Date of Award

Spring 1998

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Psychology (PsyD)

Program/Concentration

Business Administration-Marketing

Committee Director

John B. Ford

Committee Member

Earl D. Honeycutt, Jr.

Committee Member

G. Steven Rhiel

Committee Member

J. Taylor Sims

Abstract

The growth of the convenience industry suggests that time-scarce consumers represent an important potential target market for firms that offer time and/or effort saving attributes in their product offerings. The research contained herein addresses a gap in the marketing literature by examining a proposed series of relationships involving household expenditures for "convenient services." These proposed relationships were captured in a "Conceptual Framework of Convenient Services Consumption" which synthesized the various existing theoretical conceptualizations relating to convenience consumption and the number of factors said to influence consumers' convenience orientation. Specifically, this study sought to profile the convenience oriented services consumer by examining the relationship between nine demographic, lifestyle and price-convenience tradeoff variables and the consumers' convenient service orientation, or "CSO," as it is reflected by the dollar amount paid for convenient services (from an inventory of convenient services) over a six month period. For the purposes of this research, convenient services are those services which possess time-saving and/or effort-reducing attributes that represent an alternative to the consumers' own time and effort.

Data were gathered via a mail questionnaire distributed to a consumer panel. Reliability of the scales used in this research was assessed by calculating Coefficient Alphas. Confirmatory factor analysis and hypothesis tests were used to assess validity of these scales. The data collected were then examined for assumption violations. Hypotheses were investigated using regression analyses.

The profile of the convenience oriented services consumer which emerged in this study is that married, home-owning households with higher expenditures on convenient services (higher levels of LOGCSO) had older husbands; a greater leisure activity level of the household head; a lower value-consciousness score of the household head; and a greater total household pre-tax 1995 income. Expenditures on convenient services were not significantly associated with the number of hours worked per year by the wife; the number of hours worked per year by the husband; the number of persons in the household aged six years and over; the number of persons in the household aged five and younger; the role overload score of the household head; or the individual statements of credit behavior and credit attitude.

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DOI

10.25777/m5sm-7185

ISBN

9780591815962

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