Using involvement to understand responses to biosecurity

The effectiveness of biosecurity measures at national borders is influenced by the behaviour and levels of involvement of travellers. Involvement is the importance or relevance of an object or situation to an individual. Involvement helps regulate the way in which people receive and process information and thus influences the extent of information searching for decision making, and information processing and persuasion. In this study, we drew on the concept of involvement to investigate the response of individuals to New Zealand biosecurity requirements. A range of people associated with the agricultural and food processing sectors were surveyed using a five item scale of involvement to measure their level of involvement in biosecurity. The results indicated that most respondents had medium to high levels of involvement. This implies that respondents were motivated to attend to and process information on biosecurity measures. However, not all respondents reported taking note of biosecurity information implying that involvement with biosecurity prompts some initial information processing which may or may not continue over time.