The
Consumer Decision Making Styles of Mobile Phones among The University Level
Students in Jordan
Ziad
Moh'd Ali Smadi
Al-al-Bayt
University , Faculty of Business & Finance
Department
of Business Administration - Assistant Professor
E-mail:
ziad34@hotmail.com
Bahjat
Eid Al-jawazneh
Al-al-Bayt
University , Faculty of Business & Finance
Department
of Business Administration - Assistant Professor
E-mail:
jawazneh9@yahoo.com
Abstract
This
paper aims to identify the decision-making styles of university level students
in Jordan, specifically the research sought to identify the purchasing decision
styles among the university level students in Jordan, with a main hypothesis
that states, the university level students in Jordan do not have a certain a
decision making style when purchasing a mobile phone, the researchers applied a
tested research instrument of (Sproles & Kendall, 1986) to measure the
consumer decision making style. A simple random sampling technique was
utilized, thus 390 questionnaires have been distributed to different Jordanian university
students in national capital region of Jordan where many public and private universities
are located, the findings revealed that the university level students in Jordan
follow a decision making style that is characterized by being perfectionist,
brand conscious, price conscious, Impulsive, confused by over choice, and brand-loyal
consumer. Besides it concluded that, male and female university students in
Jordan, do have some differences in their choices and the way they decide when
they buy a mobile phone.
Keywords: Consumer behavior, Decision making styles, University students,
Mobile
phones, Jordan.
INTODUCTION
Consumer decision making styles have become an interesting area
that poses a challenge to marketers, researchers and practitioners, but
unfortunately there are very few published studies in Jordan as far as the
researchers know, covering this important area of interest.
Consumer decision-making is
defined as the behavioral patterns of consumers that proceed, determine and
follow the decision making process for the acquisition of need satisfying
products, ideas or services (Zeithaml,
1988; Levy, 1999)..
Jordan is a
country that opened its arm to globalization which is manifested by its liberal
trade policies and its openness to all forms of information and media
communication which in return made a reshape to its culture and Jordanian
consumer behavior, thus a study of this kind will enlighten marketers in Jordan
on how to make a fit between their customers environment and marketing
strategies.
Based on individual mental
orientations, each consumer develops and practices this decision making process
in different ways which have been characterized as decision making styles (Sproles & Kendall,1986). It is
becoming so important for marketers all over the world to know how young
consumers decide which particular product, brand or service to purchase. The
consumer buying behavior is becoming an important research area that has an
effect on the marketing process of the firm because it is ability to establish
and maintain satisfying exchange relationships requires an understanding of
buying behavior. Buying behavior is the decision processes and acts of people
involved in buying and using product.
Many previous studies focused
mainly on the decision making process, but (Sproles,
1979) argues that consumers may sometimes typically rely on simple
strategies, rather than going through a series of steps or processes rationally
when they made purchase decisions. This is why (Sproles and Kendall 1986) pioneered to research on consumer
decision-making processes by classifying consumers into different
decision-making styles.
To develop an effective marketing
strategy companies must pay more attention to consumers and study their
decision-making process. Understanding buying-related decision-making styles of
consumers is important for companies’ strategic marketing activities, and
effective communication with the youth segment can be helped by understanding
the psychological processes that affect their behavior. However, in the rapidly changing competitive environment with over
choice due to increase in the number and variety of goods and retail outlets,
excessive marketing communications that provide an abundance of information,
much of it with mixed messages, sophisticated and complex products, decreasing
inter-brand differences, and increasing counterfeiting and look alike products,
some consumers feel overwhelmed and find it difficult to decide (Hafstrom, Chae and Chae,1992; Walsh,
Mitchell and Henning-Thurau, 2001a).
RELATED
LITERATURE AND STUDIES
Some researchers have advised that consumers are “value driven” (Zeithaml, 1988; Levy, 1999). In the extant consumer behavior
literature, most studies assume that all consumers approach shopping with
certain decision-making traits that combine to form a consumer’s
decision-making style (Walsh, Mitchell
& Henning-Thurau, 2001).
(Sproles and Kendall 1986)
developed the Consumer Style Inventory (CSI) to determine the basic
characteristics of consumer decision-making styles. The CSI has eight
dimensions:
1) Perfectionist, high-quality conscious consumer – a characteristic
measuring the degree to which a consumer searches carefully and systematically
for the best quality in products.
