Relationships Of Consumer Lifestyle, Consumer Innovativeness And New Products Buying Behavior

Previous theoretical studies and simulation studies suggested that consumer’slifestyle have important and complicated impact on new products buying behavior,which calls for empirical examination. Meanwhile, concerning the fit among lifestyle,new products buying behavior, and consumer types, most of the previous literatures arelimited to theoretical discussion, lack of empirical research. Moreover, relevant researchindicates that, during practical marketing management, firms are blind to some extent intheir selection and implementation about how to improve new products buying behavior.These firms need specific and reliable theories as guidance.Considering all of these above, this paper investigates the antecedents andconsequences of consumer innovativeness. Three mechanisms are examined:â‘ How consumer lifestyle impact on consumer innovativeness;â‘¡How consumer innovativeness impact on new products buying behavior;â‘¢Whether consumer innovativeness mediating the relationship between consumerlifestyle and new products buying behavior or not.Each mechanism involves direct effects, complementary effects, moderatingeffects, and mediating effects. Our focus is to analyze the differences of mechanismsbetween the two consumer types (i.e., earlier-adopters and later-adopters).A conceptual model together with research hypotheses is established via literaturereview. Based on interviewing with some consumers, existing scales in previousliterature are selected, after consulting some academic specialists and pre-tests to97consumers, a formal questionnaire is developed. Large sample study obtains1006validquestionnaires from consumers in Chongqing City. Validity and reliability of constructsare examined, samples are classified into two types with personal traits, and hypothesesare tested empirically through regression analysis and structural equation modelapproaches.Findings show that:â‘ For different consumer typologies, each of their relationship path (consumerlifestyleâ†'consumer innovativenessâ†'new products buying behavior is different.For earlier-adopters, the path is presented in form of ‘fashion concernâ†'consumerinnovativenessâ†'new products buying behavior’ and ‘leadership concernâ†'consumerinnovativenessâ†'new products buying behavior’; For later-adopters, the path is presented in form of ‘price concernâ†'consumerinnovativenessâ†'new products buying behavior’;For earlier-adopters, complementary effect of fashion concern and leadershipconceran has significant positive effect on consumer innovativeness; complementaryeffect of leadership concern and price conceran has significant positive effect onconsumer innovativeness;For later-adopters, complementary effect of fashion concern and leadershipconcern has significant negative effect on consumer innovativeness; complementaryeffect of leadership concern and price concern has significant positive effect onconsumer innovativeness.â‘¡For earlier-adopters and later-adopters, consumer innovativeness has fullmediating effect on the relationship between fashion concern and new products buyingbehavior, also full mediating effect on the relationship between leadership concern andnew products buying behavior. consumer innovativeness just has part mediating effecton the relationship between price concern and new products buying behavior.â‘¢Moderating effects of consumer culture difference (i.e., individulism,uncertainty avoidance, masculinity and power distance) on the relationship betweenlifestyle and consumer innovativeness vary in different consumer typologies.For earlier-adopters, collectivism has positive moderating effect on the relationshipbetween fashion concern, price concern and consumer innovativeness, collectivism hasnegative moderating effect on the relationship between leaderhip concern and consumerinnovativeness; uncertainty avoidance has negative moderating effect on therelationship between fashion concern and consumer innovativeness, uncertaintyavoidance has positive effect on the relationship between price concern and consumerinnovativeness; masculinity has positive moderating effect on the relationship betweenfashion concern, price concern and consumer innovativeness; power distance hasnegative moderating effect on the relationship between leader concern and consumerinnovativeness.For later-adopters, uncertainty avoidance has negative effect on the relationshipbetween leadership concern and consumer innovativeness; masculinity has positiveeffect on the relationship between leadership concern and consumer innovativeness;power distance has negative moderating effect on the relationship between fashionconcern and consumer innovativeness, and power distance has negative moderatingeffect on the relationship between price concern and consumer innovativeness. Face consciouness have positive moderating effects between consumerinnovativeness and new producting buying behavior for both earlier-adopters andlater-adopters.Moderating effects of products characteristics (relative advantage, compatibilityand complexity) on the relationships between consumer innovativeness and newproducts buying behavior vary in different consumer typologies. For later-adopters,compatibility has positive moderating effect on the relationships between consumerinnovativeness and new products buying behavior; complexity has negative moderatingeffect on the relationships between consumer innovativeness and new products buyingbehavior.Based on the discussion about the results of hypotheses testing, integrated modelsfor the three mechanisms, involving direct effects, complementary effects, mediatingeffects and moderating effects, are established respectively for earlier-adopters andlater-adopters.