Journal of Marketing Management

Proposing Persuasion Knowledge as the Antecedent of Consumers’ Self-Confidence during a Complex Purchase Decision
Alet C Erasmus, Sunė Donoghue, Lizelle Fletcher

Abstract
The investigation referred to consumers’ purchase of a fairly complex household product focusing on consumers’ persuasion knowledge as a possible indication of consumers’ self-confidence, a personal characteristic that has largely been neglected in consumer behaviour literature to date. The sample comprised 461 experienced consumers who were recruited across a major urban area in a Third-world context. An adapted version of the 2009 Consumer Self Confidence (CSC) scale of Loibl and co-workers was used to confirm the underlying constructs associated with CSC aiming to specifically endorse consumers’ persuasion knowledge as antecedent of CSC. Because a four-point scale was used, the researchers had to use anunweighted least squares procedure (ULS) to estimate the parameters during structural equation modelling, aiming to acquire acceptable goodness of fit indices (>0.9). Scale items were validated and confirmatory factor analysis was used to check the dimensions of the scale as well as the proposed path diagram prior to more comprehensive statistical analyses. SEM involved two parts, firstly a measurement model was compiled to confirm the items and to examine the relationships between the latent variables, followed by the design of the structural model that indicates the influence between the latent variable. Findings confirmed persuasion knowledge (PK) as an antecedent of CSC. Evidence of the positive influence of age and education level on consumers’ PK sanctions the positive influence of consumer socialization. Findings have multiple implications in terms of the ways in which industry and retail convey complex information to consumers, and how vulnerable consumers can be empowered in a market place.

Full Text: PDF     DOI: 10.15640/jmm.v3n2a3