2) Brand conscious, “price equals quality” consumer – measuring a
consumer’s orientation to buying the more expensive, well-known brands.
3) Novelty-fashion conscious consumer – a characteristic identifying
consumers who appear to like new and innovative products and gain excitement
from seeking out new things.
4) Price conscious, “value-formoney” consumer – a
characteristic identifying those with particularly high consciousnessof sale
prices and lower prices in general.
5) Impulsive, careless consumer – identifying those who tend to buy
on the spur of the moment and appear unconcerned how much they spend or getting
“best buys”.
6) Confused by over choice consumer – a characteristic identifying
those consumers who perceive too many brands and stores from which to choose,
experiencing information overload in the market.
7) Habitual, brand-loyal consumer – a characteristic indicating
consumers who have favorite brands and stores, who have formed habits in
choosing these repetitively.
(Mitchell and Walsh 2004)
made a comparison between the decision-making styles of male and female
shoppers in Germany. The researchers confirmed the construct validity of all
eight CSI factors for female shoppers and four of the factors for male
shoppers. They concluded that male individuals were slightly less likely to be perfectionists,
somewhat less novelty and fashion conscious, and less likely to be confused
when making purchases than their female counterparts. The sheer magnitude of this
group of young generation has had a profound impact on current business because
members of this generation 'love to shop' (Taylor
and Cosenza 2002).
An increasing number of males are
doing grocery shopping; males tend to spend less per shopping activity and
spend less time in the store. Family income is another constraint to search behavior.
Households with less income are more likely to spend less time on shopping (Davies and Bell 1991).
(Slama and Tashchian 1985)
concluded that purchase involvement and search behavior are linked to
demographic characteristics of the consumer and their household. They asserted
that females are more highly involved and there is greater involvement when
there are children at home. In addition to that, they suggest other factors
such as marital status, age, education and income of the consumer are closely
related to purchase involvement and search.
A research on decision making
styles of young Turkish consumers found that young Turkish consumers rated
quality of the product as the most influential factor on their decision making,
followed by time (perceiving shopping as an enjoyable activity), price, brand,
and finally, information utilisation/ confusion by choice. There were
significant differences between male students and female students to some of
the factor items (Gönen, E. & Özmete,E.,2006).
Another study investigated the differing
approaches of male and female Malaysian consumers toward shopping and buying
activities concluded that, six of eight male factors and nine female factors were
similar for both males and females: quality consciousness, brand consciousness,
fashion consciousness, confused by over choice, satisfying and value seeking (Mokhlis, S.& Salleh, H.,2009).
In their research on The
influence of Internet shopping mall characteristics and user traits on purchase
intent , (Kim and Shim 2002) found that around 40 percent of shoppers
classified themselves as sophisticated quality shoppers, on the other hand
Brand conscious shoppers believe that these types of international brands
result in better quality. Brand influences have been found to be a critical
factor in consumer purchasing processes (Cleaver,
1985; Sproles & Kendall, 1986).
During the individual
decision-making process, the price conscious shopper may consider the greatest
value at the lowest price. (Janiszewski
and Lichtenstein,1999) found that if all product options were at the same
benefit level, consumers would buy the lowest priced alternative
According t (Beatty and Ferrell,1998), the consumer’s positive moods influence
shopping enjoyment and purchasing decisions, in addition to that store
attractiveness keeps many consumers coming back to the same store. How
consumers view store image has long been considered an important part of
consumer decision-making (Baker et al.,
1992).
STATEMENT of THE
PROBLEM
The higher education system in Jordan has evolved considerably in
the past five years. In years between 2000/2001 and 2006/2007, Jordan has seen
an increased demand for higher education with enrollments growing at an annual
rate of 14 percent from 77,841 to 218,900students (world bank,2009), that makes the university students a hot market
segment for researches.
Aside from what is mentioned
above the university students’ market segment is faced with an endless array of
choices especially when it comes to mobile phones, the gadget that they cannot
live without, and characterized by the willingness of its consumers to spend on
it.
However, little research has been
conducted to better understand this group of consumersdecision making styles;
hence this study sought an answer for the following problems:
1) What are the most dominant purchasing decision making styles among
Jordanian university students.
2) What is the ranking of these styles in terms of their practice.
3) Is their any difference in the respondents’ decision making styles
pertains to gender.
