Devotion to church activities, consumption behavior, and social class: Christian consumers’ perspective in African beverage markets

Abstract

This study examines whether devotion to Church activities explains variation in beverage consumption behavior among Christian consumers in Burkina Faso, and whether this relationship is moderated by social class. The research follows a post positivist, sequential exploratory mixed method design. A qualitative phase, based on interviews with a retained sample of twelve respondents, generated the items used to build a quantitative questionnaire, which was then administered to 268 Christian consumers of non alcoholic beverages in Ouagadougou using a four point Likert scale. Data were analyzed through scale purification, reliability testing, and regression modeling. Devotion to Church activities has a positive and significant effect on consumption behavior, confirming the first hypothesis, and this relationship is moderated by social class, confirming the second. The estimated model, in which purchase, taste, advertising, price, and low prices emerge as significant predictors, explains about 67% of the variance in devotion to Church activities. Beverage companies should pursue segmentation strategies that account jointly for religious sensitivity and social class, paired with product innovation and pricing adjustments, to meet the authentic expectations of Christian consumers. The study extends cognitive dissonance theory to an underresearched West African setting, showing that religious devotion and social class jointly and interactively shape consumption choices among Christian consumers of non alcoholic beverages, a context largely absent from existing Western and Asian focused literature.