INTENTION TO PURCHASE ORGANIC FOOD WITH CERTIFICATION LABEL: DO TRUST AND COOLNESS MATTER?

Purpose: This study aims to analyze the role of trust and coolness in the intention to purchase organic food with certification label. Theoretical framework: This study is developed under the lens of the Theory of Planned Behavior to understand the intention to purchase organic food with certification label. In addition to the elements covered by the theory, other constructs (i.e., trust and coolness) are explored to predict the consumer's behavioral intention. Method/design/approach: This is a survey with 176 organic food consumers. Data collection took place through the application of questionnaires. Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Structural Equation Modeling techniques were used for data analysis. Results and conclusion: The results evidenced consistency of the Theory of Planned Behavior for the proposed model, and trust and coolness showed to have a relevant role in the intention to purchase. Thus, the study helps managers to reflect on the need to incorporate organic certification into marketing strategies as a way of monetizing the cost of certification. By prioritizing elements such as trust and coolness, certified organic food producers might reach a differentiated niche of consumers who are more sensitive to these features. Research implications: This study sheds light on the importance of marketers to explore aspects of coolness in organic food with certification label as a differentiated consumption experience, as there is evidence that this can increase intention to purchase.


INTRODUCTION
Lately, organic food production and consumption have grown in Brazil and around the world (Liang, 2016;Lima et al., 2020;Pasqualotto et al., 2022).The search for this kind of food contributed to its popularization and market expansion around the globe (Ellison et al., 2016).Organic food consists of natural food free from genetically modified organisms, which are produced without synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, growth hormones, irradiation, or antibiotics (Lee et al., 2018;Sahelices-Pinto et al., 2020).Although organic food consumers can identify the advantages of purchasing these products, this is still an emerging market niche and some producers are still reluctant to focus on the production of this type of food (Lee et al., 2020).
Consumers are increasingly focused on consuming more sustainable and healthy products; which makes organic food an adequate alternative for those who seek less harmful eating habits (Khanal et al., 2018;Lee et al., 2018;Sahelices-Pinto et al., 2020).Moreover, other consumers' preferences might be related to organic food consumption, such as perceived taste, benefits to small or local farmers, and animal welfare (Kim et al., 2018).In this context, products labeled as organic might be preferred by those who search for more sustainable and healthier food (Elisson et al., 2016;Lee et al., 2018).
Besides, a previous study (Fernandes et al., 2020) suggests that inserting information about the properties and benefits of organic foods on the label can be used as a marketing strategy.Consumers deal with decisions daily, and labels might contribute to that decisionmaking process (Linder et al., 2010).In this sense, customers expect companies to provide transparent information regarding the products they purchase.However, certification costs might be a discouraging factor for suppliers to certify and label their products (Yu et al., 2019).On the other hand, products labeled as organic have a selling price higher than conventional products, and consumers are willing to pay more for those products (Elisson et al., 2016).Thus, the certification process allows the supplier to sell and label their product as "organic", which increases consumer trust (Khanal et al., 2018).
In this context, understanding individuals' preferences and behaviors regarding organic products consumption is complex, and it involves a series of elements, among which cognitive aspects must be considered (Liang, 2016).According to the Theory of Planned Behavior [TPB], proposed by Ajzen (1985Ajzen ( , 1991)), an individual's behavior is formed by his/her intention to execute this behavior, while the intention is formed by other psychological elements (i.e., attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control).A recent study (Canova et al., 2020) has investigated the role of trust in the TPB in the context of organic food consumption, proposing an expansion of the theory.Trust is considered an important element in consumers' purchasing behavior (Lee et al., 2020).
Furthermore, it is discussed that social pressure leads consumers to opt for organic products, as they are healthier and more environmentally friendly (Sahelices-Pinto et al., 2020).Besides, purchasing organic food might be a symbolic action to signal an individual's high social status to others (Kim et al., 2018).It suggests that purchasing organic food with certification label might be considered as a "cool" habit.Coolness excites consumers, adds symbolic value to products, and drives consumer trends (Warren & Campbell, 2014), as it represents a sign of approval of a person, an object, or even a phenomenon (Sundar et al., 2014).
So, this study proposes that trust seems to be an important element in the context of consumer behavior, especially regarding organic products purchasing.Moreover, coolness plays an important role in the consumer intention to purchase organic food with certification label once purchasing organic food might represent a high social status, and the certification label reinforces the product's differentiation.In this context, this paper aims to analyze the role of trust and coolness in the intention to purchase organic food with certification label.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND HYPOTHESES
