Societal and individualistic drivers as predictors of organic purchasing revealed through a portrait value questionnaire (PVQ)-based inventory

The Schwartz's Portrait Value Questionnaire (PVQ) has extensively been used in personal values research. The present survey validates and tests in a value-based segmentation task a 17-item PVQ-based inventory that includes consumer values related to organic food purchasing, using a nationally representative sample of 1043 Greek consumers. The main assumption of the survey is that consumer segments that place more emphasis on specific organic food-related values would present different magnitude of beliefs and purchasing behaviour towards organic products. Two 2nd-order value factors (named ‘individualistic’ and ‘societal’, respectively) emerged from exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses comprising 14 out of the initial 17 PVQ values. In the next phase of the analysis, hierarchical clustering was implemented based on those factors. Through the clusters emerged, a clear relation between consumers' ‘societal’ (universalism and benevolence) value similarity, higher frequency of organic purchasing and higher likelihood of organic-related beliefs was clearly identified. This fact supports the applicability of the PVQ typology in predicting consumer behaviour in various product contexts.