A Demand-Side Perspective of Bioeconomy: The Influence of Online Intellectual Capital on Consumption

The present paper aims to address a demand-side perspective of bioeconomy by laying emphasis on the digitalization of markets and, subsequently, on the consumption patterns at the macroeconomic scale. The imperative for a sustainable economic model corroborated with the advances in digital technologies usage have reconfigured consumers' approaches and expectations and availed new forms of consumer behavior. Among these, the development of consumer-based online communities and of the online intellectual capital have often come forth as an undertaking of empowered consumers pursuing knowledge-based consumption patterns. The quest for sustainable, bio-labeled products on the digital markets has cemented the formation of new social aggregations built on the similarity of interests, goals, values, expectations, preferences, etc., giving way to consistent communication and interaction flows among their members and engendering profound transformations in today's society. Acknowledging all these facts, the study investigates the influences of the online intellectual capital on the consumption patterns through the lens of bioeconomy. The focus is set on the bio products consumption in two European countries (i.e., Romania and Italy), relying on a sample of over 700 active online consumers. Processed via a structural equation modeling technique, the data indicated the existence of significant influences among the considered variables.