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Perceived control and shopping behavior: The moderating role of the level of utilitarian motivational orientation
ARTICLE IN PRESS Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 16 (2009) 434–441
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Perceived control and shopping behavior: The moderating role of the level of utilitarian motivational orientation Renaud Lunardo a,, Ababacar Mbengue b,1 a b
Troyes Champagne School of Management, 217, avenue Pierre Brossolette, BP 710, 10002 Troyes Cedex, France Universite de Reims and Reims Management School, 57 bis rue Pierre Taittinger, 51096 Reims, France
a r t i c l e in f o
Keywords: Perceived control Stress Pleasure Return intent Utilitarian orientation
a b s t r a c t Examining the influence of the retail environment on shopping behavior, Kaltcheva and Weitz (2006. When should a retailer create an exciting store environment? Journal of Marketing 70 (January), 107–118) showed that shopping motivation (utilitarian versus hedonic) moderates the relationship between arousal and shoppers’ behavior in the store environment. In particular, they found that high arousal decreases intentions to visit for consumers with a utilitarian motivational orientation. Focusing on this particular type of shopping motivation, we hypothesized that the negative effects of arousalinducing store environments occur for consumers with higher utilitarian motivations because these environments prevent those specific consumers from controlling their shopping experience. We consequently adapted Kaltcheva and Weitz’s (2006) framework by building a model articulating perceived control, stress, pleasure, and return intent. A multigroup analysis of consumers with high versus low utilitarian shopping motivations identified in a field study conducted in Europe gave support to our hypothesis. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
1. Introduction Since Kotler’s (1973) seminal work, the store environment has been considered an important retail attribute explaining patronage behavior (Turley and Milliman, 2000), gaining increasing attention from both academics and practitioners. Yet, empirical research analyzing the influence of the retail environment on emotional responses and shopping behavior exhibits inconsistent results. Kaltcheva and Weitz (2006) explain these inconsistencies through the concept of motivational orientation, which moderates the effect of arousal on pleasure. For recreational-oriented consumers, high arousal has a positive effect on pleasure and intentions to visit and make purchases, while this effect is negative for utilitarian-oriented consumers. A relevant question, then, is whether the negative effects of arousal-inducing store environments occur for utilitarian-oriented consumers because these environments prevent them from controlling their shopping experience. Indeed, control seems to be important for consumers driven by utilitarian shopping motives, who prefer retail stores facilitating their perception of control during the shopping experience.
Corresponding author. Tel.: +33 325 71 22 29; fax : +33 325 71 22 38.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (R. Lunardo), [email protected] (A. Mbengue). 1 Tel.: +33 326 9187 31; fax: +33 326 91 38 69. 0969-6989/$ - see front matter Published by Elsevier Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.jretconser.2009.06.004
Therefore, the objective of the present research is to examine the specific moderating influence of consumers’ level of utilitarian motivational orientation on the relationship between perception of control and shopping behavior. In the next section, we propose a conceptual framework that briefly presents the concepts of ‘‘shopping motivation’’ and ‘‘perceived control’’ before discussing the linkages among shopping motivation, perceived control, and shoppers’ behavior. This review highlights consistent findings about the importance of perceived control for goal-oriented consumers, suggesting the need to consider the perception of control as a key predictor of shopping behavior for utilitarian-oriented consumers. We then describe the methodology and report the results of our analysis before concluding with a discussion of contributions for retailing research, retailing management, limitations, and areas for future research.
2. Theoretical framework 2.1. Shopping motivations Since Stone (1954) identified four distinct ‘‘types’’ of shoppers based on shopping motivations, a large body of literature has addressed the issue of shopping motives and many studies have developed taxonomies of retail shoppers based on various criteria like orientations to product usage (Darden and Reynolds, 1971),
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shopping enjoyment (Bellenger and Korgaonkar, 1980), and retail attribute preferences (Bellenger et al., 1977; for a review, see Westbrook and Black, 1985). The widely cited study conducted by Tauber (1972) demonstrated that shoppers’ motivations can be different from those strictly related to acquiring some products. These motives can be classified into two main dimensions—personal and social motives. Personal motives refer to the personal quest for gratification, role playing, learning about new trends, physical activity, or sensory stimulation. On the other hand, social motives represent the need to live some social experiences, communicate with others, exist through status and authority, and experience the pleasure of bargaining. Hence, consumers engage in shopping experiences when their need for a particular good is judged as sufficient for allocating time and money to go to a store to shop, or when they need attention, to be with peers, to meet people with similar interests, to exercise, or simply when they have leisure time. However, extant literature shows that two fundamental motivational orientations underlie the different shopping motives. Consumers shop differently depending on whether their motivations are primarily utilitarian, task oriented, for efficiency or recreational, experiential, hedonic, for fun (Babin et al., 1994). The ‘‘utilitarian motivational orientation’’ has been the primary focus of marketing researchers. As noted by Kaltcheva and Weitz (2006), this motivational orientation involves consumers engaging in shopping out of necessity to obtain needed products, services, or information with little or no inherent satisfaction derived from the shopping activity itself. At the opposite of this utilitarian motivation, the ‘‘recreational-oriented motivational orientation’’ refers to consumers engaging in shopping to derive inherent satisfaction from the shopping activity itself. In this case, the shopping activity is motivated by more experiential benefits provided by the experience, such as agreement or excitement. The experience is freely chosen, and there is no need to engage in it. Consequently, utilitarian consumers and recreational consumers are likely to differ in terms of the level of control they desire to perceive during the shopping experience. Furthermore, there’s also a need for distinguishing between a general and a situational utilitarian orientation. Some shoppers may be consistently utilitarian oriented because of their personality, while some others may be utilitarian oriented because of a specific shopping situation. Among psychological constructs, locus of control (LOC) may be viewed as a major predictor of general utilitarian orientation. LOC refers to people’s perceptions about whether or not their behaviors are reliably linked to outcomes. An internal LOC is the belief that they are, and an external LOC is the belief that they are not (Rotter, 1966). Literature offers evidence for internals believing more than externals in their own capabilities to control events, and consequently setting their own goals (Phillips and Gully, 1997). They also put a great deal of effort into mastering situations and derive more satisfaction from situations calling for personal control. Hence, an internal orientation may induce a more utilitarian-oriented motivation. Sociological constructs may also be drivers of consistent utilitarian orientations. As such, marital status may induce for married women a more consistent utilitarian orientation toward shopping. The key factor explaining orientation toward shopping of such women is their view of alternative uses of time. They have to allocate their time to high priorities and shop in stores that minimize the time required to accomplish the needed shopping task. This phenomenon has found support by Stone (1954), who concluded that whichever outlet required the least effort and was the most convenient to patronize was the preferred outlet for these consumers. However, non-married women have been found to be more recreational oriented than males. Women seem prone to assortment seeking,
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social interaction, and browsing, while males seem more prone to information attainment and convenience seeking (Noble et al., 2006). Nevertheless, utilitarian orientation may also derive more from a specific shopping situation than from a general orientation. Among the five situational characteristics (physical surroundings, social surroundings, temporal, antecedent states, and task definitions) identified by Belk (1975), task definition has been divided by Van Kenhove et al. (1999) into five categories: (1) needing something urgently, (2) having to buy a lot of material, (3) being about to do a difficult job that requires special material, (4) doing regular purchase, and (5) wanting to get ideas. Such a situational variable may be relevant for explaining why (and when) someone becomes situation-utilitarian oriented. For instance, people needing something urgently may become utilitarian oriented and may then value proximity of the store, quick service, and available stock. On the contrary, recreational-oriented consumers will value a wide range of products and novelties when visiting a store to get ideas. One key conclusion that may be drawn from the psychology and marketing literatures is that whatever the consistent or situational orientation, utilitarian consumers and recreational consumers are likely to differ in terms of the level of control they desire to perceive during the shopping experience. Given the demonstrated relationship between shopping motivations and emotional states (Dawson et al., 1990), it is likely that the extent to which situational factors, such as crowding or atmospherics, may elicit negative emotions depends on how much they interfere with shopping motivations and goal attainment. When shopping motivation is hedonic, goal attainment refers to experiencing fun; when shopping motivation is utilitarian, it refers to product acquisition. In this case, goal attainment may suggest perception of control.
