Religious Practices and Consumption Behavior: Why and How Christian Consumer’s Needs and Expectations in the West African Context are Crucial

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether religious practices in the African context can explain previously observed consumption behavior variation in the sector of beverages. This exploratory research is focused on the post-positivist epistemological posture. It is a mixed method approach with triangulation of research tools. The results indicate that religious practices and consumption behavior are strongly and sufficiently correlated. It is also found that age has a moderating effect on the relationship between religious practices and consumption behavior. The findings imply the application of a rigorous segmentation, creativity and innovation in the beverage market in order to meet consumers ’core needs and real expectations. There should be specific marketing intra-religious hyper-segmentation considerations by taking into account consumer’s age range and consumer’s religious sensibilities towards consumption. To the best of author’s knowledge, this exploratory research shows the relationship between religious practices and consumption behavior in the West African geography with some different factors that have some effects on consumer’s choices and purchasing decisions.

Towards Socially Responsible Consumption: Assessing the Role of Prayer in Consumption

“…Some research suggests that religiosity promotes a rejection of materialism (Burroughs and Rindfleisch 2002;Baker et al 2013) and voluntary simplicity (Chowdhury 2018;Peifer et al 2020), indicating the existence of a relationship between religion and consumption. In recent years, research has been undertaken on the relationship between the consumption of specific product groups and the attitude towards prayer (Nassè 2022;Abdoljabari et al 2015), which indicates the existence of a certain relationship.…”