This study addresses the “green gap” caused by information overload during sustainable transformation. Integrating neo-institutional and signaling theories, this study proposes “institutional alignment” – the compatibility between regulative and normative institutional logics – to examine how consistent signals enhance consumers' ethical value perceptions.
This study uses choice-based conjoint analysis (CBC) and conditional logit models to examine how product value, sales channel norms and certification regulations interact. To ensure the sample is representative, individuals over 20 who buy produce weekly from six major areas were proportionally sampled. Data were collected through an online survey with 1,261 respondents.
The alignment between direct sales channels and participatory guarantee system (PGS) certification significantly increases consumers' focus on core values (health) and augmented values (fairness), while mitigating excessive attention to actual values (appearance and price).
First, to precisely isolate causal signals, the CBC experimental design intentionally simplified real-world institutional noise. Second, the empirical results are bounded by Taiwan's unique dual-institutional context. Therefore, future research should test these configurational effects across broader geographical and cultural environments. Finally, while this study focuses on traditional certification and channel norms, future studies could incorporate emerging institutional signals, such as blockchain traceability, to further explore sustainable market expansion.
This study provides ecosystem-level guidance, urging brands to construct “market-protected spaces” by aligning direct channels and PGS certifications and prompting large retailers to undergo structural “sales transformations” by embedding community logics to break trust-damaging “false settlements.”
By shifting consumer priorities toward health and fairness over price, this alignment mechanism bridges the green gap, fosters public-private collaborative governance, and protects small-scale producers from mainstream low-price competition.
Moving beyond single marketing tactics, this study utilizes an institutional alignment framework to eliminate “signal noise” and dynamically reshape consumers' micro-decision environments.