2.2. Research on perceived control Over the past five decades, the issue of perceived control has been identified as a powerful construct for understanding behavior (for a review, see Skinner, 1996). Control has often been defined as the need to demonstrate one’s competence, superiority, and mastery over the environment (White, 1959). In environmental psychology, Mehrabian and Russell (1974) defined control as a basic emotion, in addition to pleasure and stimulation, in their pleasure–arousal–dominance (PAD) measure of affective responses. They assert that environmental stimuli affect the emotional state of an individual, thereby influencing behavior. In their model, control refers to dominance, an emotional response ranging from extreme feelings of lack of control on one’s surroundings to feelings of being influential and powerful, or in control. Furthermore, the concept of perceived control has been operationalized in three different ways—cognitive control, decisional control, and behavioral control (Averill, 1973, pp. 286–287). Cognitive control refers to ‘‘the way in which an event is interpreted, appraised or incorporated into a cognitive plan’’. Decisional control is defined as ‘‘the opportunity to choose among various courses of action’’, and may represent the range of choice or number of options open to an individual. Behavioral control refers to ‘‘the availability of a response which may directly influence or modify the objective characteristics of a threatening event’’. This particular type of control, defined by Ajzen (2002, p. 665) as ‘‘the perceived ease or difficulty of performing the behavior’’, has been introduced in his theory of planned behavior (TPB; Ajzen, 1991). The TPB offers a structured framework for explaining behavior from perceived behavioral control, in addition to personal attitudes toward the behavior and subjective norms.
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This theory suggests that perceived behavioral control may have a direct impact on intention, which in turn affects actual behavior. Previous research has demonstrated that providing perceived control to individuals in the physical environment is necessary to their well-being, including physiological responses, task performance, tolerance of pain and frustration, self-report of distress and stress, and physiological well-being (Averill, 1973; Thompson, 1981; Burger, 1989). There is evidence for the positive effects of perceived control, especially in regard to coping with stress (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984; Paterson and Neufeld, 1995). A pervasive view is that when perceived control is lacking, feelings of stress will follow. Two classic studies often used to support this view are those by Seligman (1974) on learned helplessness, and Glass and Singer (1972) on noise after-effects. In the service context, control refers to the degree of power and influence on the service specification, realization, and outcome. The service provider may facilitate control through service architecture, including equipment, facilities, and organization (Van Raaij and Pruyn, 1998). That is, a well-chosen interior with a congenial ambiance can facilitate an individual’s perception of control. If a consumer senses a loss of control in the service encounter, he may have a variety of negative responses (Navasimaym and Hinkin, 2003). In service settings, one of the most studied elements of ambiance that has been related to the perception of control is crowding (Langer and Saegart, 1977; Baron and Rodin, 1978; Hui and Bateson, 1991). Crowding effects are assumed to occur whenever high spatial or social density leads to a loss of control regarding the selection of importantly valued actions or goals (Machleit et al., 2000). In a study conducted by Hui and Bateson (1991), findings indicate that perceived control could counteract the negative influence of crowding on pleasure, leading to the conclusion that perceived control is a powerful concept in explaining the consumer’s reactions to crowding in the service environment. In the physical environment of retail context, consumers feeling in control have also been shown to be in a better mood and more involved (Ward and Barnes, 2001). In the specific context of online buying, atmospheric cues enhancing perception of control are a major principle underlying consumers’ responses to the environment. A navigational design of a web site enhancing user’s control can lead to the flow experience, that is the state in which people are so intensely involved in an activity that ‘‘nothing else seems to matter’’ (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, p. 4). Thus, control appears as a major concept for consumers to enjoy their experience. Table 1 summarizes the research investigating the effects of perceived control on consumer’s behavior. The table shows that in almost all cases, perception of control is positively related to positive responses, such as pleasure, satisfaction, or intent to repurchase.
2.3. Motivational orientation, perceived control, and shopper’s behavior In Bitner’s (1992) model of Servicescapes, the desired level of arousal appears to be dependent on the consumer’s purpose when being in a particular environment. This model posits that because goal-directed behaviors suppose high levels of control, high level of arousal may disturb the consumer’s perception of control. The subsequent satisfaction might be dependent on the extent to which the environment matches the consumer’s desired levels of goal achievement and control. More recently, Kaltcheva and Weitz’s (2006) framework integrated motivational orientation to explain the effect of environmental characteristics on consumer shopping behaviors. They demonstrated that environmental characteristics affect consumer arousal, which in turn affects pleasure and consumer shopping behaviors. Moreover, consumer motivational orientation moderates the relationship between arousal and pleasure. While Bitner (1992) and Kaltcheva and Weitz (2006) focused on arousal, our approach proposes a framework based on perceived control. We suggest in this research that consumer shopping behavior depends on (1) the level of control they perceive during the shopping experience in the store environment and (2) their level of utilitarian motivational orientation. Indeed, because utilitarian consumer behavior has been described as task related, product acquisition would usually be classified as a goal for utilitarian-oriented consumers. The focus of such utilitarian-oriented consumers is on being efficient in completing their shopping activity. Such consumers describe shopping as a ‘‘work’’ and evaluate the results of their effort by terms commonly associated with work performance, like success and accomplishment. In other words, control may be desired for utilitarian-oriented consumers, who want to shop efficiently and easily deal with the store environment in order to attain their own goal. Their choice of the store to shop in is mainly based on the extent to which the environmental stimuli may facilitate their goal achievement (Batra and Ahtola, 1990; Kaltcheva and Weitz, 2006). Thus, the store environment may in this case take the form of facilitating conditions. Ward and Barnes (2001) note that perception of control in the store environment is likely to enhance positive responses because it refers to the consumer’s judgement of whether the environment will facilitate goal achievement. Otherwise, a lack of control that would impede such consumers from achieving their goals would reduce positive responses like pleasure or return intent. Van Kenhove et al. (1999) showed that recreational-oriented consumers appreciated to be under the influence of environmental stimuli during their shopping experience because they had no goal to achieve. Because recreational motivation induces more fun than task completion (Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982), no
Table 1 Empirical research on the impact of perceived control on behavior. Citation
Setting
Hui and Bateson (1991) Bank and bar Bitner (1992) Servicescapes Van Raaij and Pruyn (1998) Services Ward and Barnes (2001) Navasimaym and Hinkin (2003) a
Independent variable
Dependent variable
Consumer density and consumer choice Personal control Participation in the specification and realization of the service experience Environmental stimuli
Pleasure Pleasurea Satisfactiona
Restaurant and fast food Hotel and restaurant Consumer choice
Note that authors just proposed the relationship without testing it empirically.
Arousal, pleasure, mood, involvement, attitude, and behavior Satisfaction, intent to repurchase
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goal is at stake during the shopping experience, and recreationaloriented consumers mainly look for a pleasant retail store environment. Thus, a loss of control would not disturb such recreational-oriented consumers. On the basis of the preceding discussion, we propose the following: H1. . Level of utilitarian motivational orientation moderates the effect of perceived control on pleasure: perceived control increases pleasure for consumers with a high level of utilitarian motivational orientation. H2. . Level of utilitarian motivational orientation moderates the effect of perceived control on stress: perceived control decreases stress for consumers with a high level of utilitarian motivational orientation. H3. Level of utilitarian motivational orientation moderates the effect of perceived control on return intent: perceived control increases return intent for consumers with a high level of utilitarian motivational orientation. The literature review and the preceding hypotheses lead to the theoretical framework depicted in Fig. 1. It is quite similar to Kaltcheva and Weitz’s (2006) framework but it substantially differs from it through the substitution of arousal by perceived control, and the introduction of stress as another mediator. Our framework proposes that environmental characteristics affect consumer’s perceived control, which in turn affects directly pleasure and stress, and through them return intent. Additionally, the TPB suggests a direct relationship between perceived control and return intent. The level of utilitarian motivational orientation moderates the relationship between perceived control and pleasure, stress, or return intent. When consumers have a high level of utilitarian motivational orientation, perceived control should have a positive effect on pleasure and return intent, and a negative effect on stress. Furthermore, pleasure (stress) is expected to have a positive (negative) impact on return intent.
3. Method 3.1. Data Because Larson (1989) criticized the focus of field studies on subjects experiencing profound losses of control that are not representative of everyday life situations, we decided to collect data from usual shoppers. Thus, data came from a sample of active shoppers in a medium-sized city (about 200 000 people) in France. As the level of utilitarian motivational orientation was a core parameter in our design, a self-administered questionnaire was given to shoppers at the exit of a ‘‘supermarket’’, a kind of
store in which the motivational orientations are primarily utilitarian. The data collection was conducted during the month of April 2007, and 234 questionnaires were finally filled in by shoppers. However, 29 questionnaires were incomplete, resulting in 205 usable questionnaires. Overall, the sample is primarily aged 46–60 (38.5%), educated, and mainly employed, and 58% female and 42% male.
