1Asstt. Professor in Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Bengaluru Email id: semila.fernandes@sibm.edu.in
2Professor, in Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Bengaluru, Email id: director@sibm.edu.in
3A constituent of Symbiosis International University, Pune
Online published on 13 April, 2018.
The purpose of this paper is to understand the influences of social reference group on women buying behaviour and across specific women segments.
The paper aims to apprehend and review social reference group influence on women consumer groups based on publications between 1942–2015.
Women are influenced by Informational reference group, Utilitarian reference group and Value-expressive reference group though their influence vary across different women segments. Studies have indicated that Informational and Utilitarian reference group influence are the most pervasive amongst women purchases. Women as a segment is more influenced by reference group compared to men during product and service purchases as they are more socially connected compared to their male counterparts. Young working women usually carry out joint decisions with their spouse in comparison to a housewife where the husband has been the dominant decision maker. Moreover, some studies revealed that working women across certain product purchases would also take decisions individually as against housewives. Results also indicated that younger women were more susceptible to reference group influences (their friends’ opinion) as compared to older women. Conspicuousness of a product also plays a vital role in reference group influence on women consumer behaviour.
Social reference groups, group influences, women buying behaviour, gender
