Status Consumption in High Tech Products Upgrading Purchase: A Study of the Extended Theory of Planned Behaviour Model.

Abstract

The smartphones’ market is characterized by its fast evolving environment. In such an environment, the key concern for each company is how to continually encourage consumers to upgrade to the latest version before their existing model expires, which also highlights the importance of continual product enhancement. Consumers choose high-tech products not only for their functional values, but also for their symbolic values. This phenomenon is even more prevalent among products that tend to be conspicuously consumed. The high portability and multi-functional capabilities of smartphones make their use highly visible to users’ social surroundings, and consumers may choose to upgrade their existing smartphones for the perceived symbolic values provided by newer and enhanced models. The great success of the iPhone inspired the current research to further investigate the antecedents of upgrade intention and to uncover the symbolic value that smartphones provide to consumers. Reference group conformity is not the only way to fulfill symbolic values of selected products. Consumers also have the tendency to actively express their ideal self-image through acquiring and displaying material symbols and an ideal self-image sometimes also refers to a self-image with higher social status. Building upon the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1991), the proposed research model also explores the possible moderating effect of status consumption on the TPB model. A survey will be administered to university students (smartphone users) to collect primary data to measure the effectiveness of the new proposed research model. The results of this study provided a better understanding of consumers’ upgrading purchase intentions toward smartphones. Additionally, this study finds that status consumption is partially related to smartphone purchases, which could also be extended to other technological products categories.