Consumer Involvement in Goods and Services Purchases: A Comparative Study, Lecture notes of Marketing

Download Consumer Involvement in Goods and Services Purchases: A Comparative Study and more Lecture notes Marketing in PDF only on Docsity! [73] 7306 january · april 2006 · esic market Consumer involvement in goods and service purc h a s e s Carmen Pérez Cabañero Departamento de Comercialización e Investigación de Mercados Facultad de Economía University of Valencia Abstract The extension of marketing to the service arena has led researchers to test the influence of certain magnitudes traditionally studied on goods. This is aim of the present work which attempts to compare consumer’s involve - ment before the purchase of some proposed goods and services. Key words: Consumer bahaviour, involvement, goods, services. JEL Code: M31. january · april 2006 · esic market consumer involvement in goods and service purchases 1. Introduction Although the study of consumer behaviour began as a specialization in the field of marketing, it is recently when it gains relevance as the consumer becomes a central agent in an organization’s marketing strategies (Alonso Rivas et al., 1999). On the one hand, increasing competence, the broadening and globali- sation of markets, the application of new technologies on marketing rese- arch and the diffusion of relational marketing, among other factors make the study of consumer behaviour as a starting the basis for designing effec- tive marketing strategies. On the other hand, the development of marketing applied to the ter- tiary sector requires more in-depth knowledge of the variables and beha- viours traditionally studied for the marketing of tangible products, in that the different nature of services may give rise to significant differences in consumer perceptions. In this context, involvement becomes one of the most important varia- bles to explain and predict consumer behaviour (Evrard and Aurier, 1996), due to its impact on processing memory stored data (Maheswaran and Sternthal, 1990), on external information search (Chaudhuri, 2000), on advertising audience (Zaichowsky, 1985), the formation of attitudes and market segmentation (Reinecke and Goldsmith, 1993). This study approaches the conceptualization of involvement and selects a reliable and valid measurement instrument to empirically study its impact before the purchase of certain proposed goods and services, in order to compare the level of consumer involvement and analyse its mana- gerial implications. 2. Involvement: theoretical background The origin of this variable is quite recent; Sheriff and Cantril (1947) first used the term which was later expanded to consumer behaviour later. Involvement research has received considerable attention till our days, and it is recognised as one of the most important variables in consumer rese- [74] 74 06 consumer involvement in goods and service purchases january · april 2006 · esic market The study of involvement has been applied to durable goods such as cars (Punj and Staelin, 1983; Srinivasan and Rachtford, 1991), sporadic purchases such as electrical appliances (Wilkie, 1994) and also perishable products such as groceries (Beharrell and Denison, 1995). In services, different involvement levels have been observed related to several professional and generic services even within the same category (Hill and Motes, 1995). Consumers perceive higher involvement when selecting a doctor than when choosing the service of a dry-cleaning or gar- dening company (Celuch and Longfellow, 1992) and also when choosing accountancy and legal services (Webster, 1988). In relation to the comparison of the consumers’ perceived involvement in case they face a purchase of goods or services, some authors state that the differential nature of services can originate a higher involvement befo- re their purchase compared to goods acquisition (Gabbot and Hogg, 1994; Bateson and Hoffman, 1999). In this sense, Laroche et al. (2003) indicate that there are three main characteristics included in services that, in general, produce a higher involvement before their purchase: human resources participation in the service production, consumer participation and the associated intangibility. Despite the fact that in marketing literature the diff e rential nature of services is emphasised and also its consequently higher involvement c o m p a red to goods purchases we have not found any study empirically analysing possible diff e rences related to diff e rent levels of involvement for the same person comparing a service purchase and a goods pur- chase. 