...Wives still the principal decision-makers. Marketing communicators would be wise to portray more husband-like figures in their messages to reflect husbands' more active role in contemporary grocery purchasing.

Introduction

In every culture and economic system, families purchase and consume products according to idiosyncratic rules. Still, in most of the world, decision-making concerning grocery shopping has been the realm of women. Where married women are not expected to venture much out of the home, as in some Islamic countries of west Africa, unmarried girls tend to shop for food (Arnould, 1984, 1989). However, recently, in Asia where marital roles appear still very traditional, media reports challenge Asian males' current status in grocery shopping decision-making (Asian Wall Street Journal, 19-20 Feb 1999; Straits Times, 18 Oct 1999).

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether husbands have become more active in grocery shopping decision-making and purchasing in Singapore. Clearly, this is important since a greater involvement at the decision-making and/or purchasing stages would then need to be reflected in the marketing communicators' efforts.

Literature Review

In general, families act as cooperative groups where members have compatible goals. Most studies of family decision-making have investigated members' cooperative concerns for each other's preferences and even handedness (Corfman and Lehmann, 1987). Findings tend to describe how family members compromise overtly or subtly to maintain long-term relationships (Lee and Marshall, 1998; Strodtbeck, 1951).

The roles typically include those of initiator, gatekeeper, decider, buyer, and user (Speckman and Stem, 1977; Wind, 1976, 1978), as well as that of caretaker (McCracken, 1988; Price, Arnould and Curasi, 2000).

Household members' decision roles vary by authority structure, product category, and stage of the decision-making process. A clear distinction of such roles assists marketing communicators better match preferences and values to specific roles within the family. Studies on these issues have been done cross-culturally and identified interesting differences that communicators must heed to effectively reach their targets (Hempel, 1974). Altogether, four situations have been identified in decision-making styles: joint, dominated by one member, decided autonomously, or split among family members (Corfman, 1987). Research also investigated the relative influence of family members across various stages of the decision-making process (Belch, Belch, and Ceresino, 1985; Davis and Rigaux, 1974); the impact of sex-role orientation (Quails, 1987) and ethnic group identification (Webster, 1994) on purchase decision outcomes (Davis, 1976; Foxman, Tansuhaj, and Ekstrom, 1989).

Empirical findings reported during the last 10 years have suggested gradual shifts in husbands' and wives' role in the family decision-making process. According to a survey conducted by Asian Market Intelligence in 1999, the fraction of male decision-makers at grocery stores was the second highest in Singapore, with men comprising 41 per cent of those making the call. Should this observation be correct, it implies a change in the traditional roles, with males now contributing to the erosion of female dominance in grocery product decision-making.

Qualls (1987) suggests that husbands' and wives' employment status outside the home, generating income, tends to subtract time away from household activities. Thus, the husbands' and/or wives' ability to impart economic and time resources in the household partially determines his/her ability to participate in and obtain influence in household decisions. Thus, it may be that a greater involvement by husbands may in fact be a lesser involvement by wives. In other words, as wives, most of whom are now working, devote less time and energy to the process, husbands become more involved in grocery shopping decision-making.

Another paradigm at work in this issue, sex role orientation, refers to sex role preferences. Those are indicative of culturally determined attitudes (traditionalism/modernity) toward the role of wife/husband and mother/father in the household (Quails, 1987). Along with some minor cultural groups, Singapore has three larger, distinct cultures, Chinese (from several dialect! regional groups), Indian (mostly Tamils from south India), and Malays. Those three cultures have strong groundings spelling out traditional marital roles. It is fair to say that in all three cultures, women are...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.




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