集体声誉、认证制度与有机食品行业发展

Collective Reputation, Certification, and the Development of Organic Food Industry in China

有机食品行业在我国发展空间巨大,但部分企业的违规行为严重损害了有机食品行业的集体声誉。本文对有机食品行业集体声誉的作用机制进行了理论分析,发现认证制度的有效性对集体声誉的建立和维持起到极为重要的作用。然而一旦出现行业信任危机,仅靠认证机制往往无法重建集体声誉。此时,政府需采取一段时间公开持续的市场干预才能提升消费者信心,最终恢复市场集体声誉。研究进一步发现,认证系统中的追溯性越强,市场上有机食品相对于一般食品的性价比越高,所需要的市场干预时间越短。

The development of organic food industry is important for the upgrading of the agri-food industry and the improvement of food safety situation in China. However, the dishonesty behavior of some producers badly ruins the collective reputation of the industry. In this paper, we investigate the mechanism of collective reputation in a theoretical framework. We find that in order to maintain the collective reputation,an efficient certification system is necessary. Efficient certification system can enhance the supervision of firms, improve consumers' trust, and eventually result in a high-price-high-quality market. However, when consumers lose trust over the industry, only relying on efficient certification system is not enough for the rebuilding of collective reputation. In this case, introduction of pertinent public intervention is necessary to help consumers restoring confidence. We further find that the higher degree of traceability in the certification system, the larger the profit margin of the organic food compared with the traditional one, the less time is needed for the public intervention.