RESEARCH
METHODOLOGY
A descriptive and analytical methods have been utilized in this
study, in addition to that the researchers applied a tested research instrument
of (Sproles & Kendall, 1986) to
measure the consumer decision making style of the university level students in
Jordan, that instrument is capable of measuring such a style since it is
universal in its approach,
according to some practitioners and academicians in Jordan whom
the researchers consulted during the preparation phase of the research, the
instrument is composed of the two parts:
The first Part covers the
demographic profile of the respondent while the second part includes the
consumer decision making styles.
Nominal scale was used to get the
answers of the respondents on their demographic profile, while likert scale was
used to allow respondents to rate their purchasing styles, which is ranging
from strongly agree as the highest and strongly disagree as the lowest.
Population and
Sample of the Study
A simple random sampling technique was utilized, thus 390
questionnaires have been distributed to different Jordanian university students
in national capital region of Jordan where many public and private universities
are located and offer all kinds of courses, and 358 or (91.7%) of the
questionnaires were retrieved, 17 or (4.3%) of which were excluded for not
meeting validation requirements, hence 341 or (about 87.4%) of the
questionnaires were valid for analysis.
Data Collection Method
The researchers relied on a secondary source of data such as references and published researches in the field of consumer behaviors, which contributed to the development of the theoretical framework and let researchers gain more deep understanding on the topic. In addition to that Primary data were also obtained through the main instrument which is a tested questionnaire.
Statistical Treatment
Several statistical techniques have been applied in this study such as;
1. Descriptive analysis such as: Averages and standard deviations.
2. One sample t- test was used to test the main hypothesis.
3. Analysis of variance one way ANOVA was used to test the hypothesis regarding the sex,
educations, position, experience, activity, aside from that, Post Hoc multiple comparisons
Scheffe was also utilized.
4. Pearson correlation was used to measure the inter-correlation between the different decision
making styles
For the sake of discussion and interpretation of results of the study, the researchers relied on the
following equation to compute the range:
Range= (the highest average value- the lowest average value) / (number of levels): (5-1)/ (3)
=1.33
Therefore the results will be as the following:
1. If the range of answers is between (1- 2.33), it represents a week average response rate.
2. If the range of answers is between (2.34- 3.67), it represents a medium average response
rate.
3. If the range of responses is more than (3.68), it would be of high average response rate.
Summary of Conclusion
1. As consumers the university students in Jordan follow a certain decision making style dominated by being novelty fashion conscious, price conscious, brand loyal customers, impulsive, careless consumer, confused by over choice consumer, brand conscious, and perfectionist high quality consumer, but that style of decision making was not given high rating rather an upper middle rating.
2. University students in Jordan pay attention to the quality of mobile phones; this is manifested by the special effort they exert to choose the very best quality of Mobile since their standards and expectations for Mobile that they buy are very high.
3. Respondents are not brand conscious, but still believe in the higher price of Mobile the better in
quality, because imitated phones flow from south East Asia and being sold at a very low price, in order to minimize the risk of buying a fake one, consumers prefer to buy from well known and authorized dealers.
4. Fashion does not have big influence on Jordanian students decision making styles, because mostly care for good and attractive design rather than trendy one. While some enjoy and have fun when buying a new and exciting Mobile to the extent that they usually have one or more phone of the very newest style.
5. Price normally matters when it comes to mobile phones and that is also the case with young consumers in Jordan, since majority look carefully to find the best value for their money and usually lower prices Mobiles appeal to them, which is why they buy as much as possible at discount prices.
6. It takes time with university level students in Jordan to shop for getting the best Mobile, and that is probably because they carefully watch how much they spend for buying Mobile, aside from that they also plan their shopping for Mobile more carefully than they do.
7. Respondents are confused over what to choose because there are so many brands of mobiles available in market that share similar features and functions, in addition to that young consumers are gaining more knowledge about this product which makes their decision a difficult one.
8. A big number of the University level students in Jordan have a favorite brand of Mobile that they buy over and over, the reason behind that, it is once they find suitable brand of Mobile that they Like they stick with it and even go to the same stores each time they shop.
9. The male and female students in Jordan do have some differences in their choices and the way they decide when they buy a mobile phone, the only decision making style where there is no differences between males and females is, confused by over choice consumer decision making
style.
References
[1] Baker, J., Lavy, M., & Grewal, D. (1992). An experimental approach to marketing retail store environmental decisions. Journal of Retailing, 68(4), 445-460.
