عوامل درونی موثر بر رفتار خرید تکانشی شواهد از هند

The goal of this research is to examine the effect of five intrinsic factors, namely, personality, culture, materialism, shopping enjoyment tendency, and impulsive buying tendency on impulsive buying behaviour. Using structural equation modeling, responses from 508 consumers in the different parts of India’s National Capital Region were analysed and results showed that while the three constructs of materialism, shopping enjoyment tendency, and impulsive buying tendency had significant positive relationship with impulsive buying behaviour, the cultural construct of collectivism and two personality constructs of extraversion and conscientiousness too showed significant relationship. The study assumes immense significance because it not only presents useful insight regarding the behaviour of Indian consumers in an ever developing retail sector in India, but also considering the fact that this is the first time an attempt has been made to assess the simultaneous impact of these five intrinsic factors on impulsive buying behaviour. Importantly, the findings also revealed that the influence of intrinsic variables on impulsive buying behaviour did not vary across gender.

After the sustained love affair of researchers in defining and redefining impulsive buying behaviour (Bellenger et al., 1978, Kollat and Willet, 1967 and Stern, 1962), the focus gradually shifted from the ‘what’ of impulsive buying to the ‘why’ and then to the ‘how’ of it. From taxonomical to cognitive (Hoch and Loewenstein, 1991 and Rook and Fisher, 1995) and finally somewhat to trait oriented approach (Bratko et al., 2013), the impulsive buying literature has been witnessing both horizontal as well as vertical surge. Needless to point out, that on one hand, there have been a plethora of studies across the globe trying to assess the impact of situational (Belk, 1975, Chavosh et al., 2011 and Foroughi et al., 2013) and marketing driven factors (Stern, 1962, Karbasivar and Yarahmadi, 2011, Lifu, 2012 and Mehta and Chugan, 2013); while on the other hand, new theoretical models and frameworks have continuously been developed. However, still huge gaps exist with respect to developing understanding related to psychological aspects of the phenomenon, and one such literature gap is the overlooking of simultaneous impact of intrinsic factors on impulsive buying behaviour. Though one may argue that internal factors such as consumer characteristics related to impulsive buying have been a subject of many studies (e.g. Chavosh et al., 2011), however, in almost none of those studies the cumulative impact of intrinsic factors like materialism and shopping enjoyment tendency has been considered and studied in the same tune as personality traits, culture or even impulsive buying tendency. Thus, though there have been few studies that tried to study the relationship between impulsive buying behaviour and personality (Verplanken and Herabadi, 2001 and Herabadi et al., 2009), or for that matter with culture (Jalees, 2009), but in totality, these studies are extremely few in number and did not assess the holistic impact of all other enduring and inherent factors. This is partly because of the fact that apart from personality (Verplanken and Herabadi, 2001 and Herabadi et al., 2009) and cultural constructs (Kacen and Lee, 2002 and Jalees, 2009) and even the impulsive buying tendency construct (Chavosh et al., 2011; Foroughi et al., 2013; Rook and Gardner, 1993), not many researchers have looked at the inherent side of either shopping enjoyment tendency or materialism. Thus, though many would accept that materialistic beliefs (Pieters, 2013) and the tendency to find joy in shopping can be considered as built-in traits (Beatty and Ferrell, 1998) that aren’t expected to change on daily basis, still no attempt has been made to include these as intrinsic factors like personality or cultural traits. This study considers these important constructs as built-in part of individual’s persona and tries to explore their impact on impulsive buying behaviour in the same tune as that of other established traits like personality, culture, or impulsive buying tendency. Thus, effort has been made to not only study the combined effect of personality traits, culture and impulsive buying tendency on impulsive buying behaviour, but also of the other enduring intrinsic factors such as culture, shopping enjoyment tendency, and materialism. Notwithstanding the addition to the knowledge base, the study is extremely significant in view of the important retail context of India. With an ever growing relevance of Indian market in liberalised global scenario coupled with predicted rosy future of an expanding retail sector2, it is important to develop improved understanding about the application of intriguing and important phenomenon such as impulsive buying. With an obvious dearth of literature on impulsive buying behaviour in Indian context, the findings from the study could kick-start other related efforts in other geographical areas of this huge country. Thus, with the above background, the study aims to explore the nature and extent of relationship between impulsive buying behaviour and personality traits, culture, shopping enjoyment tendency, materialism and impulsive tendency. The entire paper has been divided into 7 sections. As the introductory and background note forms 1 and 2 deals with theoretical framework and hypotheses formation. In subsequent 3, 4, 5 and 6, methodology associated with the study, analysis of data, results and discussion; and conclusions, are discussed in respective order. Lastly, Section 7 points out limitations of the study and discusses scope for related future research.

Considering the global relevance of Indian consumer market, and an almost non-existence of detailed studies pertaining to the pervasive phenomenon of impulsive buying, this study provides useful take-homes in more than one way. First of all, the framework proposes the inclusion of not only impulsive tendency, personality traits and cultural orientation as decisive intrinsic variables in assessing impulsive buying behaviour but also makes a case for considering the constructs of materialism and shopping enjoyment tendency. This proposition deserves consideration not only because empirical findings support an overwhelming impact of materialism and shopping enjoyment tendency constructs in impacting impulsive behaviour, but also considering the enduring nature of these inherent traits. Thus, it creates scope for further research in other countries or cultural scenario with a view to either build on or validate these findings. Second obvious contribution the study has made is by validating the efforts of past research efforts of relevant studies in this field through the empirical results. In many of the results, the findings corroborate the past endeavours in this field, especially with regard to the significant relationship between personality traits of extraversion and conscientiousness with the actual impulsive behaviour. Even the finding related to the culture construct of collectivism being more significant in impacting impulsive buying behaviour can be useful insight for marketers in this fast growing retail world. However, the recognition of intrinsic factors, and especially the personality traits in impacting impulsive buying, and the fact that people purchase products that suit their type of personality needs to be stretched further by including other basic intrinsic variables in the domain. Also, possible inter-relationship between these intrinsic variables and other theoretical constructs could be explored. Another important contribution is the revelation that effect of intrinsic variables on impulsive buying does not vary with gender. This indicates that intrinsic factors affect men and women in similar manner when it comes to their impact on impulsive buying. Lastly, findings from the study could provide important insight about impulsive buying behaviour of Indian consumers in relation to the built-in traits, and could be utilised equally by both marketers as well as academicians. While the marketers, can strategise to optimally utilise the positive relationship between the constructs such as extraversion, materialism, shopping enjoyment tendency, impulsive buying tendency and collectivism; it could also be pivotal for future research in the area especially in Indian context.