Monica Chaudhary

Children's influence in family buying process in India

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is twofold: to categorize and rank products based on childrens influence and to compare their influence on the different stages of the family buying process.Design/methodology/approach – The study was based on an extensive literature review and focus group discussions. Using a structured questionnaire, a survey was conducted with children aged 8‐12 years. The sample size was 175.Findings – Factor analysis revealed three distinct product clusters: “loud”, “noisy” and “quiet” goods. Childrens influence was found to be highest for noisy goods, lesser for loud goods and lowest for quiet goods. One‐way MANOVA analysis found that for loud and noisy goods childrens influence was highest in the initiation stage, and lowest in the search stage. For quiet goods, the highest influence was in the final decision stage followed by initiation and choice stage.Practical implications – The identified product clusters and childrens relative influence across the buying stages for thes...

Exploring the influence strategies used by children: an empirical study in India

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to identify and rank the different influence tactics used by children and to examine whether there is a difference in perception of parent and child with respect to the use of different influence tactics. Design/methodology/approach - The study was conducted based on an extensive literature review and detailed focus group discussions. Through structured questionnaires, a survey was conducted on children (aged 8-12 years) and their respective parent (any one). In total, 400 responses were received, out of which only 350 (175 children and their parents) were found to be fully filled, the remaining 50 were discarded due to incomplete information. Findings - Statistical analysis suggests that the most common influence strategy used by children in this age-group is persuasion strategy, followed by emotional and bargaining strategies. As per the t-tests conducted, there were not many significant differences found in the perception of parent and child regarding the use of the different influence tactics. Practical implications - The identified strategies and tactics are expected to add clarity to the issue of childrens role in family decision making. Marketers should take these observations into consideration while designing and implementing global sales promotion and advertising strategies. Originality/value - The paper makes a much needed contribution to the extant literature on Indian children in the age-group 8-12 years as consumers. The findings would add value to marketing companies and practitioners to have a better understanding of Indian childrens influence behaviour. The results from the current study are crucial, as not many studies have been conducted in India when compared to the West.

Family decision–making in emerging economies

The purpose of this paper is to examine the childrens role in family decision-making in emerging economies. Using a structured questionnaire, a survey was conducted with 175 children from India. The results revealed that children across cultures have high influence over family purchase decisions. Moreover, consistent with the ranking of India as a culturally high power distance nation, Indian children had lower influence than their Turkish counterparts. The findings of the study have interesting implications for global marketing practitioners. As Indian parents are more authoritative than US and Turkish parents, marketers need to keep in mind that they do need to appeal to children as much as they may need to appeal to parents. This paper contributes to the extant literature available in the area of familys decision-making. This study holds its importance as it provides detailed and insightful comparisons between two emerging markets.

Young Arab consumers: an analysis of family buying process in Oman

Purpose Young children, often called as teenagers (13-14 years) and tweenaged (8-12 years), are the new potential game changers for the big corporate. This paper aims to analyze Arab children’s influence for various products and services and across different buying process stages. The primary survey was conducted to capture a child’s role in family decision-making by analyzing their consumer socialization, influencing strategies and their influence across various products and buying stages. Design/methodology/approach Based on the review and the research gap, a bilingual questionnaire in English and Arabic language was developed. The research study was organized in three stages. It commenced with a pilot study conducted with ten school students in the age group of 8-10 years. The second stage involved contact with the schools by telephone to brief them on the purpose of the study and to request the participation of their students. The last stage was based on the survey conducted in the time period of September-November 2016-17. Findings Almost 25 per cent of the children surveyed prefer to buy stationary and books after discussing with their parents. On the other hand, food/beverage is one particular item where children go ahead and buy theses item themselves even without discussing with their parents (42.50 per cent of the total respondents). As per children’s perception, they are most influential in the final decision stage (mean = 1.84 and SD = 0.499), followed by search and evaluation stage (mean = 1.80 and SD = 0.441) and start stage (mean = 1.79 and SD = 0.488). Research limitations/implications Further research is needed in Arab countries, especially with parents of different social status, as their shopping behaviour is expected to differ. Also, as this analysis is based on child’s perception, parents’ views must also be analyzed for better results. Practical implications The is the first-of-its-kind research in the Gulf region. This empirical research highlights the need for global marketers to understand the distinct features and identity of a young Arab consumer. Despite Oman being a very traditional culture which emphasizes on conformity to group norms and social acceptance and hence confirms to collectivistic culture, where kids are supposed to be obedient, there is this new wave of super energetic, more informed young kids who take their own consumer decisions. Originality/value After going through the extensive literature review of different countries/cultures, there has been very clear understanding that despite being an important family member, almost no research has been focussed on kids in gulf nations.

Pester power: comparison between China and India

This empirical paper article presents a comparative study of children from the two most emerging and growing economies; India and China. The one-child policy in the Peoples Republic of China has created a generation of only one child in many urban areas. For this reason, urban China offers a unique environment to study the influence of children in family purchase decision-making. On the other hand in India, where population is growing very rapidly and expected to surpass China is a very attractive investment opportunity for MNCs. The objective is to explore to what extent findings related to Chinese childrens influence in buying process are applicable in India. The paper also presents a comparison between the results of both countries.

Learning management through mobile apps - a new buzzword

The innovation in mobile apps has forced educators to look for their suitability in providing learning. The various apps available for different platforms have something unique to offer in terms of user experience and functions. This paper examines the specific parameters which these apps have to offer the academia and organisations in terms of their use in educational setting. Web 2.0 technologies, particularly various mobile apps are changing the environment and possibilities for education. With the rapid development of these mobile apps users can now actively participate and construct their own learning experiences. Technologies like blogs, wikis, media sharing services and collaborative editing tools, promote collaboration and the sharing of knowledge by students and teachers. This research paper aims to explore the parameters associated with these mobile apps and analyse the performance of these five mobile apps to identify lessons for designing the most effective mobile apps by calculating their mobile application score (MAS).

Use of Influence Tactics by Children in India

Children constitute a major consumer market; they have very strong power to influence purchase decisions, and they have been playing an important role in the family buying process with direct influence on purchasing power of snacks and sweets, and indirect influence while shopping for big-ticket items. Children are becoming stronger and they use different strategies to persuade their parents. This article attempts to highlight the different strategies which children use today to influence their parents. Demographic characteristics of a child such as age, gender, and number of siblings have an important role in the usage of different influence tactics by children. The study is conducted through primary survey (questionnaire) on 175 children in the age group of 8–12 years. Collected data are analyzed based on frequency distributions. The collected data are summarized and coded by using Statistical Package for Social Scientists 16.0 (SPSS) and Microsoft Excel. The general findings of the study suggest that demographics play an important role only in a few influence strategies like emotional and persuasion. Marketers should understand this and make an effort in tapping the right chord to make their product more buyable by families.