This study addresses the Web-consumption behavior of adolescents from a cognitive, hierarchical decision-making perspective. Using a structural equation analysis technique on data collected from high school students, two a priori domains of Web consumption (utilitarian and hedonic) were confirmed. The utilitarian and hedonic domains of Web consumption were influenced directly by innovativeness and indirectly by the personal values of the adolescents. A theoretical discussion based on the results and the implications of these results are presented for the benefit of youth practitioners, educators, parents, and social marketers.
As the role of young consumers in the consumption of technology-oriented products grows, so does the need to fully understand their contemplation, use and adoption of those products. Existing innovativeness scales have tended to measure consumers' desire to be first to buy new products. Bias related to this adoptive-oriented conceptualisation overlooks important aspects of innovativeness among younger consumer segments. Utilising an empirically untested conceptualisation of innovativeness that includes an adoptive-innovative dimension as well as a use-innovative dimension and a vicarious-innovative dimension, this study provides a more fully elaborated measurement of innovativeness that is particularly appropriate for measuring innovativeness among younger consumer segments. The results begin to provide a better understanding of innovativeness for segments whose innovative proclivities may be overlooked by extant scales.
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