3. The Assessment of involvement As a consequence of the diversity of definitions of involvement, researches have proposed different assessment. A group of authors propose involve- ment as a one-dimensional construct (Mittal, 1995; Evrard and Aurier, 1996) while others support its multidimensionality (Laurent and Kapferer, 1985; 1986; Zaichowsky, 1994; Chaudhuri, 2000). [77] 7706 january · april 2006 · esic market consumer involvement in goods and service purchases Different involvement measures have been proposed according to their address and duration. On the one hand, we find some scales designed to assess product involvement (tangible or intangible) or purchase decision involvement (the person is asked about a particular purchase and not about the product itself). On the other hand, other scales refer to situatio- nal or enduring involvement. In fact, most researchers on purchase invol- vement recognise that situational involvement is being assessed (Zaichowsky, 1985; Mittal, 1995; Beharrell and Denison, 1995); we have not found any study on enduring involvement related to a particular pur- chase decision, probably because it has no sense (Day et al., 1995). The measurement of this variable in a certain product category (goods and ser- vices), is summarised in Table 3. [78] 78 06 In spite of the apparent diversity shown in Table 3, most researches have selected some items from the PII scale by Zaichowsky (1985), which originally comprised 20 bipolar adjectives and was later reduced to 10 by SITUATIONAL Shaffer and Sherrell 6 Quester and Smart (1998) (1997) Dholakia (2001) 2 ENDURING Zaichowsky (1994) 8 Lastovicka and Gardner, (1979) 22 McColl-Kennedy and 9 Bloch, (1981) 17 Fetter (2001) Traylor and Joseph, (1985) 6 Celuch and Taylor (1999) 5 Zaichowsky, (1985) 20 Laroche et al. (2003) 11 Laurent and Kapferer, (1985) 16 Higie and Feick (1989) 10 Jain and Srnivasan, (1990) 15 Mittal (1995) 5 Quester and Smart (1998) Dholakia (2001) 2 Rifon and Trimble (2002) 10 Laroche et al. (2003) 11 SERVICES Nº GOODS Nº items items Table 3. Empirical studies assessing involvement consumer involvement in goods and service purchases january · april 2006 · esic market the author (Zaichowsky, 1994). Despite this scale being developed to mea- sure advertising involvement it has been applied satisfactorily in different countries, goods and services (Martin, 1998; Webster, 1988; Mittal, 1995; McColl-Kennedy and Fetter, 2001). Other proposals have been less adop- ted: Lastovicka and Gardner, (1979), Bloch (1981), Traylor and Joseph, (1985), Laurent and Kapferer, (1985), Jain and Srnivasan, (1990), Shaffer and Sherrell (1997) and, Dholakia (2001). 4. Research objectives and methodology This study tries to assess perceived involvement before the purchase of cer- tain goods and services, with the aim of comparing them and testing the premise that service purchase involvement is higher than goods purchase involvement as suggested by several authors (Gabbot and Hogg, 1994; Bateson and Joffman, 1999; Laroche et al., 2003). In order to propose a sample of goods and services for interviewees to refer to their purchase involvement, several products were selected becau- se of their expected higher involvement due to the importance of the pur- chase, price, relevance and associated risk. Specifically, the proposal was to remember a recent purchase of one of the following goods: a house, a car or motorbike, a vacuum cleaner, dishwasher or washing machine, a tv or hi-fi set, and a personal computer. S i m i l a r l y, interviewees had to remember service acquisitions from a den- tist, a lawyer or tax adviser, an academy or nursery, household repairs, and a travel agency. If the person considered that the acquisition of the selected s e rvice was just routine he was asked to remember the first time he chose it and only if it was re c e n t l y. Several options of goods and services were pro- posed in order to increase the possibilities of having an answer given that the same person had to answer about one goods item and one serv i c e . The sample universe was all the inhabitants of Valencia (Spain) where a representative sample of 300 people was selected by a random route sys- tem taking into account sex and age quota of the population. Additional characteristics of the survey are given in Table 4. [79] 7906 january · april 2006 · esic market consumer involvement in goods and service purchases Predictive validity of the selected scale, that is, its capacity to predict other variables, is proved by the relationship with an expected conse- quence of involvement: the external pre-purchase search, measuring the latter with three items used previously by McColl-Kennedy and Fetter (1999), among others. The result is favourable in that the correlation coef- ficient is positive and statistically significant. Thus, the more perceived involvement, the more effort is dedicated to search among different pur- chase options (Chaudhuri, 2000). Therefore, Mittal’s (1995) scale is proved to be reliable and externally validated when assessing the situational involvement perceived by consu- mers before the purchase of the proposed goods and services. 