The influencing role of adolescents and young adults on the family decision-making process

  • Margarida Cáceres Monteiro (Student)

Student thesis: Master's Thesis

Abstract

First advances on family consumption research focused essentially on the dynamics between husband and wife. However, it was soon recognized that the influence of children should not be overlooked. Not only younger family members represent a powerful and growing market, but also they have an increasingly wider access to informat ion, which contributes to their influence upon family decision-making. The majority of the studies on this area have focused on North-American households. Less attention has been allocated to European families. In particular, the facets of family decision making within Portuguese households remain neglected by the academic literature. Furthermore, only children and adolescents have been considered by previous studies. The emergence of a new generation of young adults who still live with parents has not been analyzed yet. This paper provides a better understanding of how teenagers and young adults impact and influence the family decision-making process, according to their parents’ perceptions. In order to perform this analysis, a literature review was developed and further data was obtained by conducting a survey among Portuguese parents of children aged between 13 and 24 years old. The main findings suggest that children’s expertise is the main driver for children influence, together with the importance attributed to a given purchase. Also, we found out that the perception parents’ have of children expertise may be triggered by exposing them to concepts relating to knowledge acquisition. Furthermore, the study shows that different factors account for the variation in children’s influence, depending on the product category concerned.
Date of Award2015
Original languageEnglish
Awarding Institution
  • Universidade Católica Portuguesa
SupervisorFernando Machado (Supervisor)

Designation

  • Mestrado em Gestão: Programa Internacional

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