Religious identity, community and religious minorities’ search efforts for religiously sanctioned food: The case of halal food in non‐Muslim majority markets

This research introduces the concept of search effort to explore the drivers of religion‐motivated consumption by religious minorities. The study draws on three theoretical frameworks to develop a model and hypotheses about the role of religious identity, community, knowledge and attitudes in explaining the effort religious minorities exert to uphold religiously motivated consumption behaviour. Using the search for halal food in the United States as a research context and data from a survey of U.S. consumers to test a model of search effort, the study finds that insistence on religiously motivated behaviour is a strong predictor of consumers’ willingness to exert effort towards the behaviour. In turn, degree of religiosity, attitude towards the behaviour and religious self‐identity are strong positive predictors of the level of insistence. Further, religious knowledge and sense of religious community are strong positive determinants of attitude towards the behaviour. The model provides an improved conceptualization of the relationship between religious identity and consumer behaviour, particularly religiously sanctioned or motivated consumption. Theory and research implications are outlined and potential avenues for further exploration are identified.