The single-serve wine option in South African restaurants: product involvement, risk perception and information-related behavioural effects

ABSTRACT Wine is a highly-valued-added end product of an important agricultural value chain. In this product category, the single-serve wine by-the-glass (WBG) option in restaurants presents a largely underutilized business opportunity. Academic research examining consumer behavioural psychology-based constructs in the situational consumption context of restaurants, has also not kept pace with this market reality. Hence, this study establishes how product involvement, risk perception, and information processing, affect consumption of WBG by consumers in the situational milieu of restaurants. Following scale validation by conducting confirmatory factor analysis and thereafter fitting a structural equation model, the relationships between constructs are examined by utilising a sample of 1,038 South African consumers representative of dining across all restaurant categories. The findings contribute to the literature by showing that distinct motivational relationships exist between the involvement and perception of risk constructs and information-related behaviour of consumers engaging with the WBG option in restaurants. The stable nature of consumers' enduring involvement with wine products evokes motivational processing by triggering situational involvement upon purchasing WBG and perception of risk arousal of both the cognitively-evaluated (psychological, social and functional) and non-cognitively-evaluated (financial, physical and time) risk types.