An assessment of consumers product, purchase decision, advertising and consumption involvement in fashion clothing

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Abstract

The drive to understand the purchasing and consumption behaviour of individuals and market segments has created significant interest in the construct of involvement. This study proposes and tests four types of involvement: (a) product involvement; (b) purchase decision involvement; (c) advertising involvement and (d) consumption involvement. It also proposes a higher order construct called consumer involvement. Measures of all four types of involvement are developed and empirical tests are performed using CFA and structural equation modelling (SEM). This study presents an alternate approach to the conceptualisation and measurement of four important types of involvement that will aid in better understanding consumer behaviour and developing improved marketing mix strategies.

Introduction

Since products mean different things to different people, consumers form differing attachments to them. An individual’s attachments may be quite different from their family or friends in intensity and nature. Understanding consumers varying attachments, how they form, are maintained and are influenced is of interest to consumer researchers (academics) and practitioners (managers) alike. In an attempt to more fully understand the behaviour of consumers related to possessions, consumer researchers have often invoked the construct of ‘involvement’ (Laurent and Kapferer, 1985, Mittal and Lee, 1989, Ohanian, 1990, Slama and Tashchian, 1985, Zaichkowsky, 1986). The considerable empirical and theoretical effort devoted to this construct since the mid 1960s, has been driven by consumer behaviour researchers’ desires to understand the ways in which consumers become involved with products. This research has also sought to understand the effect involvement has on various purchasing and consuming behaviours (Browne and Kaldenberg, 1997, Tigert et al., 1976, Traylor and Joseph, 1984). To date this interest does not appear to be waning (Muehling, Laczniak & Andrews, 1993). Such interest may be partially because of the lack of consensus on involvement, and also because of the potential value that involvement has in contributing to a deeper understanding of consumer behaviour.

Section snippets

Fashion clothing

It has been argued that the philosophy and practice of relationship marketing and individuals ascribed meanings of products are clarified by the construct of involvement. Involvement (centrality) has been identified as being at the heart of the person–object relationship and the relational variable most predictive of purchase behaviour (Martin, 1998, Evrard and Aurier, 1996). Relevant to this study is the view that involvement may be understood via consumer-fashion clothing attachment or

The domain of involvement

Involvement research has often focused on pre-purchase settings in the context of decision making and advertising, with little attention being given to the construct as it affects consumer behaviour on an enduring basis (Bloch, 1982, Mittal and Lee, 1989, Muehling et al., 1993). Involvement is often couched in terms of pre-purchase search activities, information processing, the hierarchy-of-effects, attribute evaluation, and perception of brand differences (e.g., see Calder, 1979, Greenwald and

The study objectives

Muehling et al. (1993) published an extensive review of the state of involvement arguing strongly that what is lacking is a body of research that investigates the relationships between involvement types. They argued that it is unclear whether for example, advertising involvement may lead to or have an influence on other forms of involvement.

Taking the views of Muehling et al. (1993) and others the central purpose of this study was to develop and test a model of the relationships between four

The questionnaire development process

In reviewing the existing measures for the present research, it was concluded that no existing involvement measure taken as a whole was appropriate for tapping the four forms of involvement as conceptualised in this study. This meant that the involvement measures had to be specifically designed.

The generation of the initial list of items was achieved by analysing the previously published measures on involvement (as done by Mittal (1989) and Mittal & Lee (1989)) and conducting a small number of

Hypothesised model 1 of first- and second-order relationships

Fig. 1 details the fitted model of the four types of involvement and the second-order construct of consumer involvement. Evaluation of model fit is via χ2, GFI, AGFI, RMRS and RMSEA. All values (path weights) shown in the model are standardised estimates.

The chi-square statistic for the hypothesised model was small χ2=1.908, P=0.385, df=2 and the fit measures suggested a high degree of fit to the data with, GFI 0.997, AGFI 0.989, RMSR 0.011 and the RMSEA < 0.001, all indicating a very good fit.

Discussion of results

The theory developed and structural equation models tested in this study related to involvement in fashion clothing were formulated in terms of latent or hypothetical constructs that were not directly observable or measurable (Mittal, 1989, Zinkhan and Muderrisoglu, 1985). As a method of testing the theory, computation of the latent constructs from a larger set of measured variables was undertaken. This computation process helped examine and understand the latent constructs that underlie

Conclusion

The framework presented and tested here builds on much of the prior work on involvement (e.g., Arora, 1982, Mittal and Lee, 1989, Slama and Tashchian, 1987, Houston and Rothschild, 1979). However, it substantially modified key aspects also. The framework appears to be a valuable aid in bringing together the diverse extant approaches to construing and measuring involvement. Such improvement can only enhance the effective utilisation of this construct at both a theoretical and practical level in

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