The TPB is one of the most cited and influential socio-psychological models for predicting human social behavior and has been widely used in different contexts (Ajzen, 1991(Ajzen, , 2011;;Ulker-Demirel & Ciftci, 2020;Yuriev et al., 2020).The TPB is an extension of the Theory of Reasoned Action [TRA], initially proposed by Fishbein and Ajzen (1975).The TRA (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975) postulates that the individuals' actions are determined by his/her intention to perform a behavior, and this intention is a function of his/her attitudes and subjective norms.Later, Ajzen (1985Ajzen ( , 1991) ) expanded the TRA and suggested the TPB with the aim of increasing the prevalence of intention and behavior, adding the variable of perceived behavioral control that affects both behavioral intentions and actual behaviors.
The TPB (Ajzen, 1985(Ajzen, , 1991) ) postulates that intentions to perform different behaviors can be predicted by attitudes toward the behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control, while the actual behavior is influenced by the intention and perceived behavioral control.While attitudes towards a given behavior indicate the chances of this behavior occurring, subjective norms represent a person's tendency to perceive that other people expect a specific behavior from him/her.Attitudes can generate positive or negative evaluations regarding a behavior (Yarimoglu & Gunay, 2020).From this perspective, a positive attitude towards a behavior leads to an equally positive intention within the TPB proposal (Ajzen, 1991).Normative beliefs are the basis for understanding subjective norms in TPB, as such norms represent what others think about a certain behavior of a person, how he/she perceives it, in addition to his/her personal motivation to adapt to that expected behavior by others (Ajzen, 1985).Finally, perceived behavioral control involves the perceived ease or difficulty of performing a given behavior (Ajzen & Driver, 1992;Ajzen & Fishbein, 2005).In this sense, the more favorable the attitudes and subjective norm are in relation to a behavior, and the greater the perceived behavioral control, the greater the individual's intention to perform the behavior will be (Ajzen & Driver, 1992;Ajzen & Fishbein, 2005).
This theory has been used to predict and explain human behavior, and it can be applied in different contexts, whether sustainable or not.In research on sustainable consumption, it is common to focus only on intention (Canova et al., 2020), and TPB has presented consistency in its application in predicting sustainable behaviors (Hsu et al., 2017;Choi & Johnson, 2019).In this study, it is proposed that the intention to purchase organic food with certification label is affected by an individual's attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control as postulated by the TPB.In this sense, the following hypotheses are proposed: H1: The attitude positively affects the intention to purchase organic food with certification label.
H2: The subjective norm positively affects the intention to purchase organic food with certification label.
H3: The perceived behavioral control positively affects the intention to purchase organic food with certification label.
In addition to the elements covered by the TPB (i.e., attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control), other constructs are explored in order to predict the consumer's behavioral intention, such as trust (Canova et al., 2020).Considering the current context of food consumption, there is an increase in consumer distrust regarding the food production process, given that consumers have little or no knowledge about how food is produced (Giampietri et al., 2018).In this sense, recent studies suggest that certifications have implications from both a producer and corporate point of view (Chkanikova & Sroufe, 2021;Fanasch & Frick, 2020) since they need to understand the impact that trust might have on consumers' attitudes, intentions and decisions.Thus, considering that the consumer does not have much access to the organic food production process (Hansmann et al., 2020), the certification label might attest that the consumer can trust that the food he/she purchased comes from the organic production.For instance, Murphy et al. (2022) found that consumers tend to trust certified organic food more.Moreover, recent studies suggest that trust is a key factor regarding organic food consumption (Gan et al., 2016;Hansmann et al., 2020;Nuttavuthisit & Thǿgersen, 2017;Vega-Zamora et al., 2019).
We argue that the impact of trust can lead to the perception that the product really is organic (e.g., proper certification processes) and offers a set of benefits (e.g., for the environment and health) (Vega-Zamora et al., 2019), which can lead the individual to develop a favorable attitude towards organic food with certification label.A previous study (Canova et al., 2020) demonstrated the positive association between individual trust and subjective norm in relation to the purchase of organic food, suggesting that individuals who have a greater perception of trust tend to be more likely to comply with the requirements.expectations of their social reference groups.Thus, we argue that greater trust in the product has a positive impact on the subjective norm.Perceived behavioral control represents an individual's perception regarding the existing restrictions and options that (s)he has to actually perform certain behavior (Hansmann et al., 2020).Within this perspective, we understand that greater trust can impact the personal ability to perform a certain behavior successfully (i.e., buy organic food with certification label), since, since trust might lead the individual to seek ways to enable the execution of the behavior.In this context, it is understood that trust plays an antecedent role in the behavior regarding organic food with certification label consumption.Considering that behavioral intention derives from attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control, the following hypotheses were outlined: H4: Trust positively affects the attitude towards organic food with certification label.

