The Influence of Children on Family Purchasing in Lithuania and Azerbaijan

Abstract

In the context of marketing, children are considered to be increasingly important influencers of parents’ purchasing decisions. However, their influence varies depending on the products and cultures, and many particularities of this phenomenon remain under-researched. This is especially true in regard to the countries that are categorized as “emerging economies”. Some of them still do not have reliable measurements of their cultural dimensions, and this increases difficulties in performing comparative analysis there. On the other hand, these countries offer a broad and important scene for child influence studies.
 This study concentrates on analysis and comparisons of children’s influence on parental purchase decision-making in Lithuania and Azerbaijan. These countries are different in, at least, two Hofstede’s cultural dimensions that are important in family decision-making: individualism and uncertainty avoidance. Also, the study contributes to the existing research by using a product use-related categorization of product groups.
 Such an approach reveals significant difference in terms of how children exert their influence on purchasing services versus tangible products for the family use. Interesting differences between the countries in terms of children’s influence on purchasing products for their personal use also opens a new scene for future studies that might consider a similar product categorization approach.

Children’s influence on parental purchase decisions: Scale development and validation

“…Initially, seven product categories were proposed (see Table 1). As previous studies have demonstrated that children’s engagement (influence, participation) into parental purchase decision is dependent on the final user (Dikcius et al, 2014; C. Kim & Lee, 1997; Mangleburg, 1990), the current study loads two products on each category: one of the products more addressed to children’s use and the other more suitable for the use of the whole family/adults.…”

“…One type of measures of children’s influence on parental purchase decision is based on asking about the child’s influence in regard to purchasing numerous individual products. Then, the answers are aggregated by product groups, and the measure of the influence is applied for the whole product group (Dikcius, Armenakyan, Urbonavicius, Jonyniene, & Gineikiene, 2014; Isin & Alkibay, 2011; Laroche, Yang, Kim, & Richard, 2007; Sondhi & Basu, 2014). The products may be selected randomly or following a certain classifying logic.…”

The impact of parents’ technology readiness and their susceptibility to interpersonal influence on adolescents’ participation in parental decision making to purchase technological products

“…The aim of the research was to test the impact of parents' technology readiness and susceptibility to interpersonal influence on adolescent participation in parental decision on purchasing technological products. The importance of these factors will be verified on two types of products -the product for family use and the one for adolescent's use, since the level of adolescent involvement is likely to depend on these two types of products [14].…”

“…Children are more involved in purchase of convenience products when compared to shopping goods [3,4]. Child's involvement is the lowest when the product is purchased for parents, of middle-level when the product is for family use, and the highest when the product is targeted at a child [14].…”

“…The statements were followed by a 7 point scale, where 1 meant "Child did not contribute at all", 7 meant "Child made full contribution". The level to which the child will be involved in purchase decision could be dependent on whether the product is for child as opposed to the family use [14]. Therefore, the hypotheses will be tested on two technological products -a TV set for family use and a mobile phone for an adolescent's use.…”