Consumer Involvement in Services: A Replication and Extension

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to build a theoretical bridge between established consumer behavior theory and the service marketing area by considering the applicability of consumer involvement to the consumption of services. The research adopts the Laurent and Kapferer (1985) Consumer Involvement Profile (CIP) in an attempt to replicate the antecedents of involvement in service products. The paper addresses three main points. First, whether a product-validated scale can provide an advancement of knowledge about consumers' reactions to service. Second, whether the non-involvement variables in involvement research provide evidence of instability. Third, whether there is sufficient evidence to question whether involvement per se needs to be reconceptualized for services before its impact on other metaconstructs can be assessed. The results suggest that involvement may assist in our understanding service consumption behavior and is likely to effect how a number of service dimensions are conceptualized. However, the impact of noninvolvement variables upon the construction of the involvement framework suggests that these additional variables do not have an impact on outcomes or consequences only, but have a direct impact on the antecedents of involvement and may subsequently change the very nature of involvement in relation to services.