Investigation the Effect of Brand Social Power Dimensions on Purchasing Decisions Based on Customers’ Subjective Readiness Levels

Subject Areas : Futurology

K. Heidarzadeh ¹ , S.M. Alvani ² , K. Ghalandari ³

1 - نویسنده مسئول یا طرف مکاتبه
2 - ندارد
3 - ندارد

Received: 2008-04-25 Accepted : 2008-10-18 Published : 2010-09-23

Keywords: Coercive Brand Social Power, Reward Brand Social Power, Legitimate Brand Social Power, Referent&#x0D, &#x0D, Brand Social Power, Expert Brand Social Power, Customers Subjective Readiness, Attitude&#x0D, &#x0D, Toward The Brand, Purchase Intention, Brand Familiarity,

Abstract :

The value of a brand lies in its associations with specific mindset and perception of its use in context.In this research, brand social power is considered as the perception that customers have about brandspecifications in the process of making purchasing decisions. Using French and Raven (1959)typology of social influence, five social power bases of brand are identified which correspond to theiroriginal power bases. Assuming the ability of brands to meet various social needs of customers,markets can be segmented, and the target segments can be identified on the basis of those needs.Therefore, referring to Hersey and Blanchard’s situational leadership theory, the readiness levels ofemployees (followers) are generalized to the subjective readiness levels of customers in order toobtain a new indicator for market segmentation, so that, according to each level, we can focus on asingle social power dimension in our market positioning strategies. This research aims to identify theeffect of brand social dimensions based on subjective readiness levels on the purchasing decision ofcustomers. In this survey-descriptive study using random classified sampling, information wasobtained from 382 students using a valid and reliable questionnaire. Structural equation modelingbased on partial least squares was used to analyze data and test the hypotheses. The results suggest thatthe effect of brand social power dimensions based on different levels of customer subjective readinesson purchasing decisions vary.