3.2. Measures and psychometric properties The dominance scale of the PAD has often been chosen as a measure of perceived control (Hui and Bateson, 1991; Ward and Barnes, 2001) even though some criticism has been raised against it (Russell, 1978). This semantic subscale defines dominance– submissiveness as ‘‘the extent a person feels powerful vis-a-vis the environment that surrounds him’’ (Russell and Mehrabian, 1976, p. 6). According to their paradigm, individuals feel dominant when they are able to influence or control the situation they are in; in contrast, they feel submissive when the environment influences them. Thus, the scale asked participants to rate on a seven-point Likert scale the extent to which they felt in control in the store environment through verbal appraisals of being controlling (controlled), influential (influenced), in control (cared-for), important (awed), dominant (submissive), and autonomous (guided). In order to measure the level of utilitarian motivational orientation, we used a one-item scale adapted from the scale developed by Dawson et al. (1990). Shoppers had to tell to what extent they agreed with ‘‘I’m going in this store to get what I need or to get information’’. To measure emotional responses, we assessed pleasure with five items based on Mehrabian and Russell’s (1974) pleasure scale. Those authors assess pleasure in terms of respondents’ feeling happy (unhappy), pleased (annoyed), satisfied (unsatisfied), contented (melancholic), hopeful (despairing), and relaxed (bored). We assessed shoppers’ stress with the single-item scale ‘‘in this store, I felt stressed’’. As a relational response, return intent was measured by a two-item scale. Respondents had to rate the degree to which they agreed with ‘‘in the future, if I had to shop for the same reasons that today, I would like to come back in this store’’ and ‘‘I have the intention to come back to this store’’. For each item, we used seven-point rating scales. For each multi-item scale, the cut-off value to ascribe items to a factor is (1) a minimum factor loading of 0.5 and a maximum loading of 0.3 on another factor and (2) deleting the item does not imply an increase in the factor’s Cronbach’s alpha (Hair et al., 2005). All Cronbach alpha values were above the 0.70 level, suggesting good reliability (Nunally, 1981). Table 2 provides description of the specific measures used in this study as well as their psychometric properties.
Theoretical framework Pleasure Environmental characteristics
437
Perceived control
Return Intent Stress Motivational orientations
Fig. 1. Theoretical framework.
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Table 2 Psychometric properties. Items
Communality
Loading
Eigenvalue
Alpha
q
Level of utilitarian motivation
Need/inform.
–
–
–
–
–
Dominance
Autonomous In control Influent
0.448 0.721 0.768
0.669 0.849 0.876
1.937
0.717
0.747
Pleasure
Happy Contented Pleased Hopeful Relaxed
0.695 0.474 0.602 0.540 0.607
0.834 0.779 0.776 0.735 0.689
2.919
0.802
0.824
Stress
Stressed
–
–
–
–
–
Return intent
Willingness Return intent
0.873 0.873
0.934 0.934
1.745
0.851
0.862
Table 3 Convergent and discriminant validity.
Dominance Pleasure Return intent
qvc
Dominance
Pleasure
Return intent
0.513 0.485 0.757
0.627 0.006 0.003
0.584 0.315
0.873
For the measures containing more than three items (i.e. perceived control and pleasantness), we decided to improve the assessment of the psychometric properties with confirmatory factor analysis (Anderson and Gerbing, 1988). The measurement model specifies a confirmatory analysis (CFA) of the hypothesized relationships between manifest variables and latent constructs. Concerning the dominance scale, though the chi-square test was statistically significant (w2/ddl ¼ 2.63, po0.05), the goodnessof-fit index (GFI ¼ 0.99), the comparative fit index (CFI ¼ 0.98), and the Tucker–Lewis index (TLI ¼ 0.97) were above the recommended threshold of 0.90 for a satisfactory GFI (Bentler, 1990), and the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA ¼ 0.00) indicated an acceptable fit (Bagozzi and Yi, 1989). The pleasantness (GFI ¼ 0.90; CFI ¼ 0.85; TLI ¼ 0.84; RMSEA ¼ 0.17) scale exhibits good psychometric properties too. In order to test the convergent validity, we used the procedure suggested by Hair et al. (2005) in which variance extracted among a set of construct items must be higher than 0.5. Dominance (0.51) and return intent (0.75) exhibited convergent validity, while pleasure almost did (0.48). To test the discriminant validity between pleasure, dominance, and return intent, we used the procedures suggested by Fornell and Larcker (1981). According to the authors, the average variance extracted for each construct must be higher than the squared correlation between that construct and any other construct. Our measures exhibited discriminant validity. Table 3 provides results of the convergent and discriminant validity. By following this method, we ensured that the measures of the constructs are reliable and valid before attempting to draw conclusions about relations between constructs.
4. Research results 4.1. Model building The role of the level of utilitarian motivational orientation as a moderator of the relationship between perceived control and
pleasure/stress was assessed by means of multigroup structural models, as suggested by Hair et al. (2005). Structural equation modeling (SEM) was chosen because it can simultaneously consider latent variables with multiple indicators, mediating effects, and causality hypotheses. A two-group structure model is more likely than a dummy variable approach to capture the moderating effect of the level of utilitarian motivational orientation. Indeed, as noted by Bagozzi and Yi (1989), multigroup analyses may provide more powerful tests of mean differences, especially when the homogeneity assumption is violated. For the purpose of testing the moderator role of the level of utilitarian motivations, constrained and unconstrained models were estimated using a multigroup procedure. Following this procedure, individual paths are separately examined across subsamples and a chi-square difference is tested to examine whether the estimated path coefficients are equal. Therefore, to confirm the moderating role of the level of utilitarian motivational orientation, subgroup analysis was carried out. The sample was mean split (M ¼ 5.17) into two subgroups corresponding to a low/ high level of utilitarian motivational orientation (Mlow ¼ 4.04 versus Mhigh ¼ 6.36, po0.001). Path coefficients between variables were examined separately for consumers who had a low degree of utilitarian motivational orientation (range ¼ 1–5, n ¼ 105) versus those who had high utilitarian motivational orientation (range ¼ 6–7, n ¼ 100). Evidence of moderation is found for a specific relationship if the coefficients are significant in one sub-sample and not in the other, or if those coefficients are both significantly different from zero and from each other. The relationships between the variables were estimated by maximum likelihood estimation.
4.2. Research findings The variations in the level of the chi-square for each of the unconstrained (w2 ¼ 0.245; df ¼ 2; p ¼ 0.885) and constrained (w2 ¼ 16.963; df ¼ 7; p ¼ .018) models bring some evidence about the moderator role of the level of utilitarian motivation. Table 4 displays the results of the unconstrained model with the twogroup structure. The fit indices look pretty good (RMSEA ¼ 0.000; RMR ¼ 0.018; GFI ¼ 0.999; AGFI ¼ 0.994; NFI ¼ 0.998; RFI ¼ 0.987; CFI ¼ 1.000; Table 4). As shown in Table 3, path coefficients between perceived control and pleasure were not significant for both the low (g11 ¼ .14; t ¼ 1.39) and high (g12 ¼ .14; t ¼ 1.42) utilitarian motivational orientation groups. These results suggest that no moderator effect of the level of utilitarian motivational
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orientation occurs on the relationship between perceived control and pleasure. Hence, H1 is not supported. However, at low utilitarian motivational orientation level, the relationship between perceived control and stress is not significant (g21 ¼ 0.26; t ¼ 1.40) whereas it becomes significant at high utilitarian motivational orientation level (g22 ¼ 0.50; t ¼ 3.68), indicating a moderating effect of the level of utilitarian motivational orientation. These results provide support for H2. The findings also revealed that perceived control significantly affects return intent in the higher motivated subgroup of shoppers (b42 ¼ 0.23; t ¼ 4.29) but not in the lower motivated subgroup (b41 ¼ 0.15; t ¼ 1.46). Thus, it appears that the level of utilitarian motivational orientation moderates the effect of perceived control on return intent. Surprisingly, the relationship between perceived control and return intent is negative, providing no support for H3. All these results will be further discussed in the next section. Additionally, the findings bring some evidence about mediating effects. Unlike for pleasure, results about stress at high utilitarian motivational orientation level revealed that paths
Table 4 Multi-group analysis results for unconstrained models. Path to
Pleasure Stress Return intent Return intent Return intent
Path from
Level of utilitarian motivational orientation
Perceived control Perceived control Perceived control Pleasure Stress
Low
High
0.14 0.26 0.15 0.71a 0.06
0.14 0.50 0.23 0.35a 0.11
Note—unstandardized coefficients that are statistically significant are shown in bold. a
z ¼ 7.056, po0.01.
