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An Exploratory Field Study of Adolescent Consumer Behavior: The Family Purchasing Agent (open access)

An Exploratory Field Study of Adolescent Consumer Behavior: The Family Purchasing Agent

An exploratory field study was conducted to examine internal and external factors that influence adolescents' consumer behavior when serving as the family purchasing agents. Demographic, lifestyle, and marketing activities were examined to determine the influences that affect whether the adolescent will purchase the preferred family brands or other brands. Participating adolescents were sent by their parents to the grocery store on two separate occasions to purchase four preselected grocery items. The brands purchased were recorded and compared to the preferred brand names provided by the parents. While no statistical significance was found, occasional trends were observed. The analysis indicated that adolescents who experience a pluralistic family communication style will purchase products other than the preferred household brands. Adolescents who are exposed to television and radio tend to deviate more from the preferred family brands more often than do adolescents with less media exposure. Adolescents who work are more likely to go to the grocery store more often for their families than do nonworking adolescents. Also, adolescents seem to possess a price sensitivity to both high and low-involvement grocery items.
Date: August 1989
Creator: Hardy, Jane P.
System: The UNT Digital Library
An Empirical Study on the Use of Promotion in Hospitals (open access)

An Empirical Study on the Use of Promotion in Hospitals

The role of marketing and marketing communication in hospitals has grown in the last decade. The need for hospitals to make careful decisions about their marketing communication efforts is mandated, given the changes taking place in the hospital industry. The purpose of this dissertation was to conduct empirical research to determine whether for-profit and non-profit hospitals perceive and utilize promotion as a marketing strategy element. The two steps taken included: identifying important factors considered by hospital administrators and marketing staff in the development of communication messages designed for patients, hospital staff and medical staff; and testing the factors developed and studying the attitudes of hospital personnel toward promotion using a national sample of hospitals. In phase 1, focus group interviews were conducted in a surrogate for-profit hospital and a surrogate non-profit hospital. In phase 2, an original mail questionnaire was used to collect data from a sample of 80 hospitals. A total of 38 hospitals participated, providing 114 usable responses. Test statistics included content analysis, Chi-Square, Pearson correlation coefficient and Analysis of Variance. The results of the focus group study indicated the practice of marketing in hospitals is in its early growth stages and marketing is viewed as nothing more …
Date: December 1988
Creator: Gopalakrishna, Pradeep
System: The UNT Digital Library
An Empirical Investigation of the Structural Form and Measurement Validity of the Hill Inventory (open access)

An Empirical Investigation of the Structural Form and Measurement Validity of the Hill Inventory

This research began with the Hill Inventory. Cognitive style preference variables were classified as one of following four types: Theoretical Codes, Qualitative Codes, Social-Cultural Codes or Reasoning Modalities. A consumer behavior perspective was then used to form an alternative structure for the Hill Inventory variables. The following three constructs were proposed: Evaluation Codes, Perceptual Codes, and Reasoning Modalities. The purpose of this research was to assess the structural form and measurement validity of the Hill Inventory. Specific steps taken to accomplish this objective included: developing confirmatory factor and structural equation models; using the LISREL software package to analyze the model specifications; and assessing the validity of the questions used to measure the variables. A descriptive research design was used to compare the model specifications. The research instrument consisted of eight statements for each of twenty-eight variables for a total of 224 questions. Five-point response choices were described by the words: often, sometimes, unsure, rarely, or never. The sample consisted of 285 student subjects in marketing classes at a large university. Data analysis began by comparing the distributions of the data to a normal case. Parameter estimates, root mean square residuals and squared multiple correlations then were obtained using the LISREL …
Date: August 1988
Creator: Blake, Faye W.
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Effect of Comparative Well-Being on the Perceived Risk Construct: a Study of the Purchase of Apparel (open access)

The Effect of Comparative Well-Being on the Perceived Risk Construct: a Study of the Purchase of Apparel

