A temporal dynamic model of spousal family purchase-decision behavior

The authors examine family purchase-decision dynamics to shed light on enhancing marketing communication effectiveness. In particular, the authors are interested in understanding the temporal nature of spousal behavioral interaction in family decision making to help marketers target communication messages, shape brand choice, and guide personal selling activities. The authors calibrate a dynamic simultaneous equations model to investigate spousal family purchase-decision behavior: What are spousal behavioral interactions in a discrete purchase decision, and what are the temporal aspects of spousal decision behavior across decisions? The results indicate that spouses tend both not to reciprocate coercion in a discrete decision and to adjust influence strategies over time. The authors also investigate the effectiveness of influence strategies and spousal satisfaction with decisions and their impacts on spousal subsequent decision behaviors from a postdecision perspective as a mechanism to explain why spouses revise decision behaviors across purchase decisions. The authors discuss marketing implications of their findings and present ideas about how to use these findings creatively to target advertising and sales messages to influential spouses in specific decision contexts.