Purchase Intention on Halal Food Products: Non-Muslim Consumers’ Perception

This research examined the perceived behavioural control, attitude and subjective norms with the presence of moderator variables i.e., religiosity and social media that influence the non- Muslim consumers’ buying intention towards halal food products. The q uestionnaires were distributed to 310 non-Muslim consumers in Penang, Malaysia. Data was analysed using Partial Least Square approach. The research found that perceived behavioural control, attitude and subjective norms are positively related to buying intention of halal food products. Furthermore, religiosity is found to be significant in moderating the relationship between subjective norms towards halal food product buying intention. But religiosity is not a significant moderator in the relationship between attitude and perceived behavioural control towards purchase intention. Similarly, social media only moderates the relationship between subjective norms towards halal food product buying intention. The result of the findings is beneficial for researchers in understanding the buying intention of halal food products among the non-Muslim consumers. The outcome of the research could serve as an essential guidance to the halal food industry player.


Introduction
Halal food is intended to fulfil the Islamic dietary condition and is the condition that practiced by the Muslims around the world. The field of halal may include in all the aspects such as pharmaceutical, beauty products, financial tools, toiletries, banking and commerce (Ali & Khushi, 2017). Moreover, halal practices are not only restricted to a religion matter anymore but is in the worldwide business sphere (Mukhtar & Butt, 2012). Halal industry especially in food sector is becoming flourishing in Malaysia recently (Mathew et al., 2012).
Demand of consumers on the type of food also changed rapidly. Habibah (2011) discussed that the Malaysia government has aimed to upgrade Malaysia into a halal Hub and this sector has a rising recognition in recent years and also create more business opportunities to new comers or existing halal food producers or manufacturers to expand their business to worldwide or locally. Even though halal concept usually linked with Muslim society, but there is a huge prospect to tap the non-Muslim's consumer when it comes to food and beverages (Syed & Nazura, 2011). Moreover, food is the basic needs among human and thus the halal market potential is even more auspicious though consumers from different religion and culture backgrounds have different variety of perception and experience to food (Mathew et al., 2012). Furthermore, these days, non-Muslim's consumer understand the halal logo on the food can guarantee the cleanliness and safe to be eaten. Hassan et al (2009) mentioned that non-Muslims do react positively towards halal food certification.
It is widely believed that the Muslim consumers support halal food. In addition, a lot of studies have been carried out among Muslims on halal food consumption (Jan & Wallace, 2017). Nonetheless, there are limited research on halal food product among non-Muslim consumers in Penang rather than focusing on whole Malaysia (Ngah et al., 2014). Information which provides insights and study potential among non-Muslims in Penang is still limited (Penang Monthly, 2019). In Malaysia, 36.3% are the non-Muslims (Country Meters, 2020). This percentage of non-Muslim customers suggested the possibility of leveraging into this segment as the niche halal segment, which could then contribute more to the expansion of the halal food industry. Muhammad et al (2007) mentioned that halal food products not only beneficial to the Muslims but everyone in general.
However, Syed & Nazura (2011);Mathew et al (2014) discussed that many of the non-Muslims consumers yet label the halal food products as Islamic food. Hence, as a result, it is crucial to conduct a study on measuring the halal food product buying intention by using Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) attributes. Therefore, this research aimed to analyse the relationship between the TPB attributes (i.e., attitude, perceived behavioural control, subjective norms) towards the halal food product buying intention with the presence of the two moderators (social media influence and religiosity).
The result of the study will be beneficial to food product producers. For the halal industry, this study shall be beneficial to halal products producer's especially those engaged in food industry in Penang. The findings from this research will help the organization to understand their potential customer's behaviour such as attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control and the moderating effect of consumers' characteristics such as religiosity and social media influence on the relationship between attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control and purchase intention. Moreover, this study will also contribute to the newcomers of the halal industry who intended to enter the market and those existing organization to improve their products or services. This research can also be referred as part of consumer behaviour towards halal goods and services in worldwide or in other states of our country.
From theoretical point of view, this research contributes to confirm or refute the useability of theory of planned behaviour in the context of halal product purchase intention. Moreover, this research hypotheses that religiosity and social media influence will moderate the effect in the relationship between all three determinants towards purchase intention.
Next section will discuss on the related literature in this area, followed by methodology of study. The subsequent section discussed the data and findings. Finally, the paper ends with conclusion.

