Sharing values or sharing costs? Understanding consumer participation in alternative food networks

Publication date: Available online 3 April 2016 Source:NJAS - Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences Author(s): Stefano Pascucci, Domenico Dentoni, Alessia Lombardi, Luigi Cembalo In this paper we investigate values and transaction conditions in consumer participation in alternative food networks (AFNs). We use and combine a collective action perspective with elements of ethical consumption (individual values) and transaction cost economics as a theoretical background to conceptualise this participation. Our research is motivated by the evidence that the role and interplay between values and transaction conditions is still under-investigated in the socio-economic literature when it comes to understanding participation in AFNs. We use a case study in which we focus on an AFN located in Palermo, a metropolitan area in southern Italy. We collected data related to 303 individuals: 103 participants in the AFN and 200 non-participants. From a methodological perspective we used a propensity score matching approach. We were thus able to build a subsample consisting of only those individuals who were sharing a similar likelihood of participating in an AFN. Individuals with the same propensity score show a substantial equivalence in terms of covariates as if they were randomly selected to join an AFN. Our results indicate a statistically significant difference in some transactional conditions for AFN participants. Namely, when it comes to transactional conditions associated to...
Source: NJAS Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences - Category: Biology Source Type: research