EMPIRICAL STUDY OF PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP CLASSIFICATION EFFECT AMONG GROUP-ORIENTED COUNTRIES

The theory of reasoned action (Ajzen and Fishbein (1977)) is one of the most well known concepts used in quantitative analysis in marketing research. In addition to its simple structure, predictive power, and diagnostic information associated with marketing actions, it includes two clearly distinct independent factors, that is, attitude and social norm for the intention of choice alternatives. Because characteristics of this model are so attractive and flexible, the theory of reasoned action model can be adapted from collectivistic regions to individualistic regions. However, we have little knowledge about whether or not this model works satisfactorily in strong group-oriented countries where social norms can surpass individual attitudes for choice alternatives (which is the definition of a group-oriented society). In this paper, data collected from Japan, China and Taiwan were analyzed using factor analysis and structural equation modeling. By investigating the empirical results with a focus on the effect of personal relationship classification, we show that care should be exercised in using the reasoned action model in countries that have strong group-orientation.