Literature Review
Theory of Planned Behaviour Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) was developed and supported by a number of empirical studies on social psychology and consumption related research (Ajzen, 1991). This theory identifies the influence of the determinants and change behavioural (Ajzen, 1985). Liang (2016) highlighted that TPB is a cognitive behavioural model where the human behaviour is solely based on the perceived behavioural control, subjective norms and attitude that shaping the behavioural intention. Researcher also explained that behavioural intention is the ability of a consumer's plan to carry out a behaviour. Blackwell et al (2006); Ajzen (2001) stated that degree of unfavourable or favourable evaluation towards a behaviour is known as attitude. The second factor -subjective norms was recognized as perceived social pressure to comply with expectation (Syed & Nazura, 2011). The feeling of being confidence or in control in performing a behaviour is known as perceived behavioural control (Syed & Nazura, 2011). Commonly, a person likely to perform a behaviour if they have high positive attitude which lead to high social expectation and control (Ajzen, 1985).
Within the halal food context, this theory has been applied to investigate the intention of consumers to consume, buy and accept the halal food product (Nazahah & Sutina, 2012). TPB was also been applied in one of the studies in Pakistan to investigate the relationship of TPB constructs and halal purchase intention of the Muslims while religiosity act as moderator. In addition, it has been mentioned that religion is crucial when a consumer is making decision for food consumption (Ahamd et al., 2013). Alongside, religiosity also affect a consumer's action and behaviour to purchase halal food (Weaver & Agle, 2002). As to influence a consumer's behaviour, affiliation and commitment with religion is the main facets.  (2019) propose social media influence and societal references can be review as a moderator to strengthen the relationship of the factors such as attitude, perception, perceived behavioural control, motivation, social norms, switching intention and purchase behaviour. By adopting this dogma, this study hypothesised that social media influence will moderate the purchase intention model.

Research Variables Purchase Intention
Buying intention is defined as consumers is agreed to engage into a transaction with the seller (Rizwan et al., 2014). In generally, buying intention usually referred to possibility of a consumer will buy a chosen product as it might be due to their daily needs, attitude or perception (Lim, 2013). Fishbein & Ajzen, (1975) mentioned purchase intention has been applied in many studies as a subsequent purchase's predictor and it was proven that it is positively related with actual behaviour.
To further explain the factors that contribute to buying intention, Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) is widely used to explain the perception, attitude and behaviour of the consumers. This theory also helps to provide better understanding and predict the human behaviour (Ajzen, 1985). The TPB was developed as the extension of Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA). The contrast between the theories is adding perceived a behavioural control whether to conduct the behaviour or not (Ajzen, 1985). Alam & Sayuti (2011), discussed that TPB, attitude towards the target behaviour, subjective norms which engage in a behaviour and perceived behaviour control over engaging in a behaviour is the determinants influencing the intention and purchasing behaviours. Various research related to psychology and consumption provide empirical support for TPB (Ajzen, 1991). Memon et al (2019) highlighted TPB has been effectively used to study behaviour of consumers. For instance, Bonne et al (2007) conducted research on attitude towards purchasing halal meat and finds that attitude, social norms as well as perceived behaviour control tend to significantly influence the intention for halal meat consumption.
Several studies on purchase intention have been conducted and showed different factors that affect a person buying intention in food related aspects (Aziz & Chok, 2013), personal care products (Rahman et al., 2015), halal organic food , banking industries (Amin, 2013). There are numbers of perspectives on purchase intention towards halal products.

