchase willingness.

Under three kinds of scenarios, data analysis results are basically consistent. Communication effect plays the roles of complete and partial mediation among content reliability, interaction, enterprise response effort level and purchase willingness.

5.3TestresultsofhypothesisCalculation results of pathway coefficient in Table 3 display that in effort response, voluntary response and passive response, influence pathway coefficient between content reliability evaluation and communication effect is respectively 0.333***, 0.325***and 0.300***, that is to say, hypothesis H1a is true. When evaluation on reliability of micro-blog information content by consumers is higher, its communication effect is better.

In three kinds of response manners, influence pathway coefficient between content reliability evaluation and purchase willingness is respectively 0.156, 0.037, 0.266***, that is to say, hypothesis H1b (the higher the evaluation on reliability of micro-blog information content, the stronger the purchase willingness) is not true in effort response and voluntary response but is true in passive response.

Influence pathway coefficient between response effort level and communication effect is respectively 0.311***, 0.336***and 0.452***, that is to say, hypothesis H2a is true. The higher the evaluation on response effort level, the stronger the communication effect.

Influence pathway coefficient between interaction and communication effect is respectively 0.291***, 0.375***and 0.337***, that is to say, hypothesis H3a is true. The higher the interaction, the stronger the communication effect.

Influence pathway coefficient between communication effect and purchase willingness is respectively 0.521***, 0.585***and 0.539***, that is to say, hypothesis H4c is true. The better the communication effect, the stronger the purchase willingness.

Table3Analyticresultsofmodel

PathwayEffort response Voluntary response Passive responseContent reliability evaluation<———Interpersonal trust 0.0500.2270.001Communication effect<———Interpersonal trust-0.076-0.0690.006Communication effect<———Interaction 0.291∗∗∗0.375∗∗∗0.337∗∗∗Communication effect<———Response effort level0.311∗∗∗0.336∗∗∗0.452∗∗∗Communication effect<———Content reliability0.333∗∗∗0.325∗∗∗0.300∗∗∗Purchase willingness<———Interaction 0.0300.070-0.126Purchase willingness<———Response effort level 0.2120.230∗∗0.212Purchase willingness<———Content reliability0.1560.0370.266∗∗∗Purchase willingness<———Communication effect 0.521∗∗∗0.585∗∗∗0.539∗∗∗

Note:*,**and***respectively show significance at 0.05, 0.01 and 0.001 levels.

6 Conclusions and discussions

6.1ConclusionsInfluence factors of risk communication effect. According to analysis results of above empirical research, reliability evaluation of micro-blog information, effort level of enterprise response, and interaction all significantly affect risk communication effect. Empirical research result shows that information reliability evaluation, effort level of enterprise response, and interaction are important influence factors of communication effect in social media.

Risk communication effect significantly affects consumers’ repurchase willingness. After accepting information of food safety incident, communication effect of corrective information of enterprises significantly affects consumers’ repurchase willingness. Risk communication effect in enterprise’ statement plays an important mediation role in effort degree of enterprise response, content reliability, interaction and repurchase willingness.

6.2Discussions

6.2.1Enlightenment of enterprise management. (i) Enterprise should timely clear responsibility for food safety incidents. After food safety incident occurs, relevant departments should clarify the attribution of responsibility immediately. Although there are management loopholes or unfavorable supervision, it should clarify the facts in time, not exaggerate or conceal the facts after the case happens, which could guide consumers to relieve negative emotions.

(ii )Enterprise should quickly and actively respond to food safety crisis. After food safety crisis incident occurs, enterprise should use its official micro-blog to explain the facts of the incident at the first time, and timely issue information on the handling of incidents and remedial measures. Meanwhile, it should notice that information issued by enterprise should be true and reliable, impermissible to violate the facts, professional and speak appropriately. It should make good use of the micro-blog platform to make the processing process open and transparent, and actively and positively respond to crisis events, thereby reducing consumers’ anti-feelings and conflicts to enterprises, tendency of purchase behavior decline by consumers, actual loss of enterprise. Meanwhile, it should try to establish corporate image of honesty and trustworthiness.

(iii) Enterprise’s micro-blog should improve quality of the issued information. The research shows that whether it is personal or official micro-blog, content is the soul of the successful operation of micro-blog. It could positively elevate bloggers’ popularity and trust degree by promoting content’s value. The same is true of corporate micro-blog, and valuable and consistent content is considered to have high content reliability, and affects users’ recognition on blogger’s professionalism and content reliability.

(iv) Enterprise should enhance communication and interaction of science popularity. Enterprises should show more sense of social responsibility and shape their brand. In peacetime, it should pay more attention to interaction with users through social media rather than emergency public relations. It should do much interaction with users to maintain a good corporate image and enhance interaction with users. Additionally, it should try to promote the professionality and popularization of micro-blog information. In this way, after the food safety crisis occurs, statement of enterprise accounts in the first time and positive response information can reduce consumers’ anxiety, thereby declining consumers’ purchasing intention decrease and enterprise loose.

6.2.2Research limitations and prospects. In this paper, the stimulus material is designed with the food safety crisis in the meat industry as a case study, and it needs further testing if research result adapts to risk communication of other food safety incidents. In future research, it could further analyze by combining characteristics of different food safety incidents. In this paper, it explores influence mechanism of information of food safety incident in micro-blog situation on change in consumers’ purchase willingness, and analyzes each influence factor of change in consumers’ purchase willingness. In future research, it could further improve and optimize the research model.