Int. J. Business Excellence, Vol. 7, No. 4, 2014 473 Copyright © 2014 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. A study on psychological modelling of market maven for marketing operations with special reference to Indian market K. Harikrishnan VIT Business School, VIT University, Chennai, PIN: 600127, Tamil Nadu, India Fax: +914439932555 E-mail: kharikrishnan@vit.ac.in E-mail: harianith@gmail.com D. Ashok VIT Business School, VIT University, Vellore – 632014, Tamil Nadu, India Fax: +914162243092 E-mail: dashok@vit.ac.in P.D.D. Dominic* Department of Computer and Information Sciences, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, 31750, Tronoh, Perak, Malaysia Fax: +605 365 6180 E-mail: dhanapal_d@petronas.com.my *Corresponding author S. Joseph Jeya Anand VIT Business School, VIT University, Chennai, PIN: 600127, Tamil Nadu, India Fax: +914439932555 E-mail: josephjeyaanand.s@vit.ac.in Abstract: In this era of intense commercial information bombardment, the interpersonal communication ‘word of mouth’ (WOM) cuts through the clutter, and gains importance among consumers. Market maven plays a pivotal role in providing valuable market place information through WOM and thereby helping consumers towards their purchases. Literatures indicated need for profiling market mavens with psychological factors, hence the authors hypothesised and tested structural equation model with consumer innovativeness, consumers’ need for uniqueness-creative choice counter conformity-dimension, status consumption as exogenous, antecedent