Reciprocal consumer socialisation

This thesis investigated the concept of reciprocal consumer socialisation in family dyads with a particular focus on the influence adolescent children have over their parents’ consumer behaviour. A dyadic method of data analysis was a central aspect because this method focuses on relationships and levels of agreement between actors in a dyad. To assess the agreement between influencer and learner is vital in socialisation research in order to understand how learning takes place. However, this approach has seldom been utilised in consumer socialisation studies where the focus tends to be on individuals. The rationale is to determine the dyadic relationship – not the individual’s perceptions – about attitude towards children as socialisation agents for their parents. The focus was on both how the parent primarily socialise the child, as well as how the child secondarily socialise the parent. Thus, the overall research problem was stated as follows: a) What is the nature of adolescent influence on parental consumer behaviour through secondary consumer socialisation? b) What is the level of reciprocity within family dyads about consumer socialisation? To address this research problem, five research questions were formulated. The research questions covered the dyads attitude towards children as socialisation agent for their parents, family communication as well as interest and knowledge in two product categories; computer related and small high-tech products. A cross-sectional survey was distributed to 3,750 addresses in greater Melbourne, Australia (sourced from the Australian Post Lifestyle Survey database). The mailout yielded 180 usable dyads. The main focus of the analysis was on the assessment of nonindependence; whether parent and child from the same dyad agree with each other about influence from child to parent. The results demonstrated that the children are far more interested than their parents in small high-tech and computer related products. Further, the dyad acknowledged and agreed that children have a high level of socially derived expert power over their parents when it comes to purchase and consumption of these products. However, the parents did not seem to directly learn from their children; they let the children completely take over the tasks they seem to struggle with. The impact of family communication is also important when it comes to the dyad’s view of the children as socialisation agents. Families that engage in an open issue-based, communication style are more likely to have a positive view of children as socialisation agents than families who focus on upholding social hierarchies between the generations. Consumer socialisation in the family appeared to be reciprocal; children educate parents the same way parents educates their children. The attitude the dyad has towards children as socialisation agents for their parents is related to social harmony within the family. The product categories turned out to be perceived as male-dominated, but daughters are still seen as experts by their fathers. There is a clear generational gap when it comes to small high-tech and computer related products and parents do indeed have much to learn from their children. This study contributes to the body of knowledge in terms of the dyadic method used. This study reports on the correlations between equal measures of the same concept between parents and children in a dyadic context. Although this approach is not unique in social science, it is certainly under-appreciated in the business disciplines. In consumer socialisation studies, no dyadic studies were found to compare this study with. This study stands out as unique from a methodological point of view. The reported nonindependence has value for future studies in order to build theory.The practical implications of this thesis is a better understanding for how marketers can communicate more effectively with families as well as how parents and children can take advantage of each others knowledge, interest and communication in order to make more informed decisions as consumers.