Linda L. Price

The market maven: A diffuser of marketplace information.

The research focus is individuals who have information about many kinds of products, places to shop, and other facets of the market, and initiate discussions with and respond to information request...

Commercial Friendships: Service Provider--Client Relationships in Context

The authors describe commercial friendships that develop between service providers and clients as one important type of marketing relationship. They report results of five studies that employ quant...

The Role of Imagery in Information Processing: Review and Extensions

Mental imagery is receiving increased attention in consumer behavior theory and research. This article describes imagery, characterizing it as a processing mode in which multisensory information is represented in a gestalt form in working memory, and discusses research on the unique effects of imagery at low levels of cognitive elaboration. It specifies researchable propositions for the relationship between high elaboration imagery processing and consumer choice and consumption behaviors. Finally, it reviews specific methods for studying imagery.

Older Consumers' Disposition of Special Possessions

This article explores precipitating events, emotions, and decisions associated with older consumers’ disposition of special possessions. Findings are based on analyses of semistructured interviews with 80 older consumers, complemented by depth interviews with seven informants. Cherished possessions and their disposition play a significant role in older consumers’ reminiscence and life review. Concerns about disposition of special possessions involve strong and ambivalent emotions. Older consumers voice concern over avoiding intrafamilial conflict, reducing uncertainty, and exercising control over the future life of special possessions. We emphasize the storied nature of the meanings consumers attach to their cherished possessions and the way in which these storied meanings are bundled with life review and disposition concerns. Many older consumers attempt to control meanings transferred with cherished possessions. They seek to pass on personal and familial legacies, achieve symbolic immortality, insure a ...

Consumers’ emotional responses to service encounters: the influence of the service provider

Reports on a study looking at dimensions of service provider performance that influence immediate emotional responses to service encounters, based on 914 service encounters. Identifies five service‐provider dimensions that are significant predictors of emotional response to services. Finds that different service‐provider dimensions influence positive as compared with negative emotional responses and that temporal duration and spatial intimacy of the encounter affect both the reported levels and relative importance of these service‐provider dimensions to emotional responses.

Rethinking the Origins of Involvement and Brand Commitment: Insights from Postsocialist Central Europe

Drawing on our work in two postsocialist countries, Hungary and Romania, we contribute to understanding product involvement and brand commitment. We demonstrate that prominent political-cultural discourses, cultural intermediaries, social influences, and life themes and projects collectively prompt product involvement. We introduce the concept of involvement with branded products and examine its origins within a sociohistorical context. We consider the origins of brand commitment and illustrate that consumers with little interest in either the product category or the idea of branded products may be committed to particular brands. Further, we contribute to understanding the relationships among product involvement, brand commitment, and brand experimentation. Copyright 2003 by the University of Chicago.

Differentiating between cognitive and sensory innovativeness: Concepts, measurement, and implications

Abstract Contrary to previous research in the area, this article argues that consumer innovativeness, or the desire for new experiences, is not an undifferentiated construct but can be distinguished as cognitive and sensory innovativeness. Cognitive (sensory) innovativeness is the preference for engaging in new experiences with the objective of stimulating the mind (senses). The article presents psychometrically valid measures of these constructs and discusses two studies that examine the differences between cognitive and sensory innovativeness. One study, based on 326 undergraduate students, shows that the innovativeness constructs differ in their relationship with other personality traits, such as preference for verbal/visual style of processing. The other study, based on the personal computer, food processor, and video cassette recorder purchase behavior of 245 respondents, shows that cognitive and sensory innovators differ in their responses to innovations and demographic profiles. The research and managerial implications of these findings are discussed.

Between Mothers and Markets: Constructing family identity through homemade food

The purpose of this article is to examine the role of homemade food in the construction of family identity. The article examines how homemade, its interface with markets’ competing food offerings, and intergenerational perspectives on homemade can cast light on competing understandings of the family, social relationships, and the market. Using two empirical studies conducted in a Midwestern cultural setting, findings highlight the importance of family meanings of homemade food, the role of homemade food in demarcating the realms of the family and market, the influence of producer-consumer relationships on threats posed by the market to a coherent family identity, and the qualitative changes in the social reproduction of family identities that result from divergences in homemade food meanings and practices across generations.

The Storied Life of Singularized Objects: Forces of Agency and Network Transformation

Our study contributes to understanding the role of material culture in families. Findings from a longitudinal case study extend Kopytoff’s theory of singularization by explaining what occurs between the singularization of a focal object and its recommodification. We uncover processes that move an already singularized object in and out of a network of practices, objects, and spaces; identify forces that constrain and empower a singularized object’s agency within that network; and demonstrate network transformations that result from the focal object’s movement. This extension explains some paradoxical findings in consumer research: how objects are granted agency even while displaced, when irreplaceable objects can be replaced, and why families sometimes displace central identity practices.

Branded Products as a Passport to Global Citizenship: Perspectives from Developed and Developing Countries

This article focuses on belief in brands as a passport to global citizenship, defined as a persons perception that global brands create an imagined global identity. The authors assess the effects of this belief on the importance consumers assign to branded products and also examine the antecedent effects of cultural openness and consumer ethnocentrism. Their work focuses on the global youth market in the developing countries of Romania, Ukraine, and Russia and the developed U.S. market. The findings contribute to a broadened understanding of branding in a global marketplace by examining the associations between beliefs about global brands and the importance consumers attach to branded products in their daily lives.