Innovative Consumers And Market Mavens

Consumer researchers describe two types of consumers they term “the consumer innovator” and “the market maven.” The former are eager buyers of new products; the second are especially knowledgeable about shopping and buying. The present study examined the relationship between these two constructs as part of a nomological network analysis. We used data from 204 student consumers to test hypothesized relationships among scores on the market maven scale and a measure of innovativeness with opinion leadership, price sensitivity, and self-reports of time and money spent shopping. The analysis showed positive correlations among the measures, but there is clear evidence that the consumer innovator and market maven concepts are separate and distinct. The measure of consumer innovativeness predicted the behavioral criteria better than the market maven scale did. Both concepts may be important to retail managers as they develop strategies for new products.

INTRODUCTION

Retailers seek to maximize sales and profits by appealing to their best customers. These buyers spend the most, require the least marketing effort, and spread positive word-of-mouth. Two concepts derived from consumer theory can help retail managers understand what some of their best customers are like. Consumer innovativeness describes buyers who wish to learn about and own the newest products. They are knowledgeable, somewhat price insensitive, and likely to be heavy users (Goldsmith 2001). Consumer innovators influence later buyers by serving as models to be imitated and as opinion leaders. Another construct specifically describing shopping behavior is the market maven. These consumers have information about many kinds of products, places to shop, and other aspects of the marketplace (Feick and Price 1987). They interact with salespeople, seek shopping information from many other sources, and influence other consumers (Williams and Slama 1995).

Consumer innovators and market mavens are important to the retail success of new products. Both traits distinguish the more important buyers from the less important from the retail point of view. Managers would do well to appeal to shoppers who are heavy users and opinion leaders (Hallberg 1995); retailers can earn disproportionate profits from frequent buyers, and opinion leaders encourage others to shop and buy. Owing to the importance of both concepts to retailing practice and consumer theory, our study sought findings that would enhance both these aspects of marketing.

Consumer researchers have studied both consumer innovators and market mavens separately, but few studies have examined their relationship or compared their effects on shopping. Feick and Price (1987) correlated market mavenism with measures of innovativeness for food and drug products, but not for generalized innovativeness. No prior study has assessed the relative impact of the constructs on shopping and buying. Consequently, this study’s purpose is twofold: the primary contribution is to establish the distinctiveness of the two constructs (i.e., establish construct validity for each concept in a nomological network), and secondarily, to examine the relative contribution of each construct in explaining shopping behavior.

CONSUMER INNOVATIVENESS

Innovativeness is an individual difference variable that describes reactions to the new and different. These reactions range from a very positive attitude toward change to a very negative attitude. Across the population, these predispositions are hypothesized to follow a bell-shaped normal distribution (Rogers 1995). Innovativeness, however, may manifest itself at different levels of generality/specificity or abstraction/breadth (see Clark and Watson 1995). Thus, there is a general innovation component included in trait theories of personality describing general reactions to the environment. For example, the Five Factor Model of Personality contains a trait called “openness to experience,” which has been described as “how willing people are to make adjustments in notions and activities in accordance with new ideas or situations” (Popkins 1998). Hurt et al. (1977) describe this concept as well.

Innovativeness also can be conceptualized at a lower level of abstraction/breadth as innovative consumer behavior or early adoption of new products and services (Dowling 1999). This was the prevailing view in many early discussions of consumer innovativeness where it was thought that innovative consumers were innovative across a wide range of goods and services, i.e., they were innovators in general (e.g., America’s Tastemakers 1959). Consumer behavior texts contain summaries of the correlates of consumer innovativeness at this level of abstraction (e.g., Engel et al. 1995; Hawkins et al. 1998), and marketers often still view it this way (Zandl and Leonard 1992).

