Perceived Spousal Influence In The Service Decision-Making Process: A Cross Cultural Investigation

Abstract

Although spousal influence in the decision-making process has been investigated in the academic literature, most of the existing research has focused on decision-making for consumer goods. This paper reports the results of a cross-cultural study of consumer decision making for two broad types of services, across three different household samples (US Americans, Indian Tamil US Immigrants, and Indian Tamils living in India). Findings of the study suggest that for both types of services, there is more joint decision making within American US households than in Indian-Tamil households. Joint decision making is least prevalent in Tamil households in India.