H5: Trust positively affects the subjective norm regarding organic food with certification label. H6: Trust positively affects the perceived behavioral control regarding organic food with certification label.
A recent study demonstrated that consumers have positive attitudes towards brands they consider to be cool (Chen et al., 2021).In this sense, favorable attitudes might be associated with coolness perception.According to Sundar et al. (2014), coolness might be interpreted as a state of being which is currently associated with a signal of approval regarding objects, people, or phenomena."Cool" products are usually desired by consumers, mainly when individuals want to stand out, being considered a social construct that impact on individuals' purchase choices (Warren & Campbell, 2014).A recent study suggests that attitude components related to health impact perception and environmental impact perception are among some of the determinants of purchases of organic fruits and vegetables (Hansmann et al., 2020).In this study, another attitude component is proposed for organic food products: the perception of coolness.It is considered that a favorable attitude towards the purchase of organic food with certification label generates a perception of coolness regarding this kind of product.Furthermore, considering that coolness might be associated with a signal of approval (Sundar et al., 2014), subjective norm could also be an antecedent of this.Thus, in this research, it is understood and proposed that the perception of coolness derives from attitudes and subjective norm and generates on individuals the desire to buy that product, therefore, it leads to the purchase intention.Based on that, the following hypotheses were outlined: H7: The attitude positively affects the perception of coolness regarding organic food with certification label.
H8: The subjective norm positively affects the perception of coolness regarding organic food with certification label.
H9: The perception of coolness positively affects the intention to purchase organic food with certification label.
Thus, nine hypotheses that guide this research were elaborated.It is noteworthy that the study expands the TPB as it integrates trust and coolness to the model originally proposed by Ajzen (1991).Figure 1 presents a synthesis of the hypotheses developed for this study.In general, trust is considered to be an antecedent of attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control.In turn, attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control generate purchase intention.Finally, it is understood that the perception of coolness derives from a favorable attitude towards behavioral intention and subjective norm, and directly affects the purchase intention.

METHOD
This is a descriptive study with a quantitative approach, which makes use of statistical methods to verify the relationships between the investigated constructs (Malhotra, 2017).Thus, a survey was carried out in order to gather information about the respondents' perceptions about the investigated constructs (Creswell, 2014).In this type of research, the aim is to collect information to describe, compare or explain knowledge, attitudes and behavior (Gray, 2021).

Population and Sample
The research population consists of organic food consumers in Brazil.The sampling method is a non-probabilistic convenience collection.Respondents who are available to answer the data collection instrument participated in the survey.In this type of sampling, individuals are selected based on their availability and the researcher's possibility of access (Churchill Jr., & Iacobucci, 2009).Altogether, 176 organic food consumers participated in the survey.The sample is characterized by individuals with a mean age of approximately 33.7 years old.Most respondents identify as female (54.5%), have higher education (61.9%) and income of up to R$3,000.00 (52.3%).

Questionnaire
Data collection took place through the application of questionnaires.The questionnaire was divided into four parts.The first was based on studies by Kabir and Islam (2021) and Dangi et al. (2020), and aimed to measure the constructs: attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control and intention to purchase organic food with certification label.The second part was built based on the study by Canova et al. (2020) and served to measure the construct trust.The third part was developed based on the study by Sundar et al. (2014) and was used to measure the perception of coolness.The fourth and last part gathered questions regarding respondent's profile.Figure 2 presents the scales used in the research.

Items
Based on Attitude AT1.Purchasing organic food with certification label is a smart choice in my opinion.Kabir & Islam (2021) AT2.I believe that purchasing organic food with certification label is essential.AT3.I believe that purchasing organic food with certification label is useful.AT4.Purchasing organic food with certification label is a sensible decision in my opinion.

Subjective Norm
SN1.People I appreciate are purchasing organic food with certification label instead of products that are not certified as organic on the label.SN2.My family believes that I need to purchase organic food with certification label rather than products that are not certified as organic on the label.SN3.People I respect believe I need to purchase organic food with certification label.SN4.My close friends advise me to purchase organic food with certification label.

Perceived Behavioral Control
PBC1.I might purchase organic food with certification label if I wanted to.PBC2.I believe I could purchase organic food with certification label to include in my daily diet.
PBC3.It's basically up to me whether or not I purchase organic food with certification label.PBC4.I could purchase organic food with certification label instead of food that is not certified.

Intention to Purchase
IN1.I will try to purchase organic food with certification label regularly for my consumption.

