Digital Verification and Human Capital in Halal Supervision: Broiler Chicken Purchase Decisions in Ambon

Abstract

Halal supervision in Indonesia faces a structural human-capital constraint: local halal task forces (Satgas) and the Halal Product Assurance Agency (BPJPH) operate with limited personnel and reach, leaving much of the retail and distribution chain outside effective supervision. Building on two prior qualitative studies in Ambon City documenting this constraint from opposite ends of the same supply chain, this study empirically tests a model in which halal awareness, social trust, formal-label perception, price-quality, location access, and consumer exposure to digital halal-verification tools predict purchase decisions for halal-labelled broiler chicken, with digital exposure also hypothesized to moderate the label-perception pathway. Data from 150 valid respondents were analyzed using standardized composite-score regression as an approximation of PLS-SEM path estimation. The model explained 75.4 percent of variance in purchase decisions. Three direct paths were supported: halal awareness, formal-label perception, and digital verification exposure, the last showing the largest effect size in the model. Social trust and price-quality were not significant once other predictors were controlled. The moderation hypothesis was highly significant but in the opposite direction to that predicted: rather than amplifying the influence of formal labels, digital verification exposure substituted for it. Simple-slope analysis showed that formal-label perception predicted purchase decisions only among consumers with low digital exposure, while digital verification mattered most among those least reliant on formal labels. These findings suggest that digital verification functions as an alternative trust pathway rather than a reinforcing layer, offering a comparatively low-cost complement to constrained human supervisory capacity in halal governance.