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between (1) perceived control and stress (g22 ¼ 0.50; t ¼ 3.68) and (2) stress and return intent (b52 ¼ 0.11; t ¼ 2.94) are both significant, indicating a mediating effect of stress at high levels of utilitarian motivation. Fig. 2 illustrates the resulting model. Implications of these results are presented below, followed by a discussion of limitations and future research.
5. General discussion This research set out to explore the influence of perceived control and level of utilitarian motivational orientation on shopper’s behavior in the store environment. Our results show that at each level of utilitarian motivational orientation, the path between perceived control and pleasure is not significant, indicating that the level of utilitarian motivational orientation does not moderate the relationship between perceived control and pleasure. In other words, more perceived control does not lead to more pleasure, whatever be the level of utilitarian motivational orientation. This is quite surprising, considering previous research that emphasized the major role of perceived control on pleasure (Hui and Bateson, 1991; Ward and Barnes, 2001). An explanation for this finding may be that we focused on a supermarket in our field study. Such a choice of store may have made the shopping situation perceived by respondents as a job, which is not experienced as a pleasurable experience, whatever is the degree of perceived control. This lack of pleasure during the shopping experience for highly utilitarian-oriented shoppers is frequently found in retailing research. For example, Fischer and Arnold (1990) found that Christmas gift shopping in contemporary North American celebrations is taken quite seriously as real and important work by women. Clearly, the most significant finding of our study is that the level of utilitarian motivational orientation moderates the effect of perceived control on stress. Indeed, for highly
Multigroup equations with test statistics Err γ11 = -0.14 (-1.39) Low γ12 = 0.14 (1.42) High
Pleasure
β31 = 0.71 (7.47) Low β32 = 0.35 (6.75) High Err
Perceived control
β41 = -0.15 (-1.46) Low
Return intent
β 42 = -0.23 (-4.29) High
γ21 = -0.26 (-1.40) Low γ22 = -0.50 (-3.68) High
Stress
χ2 = 0.245; df = 2; p = 0.885 χ2/df = 0.122; RMSEA = 0.000; RMR = 0.018; GFI = 0.999; AGFI = 0.994; NFI = 0.998; RFI = 0.987; CFI = 1.000
β51 = -0.06 (-1.13) Low β52 = -0.11 (-2.94) High
Err
Fig. 2. Multigroup equations with test statistics.
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utilitarian-oriented shoppers who want to shop efficiently, a perception of lack of control leads to an increase in stress. This effect is not exhibited for low utilitarian-oriented shoppers, who do not need control and just want to experience fun shopping. This moderator effect is consistent with Averill (1973), who suggests that the stress-reducing property of perceived control depends on the meaning of the control response for the individual. Additionally, our results indicate a mediating effect of stress, for highly utilitarian shoppers. When such shoppers expect control but environmental characteristics do not provide a sufficient level of control, lack of control leads to an increase in stress, resulting in a lower return intent. This result is consistent with a very wide stream of research findings, which has shown that maintaining a sense of perceived control helps coping with stressors. This is also consistent with Lazarus and Folkman’s (1984) transactional view, for which stress is a product of the transaction between the person and a more or less controllable environment. Thus, it appears that negative effects of arousal-inducing store environments occur for highly utilitarian consumers because these environments prevent them from controlling their shopping experience, generating an increasing feeling of stress. Most surprisingly, our results show a negative and significant influence of perceived control on return intent for highly utilitarian-oriented shoppers. This is a particularly troublesome result because, according to the TPB, perceived control should usually generate a positive return intent. There are some possible explanations for this surprising result. Firstly, it is important to note that in the TPB, perceived control refers only to behavioral control, whereas in our research it refers to dominance, an emotion defined as the extent to which the consumer feels unrestricted or free to act in a variety of ways (Yani de Soriano and Foxall, 2006). Thus, in the TPB, perceived control affects intention because control suggests the presence of factors that may facilitate performance of a behavior. The fact that, in our research, perceived control refers to freedom and not to capability could explain, to some degree, the absence of correlation between perceived control and return intent. Secondly, we might want to recall that Russell and Mehrabian (1978) found the not-hypothesized effect that individuals approached submissiveness-eliciting settings more than dominance-eliciting ones. This could explain why results show a negative correlation for highly utilitarianoriented shoppers: when feeling highly in control, they may have associated it with a feeling of work, increasing the negative side of shopping and decreasing the return intent. Such negative effect of the perception of control has been suggested by Burger (1989), who states that perception of control involves assessments of its consequences, resulting sometimes in negative reactions for people who do not desire control. Thirdly, this result could be due to our measurement of return intent by only two items, while intent may be viewed as a multidimensional concept, emotionally or cognitively elicited. However, since the TPB posits that intention represents only a cognitive representation of a person’s readiness to perform a given behavior, several authors have relied on measures of intentions composed by only two (Bagozzi et al., 1992) or even one single item (Kang et al., 2006; Shimp and Kavas, 1984). Moreover, such measures have been found to ‘‘possess a statistically significant degree of predictive validity’’ (Katwani and Silk, 1982, p. 280) and to represent the ‘‘best single predictor of an individual’s behavior’’ (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975, p. 369) across a broad range of conditions.
5.1. Implications To our knowledge, our research provides the first examination of the moderating role of the level of utilitarian motivational
orientation in the relationship between perceived control and shopping behavior. The results confirm that the level of utilitarian motivational orientation moderates the relationship between perceived control and stress. The findings also show that perceived control mostly influences return intent and stress, and not pleasure. These results are of particular interest for retail management. They reinforce the emerging thesis that successful store environments would truly be those that provide the right level of perceived control through their design. Thus, from a managerial point of view, our findings provide guidelines for the designing of retail environments. Architects or interior designers may assume that by providing adjustment capabilities for specific features of the environment, they impact shoppers’ perceived control. Consequently, even if it is usually written that retailers should use atmospherics as a key component of the store environment, they should be aware that the way consumers react to atmospherics depends on their shopping motivation and their perceived control. Utilitarian-oriented consumers do not expect to be disturbed when shopping; they just want to achieve their goal quickly, easily, and efficiently. This implies that retailers should develop an atmosphere that provides enough perceived control, while the environment should be less control inducing for low utilitarian-oriented consumers. Though an increase in control could not lead to more pleasure for shoppers with high utilitarian motivational orientation, a decrease could lead to negative responses, like stress. For retail environments in which shoppers are highly utilitarian oriented, like supermarkets or grocery stores, design must be control inducing, preventing crowding, and providing some freedom and choice. Thus, supermarkets managers should think more about the way they can facilitate the goal achievement of their customers instead of spending great amounts of money in atmospheric policies.
5.2. Limitations and further research A first limitation of our research is about the measurement of the perceived control concept. We retained the multi-item dominance subscale as a measure of perceived control because it is widely used in retailing research and because previous measures of control often are single-item questions that measure a general level of control that individuals perceive they have over the environment. Consequently, these measures are not able to capture an individual’s perception of what the important factors to gain a sense of control are. They also cannot distinguish between description (how much control) and meaning (the nature of control). However, the semantic domain of control requires development of multi-item scales of perceived control that go beyond the multi-item dominance subscale we used, and can discriminate it from its close relatives. Therefore, a deeper exploration of the perceived control concept is still needed, particularly in the retail context. A second limitation is related to the fact that we considered only one kind of motivational orientation, namely the utilitarian one. Considering the importance and wide variety of hedonic shopping motives in retail research (Arnold and Reynolds, 2003), we could have used a scale measuring such motives in order to understand the extent to which perceived control is wanted for recreational-oriented shoppers. The use of a hedonic motivation scale as a moderator could help emphasizing a negative role of perceived control on pleasure, where shoppers just want to live the shopping moment as a fun experience. In such a case, controllability is not desired, and pleasure would probably be derived more from a low level of perceived control than from a higher one.
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Considering the complexity of the relationships between perceived control and motivation, other psychological theoretical foundations might be relevant. For example, the attributional egotism theory states that uncontrollability leads to poor performance through an effect on motivation. Another motivational theory called ‘‘reactance’’ posits that when control is threatened, individuals respond by increasing their motivation in order to restore their control. These psychological theories could be appraised through the overall learned helplessness theory. They might help further research in clarifying the influence of control and motivational orientations on shopping behavior. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, further empirical research is warranted to apply our framework to other retail contexts. For example, it could be of particular interest to study how individuals’ reactions differ on websites because of various task definitions. Websites visited by customers who just want to browse should not massively use atmospherics because that would disturb the individuals’ control. Subsequently, retail research might want to consider further investigation on the relationship between motivational orientations and perceived control in order to generalize our results to other retail contexts.