Trust
TRU1.I consider organic food with certification label to be reliable.
Canova et al. (2020) TRU2.I trust the quality of organic food with certification label.TRU3.I trust purchasing organic food with certification label.TRU4.Organic food with certification label seems trustworthy.

Coolness
COOL1.I think that consuming organic food with certification label is fresh.Sundar et al. (2014) COOL2.I think that consuming organic food with certification label is original.COOL3.I think that consuming organic food with certification label is distinct.COOL4.I think that consuming organic food with certification label is chic.COOL5.I think that consuming organic food with certification label is cool.A five-point Likert scale was used for all items, ranging from 1 (Totally Disagree) to 5 (Totally Agree) since this kind of scale is commonly used to measure an individual's attitudes or behaviors by asking whether the respondent agrees or disagrees with a specific statement (Santino et al., 2022;Claveria, 2021).

Analysis Procedures
Confirmatory factor analysis [CFA] and structural equation modeling [SEM] techniques were used.CFA was used to verify the validity of the scales used, in which the results of Cronbach's alpha, composite reliability and the average variance extracted were observed.Also in the CFA, the convergent validity and the discriminant validity of the constructs were verified.Finally, SEM served to test the research hypotheses.

RESULTS
In order to verify the validity of the scales used to assess the constructs of this research, a CFA was conducted.Altogether, six constructs are investigated: attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, purchase intention, trust, and coolness.Table 1 presents   In order to verify the internal consistency of the scales, Cronbach's alpha and CR values were analyzed.All constructs presented values higher than 0.7, which are considered acceptable (Hair et al., 2018).Thus, the results suggest the internal consistency of the scale items used in the research.Furthermore, AVE values were all greater than the acceptable threshold of 0.5 (Bagozzi & Yi, 1988), indicating adequate convergent validity of the constructs (Fornell & Larcker, 1981;Hair et al., 2018).Finally, all standardized factor loadings were greater than 0.5, reinforcing the evidence of convergent validity.Table 2 presents the results for discriminant validity of the constructs.As shown in Table 3, it was found that intention to purchase is positively affected by attitude (H1), subjective norm (H2) and perceived behavioral control (H3).Likewise, it was evidenced that trust positively affects attitude (H4), subjective norm (H5) and perceived behavioral control (H6).Furthermore, the results suggest that the perception of coolness is positively affected by attitude (H7) and subjective norm (H8).Finally, it was found that intention to purchase is also positively affected by the perception of coolness (H9).Thus, all hypotheses were supported.

