Personal and social identity effects on adolescents’ compulsive consumption behavior of technological innovations: Moderator role of personal innovativeness

Abstract

Adolescents represent major actors of consumption, a completely homogeneous category of consumers, distinct from those of children and adults in terms of lifestyle and consumption. In addition, this adolescent segment is becoming a very important target for companies or brands from year to year. Thus, scientific interest that benefit adolescents consumers in marketing has grown exponentially in recent years. The overall objective of this article is to examine the moderating effect of personal innovativeness on the links between personal and social identity and adolescents’ compulsive consumption behavior. A mixed methodological approach was adopted : the qualitative study through semi-direct interviews made it possible to strengthen the measurement scales of personal identity and social identity. The quantitative approach, for its part, allows us to test the different research hypotheses. Indeed, a collection of quantitative data from 300 adolescents was carried out. These data were analyzed using SPSS 26. The hypotheses relating to the direct links between the dimensions of identity and compulsive consumption behavior were tested and analyzed using simple linear regression. On the other hand, the moderating effects of personal innovativeness on these links were tested using Hayes’s Macro Process (2022) under SPSS 26. The results obtained show that personal identity and social identity positively and significantly influence the compulsive consumption behavior of adolescents. These results also highlight the significant moderating role of personal innovativeness in the links between these variables. These main results obtained were discussed. Finally, the different theoretical and managerial implications were presented as well as perspectives for future research.

Keywords: Adolescent, personal identity, social identity, personal innovativeness, compulsive consumption behavior.

Classification JEL : M31

Paper type: Empirical Research