Consumption attitudes and adoption of new consumer products: a contingency approach Guangping Wang School of Graduate Professional Studies, Penn State University, Malvern, Pennsylvania, USA Wenyu Dou Department of Marketing, City University of Hong Kong, HKSAR, and Nan Zhou Department of Marketing, City University of Hong Kong, HKSAR and Department of Marketing, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to further current understanding of the relationship between consumption attitudes and new product adoption and how the relationship may be contingent upon consumers’ other characteristics. Design/methodology/approach – Following a contingency framework, five consumption attitudes derived from Schwartz’s value systems framework were examined, along with demographic variables, for their associations with consumer new product adoption (NPA). Negative binominal regression models were estimated using syndicated data from a large urban Chinese consumer sample to test the main and interactive effect hypotheses. Findings – Consumption attitudes have significant effects on NPA. Consumers’ adoption of market innovations is associated negatively with their attitude toward existing products and positively with independent decision making and preference for high-tech products. Further, the magnitude of the effects of consumption attitudes depends on consumers’ demographic characteristics. The effects are stronger among consumers who are older and have lower income. Originality/value – Using syndicated data from a large random sample of urban Chinese consumers, this study offers a deeper understanding of the attitudinal and personal antecedents of consumer new product adoption. Keywords New products, Consumer behaviour, Target markets, China Paper type Research paper Introduction Consumers’ new product adoption (NPA) behavior is of fundamental interest to marketing managers and researchers alike because of its role in the new product diffusion processes (Rogers, 1995). Understanding what differentiates visionary customers who adopt products earlier in the process from more pragmatic customers in The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/0309-0566.htm All the authors contributed equally; the order of the authorship is random. This research is partially supported by a research development grant from the Penn State University awarded to the first-named author and a start-up research grant from City University of Hong Kong awarded to the second-named author. The authors would like to thank Zili Bi and CTR China for assistance in providing the data for the study. EJM 42,1/2 238 Received November 2005 Revised June 2006 Accepted June 2006 European Journal of Marketing Vol. 42 No. 1/2, 2008 pp. 238-254 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0309-0566 DOI 10.1108/03090560810840998