Goldsmith and Hofacker (1991) conceptualized and measured consumer innovativeness at the product category level, describing domain specific innovativeness. Goldsmith et al. (1996) showed these levels of generality/specificity are related hierarchically, with each type of innovativeness influencing buyer behavior, but with domain specific innovativeness more strongly influencing innovative purchasing within a specific product category. The present study focused on consumer innovativeness at the mid-level of buyer behavior, general consumer innovativeness, in between the most abstract personality level (e.g., Mooradian and Olver 1996) and the most specific product category level (e.g., Goldsmith 2000b). This conceptualizes innovativeness at the same level of abstraction as the market maven. Consumer innovativeness is hypothesized to be associated with several types of consumer characteristics and behaviors including socioeconomic, personality, and communication variables (for a summary, see Engel et al. 1995, Ch. 24; Rogers 1995). In particular, domain specific innovativeness has been shown to be positively correlated with opinion leadership for, time spent with, and money spent on new products across several product categories (Goldsmith et al. 1997; Goldsmith 2001). We should also expect to find that a measure of consumer innovativeness is positively associated with measures of these other variables, forming a nomological network as discussed below.

THE MARKET MAVEN

Feick and Price (1987) first described the market maven concept. These consumers are very involved in the marketplace. They are exposed to a variety of media where they seek out and acquire information about products, services, stores, and shopping and buying in general. Thus, they are quite knowledgeable about shopping and buying and are eager to share their expertise/opinions with other consumers, who often request information from them. Previous research has shown market mavens to be heavier users of coupons (Price, Feick, and Guskey-Federouch 1988), they have larger evoked sets (Elliott and Warfield 1993), and are more interested in smart buying (Slama, Nataraajan, and Williams 1992) than non-mavens. There is no consensus regarding any demographic variables that distinguish market mavens from other consumers. They are better described psychographically by their interest in and involvement with the marketplace (Wiedmann et al. 2001). The characteristics of the market maven suggest that they tend to be opinion leaders and exhibit some of the same marketplace behaviors as consumer innovators do (Williams and Slama 1995). Moreover, market mavens in Germany share some of the same traits as their US counterparts (Walsh and Mitchell 2000). This does not imply that these constructs are the same, simply that they are related in a nomological network (DeVellis 1991, p. 46). Consumers high in the market maven trait will likely share characteristics with those high in innovativeness, and vice versa. Table 1 compares innovators and market mavens to establish some similarities and dissimilarities of these two constructs.

While many characteristics of market mavens (greater opinion leadership, more time spent with media) closely parallel those of innovators and opinion leaders, there are some differences. Feick and Price (1987) found US mavens to be more likely to be minority, female, and to have a lower educational level than non-mavens. Wiedmann et al. (2001) did not find these same differences among German market mavens. The characteristics of innovative consumers vary across product categories, but lower education in market mavens in particular is a marked contrast to most descriptions of innovators (Rogers 1995). These descriptions of consumer innovators and market mavens guided the hypotheses tested in this study.

TABLE 1

CONSUMER INNOVATIVENESS AND MARKET MAVENISM COMPARED

HYPOTHESES AND RESEARCH QUESTION

Cronbach and Meehl (1955) proposed the idea that establishing the construct validity of a construct and its measure required the development of a “nomological net,” which is simply the set of theoretical relationships of a variable with other variables. “It is the extent to which a measure ‘behaves’ the way that the construct it purports to measure should behave with regard to established measures of other constructs” (DeVellis 1991, p. 46). A nomological net consists of constructs that are thought to be different from but related to each other, measures or operationalizations of \these constructs, and a set of hypotheses relating the constructs and their measures to each other. Establishing the nomological validity of a construct and its measure accompanies convergent and discriminant validity as an essential part of establishing construct validity because it permits the introduction of new constructs, allows the removal of redundant constructs, and advances an understanding of the meaning of a construct: ‘”Learning more about’ a theoretical construct is a matter of elaborating the nomological network in which it occurs …” (Cronbach and Meehl 1955, p. 290). A consumer behavior example is presented by Bagozzi (1983) as he models attitudes, normative beliefs, and behavioral intentions toward blood donation in order to explain how the constructs are interrelated. Because we understand the attitude/intentions model, we would expect the measures of these constructs to be correlated or to “behave” in certain ways a priori. What we expect these interrelations to be make up their nomological net. We investigate the nomological network in which innovativeness and mavenism are embedded by proposing several hypotheses delineating their relationships to other variables.

