Acknowledgements: Earlier stages of this research were the object of Imke-Isabelle Larsen’s master thesis. The authors wish to thank ESCP Europe’s European Research Funding for the grant received for con- ducting the survey. Research Note Elena Dinkevych is Research Associate at the Chair of Inter- national Marketing, ESCP Eu- rope Berlin, Heubnerweg 8–10, 14059 Berlin, Germany, Phone: +49-30-32007-177, Fax: +49-30-32007-118, E-Mail: edinkevych@ escpeurope.eu. Robert Wilken is Professor of International Marketing at ESCP Europe Berlin, Heubnerweg 8–10, 14059 Berlin, Germany, Phone: +49-30-32007-167, Fax: +49-30-32007-118, E-Mail: rwilken@escpeurope.eu. * Corresponding Author. What do You Think, Darling? Revisiting Knowledge on Purchase Decisions of Couples within Households By Elena Dinkevych and Robert Wilken Many purchase decisions are made by cou- ples living together. Previous research has in- vestigated antecedents of which partner has more influence in these decisions. However, due to societal changes in gender roles, this research requires an update. Hence, we re- view whether extant findings still apply to con- temporary couples. In an online study, we in- vestigate product category-unrelated (educa- tion and income) and product category-relat- ed (knowledge and preference intensity) as well as contextual (product category, gender) antecedents of relative influence in joint deci- sions regarding vacations, television sets, groceries, and dining out. Although income still plays a role, individual’s education does not – possibly due to increasingly similar edu- cational levels among partners. Knowledge and preference intensity both strongly affect the relative influence on joint decisions as fol- lows: Women (men) are more knowledgeable and have more intense preferences for the purchase of groceries (TV sets). This result points towards persistent gender-bound deci- sion making in some product categories. 1. Introduction Although consumer decision-making research mostly fo- cuses on the individual consumer, products in fact are of- ten purchased within multi-person households (Simpson et al. 2012). Especially for products consumed jointly, the preference-building process is at least partly a matter of joint decision making rather than a solitary activity. Examples include the purchase of major household items in families, such as cars, houses, furniture, insurance, or financial services (e. g., Davis 1976; Razzouk et al. 2007; Schneider et al. 2013; Spiro 1983). Early (1970s/80s) research studied marital roles and spousal decision processes, aiming at identifying the “dominant” party, and therefore examined which product categories were husband- resp. wife-dominant. For in- stance, husbands dominated decisions on insurances whereas wives dominated the purchase of food (Davis and Rigaux 1974). In contrast to the anecdotal evidence that the wife spends approximately 85 per cent of a household income, as early commercial studies indicate, some authors demonstrate that husbands have more pow- er in decision making than wives (e. g., Filiatrault and Ritchie 1980), while others posit that the influence distri- bution is specific to the product category (e. g., Davis 1976). In conclusion, this stream of literature investi- gates the “dominance” question – i. e. who decides – and often finds product category-specific answers – i. e. spe- cific to what is purchased jointly. Other researchers studied the underlying decision pro- cess, i. e., why him or her? Consequently, these research- ers focused on antecedents of the decision dominance (or, equivalently, the influence distribution). Numerous studies have been guided by Resource Theory (Blood and Wolfe 1960) to postulate that one partner’s influence in joint decision is a function of several power-related re- sources to the relationship (e. g., income, education, sta- tus, and their respective [in]equality among partners). With this perspective, Rosen and Granbois (1983) show that partners’ educational levels impact the role structure in family decisions, and Filiatrault and Richie (1980) find that the husband’s income contributes to his relative influence on the ultimate joint purchase decision. All studies during this period have focused on married, heterosexual couples who share one household. As a re- sult, research in this area is heavily influenced by gender MARKETING · ZFP · Volume 39 · 4/2017 · P. 47–56 47 https://doi.org/10.15358/0344-1369-2017-4-47 Generiert durch IP '54.70.40.11', am 03.01.2019, 17:13:12. Das Erstellen und Weitergeben von Kopien dieses PDFs ist nicht zulässig.