erc/metu
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE IN ECONOMICS  IV
September 13-16, 2000, Ankara

Marital Roles in Family Decision-Making: Comparative Study

Tahir Yeşilada (Dokuz Eylül University)
Gülem A. İshakoğlu (Ege University)
Figen A. Yeşilada (Dokuz Eylül University)
Alev E. Katrinli (Dokuz Eylül University)

Abstract

Marketers generally try to reach the decision maker while they analyze the decision making process relevant to their own products/services. Although this approach is relatively cheaper and more practical, it ignores the contributions of each of the family members to the decision-making process. Since user is not always the only decision maker or the buyer, marketers should identify the person(s) effective in the decision-making within the family and direct their promotion activities to the ones who affect the final purchase. This approach would give marketers the opportunity to use their budgets effectively that would give the company competitive advantage and lead to higher and market shares.

This study constitutes the third step of a chain of studies on family purchasing behavior. The results of the first study conducted on 500 people were presented at the Seventh Annual Conference of the Global Awareness Society International held in Istanbul in 1998. In the meantime two further studies using the same questionnaire - one on 200 Kazakhstan families, another on 98 Northern Cyprus families were made. We would be honored to present the comparative findings of the three studies with an objective to enlighten the family purchasing behaviors of three Turkish communities living in three different geographical locations, under different cultural settings.

Economic Research Center
Middle East Technical University
06531 Ankara Turkey
Phone: + 90 312 210 3044, 210 2003
Fax: +90 312 210 1244
e-mail: metuerc@metu.edu.tr