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Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jretconser
Perceived control and shopping behavior: The moderating role of the level of utilitarian motivational orientation Renaud Lunardo a,, Ababacar Mbengue b,1 a b
Troyes Champagne School of Management, 217, avenue Pierre Brossolette, BP 710, 10002 Troyes Cedex, France Universite de Reims and Reims Management School, 57 bis rue Pierre Taittinger, 51096 Reims, France
a r t i c l e in f o
Keywords: Perceived control Stress Pleasure Return intent Utilitarian orientation
a b s t r a c t Examining the influence of the retail environment on shopping behavior, Kaltcheva and Weitz (2006. When should a retailer create an exciting store environment? Journal of Marketing 70 (January), 107–118) showed that shopping motivation (utilitarian versus hedonic) moderates the relationship between arousal and shoppers’ behavior in the store environment. In particular, they found that high arousal decreases intentions to visit for consumers with a utilitarian motivational orientation. Focusing on this particular type of shopping motivation, we hypothesized that the negative effects of arousalinducing store environments occur for consumers with higher utilitarian motivations because these environments prevent those specific consumers from controlling their shopping experience. We consequently adapted Kaltcheva and Weitz’s (2006) framework by building a model articulating perceived control, stress, pleasure, and return intent. A multigroup analysis of consumers with high versus low utilitarian shopping motivations identified in a field study conducted in Europe gave support to our hypothesis. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
1. Introduction Since Kotler’s (1973) seminal work, the store environment has been considered an important retail attribute explaining patronage behavior (Turley and Milliman, 2000), gaining increasing attention from both academics and practitioners. Yet, empirical research analyzing the influence of the retail environment on emotional responses and shopping behavior exhibits inconsistent results. Kaltcheva and Weitz (2006) explain these inconsistencies through the concept of motivational orientation, which moderates the effect of arousal on pleasure. For recreational-oriented consumers, high arousal has a positive effect on pleasure and intentions to visit and make purchases, while this effect is negative for utilitarian-oriented consumers. A relevant question, then, is whether the negative effects of arousal-inducing store environments occur for utilitarian-oriented consumers because these environments prevent them from controlling their shopping experience. Indeed, control seems to be important for consumers driven by utilitarian shopping motives, who prefer retail stores facilitating their perception of control during the shopping experience.
Corresponding author. Tel.: +33 325 71 22 29; fax : +33 325 71 22 38.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (R. Lunardo), [email protected] (A. Mbengue). 1 Tel.: +33 326 9187 31; fax: +33 326 91 38 69. 0969-6989/$ - see front matter Published by Elsevier Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.jretconser.2009.06.004
Therefore, the objective of the present research is to examine the specific moderating influence of consumers’ level of utilitarian motivational orientation on the relationship between perception of control and shopping behavior. In the next section, we propose a conceptual framework that briefly presents the concepts of ‘‘shopping motivation’’ and ‘‘perceived control’’ before discussing the linkages among shopping motivation, perceived control, and shoppers’ behavior. This review highlights consistent findings about the importance of perceived control for goal-oriented consumers, suggesting the need to consider the perception of control as a key predictor of shopping behavior for utilitarian-oriented consumers. We then describe the methodology and report the results of our analysis before concluding with a discussion of contributions for retailing research, retailing management, limitations, and areas for future research.
2. Theoretical framework 2.1. Shopping motivations Since Stone (1954) identified four distinct ‘‘types’’ of shoppers based on shopping motivations, a large body of literature has addressed the issue of shopping motives and many studies have developed taxonomies of retail shoppers based on various criteria like orientations to product usage (Darden and Reynolds, 1971),
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shopping enjoyment (Bellenger and Korgaonkar, 1980), and retail attribute preferences (Bellenger et al., 1977; for a review, see Westbrook and Black, 1985). The widely cited study conducted by Tauber (1972) demonstrated that shoppers’ motivations can be different from those strictly related to acquiring some products. These motives can be classified into two main dimensions—personal and social motives. Personal motives refer to the personal quest for gratification, role playing, learning about new trends, physical activity, or sensory stimulation. On the other hand, social motives represent the need to live some social experiences, communicate with others, exist through status and authority, and experience the pleasure of bargaining. Hence, consumers engage in shopping experiences when their need for a particular good is judged as sufficient for allocating time and money to go to a store to shop, or when they need attention, to be with peers, to meet people with similar interests, to exercise, or simply when they have leisure time. However, extant literature shows that two fundamental motivational orientations underlie the different shopping motives. Consumers shop differently depending on whether their motivations are primarily utilitarian, task oriented, for efficiency or recreational, experiential, hedonic, for fun (Babin et al., 1994). The ‘‘utilitarian motivational orientation’’ has been the primary focus of marketing researchers. As noted by Kaltcheva and Weitz (2006), this motivational orientation involves consumers engaging in shopping out of necessity to obtain needed products, services, or information with little or no inherent satisfaction derived from the shopping activity itself. At the opposite of this utilitarian motivation, the ‘‘recreational-oriented motivational orientation’’ refers to consumers engaging in shopping to derive inherent satisfaction from the shopping activity itself. In this case, the shopping activity is motivated by more experiential benefits provided by the experience, such as agreement or excitement. The experience is freely chosen, and there is no need to engage in it. Consequently, utilitarian consumers and recreational consumers are likely to differ in terms of the level of control they desire to perceive during the shopping experience. Furthermore, there’s also a need for distinguishing between a general and a situational utilitarian orientation. Some shoppers may be consistently utilitarian oriented because of their personality, while some others may be utilitarian oriented because of a specific shopping situation. Among psychological constructs, locus of control (LOC) may be viewed as a major predictor of general utilitarian orientation. LOC refers to people’s perceptions about whether or not their behaviors are reliably linked to outcomes. An internal LOC is the belief that they are, and an external LOC is the belief that they are not (Rotter, 1966). Literature offers evidence for internals believing more than externals in their own capabilities to control events, and consequently setting their own goals (Phillips and Gully, 1997). They also put a great deal of effort into mastering situations and derive more satisfaction from situations calling for personal control. Hence, an internal orientation may induce a more utilitarian-oriented motivation. Sociological constructs may also be drivers of consistent utilitarian orientations. As such, marital status may induce for married women a more consistent utilitarian orientation toward shopping. The key factor explaining orientation toward shopping of such women is their view of alternative uses of time. They have to allocate their time to high priorities and shop in stores that minimize the time required to accomplish the needed shopping task. This phenomenon has found support by Stone (1954), who concluded that whichever outlet required the least effort and was the most convenient to patronize was the preferred outlet for these consumers. However, non-married women have been found to be more recreational oriented than males. Women seem prone to assortment seeking,
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social interaction, and browsing, while males seem more prone to information attainment and convenience seeking (Noble et al., 2006). Nevertheless, utilitarian orientation may also derive more from a specific shopping situation than from a general orientation. Among the five situational characteristics (physical surroundings, social surroundings, temporal, antecedent states, and task definitions) identified by Belk (1975), task definition has been divided by Van Kenhove et al. (1999) into five categories: (1) needing something urgently, (2) having to buy a lot of material, (3) being about to do a difficult job that requires special material, (4) doing regular purchase, and (5) wanting to get ideas. Such a situational variable may be relevant for explaining why (and when) someone becomes situation-utilitarian oriented. For instance, people needing something urgently may become utilitarian oriented and may then value proximity of the store, quick service, and available stock. On the contrary, recreational-oriented consumers will value a wide range of products and novelties when visiting a store to get ideas. One key conclusion that may be drawn from the psychology and marketing literatures is that whatever the consistent or situational orientation, utilitarian consumers and recreational consumers are likely to differ in terms of the level of control they desire to perceive during the shopping experience. Given the demonstrated relationship between shopping motivations and emotional states (Dawson et al., 1990), it is likely that the extent to which situational factors, such as crowding or atmospherics, may elicit negative emotions depends on how much they interfere with shopping motivations and goal attainment. When shopping motivation is hedonic, goal attainment refers to experiencing fun; when shopping motivation is utilitarian, it refers to product acquisition. In this case, goal attainment may suggest perception of control.
