Antecedents of Consumer Preference for Information Sources for Acquiring Corporate Information

Abstract

Previous research has largely ignored the information sources that consumers use for knowing the company behind the products. This research adds new insights to the corporate branding as well as to the information acquisition literatures by investigating the information sources consumers prefer for acquiring information about the company behind the products during pre-purchase information search. It further explores the influence of purchase situation risk and consumer characteristics (expertise with the product category, purchase involvement and need for cognition (NFC)) on consumer preference for different corporate information sources. Questionnaire-based data are gathered from 588 consumers. Regression analysis is used to test the hypotheses. The findings reveal that intrapersonal source is the most important source for the consumers to acquire corporate information. Among the external information sources, third-party sources are the most important followed by the company-controlled sources, whereas resellers and interpersonal sources are the least important sources to the consumers. Further, third-party sources, company-controlled sources and resellers are more important to consumers in high-risk purchases than in low-risk purchases. Consumers with high expertise prefer intrapersonal source and do not examine external sources. High-involvement consumers favour all types of information sources. Individuals with high NFC do not consult interpersonal sources, rather prefer to utilize intrapersonal source. This study would help corporate marketing practitioners in choosing the appropriate corporate information sources, and hence in devising successful corporate communication strategies.