Attitude
According to Blackwell et al (2006), 'evaluation of performing a particular behaviour which associate with the attitude object such as buying a service or product' is known as attitude.
Attitude also indicates whether a consumer acquire likeable or dislikeable appraisal of a behaviour in question (Alam & Sayuti, 2011). Ajzen (1991) mentioned the intensity of intention to conduct a behaviour is depend on the intensity of favourability of the attitude. Kaur et al (2014) emphasized that attitude is one of the main reasons for working women to purchase halal cosmetic products. Rahman et al (2015); (Mukthar & Butt, 2012) discussed that attitude has a significant relationship towards purchasing intention of halal brands. In addition, Lada et al (2009) explained that attitude plays a positive effect during purchasing of halal products. Therefore, the hypotheses are developed as: H1: Attitude has a positive association towards the non-Muslim purchase intention of halal food product.

Subjective Norms
Based on Ajzen & Fishbein (1980), an attitude towards a particular behaviour is named as subjective norms. In other word, a person perception regarding social factors which influence the performance of a behaviour. A person 'normative belief shows that the perceived behavioural expectations from influential referent groups of people such as partner, family members, and friends (Ajzen 2002), and this normative belief or the motivation to fulfil the perceived expectations of the influential referents might be the factor of a perceived subjective norms (Wilson and Grant, 2013). From the previous researcher (Bonne et al., 2007); (Yoh et al., 2003) analysed that friends and family members certainly influence a consumer's product choice.
Furthermore, subjective norms can affect a person's decision to purchase halal food product when that individual undergo some pressure from the influential referents which as might be the pressure group (Wilson and Grant, 2013). According to Suki and Salleh (2016) identified that consumers take their referent group's opinion who support their purchase intention related to 'halal' products. Therefore, if the consumer that believe is their crucial referents, then they performed the behavioural . Past researcher Mukhtar and Butt (2012) discussed that subjective norms are the most significant predictors for choosing halal product compare to other determinants in TPB. Thus, this research proposes the following hypotheses: H2: Subjective norms have a positive effect on non-Muslim's purchase intention towards halal food product.

Perceived Behavioural Control
Memon et al (2019) mentioned that perceived behavioural control is a predictor to which a person feels that they have the ability to perform certain behaviour. In addition, there are two conditions of PBC which are the ability to control over the behaviour and level of confidence to conduct certain performance by that person (Memon et al., 2019). Ajzen (1991) stated perceived behavioural control can be decided by a person belief over their internal power and situational factors that enable a behaviour performance. Ajzen, (2005) mentioned it is a person capability to perform a specific behaviour. Besides, perceived behavioural control do have indirect and direct effect on a person's behaviour and intention (Noar & Zimmerman, 2005). A consumer will maintain their level of control of self-confidence to conduct a behavioral intention (Ajzen, 2005). By combining both perceived behavioural control and intentions of a consumer, we are able to predict their behaviour (Ajzen, 1991). Based on Alam and Sayuti (2011), their research showed perceived behavioural control is significant towards purchase intention in halal products. Kim et al (2011) also discussed that there is a positive influence between perceived behavioural control and purchase intention. Omar et al., (2012) perceived behavioural control is significant over buying intention. Thus, this study proposes a hypothesis as stated: H3: Perceived Behavioural Control is positive association towards purchase intention of halal products.

