Cognitive Dissonance and Purchase Involvement in the Consumer Behavior Context

-- Babu P George and Manoj Edward

The paper begins with an examination of how the degree of personal involvement in a purchase decision affects the information needed to reduce cognitive dissonance associated with that purchase. The authors argue that, highly involved individuals, because of their high involvement in purchase decisions, are rigid in their preconceived cognitions that led to the purchase. Consequently, they tend to downplay the new cognition and actively look out for purchase supportive information, rather than changing the old cognition that led to the purchase decision. Also, it is proposed that, to overcome the cognitive dissonance associated with a high involvement purchase, more supportive information is needed to overcome the cognitive dissonance associated with a low involvement purchase. Yet another finding of the study is that the willingness of a dissonant individual to accept the new cognition increases with the elapse of time from the time of occurrence of the cognitive dissonance. The study also unveils that, for a typical purchase, the degree of cognitive dissonance felt by more involved purchasers is less than that felt by less involved purchasers. Thus, interestingly, even though the degree of cognitive dissonance felt by highly involved purchasers is lower, the difficulty for them to grapple with it is higher. An associated finding is that more planned and less spontaneous buying behavior is associated with a higher degree of cognitive dissonance.

© 2009 IUP. All Rights Reserved.

Determining Relationship Marketing Instruments

-- Che Aniza Binti Che Wel and Jamil Bojei

The focus of businesses has shifted from acquiring new customers to placing greater emphasis on retaining customers through relationship marketing. However, currently, there is limited knowledge on Relationship Marketing Instruments (RMIs) that are appropriate in managing customer relationships. This paper aims to explore and empirically test the dimensions of RMIs that are appropriate in managing customer relationships. First, it reviews the concept of RMIs and its important dimensions, followed by reports on the construction and validation of the measure of RMIs. The existing literature on this topic have hypothesized five dimensions of RMIs; however, an exploratory factor analysis discovers that RMIs consist of eight dimensions. The final part of the paper discusses the implications of the findings and directions for future research.

© 2009 IUP. All Rights Reserved.

Consumer Behavior from a Social Communication Perspective: A Research on Young Adults

-- Figen Ebren

The concepts of social and functional benefits residing in the purchase and ownership of products have been around for a long time. The ideas of identifying and measuring consumer tendencies in this regard are relatively new constructs. This study contrasts status-seeking and role-relaxed consumers across social influence and personal factors.

© 2009 IUP. All Rights Reserved.

Involvement Constructs and Paths to Persuasion Models in Decision Making by a Retail Buyer

-- Ramesh Krishnan and Monika Kothari

Buying decisions are of utmost significance to the profitability of retail firms. The review of literature suggests that empirical analysis on retailers' decision making is lacking specifically with regards to the persuasion process. The studies reflect that there is a need for a model unique to the retailer's buying behavior and the study aims to address the issue by giving a new direction to the discipline. As the primary purpose of the study is to assess the involvement constructs and paths to persuasion model in decision making by a retail buyer (in a new product introduction decision), two known models in consumer behavior—Elaboration Likelihood model (Petty et al., 1983) and Heuristic and Systematic Information Processing model (Chaiken, 1980) have been used to research the retailer's buying behavior. The study has also used Krugman's (1965) ideas on involvement and also the involvement scales developed by Laurent and Kapferer (1985) and Zaichkowsky (1985). In the current study, 46 retailers were surveyed. The paper looks at specific behavior and judges by the behavior on which persuasion method was effective. Therefore, actual persuasion method would be measured using behavioral scenarios. Krugman's assertion has been tested by using persuasion methods as dependent variables and scales as independent variables. It was found that a heuristic view of persuasion is not captured in a significant way by either of the scales. Also, it was found that the size of the firm and buyer's experience is independent of heuristic or systematic persuasion process.

© 2009 IUP. All Rights Reserved.

Impact of Service Quality on Customer Loyalty, Commitment and Trust in the Indian Banking Sector

-- Sandip Ghosh Hazra and Kailash B L Srivastava

In the present Indian banking scenario, service quality is an indispensable competitive strategy to retain customer base. Banks are trying to win customer satisfaction and loyalty by providing better quality services. This study examines the relationship of service quality with customer loyalty, commitment and trust from the customer's perspective in the Indian banking sector. Data was collected from 300 customers of public and private sector banks using structured interview schedules. The results show that dimensions of service quality such as assurance-empathy, reliability and tangibles significantly predict customer trust and commitment. The results also indicate that service quality is positively associated with customer loyalty. Private bank customers are more committed and loyal as they receive better quality of service. The study implies that public sector banks should also come forward and try their best to provide better quality service to win back their customers' loyalty and commitment.

© 2009 IUP. All Rights Reserved.

Managing Service Quality: An Empirical Study on Internet Banking

-- Sunayna Khurana

We have observed a considerable growth of internet based services. Managing service quality while using internet as a distribution channel is a challenge for the service provider. The main objectives of this research paper are to identify the customer preferences towards online banking and to find out the various service quality dimensions that affect customer satisfaction in internet banking. Primary data was collected from internet banking users of public and private banks in Hissar district with the help of a structured questionnaire. For the collection of primary data, we confined ourself only to the Hissar district. A sample of 100 respondents who actually use internet banking was selected by following non-probabilistic convenience sampling technique as it is appropriate for exploratory studies. Data presentation and analysis were done with the help of various statistical tools using SPSS. Efficiency, responsiveness, fulfillment, privacy of personal information and easiness to use was found to be the core service quality dimensions of internet banking.

© 2009 IUP. All Rights Reserved.

CASE STUDY

Enduring Relationships

-- T Frank Sunil Justus and B Karthikeyan

The case study analyzes the line of action when a company gears itself to meet the threat of competition. The company plans to build a customer relationship endeavor which it leverages based on a sales promotion campaign. This case study analyzes the sales promotion program involved and also the intervening marketing communication scenario.

© 2009 IUP. All Rights Reserved.