Summary

Current Business Research Project Paper

Product Involvement as a Predictor of Generation Y Consumer Decision-Making Styles

This cross-sectional study purpose is to discover the decision making style of Generation Y and what influences their purchase decisions. The decision style differs when purchasing merchandise of high cost versus low. Because of the diversity of Generation Y, they are known to have a disposable income, which is why marketing managers want to gain knowledge of Generation Y decision-making style and purchase behavior (Jackson & Kwon, 2006).

The problem is Generation Y is anti-corporate, individualistic, and resistant to advertising. Retailers must come up with a research strategy to market successfully. The marketing managers must research how to grab the attention of Generation Y because they are known for expensive taste, brand store loyalty with a profitable shopping preference.

The people conducting the research are Students at the University of Kentucky; however the samples came from students in a Midwestern university nutrition food science, agriculture, and merchandising classes. Cross-sectional was the method used to study the decision making style, and product involvement. There is two stages of data for this study, one was to recognize the low and stage two was used to recognize the high products to study from (Bauer, 2006). Among Generation Y the high product was jeans, the low product was yogurt. The second stage of the study had two questionnaire sections relating to decision making of the consumer. The first portion was questions regarding consumer relationship with decision making styles and high product, and the shopping experience when purchasing yogurt the low involvement product.

Pleasure measures, interest in the product, fascination, excitement, and fun. The signs used to measure value (alpha=0.89) importance (alpha=0.83) and pleasure...