保健食品消費模式之建立：符號互動觀點

Establishing Consumption Model for Health Food: A Symbolic Interactionism Perspective

保健食品屬於生物技術產業，是政府推動重點產業之一，保健食品業者與消費者之間的互動關係為重要的競爭優勢來源，為能提升顧客滿意度與忠誠度，其行銷方案必須符合消費者購買或使用保健食品的動態需求，包含消費者所面臨的消費情境、對產品的意義解釋與自我觀念。本文以保健食品微粒，以符號互動論方法為架構，運用扎根理論的分析，將消費者使用健康產品過程視為社會互動，針對代表性的消費者進行訪談歸納出營養品、藥品、保養品、安慰劑及禮品等初五大符號構面，並分析互動過程中，消費者對於自我互動的指涉現象，包含身體我、社會我等自我觀念以及保健食品的特質與知識，再根據影響消費者自我互動之背景脈絡與互動情境因素建構出消費者使用寶件時品之符號互動模式，描述消費者於保健食品的互動過程中，符號意義的解釋、自我觀念的調適、保健知識與互動行為的動態過程與雙迴圈的學習歷程。依此模式，本文討論保健食品業者與消費者之間互動行為的管理藝涵，對於其消費者行為分析、行銷方案擬定提供具體之建議。

Health food business belongs to biotechnology industry which is an important industry in Taiwan. In the dynamic operating environment, customer relationship is one of an important competitiveness sources. To improve the customer satisfaction and loyalty, businesses need to understand consuming behavior and associated influencing factors, such as customer’s interaction conditions, cognition of health food, and self concept. Adopting Symbolic Interactionism and grounded theory apporaches, this study presents interviews with consumers who have rich experience for health food. The symbols and associated meanings are analyzed during the health food consumption. The analysis categorizes five symbolic dimensions, namely nutrition, medicines, cosmetic, placebo and gift. At the interaction process, consumers indicate the characteristics of health food product and reflect their own self concept, including the body self, social self, and health knowledge. And the factors influencing self interaction are also found, including social culture context and interaction conditions. Base on the results, we establish symbolic interactionism model for health food consumption which includes dynamic consumption behavior and double-loop learning relationship. According to the model, managerial implications are discussed, some practical suggestions about consumer behavior analysis and marketing alternatives for biotechnology industry are also provided.