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This research provides a theory for modelling the relationships between role orientations and family purchasing behaviour. By taking the case of time-saving and\ud effort-sparing (TSES) durables and by apprehending spouses as consumers and actors at the same time, a comprehensive model is constructed in terms of input, process, and outcome. Input consists of socioeconomic characteristics of the household and output consists of product ownership (HPO), purchasing influence strategies (PIS), and purchasing role configurations (PRC).\ud For the process components, the model magnifies the role orientations into role ideology (RI), role overload, (RO) and role performance (RP) and proposes a new construct: Perceived Product Instrumentality (PPI). PPI is meant to account for consumption experiences that help role actors facilitate performance, reinforce identity and warrant compatibility with self-perception. Built from an interdisciplinary perspective, the model is believed to enhance the understanding of family purchasing and to account for differences among families in TSES product\ud ownership, purchasing role configurations, and purchasing influence strategies use.\ud As a step towards model testing, focus-group interviews with four panels of household members were used to assess the theoretical relevance for PPI and to generate substantive items for its measurement. These were three groups of women and one group of men. Content analyses confirmed the assumption that possessions, particularly TSES durables, were appreciated by role actors for their utilitarian, interpersonal, pleasure, and identity values. These values, which echoed previous consumer behaviour conceptualisations, were proposed to be the main facets of PPI.\ud On the basis of typical statements made by the participants and on previous literature, a 33-item scale was proposed as a tool for PPI measurement. A preliminary survey was used for unidimensionality assessment and PPI scale reduction. Four identical lists of 33 items, each corresponding to one durable, were administered to a convenience sample of 46 respondents. Exploratory factor and reliability analyses revealed that the 15-items scale could he proposed for PPI\ud operationalisation.\ud In order to constitute a data bank for model testing. a large scale survey was conducted among 480 families within a modern urban Tunisian middle class context. As preliminary steps, reliability analyses and purifications of the process components of the model were undertaken via latent structure modelling. The reduced scales were then integrated into a system's framework to evaluate their\ud relationship with PPI. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to examine the adequacy of the process components measurement scales and structural path coefficients of the RI, RD, and RP relationships with PPI were calculated. Not all the hypothesized relationships were found to be significant, but the parts were interrelated in such a way that excluding anyone from the proposed comprehensive\ud model might distort the whole.\ud Finally, ownership of three TSES products by the surveyed families was predicted on the basis of the household's characteristics (number of children, hired help use, home-ownership), the men's as well as the women's socio-demographics (education, income, employment status, and age) and role orientations (RJ, RD, RP and PPI) via stepwise logistic regressions. Results confirmed the assumption that the inclusion of RI, RD, RP, and PPI enhanced the predictability of the socidemographic\ud variables for household TSES product ownership prediction.\ud The relationship of socio-demographics and role orientations with TSES product ownership were found to be different for men and women, whereby the women's PPI paralleled the men's income, and to be different for major and for minor durables whereby more variability was accounted for the former than for the latter. This seems to lead to the conclusion that the proposed model be more relevant to the high than to the low involvement TSES products.\ud Theoretically, the model is deemed comprehensive and generalizable. It is comprehensive because the different facets of PPI conveniently combine previous important consumer behaviour conceptualizations: buying as problem solving and need satisfaction processes, consumer involvement, and the self-concept theory. It is generalizable because it may be applicable not only to TSES durables but, eventually, to any TSES consumer products that are identifiable as role-based, timesaving and effort-sparing. I contend however that the framework will account for more variability in the former than in the latter cases.\ud Practically, the model can be helpful for market information and communication. By understanding who does what in the TSES buying process and by investigating both spouses' roles orientations, consumer data collection will no longer be based on stereotypical assumptions about spouses' roles. Market researchers will rather consider the involvement of previously non-involved informants in the choice of consumer panels (e.g. men in focus-groups about diapers and dishwashers, women in in-depth interviews about office equipment and car maintenance services). Information based on the proposed framework will help marketers select more effective communication appeals emphasizing subjective,\ud symbolic, intangible appeals such as identity preservation and self-concept reinforcement, rather than objective, utilitarian, tangible benefits such as timesaving and effort-sparing.\ud The model may also serve segmentation and targeting purposes for marketing professionals. Instead of limiting the investigation to the impact of sociodemographics on TSES purchasing, the role orientations and the PPI variables can be assessed with the objective of understanding motivations behind families' TSES product acquisition and decision behaviour and of identifying TSES products' prospects. Marketers can use such variables as ownership (owners versus nonowners), income level (high versus low income), and eventually PPI (high versus low\ud perceived instrumentality) so that respondents who are non-owners, and who score high on income and on PPI may represent prime targets for the sales promotion of TSES products. |