2.2. Research on perceived control Over the past five decades, the issue of perceived control has been identified as a powerful construct for understanding behavior (for a review, see Skinner, 1996). Control has often been defined as the need to demonstrate one’s competence, superiority, and mastery over the environment (White, 1959). In environmental psychology, Mehrabian and Russell (1974) defined control as a basic emotion, in addition to pleasure and stimulation, in their pleasure–arousal–dominance (PAD) measure of affective responses. They assert that environmental stimuli affect the emotional state of an individual, thereby influencing behavior. In their model, control refers to dominance, an emotional response ranging from extreme feelings of lack of control on one’s surroundings to feelings of being influential and powerful, or in control. Furthermore, the concept of perceived control has been operationalized in three different ways—cognitive control, decisional control, and behavioral control (Averill, 1973, pp. 286–287). Cognitive control refers to ‘‘the way in which an event is interpreted, appraised or incorporated into a cognitive plan’’. Decisional control is defined as ‘‘the opportunity to choose among various courses of action’’, and may represent the range of choice or number of options open to an individual. Behavioral control refers to ‘‘the availability of a response which may directly influence or modify the objective characteristics of a threatening event’’. This particular type of control, defined by Ajzen (2002, p. 665) as ‘‘the perceived ease or difficulty of performing the behavior’’, has been introduced in his theory of planned behavior (TPB; Ajzen, 1991). The TPB offers a structured framework for explaining behavior from perceived behavioral control, in addition to personal attitudes toward the behavior and subjective norms.
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This theory suggests that perceived behavioral control may have a direct impact on intention, which in turn affects actual behavior. Previous research has demonstrated that providing perceived control to individuals in the physical environment is necessary to their well-being, including physiological responses, task performance, tolerance of pain and frustration, self-report of distress and stress, and physiological well-being (Averill, 1973; Thompson, 1981; Burger, 1989). There is evidence for the positive effects of perceived control, especially in regard to coping with stress (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984; Paterson and Neufeld, 1995). A pervasive view is that when perceived control is lacking, feelings of stress will follow. Two classic studies often used to support this view are those by Seligman (1974) on learned helplessness, and Glass and Singer (1972) on noise after-effects. In the service context, control refers to the degree of power and influence on the service specification, realization, and outcome. The service provider may facilitate control through service architecture, including equipment, facilities, and organization (Van Raaij and Pruyn, 1998). That is, a well-chosen interior with a congenial ambiance can facilitate an individual’s perception of control. If a consumer senses a loss of control in the service encounter, he may have a variety of negative responses (Navasimaym and Hinkin, 2003). In service settings, one of the most studied elements of ambiance that has been related to the perception of control is crowding (Langer and Saegart, 1977; Baron and Rodin, 1978; Hui and Bateson, 1991). Crowding effects are assumed to occur whenever high spatial or social density leads to a loss of control regarding the selection of importantly valued actions or goals (Machleit et al., 2000). In a study conducted by Hui and Bateson (1991), findings indicate that perceived control could counteract the negative influence of crowding on pleasure, leading to the conclusion that perceived control is a powerful concept in explaining the consumer’s reactions to crowding in the service environment. In the physical environment of retail context, consumers feeling in control have also been shown to be in a better mood and more involved (Ward and Barnes, 2001). In the specific context of online buying, atmospheric cues enhancing perception of control are a major principle underlying consumers’ responses to the environment. A navigational design of a web site enhancing user’s control can lead to the flow experience, that is the state in which people are so intensely involved in an activity that ‘‘nothing else seems to matter’’ (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, p. 4). Thus, control appears as a major concept for consumers to enjoy their experience. Table 1 summarizes the research investigating the effects of perceived control on consumer’s behavior. The table shows that in almost all cases, perception of control is positively related to positive responses, such as pleasure, satisfaction, or intent to repurchase.
2.3. Motivational orientation, perceived control, and shopper’s behavior In Bitner’s (1992) model of Servicescapes, the desired level of arousal appears to be dependent on the consumer’s purpose when being in a particular environment. This model posits that because goal-directed behaviors suppose high levels of control, high level of arousal may disturb the consumer’s perception of control. The subsequent satisfaction might be dependent on the extent to which the environment matches the consumer’s desired levels of goal achievement and control. More recently, Kaltcheva and Weitz’s (2006) framework integrated motivational orientation to explain the effect of environmental characteristics on consumer shopping behaviors. They demonstrated that environmental characteristics affect consumer arousal, which in turn affects pleasure and consumer shopping behaviors. Moreover, consumer motivational orientation moderates the relationship between arousal and pleasure. While Bitner (1992) and Kaltcheva and Weitz (2006) focused on arousal, our approach proposes a framework based on perceived control. We suggest in this research that consumer shopping behavior depends on (1) the level of control they perceive during the shopping experience in the store environment and (2) their level of utilitarian motivational orientation. Indeed, because utilitarian consumer behavior has been described as task related, product acquisition would usually be classified as a goal for utilitarian-oriented consumers. The focus of such utilitarian-oriented consumers is on being efficient in completing their shopping activity. Such consumers describe shopping as a ‘‘work’’ and evaluate the results of their effort by terms commonly associated with work performance, like success and accomplishment. In other words, control may be desired for utilitarian-oriented consumers, who want to shop efficiently and easily deal with the store environment in order to attain their own goal. Their choice of the store to shop in is mainly based on the extent to which the environmental stimuli may facilitate their goal achievement (Batra and Ahtola, 1990; Kaltcheva and Weitz, 2006). Thus, the store environment may in this case take the form of facilitating conditions. Ward and Barnes (2001) note that perception of control in the store environment is likely to enhance positive responses because it refers to the consumer’s judgement of whether the environment will facilitate goal achievement. Otherwise, a lack of control that would impede such consumers from achieving their goals would reduce positive responses like pleasure or return intent. Van Kenhove et al. (1999) showed that recreational-oriented consumers appreciated to be under the influence of environmental stimuli during their shopping experience because they had no goal to achieve. Because recreational motivation induces more fun than task completion (Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982), no
Table 1 Empirical research on the impact of perceived control on behavior. Citation
Setting
Hui and Bateson (1991) Bank and bar Bitner (1992) Servicescapes Van Raaij and Pruyn (1998) Services Ward and Barnes (2001) Navasimaym and Hinkin (2003) a
Independent variable
Dependent variable
Consumer density and consumer choice Personal control Participation in the specification and realization of the service experience Environmental stimuli
Pleasure Pleasurea Satisfactiona
Restaurant and fast food Hotel and restaurant Consumer choice
Note that authors just proposed the relationship without testing it empirically.
Arousal, pleasure, mood, involvement, attitude, and behavior Satisfaction, intent to repurchase
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goal is at stake during the shopping experience, and recreationaloriented consumers mainly look for a pleasant retail store environment. Thus, a loss of control would not disturb such recreational-oriented consumers. On the basis of the preceding discussion, we propose the following: H1. . Level of utilitarian motivational orientation moderates the effect of perceived control on pleasure: perceived control increases pleasure for consumers with a high level of utilitarian motivational orientation. H2. . Level of utilitarian motivational orientation moderates the effect of perceived control on stress: perceived control decreases stress for consumers with a high level of utilitarian motivational orientation. H3. Level of utilitarian motivational orientation moderates the effect of perceived control on return intent: perceived control increases return intent for consumers with a high level of utilitarian motivational orientation. The literature review and the preceding hypotheses lead to the theoretical framework depicted in Fig. 1. It is quite similar to Kaltcheva and Weitz’s (2006) framework but it substantially differs from it through the substitution of arousal by perceived control, and the introduction of stress as another mediator. Our framework proposes that environmental characteristics affect consumer’s perceived control, which in turn affects directly pleasure and stress, and through them return intent. Additionally, the TPB suggests a direct relationship between perceived control and return intent. The level of utilitarian motivational orientation moderates the relationship between perceived control and pleasure, stress, or return intent. When consumers have a high level of utilitarian motivational orientation, perceived control should have a positive effect on pleasure and return intent, and a negative effect on stress. Furthermore, pleasure (stress) is expected to have a positive (negative) impact on return intent.
3. Method 3.1. Data Because Larson (1989) criticized the focus of field studies on subjects experiencing profound losses of control that are not representative of everyday life situations, we decided to collect data from usual shoppers. Thus, data came from a sample of active shoppers in a medium-sized city (about 200 000 people) in France. As the level of utilitarian motivational orientation was a core parameter in our design, a self-administered questionnaire was given to shoppers at the exit of a ‘‘supermarket’’, a kind of
store in which the motivational orientations are primarily utilitarian. The data collection was conducted during the month of April 2007, and 234 questionnaires were finally filled in by shoppers. However, 29 questionnaires were incomplete, resulting in 205 usable questionnaires. Overall, the sample is primarily aged 46–60 (38.5%), educated, and mainly employed, and 58% female and 42% male.