Religious as a Moderator
Most of the research focus on investigating the moderating effect of religious on the relationship between the theory of planned behaviour's constructs and halal buying intention. However, in this study, religious is chosen as a moderator due to several reasons. In some studies, it was stated that attitude is one of the important determinants but perceived behavioural control does not contribute any significance to buying intention (Ansari & Muhammad, 2015). Mukhtar & Mohsin (2012) stated subjective norms is a crucial factor of intention when consumer decided to buy the halal products. Lee and Green (1991) mentioned subjective norms act as important determinant in buying behaviour in Philippines. Huang et al (2008) showed that subjective norms is not significant at all towards buying intention. Mukhtar & Mohsin (2012) proved that attitude is significant towards halal product's purchase intention. Alam & Sayuti (2011) discussed that perceived behavioural control does not contribute any significance towards behavioural intention. Bonne & Verbeke (2006) found that perceived behavioural control has a significant effect on influencing consumer to buy halal product. Due to the inconsistencies that found in previous researches, ( Baron & Kenny, 1986) emphasized that when determinants or predictor relationship is weak, a moderator must be applied.
Next, reason to select religiosity as a moderator is derived from the studies of Memon et al (2019) who stated that finding the moderation effect on halal purchase intention by using TPB in Pakistan. This study has yet to be apply in the context of non-Muslim consumer's purchase intention of halal food products in Penang. Borzooei & Asgari (2013), religious as moderator in halal behavioural towards purchasing intention is a new field of study. Lindridge (2005) religious as a moderator can help to determine the perception as well as the intention of a consumer.
Thirdly, the past halal purchase intention studies have recommended religiosity might be a potential moderator between perceived behavioural control, subjective norms and attitude (Delener, 1964). (Pettinger et al., 2004) showed that religiosity should be investigate as a moderator in the future study as researcher stated that halal products was linked to religion such as Islam. Lada et al., (2009) analysed that religiosity might contribute good effect on the determinants like subjective norms and attitude in halal product's purchasing intention. Therefore, the following hypotheses is generated: H4a: The positive association between attitude and non-Muslim consumer's purchase intention of halal food product will be stronger with the presence of religiosity. H4b: The positive relationship between subjective norms and non-Muslim consumer's purchase intention of halal food product will be stronger with the presence of religiosity. H4c: The positive association between perceived behavioural control and non-Muslim consumer's purchase intention of halal food product will be stronger with the presence of religiosity.

Social Media Influence as Moderator
Apdi (2019)  Social media also encourage consumers to build and maintain social relationship, and exchange information (Trusov et al., 2009). This kind of information could be in the form of video and comments, or pictures, consumer's past experience or review of products, service or brand, and public discussion about an issues or news (Tuten & Solomon, 2017). Alboqami et al (2015) discussed that these huge platforms with interestingly consumer draw the attention of the organization to contact the existing and potential consumers through such platforms. Twitter of companies use these websites to engage with consumers and promote their products and services. Through this kind of platform, organizations or individual seller rapidly manage their interactions with the wider consumer community and other business organization (B2B) (Glenn, 2011).
While most of the organization dealing with halal products or other ways of engaging the Muslim and non-Muslim's market had created the online presence through their company web page or apps. Apdi (2019) discussed evidence shows that relatively few sellers or organizations appear actively to utilize online interactivity facilitated by social media, and potential all these has boost the relationship they have with the customers. Social interaction can be facilitated by social media which exert a strong influence on opinion formation (Buchanan, 2007). In China, social media has even greater influence on buying decision as the China locals more likely to consider purchase a product if they witness it discussed positively by friends on social media like WeChat (Chiu et al, 2012 (2019) these researchers surveyed their current along with some various past studies propose social media influence and societal references can be review as a moderator to strengthen the relationship of the factors such as attitude, perception, perceived behavioural control, motivation, social norms, switching intention and purchase behaviour. Therefore, the following hypotheses is generated: H5a: The positive association between attitude and non-Muslim consumer's purchase intention of halal food product will be stronger with the presence of social media influence. H5b: The positive association between subjective norms and non-Muslim consumer's purchase intention of halal food product will be stronger with the presence of social media influence. H5c: The positive association between perceived behavioural control and non-Muslim consumer's purchase intention of halal food product will be stronger with the presence of social media influence.

