AbstractsBusiness Management & Administration

An investigation into consumers’ relationship with their consumption activities

by Matthew Allen Hawkins




Institution: Universitat Ramon Llull
Department:
Year: 2015
Keywords: Marca; Marketing; Comportament del Consumidor; Comportament Venjatiu; Màrqueting; Comportamiento del Consumidor; Comportamiento Vengativo; Brand; Consumer Behavior; Retaliatory Behavior; Ciències Socials i Jurídiques
Record ID: 1125382
Full text PDF: http://hdl.handle.net/10803/294266


Abstract

Retaliatory behaviors are consumer actions taken to damage a brand for its actions. Prior research has discovered that the more deeply a consumer embeds a brand’s identity into their identity the more strongly they retaliate following a brand change. Despite evidence that consumers use activities to construct their identities, retaliatory research has primarily focused on one facet of identity construction, brand possession. This research addresses this gap by investigating if the consumer-activity relationship is a predictor of intentions to engage in retaliatory behaviors following a brand change. Specifically, an experimental survey research design found that activity promotion tendencies have a significant, positive relationship on consumers’ likelihood of engaging in retaliatory behavior following a brand change. Moreover, the impact of activity promotion on retaliatory behaviors was more pronounced following a more severe disruption to a consumer’s activity-derived identity than a minor disruption. Based on these findings, specific propositions that identify the antecedents, moderators, and outcomes of consumer-activity identification are developed. The outcomes are discussed in terms of their impact on the consumers’ relationship with both the consumption activity and the brands enrolled in the consumption activity. The implications from the empirical analysis also suggest that marketing strategies are needed that place priority on facilitating consumers engagements in consumption activities. Therefore, the thesis formulates four market orientation strategies that embrace the notion that firms provide resources for consumers to enroll into their consumption activities in an effort to accommodate and support the consumer-activity relationship. Accordingly, this thesis composed of three articles empirically explores consumer-activity and consumer-brand relationships together to better understand consumer retaliatory behavior; theorizes on the impact the consumer-activity relationship has on consumer behavior; and, develops four market orientations that focus on inserting offerings into consumers’ consumption activities.; Los comportamientos de represalia son las acciones que llevan a cabo los consumidores para perjudicar una marca por sus acciones. Estudios anteriores han descubierto que, cuanto más incorpora un consumidor la identidad de una marca dentro de su propia identidad, con más fuerza actuará en represalia cuando cambie de marca. Pese a las evidencias que demuestran que los consumidores utilizan sus actividades para construir sus identidades, la investigación en materia de represalias se ha centrado principalmente en una sola faceta de la construcción de la identidad, la posesión de la marca. La presente investigación viene a cubrir este vacío estudiando si la relación existente entre el consumidor y la actividad que lleva a cabo es un predictor de la intención de adoptar un comportamiento de represalia al cambiar de marca. En concreto, en el diseño de una investigación experimental a través de una…