D ESARROLLO Y NEOLIBERALISMO

2.2.4.1 Involvement and Motivation for Information Search

Motivation to conduct information search prior to a purchase decision will initially be driven by a decision makers’ level of involvement. As stated in section 2.2.2, most consumer products do not simultaneously elicit enduring (brand or product category) and purchase decision involvement for two reasons. Firstly, most products do not attach themselves to a person’s constitutive values or goals and therefore do not inspire them to engage at any significant level with information

31 searching. Secondly, many purchase decisions do not require a detailed examination of the various alternatives and the attributes of each because they may be low value products, routine purchases, or the relevant information is simple to assimilate.

Products such as holidays do inspire high levels of enduring and purchase decision involvement as tourism products are often non routine, high value, complex products of which there are many alternatives. The construct of involvement implies that there is necessarily a motivation to engage with information search, indeed involvements’ ‘typical consequences are particular types of search, information processing and decision making whereby high involvement implies a high intensity in search process’ (Maser and Weiermair, 1998, p. 110). Whilst stating that tourists are high involvement consumers Maser and Weiermair (1998) state that this necessarily implies that some level of risk exists due to the availability of choice alternatives. The results of their research on traveller decision making found that the inseparable psychological phenomena of risk and involvement motivate information search with the goal of reducing uncertainty and therefore identifying and avoiding choice alternatives with unacceptable levels of risk. Fodness and Murray (1997) support this conclusion by stating that in the context of tourism the primary benefit motivating the search for information is ‘to enhance the quality of their trip by decreasing the level of uncertainty’ (Fodness and Murray, 1997, p. 505).

A tourists’ motivation to actively engage in information search is parallel to the issues of risk and involvement; indeed involvement has been defined as ‘a state of motivation, arousal or interest’ (Cai

et al, 2003, p. 140). The motivation for information search can be introduced by using a simple

binary argument; either there is enough motivation to search for information or there isn’t. However, motivation for information search has also been widely researched in terms of its effect on the extent of information search (e.g. Maser and Weiermair, 1998; Sirakaya and Woodside, 2005). Research on the extent of information search can be traced back to Stigler’s (1961) theory of the economics of information which states that the extent of information search is limited to a certain point where the cost of the search outweighs the benefits; this theory has been supported more recently by Zander and Hamm (2012). The costs associated with external information search are the effort required, the time spent or the financial cost (Vogt and Fessenmaier, 1998). Effort is commonly associated with the cognitive processes that are required to retrieve, process and evaluate information but authors such as Avery (1996) and Payne (1982) also suggest that cognitive

32 effort is also wisely spent by the consumer in the selection and application of the appropriate search strategy. The financial cost of information search has been summarised by Gursoy and McCleary (2004) as the cost of telephone calls, postage, faxing and transportation to information sources such as travel agents or libraries. According to Stigler (1961) time is the most important external cost. This cost, however, varies from individual to individual based on the opportunity cost of their time, which itself has been said to depend on personal circumstances such as income or free time (Bryant, 1988). The benefits of information search largely relate to the reduction of risk associated with purchase decisions (Gursoy and McCleary, 2004; McCleary and Whitney, 1994), but risk, as has been discussed previously, is a subjective concept dependent on many personal variables such as prior knowledge, cultural background and, initially, a persons’ level of involvement in the product or purchase in question which serves to amplify risk.

It is difficult to prescribe numerically the extent of information search conducted for any given decision making context because the cost/benefit valuation will be subject to each individual’s own valuation systems. The problem relates back to the subjectivity of costs and benefits and therefore, to involvement. It may be argued that a positive correlation exists between the extent of information search and the level of involvement as the higher the involvement (itself positively correlated to the motivation to avoid risk) the greater the extent of information search. However, findings from research (Beatty and Smith, 1987; Newman, 1977; Wickie and Dickson, 1985) relevant to this argument appear to suggest that this is not the case. Moorthy et al (1997) stated that empirical findings show that consumers can demonstrate ‘very limited pre-purchase information search activity’ even in ‘high involvement situations’. These findings appear to contradict logic and the prescribed theory on information search which states that the higher the level of involvement and risk, the greater the extent of information search. However, the many variables within the problem setting have provided ample opportunity for researchers to investigate this anomaly and draw conclusions as to why the extent of information search may be different for a specific purchase context such as the purchase of a family holiday. One conclusion, based on empirical evidence is that prior knowledge has a significant impact on the extent of information search (Moorthy et al, 1997).

33 2.2.4.2 Prior Knowledge

Authors such as Moorthy et al (1997) and Johnson and Russo (1984) researched the impact of prior knowledge on motivation for information search and stated that the relationship can be described as an inverted U-curve (Figure 1). Decision makers with no prior knowledge of a product or product class will not be motivated to examine the relevant information relating to it as they have no awareness of it. Consumers with perfect knowledge of a product or product class will also not be motivated to engage in information search as there is no value in doing so. Between these two extremes consumers have enough knowledge to make them aware of the product, but still search for more to improve their decision making process and ultimate choice.

Figure 1; the Inverted U Curve