Data Collection Method and Instrument
This research was carried out in Penang and only the non-Muslim were targeted as to gather the information of halal food product's purchase intention. This is due to the researcher is based in Penang and it is easier and more convenient to obtain the data from the non-Muslim. Data was gathered through online Google Survey and the survey link will provide to the right targeted group of participants only. Kline (2014) highlighted a data collection should not be less than 100 respondents. An ideal sample size adequacy was proposed by Comrey and Lee (1992) ). Non-Muslim's consumer who stays in Penang who have the intentions to buy halal food products are targeted for data collection and sample size for this research is 300 as proposed by (Kline, 2014).
In order to obtain the data, 5 points Likert Scale was adopted (5 strongly agree; 1 strongly disagree) questionnaire which was adopted and adapted from previous studies such as Haque et al. (2015); Wilde & Joseph (1997); and Ayyuniyah & Hambari (2017) with total of 26 items. In quantitative research, data is collected through survey, secondary sources or questionnaire. However, questionnaire is the most ideal and widely practiced approach (Ticehurst & Veal (2000).

Sampling Technique
In this study, purposive sampling was applied. A non-probability sampling which decided on objective of the research as well attributes of the population is known as purposive sampling (Ali & Khushi, 2017). This sampling technique was used when researcher targeted specific group of participants from the whole population (Black, 2010). A self-administrated online questionnaire was distributed to a total of 310 respondents. Respondent from this research were qualified according to researcher's screening criteria which, they are non-Muslims and lived in Penang.

Data Analysis and Findings
This study analysed the survey data using SmartPLS software to test the direct and moderation effect hypothesised in the model. The descriptive data are analysed SPSS software.   Table 2 summarises the results of the measurement model. The results indicated that all the measurement items are valid and reliable. Table 3 summarises the constructs' discriminant validity.

Structural Model Assessments
In this section, Table 4 indicated the result of R 2 value was 0.773 which explained that 77.3% of the variance in the buying intention of the respondents towards halal food products can be illuminated by perceived behavioural control, attitude and subjective norms. Besides the analysis of R 2 , predictive metric assessment such as Q 2 is crucial as one of the conditions of predictive relevance ( (Stone, 1974;Geisser, 1974). Q 2 can be done through Blindfolding process in PLS-SEM. Hair et al., (2018) mentioned that Q 2 value which is 0.50, 0.25, 0 illustrated as large, medium, small predictive accuracy of the PLS path model. In this study, Q 2 was 0.492. Hence, the model portrayed a high predictive relevance.