[2] Beatty, S. E., & Ferrell, E. M. (1998). Impulse buying: Modeling its precursors. Journal of Retailing, 74(2), 169-191.
[3] Bellenger, D. N., & Korgaonkar, P. K. (1980). Profiling the recreational shopper. Journal of Retailing, 56(3), 77-92.
[4] Bless, H., & Forgas, J. P. (Eds.). (2000). The message within: The role of subjective experience in social cognition and behavior. Lillington, NC: Edward Brothers.
[5] Cleaver, J. Y. (1985). Brand names rattle retail shelves. Advertising Age, 14, 28-29.
[6] Cronbach L J.(1951). Coefficient Alpha and the internal structure of tests. Psychometrika 16:297-334
[7] Davies G and Bell J (1991). The Grocery Shopper – Is He Different? International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management, 19(1), 25-28.
[8] Fan, JX & Xiao, J. (1998). Consumer decision making styles of young-adult Chinese. The Journal of Consumer Affairs 32(2):275-294.
[9] Gönen, E. & Özmete,E.,(2006). Decision-making styles of young turkish consumers. Journal of the HEIA Vol. 13, No. 1.pp.26-33.
[10] Gutman, J., & Mills, M. K. (1982). Fashion life style, self-concept, shopping orientation, and store patronage: An integrative analysis. Journal of Retailing, 2, 64-86.
[11] Hafstrom, J.L., Chae, J.S. & Chung,, Y.S. (1992). Consumer Decision- Making Styles: Comparison between United States and Korean Young Consumers. The Journal of Consumers Affairs, 26(1), 146- 158.
[12] Janiszewski, C., & Lichtenstein, D. R. (1999). A range theory account of price perception. Journal of Consumer Research, 25(4), 353-368.
[13] Kim, Y.-M. & Shim, K.-Y. (2002). The influence of Internet shopping mall characteristics and user traits on purchase intent. Irish Marketing Review, 15(2), 25-34.
[14] Laetitia, R., Yuejin, L. & Pietersen, J.(2006). Journal of Consumer Psychology, Vol 34, pp20- 31.
[15] Levy, S. J. (1999). Brands, consumers, symbols, & research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
[16] Lyonski, S, Durvasula, S & Zotos, Y. (1996). Consumer-decision-making styles: a multicountry investigation. European Journal of Marketing 30 (12):10-21.
[17] Mitchell, V. & Walsh, G. (2004). Gender differences in German consumer decision-making styles. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 3(4), 331-346.
NAMA : CHITRA DEWI SITORUS
NPM / KELAS : 19210476 / 3EA10
TUGAS KE-3 JOURNAL PERILAKU KONSUMEN
Data Collection Method
The researchers relied on a secondary source of data such as references and published researches in the field of consumer behaviors, which contributed to the development of the theoretical framework and let researchers gain more deep understanding on the topic. In addition to that Primary data were also obtained through the main instrument which is a tested questionnaire.
Statistical Treatment
Several statistical techniques have been applied in this study such as;
1. Descriptive analysis such as: Averages and standard deviations.
2. One sample t- test was used to test the main hypothesis.
3. Analysis of variance one way ANOVA was used to test the hypothesis regarding the sex,
educations, position, experience, activity, aside from that, Post Hoc multiple comparisons
Scheffe was also utilized.
4. Pearson correlation was used to measure the inter-correlation between the different decision
making styles
For the sake of discussion and interpretation of results of the study, the researchers relied on the
following equation to compute the range:
Range= (the highest average value- the lowest average value) / (number of levels): (5-1)/ (3)
=1.33
Therefore the results will be as the following:
1. If the range of answers is between (1- 2.33), it represents a week average response rate.
2. If the range of answers is between (2.34- 3.67), it represents a medium average response
rate.
3. If the range of responses is more than (3.68), it would be of high average response rate.
Summary of Conclusion
1. As consumers the university students in Jordan follow a certain decision making style dominated by being novelty fashion conscious, price conscious, brand loyal customers, impulsive, careless consumer, confused by over choice consumer, brand conscious, and perfectionist high quality consumer, but that style of decision making was not given high rating rather an upper middle rating.
2. University students in Jordan pay attention to the quality of mobile phones; this is manifested by the special effort they exert to choose the very best quality of Mobile since their standards and expectations for Mobile that they buy are very high.
