An application of the style/involvement model to financial services

Abstract

This study was designed to empirically investigate Foxall's [1995. Cognitive styles of consumer initiators. Technovation 15(5), 269–288] style/involvement model in a new context of the financial product market by using a random sample of 308 UK consumers. To build greater understanding of the style/involvement model, which proposed that consumer choice is shaped by adaptive–innovative cognitive style [Kirton, M., 1976. Adaptors and innovators—a description and measure. Journal of Applied Psychology 61(5), 622–629] and product-domain involvement [Zaichkowsky, J.L., 1985. Measuring the involvement construct. Journal of Consumer Research 12(3), 341–352], the opportunity was taken to examine the usefulness of an alternative measure of innovativeness [Hurt, H.Y. et al., 1977. Scale for the measure of innovativeness. Human Communication Research 4(1), 58–65], which correlates with the KAI [Kirton, M.J., 2003. Adaption–Innovation in the Context of Diversity and Change. Routledge, London] that was used to develop this style/involvement model. Further, instead of testing the innovations of new health food [Foxall, G.R., Bhate, S., 1993a. Cognitive styles and personal involvement of market initiators for ‘healthy’ food brands: implications for adoption theory. Journal of Economic Psychology 14(1), 33–56] or new computer software [Foxall, G.R., Bhate, S., 1993b. Cognitive style and use-innovativeness for applications software in home computing: implications for new product strategy. Technovation 13(5), 311–325], established products of four financial products: (1) pensions; (2) life assurance; (3) mortgages; (4) savings and investment were investigated. These products not only contrast with the targets of Foxall's [1995] earlier researches, but are of intrinsic interest in view of the extent of strategic change and product development which characterize the contemporary financial services industry. Findings indicated that even within a broadly defined product category like financial services, consumers vary significantly. Buyers of mortgages and pensions were highly involved adaptors, whilst buyers of life assurance were less-involved adaptors. Buyers of savings and investments, however, were highly involved innovators.