Essays On The Role Of Power Distance Belief On Consumers Judgements And Choice Behaviors

Download or read book Essays on the Role of Power Distance Belief on Consumers' Judgements and Choice Behaviors written by Hyejin Lee and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Previous cross-cultural research has primarily focused on the individualism-collectivism dimension to explain various facets of consumer behavior, even though power distance belief - the extent to which people accept and endorse hierarchy and inequality - was the first cultural dimension identified by Hofstede (1980). As Shavitt et al. (2006) note, cross-cultural researchers need to move beyond the individualism-collectivism dichotomy as there are limitations on the insights afforded by any single dimension. My dissertation research shows the critical role played by power distance belief in consumers' judgments and choices. In my first essay, I propose that consumers high (vs. low) in power distance belief are less price sensitive because they have a higher need for closure (NFC), which motivates them to seize and freeze on the current deal, and quickly arrive at the final purchase decision, rather than search for a better price. In my second essay, I examine the link between power distance belief and consumers' tendency to defer purchases. I propose that consumers high (vs. low) in power distance belief are less likely to defer purchases because they generally perceive greater constraints on their behavior, which increases a desire for compensatory consumption and reduces their purchase deferral tendency.My dissertation is expected to contribute to several different areas of literature. First, by examining the role of PDB, I bring a fresh perspective to the cross-cultural literature, which is dominated by the individualism-collectivism dimension. Second, my dissertation is one of the first to introduce PDB to the pricing literature and purchase deferral literature. Third, I show that the path from PDB to price sensitivity runs through a need for closure and that the path from PDB to purchase deferral runs through perceived constraints. Hence, my dissertation contributes to the need for closure and constraints literatures by identifying an antecedent (PDB) and a consequence of it (price sensitivity and purchase deferral), respectively.