3. Respondents are not brand conscious, but still believe in the higher price of Mobile the better in
quality, because imitated phones flow from south East Asia and being sold at a very low price, in order to minimize the risk of buying a fake one, consumers prefer to buy from well known and authorized dealers.
4. Fashion does not have big influence on Jordanian students decision making styles, because mostly care for good and attractive design rather than trendy one. While some enjoy and have fun when buying a new and exciting Mobile to the extent that they usually have one or more phone of the very newest style.
5. Price normally matters when it comes to mobile phones and that is also the case with young consumers in Jordan, since majority look carefully to find the best value for their money and usually lower prices Mobiles appeal to them, which is why they buy as much as possible at discount prices.
6. It takes time with university level students in Jordan to shop for getting the best Mobile, and that is probably because they carefully watch how much they spend for buying Mobile, aside from that they also plan their shopping for Mobile more carefully than they do.
7. Respondents are confused over what to choose because there are so many brands of mobiles available in market that share similar features and functions, in addition to that young consumers are gaining more knowledge about this product which makes their decision a difficult one.
8. A big number of the University level students in Jordan have a favorite brand of Mobile that they buy over and over, the reason behind that, it is once they find suitable brand of Mobile that they Like they stick with it and even go to the same stores each time they shop.
9. The male and female students in Jordan do have some differences in their choices and the way they decide when they buy a mobile phone, the only decision making style where there is no differences between males and females is, confused by over choice consumer decision making
style.
References
[1] Baker, J., Lavy, M., & Grewal, D. (1992). An experimental approach to marketing retail store environmental decisions. Journal of Retailing, 68(4), 445-460.
[2] Beatty, S. E., & Ferrell, E. M. (1998). Impulse buying: Modeling its precursors. Journal of Retailing, 74(2), 169-191.
[3] Bellenger, D. N., & Korgaonkar, P. K. (1980). Profiling the recreational shopper. Journal of Retailing, 56(3), 77-92.
[4] Bless, H., & Forgas, J. P. (Eds.). (2000). The message within: The role of subjective experience in social cognition and behavior. Lillington, NC: Edward Brothers.
[5] Cleaver, J. Y. (1985). Brand names rattle retail shelves. Advertising Age, 14, 28-29.
[6] Cronbach L J.(1951). Coefficient Alpha and the internal structure of tests. Psychometrika 16:297-334
[7] Davies G and Bell J (1991). The Grocery Shopper – Is He Different? International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management, 19(1), 25-28.
[8] Fan, JX & Xiao, J. (1998). Consumer decision making styles of young-adult Chinese. The Journal of Consumer Affairs 32(2):275-294.
[9] Gönen, E. & Özmete,E.,(2006). Decision-making styles of young turkish consumers. Journal of the HEIA Vol. 13, No. 1.pp.26-33.
[10] Gutman, J., & Mills, M. K. (1982). Fashion life style, self-concept, shopping orientation, and store patronage: An integrative analysis. Journal of Retailing, 2, 64-86.
[11] Hafstrom, J.L., Chae, J.S. & Chung,, Y.S. (1992). Consumer Decision- Making Styles: Comparison between United States and Korean Young Consumers. The Journal of Consumers Affairs, 26(1), 146- 158.
[12] Janiszewski, C., & Lichtenstein, D. R. (1999). A range theory account of price perception. Journal of Consumer Research, 25(4), 353-368.
[13] Kim, Y.-M. & Shim, K.-Y. (2002). The influence of Internet shopping mall characteristics and user traits on purchase intent. Irish Marketing Review, 15(2), 25-34.
[14] Laetitia, R., Yuejin, L. & Pietersen, J.(2006). Journal of Consumer Psychology, Vol 34, pp20- 31.
[15] Levy, S. J. (1999). Brands, consumers, symbols, & research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
[16] Lyonski, S, Durvasula, S & Zotos, Y. (1996). Consumer-decision-making styles: a multicountry investigation. European Journal of Marketing 30 (12):10-21.
[17] Mitchell, V. & Walsh, G. (2004). Gender differences in German consumer decision-making styles. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 3(4), 331-346.
NAMA : CHITRA DEWI SITORUS
NPM / KELAS : 19210476 / 3EA10
TUGAS KE-3 JOURNAL PERILAKU KONSUMEN