5. Results In order to achieve our research objective, perceived involvement is asses- sed related to the goods and services proposed. The mean, standard devia- tion, minimum and maximum values are shown in Table 7. [82] 82 06 According to the results in Table 7, interviewees perceive higher invol- vement before the purchase of the proposed services than with the goods (a mean value of 4 and 3.88 respectively). Additionally, if a probability inferior to 0.1 is admitted, the T test let us assure that this difference is sta- tistically significant. For an in-depth study of involvement in the proposed goods and servi- ces, Table 8 offers the mean value and standard deviation of involvement Mean St.dev. Min. Max. N t d.f Sig. GOODS 3.88 0.88 1 5 300 -1.814 299 0.071 SERVICES 4.00 0.76 1 5 300 Table 7. Statistical descriptives of consumer involvement and T test for related samples consumer involvement in goods and service purchases january · april 2006 · esic market according to the perception of the interviewees when they bought each of the goods and services proposed. Among all the proposed goods and services involvement is highest before the purchase of a house with a mean value of 4.85 out of 5. In second place, but quite far behind is the purchase of a car with a mean value of 4.28. Related to the proposed services, the highest involvement is perceived for travel agencies and lawyers or tax advisors, with values of 4.11 and 4.04 respectively. The involvement related to the remaining services is lower than that perceived before the purchase of a personal computer but higher than for the acquisition of electrical household appliances or a tele- vision set. In other words, service purchase involvement is higher than the non frequently bought proposed goods. Summarising, the order for all the products from high to low involve- ment is as follows: house, automobile or motorbike, travel agency, lawyer or tax adviser, personal computer, academy or nursery, dentist, house repair, electrical appliances and television set. The involvement score for a house purchase increases the average value for goods involvement and so reduces the difference between goods and [83] 8306 GOODS Mean St.dev. n SERVICES Mean St.dev n HOUSE 4.85 0.32 26 DENTIST 3.82 0.85 83 AUTOMOBILE OR 4.28 0.73 85 LAWYER OR TAX 4.04 0.92 35 MOTORBIKE ADVICER ELECTRICAL 3.51 0.71 64 ACADEMY OR 3.86 0.80 49 APPLIANCES NURSERY TELEVISION SET 3.35 0.89 73 HOUSE REPAIR 3.75 1.01 78 OR HI FI SET PERSONAL 3.98 0.76 52 TRAVEL AGENCY 4.11 0.76 55 COMPUTER Table 8. Involvement in each type of product january · april 2006 · esic market consumer involvement in goods and service purchases services. To test this, we recalculated perceived involvement in both pro- duct categories saved from the answers of the 26 people who bought a house. The results are shown in Table 9 and show an increased difference in the perception of involvement. To test it statistically, the T test for dependent samples was done which shows that we have to reject the null hypothesis of equal averages. Therefore, both means are statistically diffe- rent and involvement is higher for services than for goods, in the case of the proposed products, specially when the house is removed from the analysis. Consequently, in general terms, the statement that service purchase involvement is higher than goods purchase involvement is pro v e d . However, it is possible to find a certain goods item with higher involve- ment than a certain service. In this sense a house and a car can be men- tioned, probably because, apart from the importance of this purchase, they have some features that increase involvement such as their relations- hip with personal goals and values (Martin, 1998). Other related variables can also increase involvement for both goods such as their perceived risk and knowledge. 6. Discussion and managerial implications In this study we have compared the level of consumer involvement before the purchase of certain proposed goods and services. Aggregate results confirm the premise in the literature that service involvement is higher than goods involvement (Gabbott and How, 1994; Bateson and Hoffamn, [84] 84 06 mean St.dev. Mín. Máx. N t Sig. GOODS 3.79 0.87 1 5 274 -3.132 0.002 SERVICES 4.00 0.76 1.2 5 274 Table 9. Descriptive goods and services except for the house consumer involvement in goods and service purchases january · april 2006 · esic market BERENGUER CONTRÍ, G., GIL SAURA, I. and MOLLÁ DESCALS, A., (1995): “Medición de constructos en marketing: revisión de las escalas de medición del nivel de iinvolvement del consumidor”, Quaderns de treball, nº 14, nova època. Universitat de Valencia, pp. 1-22. BLOCH, P.H., (1981): “An exploration into the scaling of consumer’s involvement with a product class”, Advances in consumer research, vol. 8, pp. 61-65. 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