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How culture matters in children’s purchase influence: a multi-level investigation

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Abstract

Children’s purchase influence (CPI) is an important factor in understanding family consumption behavior. The present study investigated the effects of cultural adaptation, including the role of acculturation and ethnic-identification, on children’s role in family purchase decisions. By conceiving of CPI as a family context-dependent phenomenon, we hypothesized that parent–child cultural dissonance/consonance within the family influences CPI through a cross-level process. The hypotheses were tested on data collected from 99 Hong Kong Chinese immigrant family triads, i.e., father, mother, and a teenage child. The results showed that: (1) acculturation positively and ethnic-identification negatively influenced CPI for most products, (2) the interaction between acculturation and ethnic-identification had a positive influence on CPI, and (3) generational dissonance/consonance had significant moderating effects on CPI through a cross-level route.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Fonds de recherche sur la société et la culture, the able assistance of Claudia Chan in collecting the data, and the technical assistance of Frank Feng in analyzing the data. Generous and insightful comments by the JAMS editor and the three anonymous JAMS reviewers of this article are gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Marketing, John Molson School of Business, Concordia University, 1455 de Maisonneuve West, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8, Canada

    Michel Laroche

  2. Department of Marketing, College of Business Administration, The University of Texas at Arlington, 701 S. West Street, Arlignton, Texas, 76019, USA

    Zhiyong Yang

  3. Sobey School of Business, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, NS, B3H 3C3, Canada

    Chankon Kim

  4. École des Hautes Études Commerciales, 3000, chemin de la Côte-Sainte-Catherine, Montréal, QC, H3T 2A7, Canada

    Marie-Odile Richard

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  1. Michel Laroche
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Correspondence to Michel Laroche.

Appendix

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Table 3 Measures of children’s purchase influence
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Laroche, M., Yang, Z., Kim, C. et al. How culture matters in children’s purchase influence: a multi-level investigation. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. 35, 113–126 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-007-0016-6

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