3.2. Measures and psychometric properties The dominance scale of the PAD has often been chosen as a measure of perceived control (Hui and Bateson, 1991; Ward and Barnes, 2001) even though some criticism has been raised against it (Russell, 1978). This semantic subscale defines dominance– submissiveness as ‘‘the extent a person feels powerful vis-a-vis the environment that surrounds him’’ (Russell and Mehrabian, 1976, p. 6). According to their paradigm, individuals feel dominant when they are able to influence or control the situation they are in; in contrast, they feel submissive when the environment influences them. Thus, the scale asked participants to rate on a seven-point Likert scale the extent to which they felt in control in the store environment through verbal appraisals of being controlling (controlled), influential (influenced), in control (cared-for), important (awed), dominant (submissive), and autonomous (guided). In order to measure the level of utilitarian motivational orientation, we used a one-item scale adapted from the scale developed by Dawson et al. (1990). Shoppers had to tell to what extent they agreed with ‘‘I’m going in this store to get what I need or to get information’’. To measure emotional responses, we assessed pleasure with five items based on Mehrabian and Russell’s (1974) pleasure scale. Those authors assess pleasure in terms of respondents’ feeling happy (unhappy), pleased (annoyed), satisfied (unsatisfied), contented (melancholic), hopeful (despairing), and relaxed (bored). We assessed shoppers’ stress with the single-item scale ‘‘in this store, I felt stressed’’. As a relational response, return intent was measured by a two-item scale. Respondents had to rate the degree to which they agreed with ‘‘in the future, if I had to shop for the same reasons that today, I would like to come back in this store’’ and ‘‘I have the intention to come back to this store’’. For each item, we used seven-point rating scales. For each multi-item scale, the cut-off value to ascribe items to a factor is (1) a minimum factor loading of 0.5 and a maximum loading of 0.3 on another factor and (2) deleting the item does not imply an increase in the factor’s Cronbach’s alpha (Hair et al., 2005). All Cronbach alpha values were above the 0.70 level, suggesting good reliability (Nunally, 1981). Table 2 provides description of the specific measures used in this study as well as their psychometric properties.
Theoretical framework Pleasure Environmental characteristics
437
Perceived control
Return Intent Stress Motivational orientations
Fig. 1. Theoretical framework.
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Table 2 Psychometric properties. Items
Communality
Loading
Eigenvalue
Alpha
q
Level of utilitarian motivation
Need/inform.
–
–
–
–
–
Dominance
Autonomous In control Influent
0.448 0.721 0.768
0.669 0.849 0.876
1.937
0.717
0.747
Pleasure
Happy Contented Pleased Hopeful Relaxed
0.695 0.474 0.602 0.540 0.607
0.834 0.779 0.776 0.735 0.689
2.919
0.802
0.824
Stress
Stressed
–
–
–
–
–
Return intent
Willingness Return intent
0.873 0.873
0.934 0.934
1.745
0.851
0.862
Table 3 Convergent and discriminant validity.
Dominance Pleasure Return intent
qvc
Dominance
Pleasure
Return intent
0.513 0.485 0.757
0.627 0.006 0.003
0.584 0.315
0.873
For the measures containing more than three items (i.e. perceived control and pleasantness), we decided to improve the assessment of the psychometric properties with confirmatory factor analysis (Anderson and Gerbing, 1988). The measurement model specifies a confirmatory analysis (CFA) of the hypothesized relationships between manifest variables and latent constructs. Concerning the dominance scale, though the chi-square test was statistically significant (w2/ddl ¼ 2.63, po0.05), the goodnessof-fit index (GFI ¼ 0.99), the comparative fit index (CFI ¼ 0.98), and the Tucker–Lewis index (TLI ¼ 0.97) were above the recommended threshold of 0.90 for a satisfactory GFI (Bentler, 1990), and the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA ¼ 0.00) indicated an acceptable fit (Bagozzi and Yi, 1989). The pleasantness (GFI ¼ 0.90; CFI ¼ 0.85; TLI ¼ 0.84; RMSEA ¼ 0.17) scale exhibits good psychometric properties too. In order to test the convergent validity, we used the procedure suggested by Hair et al. (2005) in which variance extracted among a set of construct items must be higher than 0.5. Dominance (0.51) and return intent (0.75) exhibited convergent validity, while pleasure almost did (0.48). To test the discriminant validity between pleasure, dominance, and return intent, we used the procedures suggested by Fornell and Larcker (1981). According to the authors, the average variance extracted for each construct must be higher than the squared correlation between that construct and any other construct. Our measures exhibited discriminant validity. Table 3 provides results of the convergent and discriminant validity. By following this method, we ensured that the measures of the constructs are reliable and valid before attempting to draw conclusions about relations between constructs.
4. Research results 4.1. Model building The role of the level of utilitarian motivational orientation as a moderator of the relationship between perceived control and
pleasure/stress was assessed by means of multigroup structural models, as suggested by Hair et al. (2005). Structural equation modeling (SEM) was chosen because it can simultaneously consider latent variables with multiple indicators, mediating effects, and causality hypotheses. A two-group structure model is more likely than a dummy variable approach to capture the moderating effect of the level of utilitarian motivational orientation. Indeed, as noted by Bagozzi and Yi (1989), multigroup analyses may provide more powerful tests of mean differences, especially when the homogeneity assumption is violated. For the purpose of testing the moderator role of the level of utilitarian motivations, constrained and unconstrained models were estimated using a multigroup procedure. Following this procedure, individual paths are separately examined across subsamples and a chi-square difference is tested to examine whether the estimated path coefficients are equal. Therefore, to confirm the moderating role of the level of utilitarian motivational orientation, subgroup analysis was carried out. The sample was mean split (M ¼ 5.17) into two subgroups corresponding to a low/ high level of utilitarian motivational orientation (Mlow ¼ 4.04 versus Mhigh ¼ 6.36, po0.001). Path coefficients between variables were examined separately for consumers who had a low degree of utilitarian motivational orientation (range ¼ 1–5, n ¼ 105) versus those who had high utilitarian motivational orientation (range ¼ 6–7, n ¼ 100). Evidence of moderation is found for a specific relationship if the coefficients are significant in one sub-sample and not in the other, or if those coefficients are both significantly different from zero and from each other. The relationships between the variables were estimated by maximum likelihood estimation.
4.2. Research findings The variations in the level of the chi-square for each of the unconstrained (w2 ¼ 0.245; df ¼ 2; p ¼ 0.885) and constrained (w2 ¼ 16.963; df ¼ 7; p ¼ .018) models bring some evidence about the moderator role of the level of utilitarian motivation. Table 4 displays the results of the unconstrained model with the twogroup structure. The fit indices look pretty good (RMSEA ¼ 0.000; RMR ¼ 0.018; GFI ¼ 0.999; AGFI ¼ 0.994; NFI ¼ 0.998; RFI ¼ 0.987; CFI ¼ 1.000; Table 4). As shown in Table 3, path coefficients between perceived control and pleasure were not significant for both the low (g11 ¼ .14; t ¼ 1.39) and high (g12 ¼ .14; t ¼ 1.42) utilitarian motivational orientation groups. These results suggest that no moderator effect of the level of utilitarian motivational
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orientation occurs on the relationship between perceived control and pleasure. Hence, H1 is not supported. However, at low utilitarian motivational orientation level, the relationship between perceived control and stress is not significant (g21 ¼ 0.26; t ¼ 1.40) whereas it becomes significant at high utilitarian motivational orientation level (g22 ¼ 0.50; t ¼ 3.68), indicating a moderating effect of the level of utilitarian motivational orientation. These results provide support for H2. The findings also revealed that perceived control significantly affects return intent in the higher motivated subgroup of shoppers (b42 ¼ 0.23; t ¼ 4.29) but not in the lower motivated subgroup (b41 ¼ 0.15; t ¼ 1.46). Thus, it appears that the level of utilitarian motivational orientation moderates the effect of perceived control on return intent. Surprisingly, the relationship between perceived control and return intent is negative, providing no support for H3. All these results will be further discussed in the next section. Additionally, the findings bring some evidence about mediating effects. Unlike for pleasure, results about stress at high utilitarian motivational orientation level revealed that paths
Table 4 Multi-group analysis results for unconstrained models. Path to
Pleasure Stress Return intent Return intent Return intent
Path from
Level of utilitarian motivational orientation
Perceived control Perceived control Perceived control Pleasure Stress
Low
High
0.14 0.26 0.15 0.71a 0.06
0.14 0.50 0.23 0.35a 0.11
Note—unstandardized coefficients that are statistically significant are shown in bold. a
z ¼ 7.056, po0.01.
