Antecedents and consequences of apparel involvement: a multi-attribute model

Abstract

Apparel products vary in importance to consumers, invoking high to low involvement in consumers. In addition, situations surrounding apparel purchase decisions and intended use of apparel influence a consumer's involvement in the product. Due to the complexity of the product category, a specialized approach is needed;The purposes of this study were: (1) to refine conceptualization of apparel involvement, (2) to generate an appropriate measure of apparel involvement by adopting and modifying previous measures of product involvement, (3) to examine and empirically test the influence of other factors such as demographic variables, and (4) to generate a casual model connecting antecedents and consequences of involvement;The conceptual model incorporated the S-O-R paradigm of involvement (Houston & Rothschild, 1978), Kapferer and Laurent's (1985) dimensionality concepts of interest, sign, pleasure, risk importance, and risk probability, and Bloch and Richins' (1986) conceptualization of enduring/situational involvement. Two specific types of apparel were used for treatments of high and low situational involvement;Survey data from 447 college students were analyzed using LISREL. The results showed that the hypothesized model was a good fit to the data. The results of two treatments of situational involvement indicated that apparel products with different end uses differ in how consumers become involved with the products in the apparel consumption process. Situational involvement positively predicted behavioral consequences. The influence of enduring apparel involvement on behavioral consequences differs according to the specific products that invoke situational involvement. Enduring involvement had a direct influence on situational involvement and had a significant indirect influence on behavioral consequences when the product employed invokes a high situational involvement. For a product that invokes a low situational involvement, enduring apparel involvement played no role in situational involvement or behavioral consequences. However, results may vary across different gender groups. For men, in the study, enduring apparel involvement had a significant impact on low situational involvement;Although the respondents in the current study were limited to college students, results indicated significant demographic influences on involvement. Respondent's age, class standing, job type, academic major, and gender had significant influence on apparel involvement.

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