DISCUSSION
According to TPB (Ajzen, 1985(Ajzen, , 1991)), behavioral intention derives from attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control.The results of this research were consistent with the TPB (Ajzen, 1985(Ajzen, , 1991)), since attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control had a positive effect on the intention to purchase organic food with certification label.Previous studies that used TPB to predict behavioral intention in the context of sustainable consumption and organic food (Hsu et al., 2017;Scalco et al., 2017;Verma & Chandra, 2018;Giampietri et al., 2018;Choi & Johnson, 2019) presented similar results to those of this study.
It is argued that attitude is a crucial element to explain the intention to purchase and consume organic food (Scalco et al., 2017;Choi & Johnson, 2019).Thus, it is argued that when presenting a favorable attitude towards a certain product, the individual develops a greater intention to purchase it.Thus, marketers must seek to access the consumer's cognitions in order to develop a positive (favorable) attitude towards organic certification label, turning this attitude into purchase intention.
The subjective norm emerges as a factor associated with social norms, therefore, a consumer engagement strategy in the consumption of organic food could be based on the inclusion of people with strong social influence in marketing campaigns (Scalco et al., 2017).This would make consumers start to consider this consumption practice, since it would seem to be a socially desirable behavior.Furthermore, Hsu et al. (2017) suggests that price is an important factor in the decision to purchase sustainable products, having a moderating effect on the relationship between attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control and purchase intention.
Regarding to perceived behavioral control, the results present in the literature seem to be heterogeneous.While Giampietri et al. (2017) found a strong effect of perceived behavioral control on intention, Choi and Johnson (2019) argue that perceived behavioral control seems to have a low explanatory power on intention.In this study, there was a positive and statistically significant effect of perceived behavioral control on purchase intention, therefore, the individual who assesses having greater control over their behavior tends to have a greater propensity to purchase organic food with certification label.Thus, marketing campaigns focused on consumer empowerment can generate positive effects on purchase behavior.
In addition, this study sought to expand TPB by including other elements such as trust and the perception of coolness.Trust proved to be an important element in predicting the constructs that form intention (i.e., attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control).According to Lee et al. (2020), trust in organic food is a factor that is installed before purchase and plays an important role in consumer behavior, also impacting the of this type of food.
It is known that the role of certifications has implications for producers and companies (Chkanikova & Sroufe, 2021;Fanasch & Frick, 2020).For the former, it is raised the question as to whether the costs of certification are necessary for credibility (Fanasch & Frick, 2020).For the latter, the question is: do the efforts to develop certifications in order to better align with the sustainability performance of supply chains, enable stronger brand assurance, and both stakeholder and consumer satisfaction are necessary?(Chkanikova & Sroufe, 2021).It is argued that the certification process for organic food incurs high costs for producers (Yu et al., 2019).Therefore, it is essential that companies are able to convert certification costs into a competitive advantage.By increasing consumer trust in their products, companies can increase sales volume, thereby generating greater revenue.
Furthermore, trust can enhance the purchase intention as it helps the consumer in the decision-making process (Canova et al., 2020).In this way, organic certification label can generate a greater sense of trust in the consumer (Murphy et al., 2022), generating a preference for that product (Zanoli et al., 2015).It is argued that the consumer of organic food seeks a healthy, natural, and safe product (Canova et al., 2020), therefore, trust in the certification label leads the consumer to feel that the product was developed accordingly and gather all the features sought by him/her.On the other hand, lack of trust in certifying organizations can be a barrier to the consumption of organic foods (Lee et al., 2016).In this study, the certifying organizations were not considered.Future studies can explore this aspect.
A recent study shows that not only consumers' trust represents a prerequisite for the market success of sustainability-oriented labels, but attitudes related to perception of two components: health and environmental impact of organic fruit and vegetables (Hansmann et al., 2020).With this research, it is presented another component that might be incorporated into the analysis of the success of these labels: the attitude related to the perception of coolness regarding organic food with certification label.
Thus, regarding the perception of coolness, it was found that this element derives from attitude and subjective norm and generates purchase intention.It is noteworthy that brands and products considered "cool" tend to have a higher sales volume (Chen et al., 2021), in addition to being associated with higher quality (Sundar et al., 2014).Therefore, the perception of coolness is a desirable attribute in a product (Warren & Campbell, 2014).
In this study, it was found that a favorable attitude towards organic food with certification label and the subjective norm tend to be converted into a greater perception of coolness.Moreover, it was found that the greater the perception of coolness, the greater the individual's intention to purchase that product.In this sense, coolness might be interpreted by consumers as a sign of social differentiation (Warren & Campbell, 2014), which may lead those consumers to engage in organic food consumption if they associate this to something cool.

CONCLUSION
This study aimed to analyze the role of trust and coolness in the intention to purchase organic food with certification label.The main results evidenced that attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control had positive effect on the intention to purchase.Moreover, trust positively influenced attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control.In turn, coolness was influenced by attitude and subjective norm and influenced intention to purchase organic food with certification label.
In general, this study helps managers to reflect on the importance of incorporating organic certification into their marketing strategy, as this can be a competitive advantage.Considering that organic certification costs are high, it would be ideal that these investments add to the final value of the product.By exploring organic certification label, companies can generate a greater level of trust among consumers, generating a more favorable attitude towards consumption and, consequently, increasing the consumers' purchase intention.
Additionally, by prioritizing elements such as trust and coolness, certified organic food producers might reach a differentiated niche of consumers who are more sensitive to these features.Also, marketers can incorporate appeals such as "organic food is cool" into their communication strategies once the results showed that the perception of coolness is a key factor for the consumers' intention to purchase this kind of product.Furthermore, consumers looking for differentiated consumption experiences can engage with the consumption of organic food with certification label if they understand that this will make them stand out in relation to the mass.
Besides, this study sheds light on the importance of marketers to explore aspects of coolness in organic food with certification label as a differentiated consumption experience, as there is evidence that this can increase intention to purchase.Furthermore, it contributes theoretically by highlighting the applicability of TPB in the context of organic food with certification label production and consumption.Finally, by incorporating constructs such as trust and coolness into TPB, this study extends the theory, broadens the theoretical perspective, and opens space for debate on the importance of considering other psychological elements when assessing the consumer's behavioral intention.
Dangi et al. (2020) IN2.I plan on purchasing organic food with certification label regularly for my consumption.IN3.I intend to purchase organic food with certification label regularly for my consumption.IN4.I would like to purchase organic food with certification label regularly for my consumption.
the results of the CFA and the values of Cronbach's alpha [α], composite reliability [CR] and average variance extracted [AVE].

Table 2 -
Mean, standard deviation and correlations.