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between (1) perceived control and stress (g22 ¼ 0.50; t ¼ 3.68) and (2) stress and return intent (b52 ¼ 0.11; t ¼ 2.94) are both significant, indicating a mediating effect of stress at high levels of utilitarian motivation. Fig. 2 illustrates the resulting model. Implications of these results are presented below, followed by a discussion of limitations and future research.
5. General discussion This research set out to explore the influence of perceived control and level of utilitarian motivational orientation on shopper’s behavior in the store environment. Our results show that at each level of utilitarian motivational orientation, the path between perceived control and pleasure is not significant, indicating that the level of utilitarian motivational orientation does not moderate the relationship between perceived control and pleasure. In other words, more perceived control does not lead to more pleasure, whatever be the level of utilitarian motivational orientation. This is quite surprising, considering previous research that emphasized the major role of perceived control on pleasure (Hui and Bateson, 1991; Ward and Barnes, 2001). An explanation for this finding may be that we focused on a supermarket in our field study. Such a choice of store may have made the shopping situation perceived by respondents as a job, which is not experienced as a pleasurable experience, whatever is the degree of perceived control. This lack of pleasure during the shopping experience for highly utilitarian-oriented shoppers is frequently found in retailing research. For example, Fischer and Arnold (1990) found that Christmas gift shopping in contemporary North American celebrations is taken quite seriously as real and important work by women. Clearly, the most significant finding of our study is that the level of utilitarian motivational orientation moderates the effect of perceived control on stress. Indeed, for highly
Multigroup equations with test statistics Err γ11 = -0.14 (-1.39) Low γ12 = 0.14 (1.42) High
Pleasure
β31 = 0.71 (7.47) Low β32 = 0.35 (6.75) High Err
Perceived control
β41 = -0.15 (-1.46) Low
Return intent
β 42 = -0.23 (-4.29) High
γ21 = -0.26 (-1.40) Low γ22 = -0.50 (-3.68) High
Stress
χ2 = 0.245; df = 2; p = 0.885 χ2/df = 0.122; RMSEA = 0.000; RMR = 0.018; GFI = 0.999; AGFI = 0.994; NFI = 0.998; RFI = 0.987; CFI = 1.000
β51 = -0.06 (-1.13) Low β52 = -0.11 (-2.94) High
Err
Fig. 2. Multigroup equations with test statistics.
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utilitarian-oriented shoppers who want to shop efficiently, a perception of lack of control leads to an increase in stress. This effect is not exhibited for low utilitarian-oriented shoppers, who do not need control and just want to experience fun shopping. This moderator effect is consistent with Averill (1973), who suggests that the stress-reducing property of perceived control depends on the meaning of the control response for the individual. Additionally, our results indicate a mediating effect of stress, for highly utilitarian shoppers. When such shoppers expect control but environmental characteristics do not provide a sufficient level of control, lack of control leads to an increase in stress, resulting in a lower return intent. This result is consistent with a very wide stream of research findings, which has shown that maintaining a sense of perceived control helps coping with stressors. This is also consistent with Lazarus and Folkman’s (1984) transactional view, for which stress is a product of the transaction between the person and a more or less controllable environment. Thus, it appears that negative effects of arousal-inducing store environments occur for highly utilitarian consumers because these environments prevent them from controlling their shopping experience, generating an increasing feeling of stress. Most surprisingly, our results show a negative and significant influence of perceived control on return intent for highly utilitarian-oriented shoppers. This is a particularly troublesome result because, according to the TPB, perceived control should usually generate a positive return intent. There are some possible explanations for this surprising result. Firstly, it is important to note that in the TPB, perceived control refers only to behavioral control, whereas in our research it refers to dominance, an emotion defined as the extent to which the consumer feels unrestricted or free to act in a variety of ways (Yani de Soriano and Foxall, 2006). Thus, in the TPB, perceived control affects intention because control suggests the presence of factors that may facilitate performance of a behavior. The fact that, in our research, perceived control refers to freedom and not to capability could explain, to some degree, the absence of correlation between perceived control and return intent. Secondly, we might want to recall that Russell and Mehrabian (1978) found the not-hypothesized effect that individuals approached submissiveness-eliciting settings more than dominance-eliciting ones. This could explain why results show a negative correlation for highly utilitarianoriented shoppers: when feeling highly in control, they may have associated it with a feeling of work, increasing the negative side of shopping and decreasing the return intent. Such negative effect of the perception of control has been suggested by Burger (1989), who states that perception of control involves assessments of its consequences, resulting sometimes in negative reactions for people who do not desire control. Thirdly, this result could be due to our measurement of return intent by only two items, while intent may be viewed as a multidimensional concept, emotionally or cognitively elicited. However, since the TPB posits that intention represents only a cognitive representation of a person’s readiness to perform a given behavior, several authors have relied on measures of intentions composed by only two (Bagozzi et al., 1992) or even one single item (Kang et al., 2006; Shimp and Kavas, 1984). Moreover, such measures have been found to ‘‘possess a statistically significant degree of predictive validity’’ (Katwani and Silk, 1982, p. 280) and to represent the ‘‘best single predictor of an individual’s behavior’’ (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975, p. 369) across a broad range of conditions.
5.1. Implications To our knowledge, our research provides the first examination of the moderating role of the level of utilitarian motivational
orientation in the relationship between perceived control and shopping behavior. The results confirm that the level of utilitarian motivational orientation moderates the relationship between perceived control and stress. The findings also show that perceived control mostly influences return intent and stress, and not pleasure. These results are of particular interest for retail management. They reinforce the emerging thesis that successful store environments would truly be those that provide the right level of perceived control through their design. Thus, from a managerial point of view, our findings provide guidelines for the designing of retail environments. Architects or interior designers may assume that by providing adjustment capabilities for specific features of the environment, they impact shoppers’ perceived control. Consequently, even if it is usually written that retailers should use atmospherics as a key component of the store environment, they should be aware that the way consumers react to atmospherics depends on their shopping motivation and their perceived control. Utilitarian-oriented consumers do not expect to be disturbed when shopping; they just want to achieve their goal quickly, easily, and efficiently. This implies that retailers should develop an atmosphere that provides enough perceived control, while the environment should be less control inducing for low utilitarian-oriented consumers. Though an increase in control could not lead to more pleasure for shoppers with high utilitarian motivational orientation, a decrease could lead to negative responses, like stress. For retail environments in which shoppers are highly utilitarian oriented, like supermarkets or grocery stores, design must be control inducing, preventing crowding, and providing some freedom and choice. Thus, supermarkets managers should think more about the way they can facilitate the goal achievement of their customers instead of spending great amounts of money in atmospheric policies.
5.2. Limitations and further research A first limitation of our research is about the measurement of the perceived control concept. We retained the multi-item dominance subscale as a measure of perceived control because it is widely used in retailing research and because previous measures of control often are single-item questions that measure a general level of control that individuals perceive they have over the environment. Consequently, these measures are not able to capture an individual’s perception of what the important factors to gain a sense of control are. They also cannot distinguish between description (how much control) and meaning (the nature of control). However, the semantic domain of control requires development of multi-item scales of perceived control that go beyond the multi-item dominance subscale we used, and can discriminate it from its close relatives. Therefore, a deeper exploration of the perceived control concept is still needed, particularly in the retail context. A second limitation is related to the fact that we considered only one kind of motivational orientation, namely the utilitarian one. Considering the importance and wide variety of hedonic shopping motives in retail research (Arnold and Reynolds, 2003), we could have used a scale measuring such motives in order to understand the extent to which perceived control is wanted for recreational-oriented shoppers. The use of a hedonic motivation scale as a moderator could help emphasizing a negative role of perceived control on pleasure, where shoppers just want to live the shopping moment as a fun experience. In such a case, controllability is not desired, and pleasure would probably be derived more from a low level of perceived control than from a higher one.
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Considering the complexity of the relationships between perceived control and motivation, other psychological theoretical foundations might be relevant. For example, the attributional egotism theory states that uncontrollability leads to poor performance through an effect on motivation. Another motivational theory called ‘‘reactance’’ posits that when control is threatened, individuals respond by increasing their motivation in order to restore their control. These psychological theories could be appraised through the overall learned helplessness theory. They might help further research in clarifying the influence of control and motivational orientations on shopping behavior. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, further empirical research is warranted to apply our framework to other retail contexts. For example, it could be of particular interest to study how individuals’ reactions differ on websites because of various task definitions. Websites visited by customers who just want to browse should not massively use atmospherics because that would disturb the individuals’ control. Subsequently, retail research might want to consider further investigation on the relationship between motivational orientations and perceived control in order to generalize our results to other retail contexts.
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