Trust Issue Relationship between the Consumer and Food Brands: the Moderating Role of Personality Traits

Abstract

This study aims at offering a conceptual model that incorporates both the relationships between brand satisfaction, brand trust and brand loyalty and the moderating effects of personality traits, namely, consumer innovativeness, variety-seeking and relationship proneness, on the relationship between brand trust and brand loyalty. Data were collected using a survey of 443 consumers of four product categories (i.e., soft drinks, fruit juices, mineral water and yogurt). Structural equation modeling, specifically, partial least squares (PLS) regression, was used to test the hypotheses. The findings reveal that brand loyalty is the most affected (both directly and indirectly) by satisfaction through the mediation of brand trust across the studied product categories. They also show that variety-seeking negatively moderates the relationship between brand trust and brand loyalty for fruit juices, whereas relationship proneness positively moderates this relationship for yogurt. Moreover, the moderating effects of consumer characteristics are examined. The managerial implications, limitations and suggestions for future research are also discussed.