Culture and Consumer Socialization Effects on Adolescent?s Influence on Family Purchase Decisions of Mobile Phone

Expansion into new markets places the challenge for companies to seek to better understand their consumers and, in particular, how they decide to buy. In this context, the family is the most relevant unit of consumption for marketing managers. Past literature has evidenced the existence of important cultural dimensions, such as the distance of power and individualism-collectivism that need further investigation in its application to the study of consumer behavior. Furthermore, the study of the family merits continued and more in-depth attention, in particular as regards the participation of its members and the extent of such participation in decisions to purchase products which currently have a high demand, such as mobile phone for his own use. In these, the role of the adolescent is not properly explained, having often been devalued or relegated to the background. The adolescent presents, in this category of products, generally, a higher knowledge than his parents, which can constitute an important resource in his participation in those purchases. Nonetheless, technological products for family use and for adolescents???????? use have not yet been adequately researched. This research main goal is to examine the influences of the national cultural constructs of individualism-collectivism and power distance, and consumer socialization effects on adolescent????????s influence on family purchase decision of mobile phone for his own use. A quantitative research method is utilized in high schools in Lisbon district, Portugal. 1, 800 questionnaires were delivered in classrooms during May 2018. Adolescents???????? students were instructed to deliver questionnaires to their mothers for response, and 726 validated questionnaires were returned. Results of logistic regression analysis point to power distance, internet influence, and television influence, as purchase relevant explanatory variables. Several contributions are made to this knowledge area. Firstly, the relevance of including the a