The effect of consumers' involvement on healthy food purchase intention, mediated by recommenders' credibility

Abstract

The main objective of this work is to provide a framework for understanding how the engagement with healthy eating and with the social network itself is converted into purchase intention, stimulated (or not) by the Instagrammers’ recommendation. And beyond that, the work also evaluates if/how the Instagrammers' credibility mediates the relationships between involvement with healthy foods (IWHF) and the engagement with that social network, on the consumers' purchase intention. Consumer engagement in online social platforms represents “the level of a customer’s physical, cognitive, and emotional presence in connections with a particular online social platform” (Cheung et al.,2011, p. 3), and people involved with social networks aspire to share the lifestyles of certain celebrities, copying their fashion and makeup styles, types of posts, or choices of restaurants and holiday destinations (Djafarova & Rushworth, 2017). The study evaluated seven research hypotheses, and all of them were confirmed, as will be presented later, and subsidiarily the study analyzes, tests, and discusses two alternative models in search of the best arrangement for the Instagrammers’ credibility.