What Drives the Food Safety Certification: A Qualitative Comparative Analysis of Food Companies in China

• Main Authors: Quan Lin, Nana Zhang, Wanchao Guan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-06-01
• Series: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
• Subjects: food safety certification; institutional theory; qualitative comparative analysis
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/13/6893
• ISSN: 1661-7827; 1660-4601

Food safety is related to health and quality of life. Therefore, the social responsibility of the food industry to ensure food safety has received increasing attention. Influencing factors and mechanisms of participation in food safety certification are important issues in this field. Existing studies on factors affecting food safety certification mainly focus on the impact of a single or few factors. In this study, listed Chinese food companies were selected, and the fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis method was utilized to explore the matching mode of various factors to encourage companies to obtain food safety certification. The following results were obtained. (1) State-owned companies tend to achieve food safety certification. (2) Companies with high media attention are inclined to achieve food safety certification. (3) In state-owned companies, when the company size is small, a higher degree of food safety concern in the mission statement can encourage the company to achieve food safety certification, and when the company size is large, higher media attention can encourage the company to achieve food safety certification. (4) In non-state-owned companies, when food safety concerns are highlighted in the mission statement and media attention is relatively high, the company will gain food safety certification. This study provides new perspectives on food safety-related research and suggestions for government and the public sector to supervise food safety issues in enterprises.