Thesis
Identity : its purpose and function within consumer residential property purchase decisions
PhD thesis, Southern Cross University, Lismore, NSW
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Southern Cross University
2013
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Abstract
<p>The purpose and function of identity in extant literature suggested that enquiry into self and functional congruity, within a high involvement consumer decision-making context such as the purchase of a house, would be significant and address evident research gaps. To date the emerging residential property literature has given limited attention to consumer decision-making processes. Furthermore, the self and functional congruity literature has focused on branded, low involvement and post purchase evaluation with no consideration of all four types of self-congruity or likely moderators such as knowledge and trust. Therefore the aim of this thesis was to: <ul> <li>Investigate relationships between functional and self-congruity within the context of consumer residential property purchase decisions.</li> </ul></p>
<p>This aim was investigated through addressing the following research questions: <ul> <li>RQ1 – What is the relationship between actual self-congruity, ideal self-congruity, actual social self-congruity and ideal social self-congruity and self-congruity during the residential property purchase decision?</li> <li>RQ2 – What is the effect of self and functional congruity on residential property purchase intentions?</li> <li>RQ3 - What is the effect of knowledge on functional and self-congruity during the residential property purchase decision-making process?</li> <li>RQ4 - What is the effect of trust on functional and self-congruity during the residential property purchase decision-making process?</li> </ul></p>
<p>The research utilised quantitative primary data collection, surveying consumers currently in the market to purchase a new residential property. Using a two-step structural equation modelling approach the data was analysed using the AMOS software program. Subsequently, eleven hypotheses were accepted and three were rejected.</p>
<p>The results indicated that: <ul> <li>Actual self-congruity, ideal self-congruity, actual social self-congruity and ideal social self-congruity all had positive relationships with self-congruity during residential property purchase decision-making.</li> <li>Self-congruity and functional congruity both had a direct relationship with intention to act, and self-congruity had an indirect relationship with intention to act through functional congruity.</li> <li>Ideal self-congruity had the strongest relationship with self-congruity. While the results indicated that knowledge had a relationship with functional congruity they also indicated that it had no significant relationship with self-congruity.</li> <li>Trust had a relationship with self-congruity however it had no significant relationship with functional congruity.</li> </ul></p>
Details
- Title
- Identity : its purpose and function within consumer residential property purchase decisions
- Creators
- Melanie Thomas - Southern Cross University
- Contributors
- Stephen Kelly (Supervisor)
- Awarding Institution
- Southern Cross University; Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Theses
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Southern Cross University
- Series
- PhD thesis, Southern Cross University, Lismore, NSW
- Number of pages
- xviii, 260 pages
- Identifiers
- SCU1324; 991012821967902368
- Academic Unit
- School of Business and Tourism; Faculty of Business, Law and Arts
- Resource Type
- Thesis