Hypothesis Analysis
In this assessment of inner models, it helps to examine the relationship between independent variables (IV) and dependent variable (DV). Structural Model is applied to test the hypotheses. According to this study, several numbers of path coefficient were analysed by using PLS-SEM algorithm and the significant of the relationship will be examined by bootstrapping process. The data for bootstrapping were 5000 samples (Hair et al, 2017) as to obtain the structural model. This is to show the path coefficient of the DV and IVs. The outcome indicates the result of the relationship between the IVs and DV are significant at p-value less than 0.05 (Hair et al, 2018); t-value above 2.3265 considered accepted (Hair et al, 2017). Table 5 (2019) where attitude has a significant and positive relationship towards halal product purchase intention. As Engel et al (1995) claimed, good predictor such as strong attitude will affect a consumer to purchase a product.
Subjective norms also have a positive impact on the halal food product purchase intention for a (β: 0.165; t-value: 2.511; p<0.01). Hence, H2 is accepted. This finding shares the same result as the previous studies (Mukhtar and Butt, 2012;Alam & Sayuti, 2011) which showed a positive and significant influence towards the halal food products purchase intention. This indicates that, halal food product buying intention can be prompted by subjective norms when a consumer face pressure from the referent groups of people, and the consumer might act as what they wish (Wilson & Grant, 2013).
Perceived Behavioural Control (PBC) with (β: 0.485; t-value: 7.063; p<0.05) has a positive and highest t-value on halal food buying intention. Thus, H3 is accepted. The findings are consistent with the past studies (Alam and Sayuti, 2011;Kim et al., 2011;Omar et al., 2012) where PBC are positively and significant towards purchase intention. Kim et al (2011) mentioned the more the person has the degree of control over their decision making in buying halal food product, the more likely they will perform the specific behaviour.
Moreover, religiosity shows positive effect with (β: 0.110; t-value: 2.861; p<0.01) towards halal food product buying intention. This outcome is similar with the previous studies (Memon et al., 2019) which showed positive relationship between religiosity and halal food products purchase intention. On the other hand, social media influence shows a positive effect with (β:0.118; t-value: 2.511; p<0.05). This result is similar with the past study (Yu & Wang, 2018) which indicated positive relationship between Social Media Influence and halal food product buying intention.  Table 6 showed the moderating effect of religiosity and social media influence towards the relationship between determinants and halal food product purchase intention. Based on the interaction effect of religiosity and subjective norms (β: 0.237; t-value: 3.403; p<0.01) is significant towards halal food product buying intention and thus, H4b is accepted. This finding is similar with (Memon et al., 2019;Lada et al., 2009) which indicates a positive outcome in their research. Meanwhile, on the interaction effect between attitude and religiosity on halal food product purchase intention (β: 0.031; t-value: 0.668; p<0.01) is found to be insignificant. Thus, H4a is rejected. This is because the p-value is more than 0.05 as suggested by Hair et al., (2018). This finding is not consistent with the past studies where (Ansari & Muhammad, 2015;Mukhtar & Mohsin, 2012) mentioned that attitude is significant towards halal food product buying intention. However, the interaction effect of religiosity and perceived behavioural control (PBC) (β: -0.245; t-value: 3.349; p<0.01) is also found to be in negative relationship towards the buying intention of halal food product. Therefore, H4c is rejected. The findings is consistent with the past studies where past researcher found out that PBC is negative related to religiosity. (Memon et al., 2019). Therefore, the empirical finding only support H4b. (H5a, H5b, H5c) Accordingly, the interaction effect of subjective norms and social media influence (SMI) (β: 0.264; t-value: 4.859, p<0.01) is found to be significant and has a positive relationship towards the halal food product purchase intention. Thus, H5b is accepted. This finding is consistent with the previous research Yu & Wang, (2018) which indicated a positive outcome. However, the interaction effect of attitude and social media influence (β: -0.200; t-value: 6.036; p<0.01) is found to have a negative relationship. Thus, H5a is rejected. Moreover, the interaction effect of PBC and SMI (β: -0.170; t-value: 2.972; p<0.005) is found to have a negative relationship as well. Thus, H5c is rejected. Therefore, the empirical findings only support H5b.

Discussion and Conclusion
The finding of this research reveals that most of the hypotheses are supported. It displayed that all the supported hypotheses mentioned have positive relationship and significant towards the non-Muslim consumers' halal food buying intention. The finding is consistent with the results of past researches (Alam & Sayuti, 2011, Rahman et al., 2015Mukthar & Butt, 2012, Lada et al., 2009 where attitude has a significant and positive relationship towards halal product purchase intention. As Engel et al (1995) claimed, good predictor such as strong attitude will affect a consumer to purchase a product. This study also finds that halal food product buying intention can be prompted by subjective norms when a consumer received endorsement from their referent groups (Wilson & Grant, 2013). Non-Muslim consumers has control over their decision making, and buying halal food product is likely to occur. Religiosity has a moderation effect on the association between subjective norms and attitude towards halal product's purchasing intention. Information acquisition via social media about halal food leads to positive recommendation which lead to strengthen purchase intention of halal food.
The findings of this research suggested that subjective norms, attitude and perceived behaviour control are the main contributor for buying intention of halal food products with the presence of two moderators such as religiosity and social media influence. This research also illustrate halal behaviours may contribute the promising business opportunity in fast food chain, halal food retailers, manufacturer as well as global halal market. There is a potential for SMEs in halal food product penetrate the non-Muslim consumers. This research has made a practical contribution to the Food & Beverages (F&B) SMEs as well as provide better understanding for future researcher in halal F&B sector.