Dietary compromises related to food insecurity profoundly undermine health and constitute a serious public health issue, even in developed nations. The aim of this study was to explore the impact of food labelling and product attributes on the purchasing choices of food-insecure households in Australia. An online survey containing 19 food choice and 28 purchasing behaviours questions was completed by 1056 adults responsible for household grocery shopping. The short form of the US Household Food Security Survey Module was used as the food security indicator. Multinomial logistic regression modelling was employed to analyse the survey data. Respondents were classified as having either high-marginal (63.4%, n = 670), low (19.8%, n = 209) or very low (16.8%, n = 177) food security. Respondents with low or very low food security status were less likely to self-report understanding the information on the back of packaging (p < 0.001), find information on food labels useful (p = 0.002) or be influenced by product nutrition information (p = 0.002). Convenience (p < 0.001), organic (p = 0.027) and supermarket-branded products (p < 0.001) were more likely to be rated as important by food-insecure respondents when compared to their food-secure counterparts. When asked to rate “how healthy” their diet was, high–marginal FS respondents were twice as likely describe their diet as healthy than very low FS respondents (p = 0.001).

The Australia and New Zealand Ministerial Forum on Food Regulation has supported the recommendations set out in the 2019 Health Star Rating System Five Year Review Report. Specifically, the forum supported, in principle, Recommendation 9, to mandate the Health Star Rating if clear uptake targets were not achieved while the system is voluntary. Given that mandatory labelling is being considered, it is important to investigate how much consumers value the Health Star Rating in order to understand potential consumer uptake and inform industry. The aim of this study was to assess consumers’ valuation of the Health Star Rating system by analysing their willingness to pay for a packaged food product with the Health Star Rating label, utilising a double-bounded dichotomous choice contingent valuation approach. The results indicate that almost two-thirds of Australian household grocery shoppers were willing to pay more for a product with the Health Star Rating, on average up to an additional 3.7% of the price of the product. However, public health nutrition benefits associated with consumers’ willingness to pay more for products with the Health Star Rating is currently limited by the lack of guarantee of the systems’ accuracy. Given consumer support, a well validated and comprehensive Health Star Rating labelling system can potentially improve health outcomes, cost effectiveness and reduce environmental impacts.

Purpose: The rise of digital transaction technology has been transformative for businesses however consumer attitudes to this technology can vary. The comparison of Australians, Chinese and Sri Lankans’ consumers salient attitudes toward payment methods at the Point-of-Sale (POS) provides businesses with insights into the factors impacting consumers' payment preference.Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative methodology was employed for data collection from Australian, Chinese and Sri Lankan participants. A combination of focus groups and individual interviews were carried out with a total of 35 participants.Findings: Results indicate that factors of perceived relative advantage, perceived compatibility, perceived risk, perceived rewards, perceived situations and social influence impact consumers' payment preference at POS across all three countries, however the degree of impact varies in importance across the three countries.Practical implications: In the cross-cultural comparison of the consumers' payment preference, this research highlights the complex interplay of factors that shapes these payment preferences. The findings, given the growing digitization of transactions, provides banking and financial institutions with a foundational model that can be used to improve their services and business model.Originality/value: Previous studies failed to distinguish between payment choice at the time of the transaction and payment preference which is repeated behaviour. This study is the first to compare the consumers' payment preference across Australian, Chinese and Sri Lankan consumers and responds to calls for additional research that generalises consumers' payment preferences across cultures.

Food insecurity is considered a “wicked” problem due to the highly complex and at times undefined casual factors. Although many stakeholders are working to address the problem, a possible divergence exists between their views on food insecurity and those of the people who are actually experiencing the problem. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether there was a difference between the opinions of those “at risk” and stakeholders. A total of seven focus groups (two stakeholder groups n = 10, five “at-risk” groups n = 34) and three interviews (stakeholders n = 3) were conducted to ascertain perceptions. Thematic analysis generated 329 (209 “at-risk” and 120 stakeholder) coded statements related to food insecurity drivers. Respondents were in agreement for the majority of factors, and limited income was considered the primary driver of food insecurity. However, there were notable deviations in the perceived importance of certain drivers, particularly around the price of food and the lack of food literacy. Differences in the perception of causes of food insecurity may in part be attributed to the varied role each group plays in working towards the resolution of the problem, either at the household or system level.

A shortage of suitable franchisees has long plagued the Australian franchise industry impacting franchisors’ capacity to grow their chains. This exploratory research identifies, defines and examines an unresearched category of franchisees that of internally recruited franchisees, who prior to their franchise recruitment were employees of the franchisor. This category has previously been ignored by the literature even though estimates of some chains place the proportion of internally recruited franchisees at over 40 per cent. Employing qualitative interviews with key franchisor decision makers this research begins to address this gap. This study investigates what factors drive franchisors to recruit franchisees from the ranks of their employees and how they perceive this impacts on the achievement of franchising’s four strategic imperatives of unit growth, system uniformity, local responsiveness and system-wide adaption. Seven drivers for the internal recruiting of franchisees were identified: company owned units, significant system hierarchy, larger unit scale, unit viability, system maturity, capital freedom and strong growth in unit numbers. A preliminary model of factors influencing the propensity of franchise systems to recruit franchisees internally is presented. This research provides the first contribution to the franchise literature on the internally recruited franchisee phenomenon. In a practical sense this study should influence the recruitment practices of franchisors.

Franchising has long been a method by which organizations seek to expand and facilitate local market development. However, franchising as a growth strategy can often be hampered by lack of suitable franchisees. To mitigate this shortage, some franchisors have engaged in recruiting franchisees internally from the ranks of their employees in addition to the traditional approach of recruiting franchisees externally. Predominantly franchisees are individuals rather than corporations and thus purchasing a franchise should most commonly be characterized as a consumer acquisition. To explore the relationship between subjective knowledge, perceived risk, and information search behaviors when purchasing a franchise qualitative interviews were conducted with franchisees from the restaurant industry. Half of these respondents were externally recruited having never worked for the franchisor and half were internally recruited having previously been employees of the franchisor. The external recruits expressed a strong desire to own their own business and engaged in extensive decision-making processes with significant information search when purchasing their franchises. Contrastingly, the internal recruits expressed a strong desire to be their own boss and engaged in limited, bordering on habitual decision-making processes with negligible information search when acquiring their franchises. The results reveal that differences in subjective knowledge and perceived risk appear to significantly impact the extent of information search between these two groups. A model of the relationship between subjective knowledge, perceived risk and information search in the purchasing of a franchise is developed that reconciles these findings. The findings also have practical implications for franchisors’ franchisee recruiting efforts which are integral to their capacity to develop local markets.