The purpose of this research was to examine how the intervening variable of comparative well-being (which is how persons view their age, financial resources, and health compared to others of their own age) will enhance the significance of the relationship between selected demographic and psychographic variables and perceived risk. Specifically, the research investigated the structural relationship between comparative well-being in four different statistical models: (1) as an independent predictor of perceived risk; (2) as an intensifier of the psychographic and demographic predictors of perceived risk; (3) as a covariate of perceived risk; and (4) finally, as a jointly dependent variable with perceived risk. This approach was pursued in an effort to enhance the traditional marketing use of demographic and psychographic variables in predictingconsumer buying behavior. The data for this study were gathered as part of a national consumer-panel mail survey utilizing approximately 3,000 households. The research instrument was a self-administered questionnaire which collected demographic, psychographic, and perceived risk information from purchasers of apparel wear. Data analysis included descriptive statistics, Pearson product moment correlation analysis, factor analysis, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). The findings have identified the importance of how consumers position themselves in society, based …
Date: December 1987
Creator: McConkey, C. William (Charles William)
System: The UNT Digital Library
An Exploratory Empirical Investigation of Information Processing among Incubator-Housed Manufacturers during Channel Member Selection (open access)

An Exploratory Empirical Investigation of Information Processing among Incubator-Housed Manufacturers during Channel Member Selection

The purpose of this research was to conduct an exploratory study of the information processing utilized by incubator-housed manufacturers during channel member selection. The study included the evaluation of the decision models used by the manufacturers as well as criteria used in the selection process. The study was specifically designed to achieve the following objectives. First, the research was to identify the evaluation modes used by the manufacturers as either compensatory or noncompensatory. Second, the study was to evaluate the effect of the task on the selection of the evaluation model(s) used during the channel member selection process. Third, the study was to evaluate the effect of the selected decision strategy on the amount of information used during the decision process. Finally, the study was to identify and examine the importance of the criteria used by the manufacturers in the selection process. The methodology in this study consisted of primary research using protocol analysis as the main data gathering technique. A ranking instrument was also mailed to the respondents prior to the protocol session. The population for the study was identified as all manufacturers located in publicly-sponsored business incubators. A total of 235 incubators were in existence with approximately 47 …
Date: December 1988
Creator: Fontenot, Gwen F.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Toward a Theory of Consumer Attitudes Regarding Products of Foreign Origin: a Multiattitude Expectancy-Value Approach (open access)

Toward a Theory of Consumer Attitudes Regarding Products of Foreign Origin: a Multiattitude Expectancy-Value Approach

This dissertation focuses generally on consumer behavior, and particularly on consumer attitudes toward products of foreign origin for the purpose of developing a theory that will assist in explaining and predicting this phenomenon. Existing research in the area of country of origin effects upon consumer attitudes toward foreign-made products demonstrates significant methodological limitations such as single cue approaches., The major objective of this dissertation is to contribute to the development of a theory based upon the expectancy-value attitude concept to better explain and predict consumer attitudes toward products of foreign origin. To achieve this objective, the research attempts to overcome the limitations identified in attitude research and specific methodological deficiencies in research focusing on attitudes toward products of foreign origin by: 1. utilizing the expectancy-value approach; 2. basing operationalization of the attitude concepts on Likert-like scales and subjective conditional probabilities; 3. measuring the operationalized attitudes both directly and indirectly via beliefs and evaluations; 4. simultaneously including multiple extrinsic cues; 5. including pictorial cues in the questionnaire; and 6. performing and reporting validity and reliability tests. The general model developed in this research, representing the theory of attitudes toward products of foreign origin is the Foreign Product Attitude Model (FPAM). This …
Date: May 1988
Creator: Landeck, Michael
System: The UNT Digital Library
An Examination of the Nature of a Problematic Consumer Behavior : Compulsive Purchasing as a Learned Adaptive Response, Addiction, and Personality Disorder (open access)

An Examination of the Nature of a Problematic Consumer Behavior : Compulsive Purchasing as a Learned Adaptive Response, Addiction, and Personality Disorder

The problem examined in this study was the nature of compulsive purchasing behavior. Three proposed models depicting this behavior as a learned adaptive response to anxiety and/or depression, an addiction, and a personality disorder were introduced and discussed in Chapter I. Background information concerning the areas examined in the models was presented in Chapter II. The research methodology was discussed in Chapter III and the findings of the research presented in Chapter IV. A summary, conclusions, implications, and recommendations were presented in Chapter V.
Date: August 1989
Creator: Briney, Alicia L. (Alicia Lyn)
System: The UNT Digital Library