The impact of parents’ technology readiness and their susceptibility to interpersonal influence on adolescents’ participation in parental decision making to purchase technological products

Abstract

Scholarly literature provides sufficient evidence on children's participation in parents' purchase decision depending on product type, decision-making stages, demographic profiles of parents and children, but a few studies have been carried out in terms of the influence of parental psychological characteristics. Current research fulfils the gap by providing evidence on how parents' technology readiness and their susceptibility to interpersonal influence predict adolescents' participation in parental purchase decision making with regard to technological products: products for family use and products for child's use. A survey of 345 parents with children aged from 12 to 18 years old was performed by a research company using the internet panel. The findings provide evidence that parental technology readiness is a strong predictor of child's participation into the family purchase decision making process. Parental susceptibility to interpersonal influence is a predictor of child's participation depending on the decision stage and type of product. Findings open the room for contributions about effects of other parental psychographics, on children's psychographics, and even on interaction among both for the better understanding of purchase decision in the family.