Indian Children's Influence across Stages in Family Decision Making Process - an Exploratory Study

Abstract

This study examines children’s influence across stages in family decision making process while making buying decisions for child and family product in Indian rural and urban families. A cross-sectional survey method was carried out with “structured non-disguised” questionnaire to collect the primary data from the students of class eighth to twelfth in the age group of 13-to-18 years from 100 families residing in rural and 100 families residing in urban areas in Delhi, India. Statistical tools such as mean, standard deviation and repeated measures ANOVA have been used to analyze and interpret the collected data. Children’s influence across three stages of decision making process was measured by using a ten-item scale developed by Talpade and Talpade (1995) and the reliability of the scale was assessed by calculating Cronbach alpha. The results of this study found that children in Indian families are also exerting influence in family buying decisions and (i) children’s influence in family decision making varies across decision making stages according to type of product; (ii) it is the child product for which children’s influence is higher.