The literature suggests that we should expect some consumer innovators and market mavens to be the same buyers (Feick and Price 1987; Engelland et al. 2001). Both concepts employ similar terms and ideas (e.g., knowledgeable, enthusiastic, influential) to describe these consumers. The theoretical descriptions of both constructs contain the ideas that some consumers are more involved in the marketplace than other consumers are and thus are more likely to know about and buy new products soon after they are introduced. Innovative consumers are interested in buying new products and market mavens are interested in all types of products. Thus, the first hypothesis reads:

H1: There is a positive correlation between scores on the consumer innovativeness scale and scores on the market maven scale.

Nevertheless, the concept of consumer innovativeness appears more focused on new products, while the market mavens are more interested in learning and communicating information about the marketplace in general. Market mavens likely include both new and old products in their field of interest, not simply the newest ones as the innovators do. In light of the findings reported by Feick and Price (1987), the respective measures of consumer innovativeness and the market maven scale should demonstrate discriminant validity, that is, their items should not correlate so highly that they are actually indicators of the same construct.

H2: Consumer innovativeness and market mavenism are two separate constructs.

Both consumer innovators and market mavens are also opinion leaders. This is evident from previous studies (Feick and Price 1987; Goldsmith and Flynn 1995; Goldsmith 200Ob; Walsh and Mitchell 2000; Engelland et al. 2001). Their knowledge of the marketplace and its products make them good sources of informal information for other consumers who seek their opinions. It is likely that part of the reason they collect market information is so that they can share it as a type of social exchange. Thus, the third hypothesis states that:

H3: Both the consumer innovativeness scale and the market maven scale are positively correlated with a measure of opinion leadership.

Previous research has shown that innovators are relatively price insensitive, at least for new restaurants and fashionable clothing (Goldsmith 1996; Goldsmith and Newell 1997). Market mavens, however, appear to be more interested than other consumers in seeking bargains (Walsh and Mitchell 2000) and in being “smart shoppers” (Price et al. 1988). Market mavens are no more able than other consumers to accurately perceive price-quality relationships (Lichtenstein and Burton 1990). While they are involved in getting good deals, this seems to be a result of their interest in the market place and not from price sensitivity per se. Innovators are more interested in acquiring the latest new product regardless of price owing to their involvement in the product category. Market mavens, on the other hand, are involved in shopping and buying, whereby finding the best deals is a sign of success. Thus, we propose the next two hypotheses:

H4a: Scores on the innovativeness scale should be negatively correlated with scores on a measure of price sensitivity.

H4b: Scores on the market maven scale should be uncorrelated with scores on a measure of price sensitivity.

The descriptions of consumer innovators and market mavens include statements that they are heavy users or frequent shoppers, that they devote large amounts of time to shopping and buying, and that they spend a lot. Thus, the next two hypotheses are:

H5: Both the consumer innovativeness scale and the market maven scale are positively correlated with a measure of the amount of time spent shopping.

H6: Both the consumer innovativeness scale and the market maven scale are positively correlated with a measure of spending.

A final question can be raised: what is the relative contribution of consumer innovativeness and market mavenism to predicting and explaining shopping behavior? For practical and theoretical reasons it is important to determine if they make independent contributions. The principle of parsimony admonishes theorists not to duplicate concepts, and market strategies should focus resources on the most important ideas first. Because we have no basis to form a hypothesis in this regard, we leave it as a research question answered by an exploratory analysis.

METHOD

Sample

We administered our questionnaire to upper division undergraduate students over two semesters as part of their course work in consumer behavior. A convenience, student sample is appropriate for theory testing such as this study, but the results cannot be generalized to larger populations (Calder et al. 1981). Two hundred and four students completed questionnaires. There were 90 men and 110 women respondents (4 missing). The sample ranged in age from 20 to 50 with a median of 21 years. Table 2 shows that age and sex were unrelated (r^sub pb^ = -.03). We did find that sex showed a marginally significant positive correlation with innovativeness (r^sub pb^ = .14) suggesting that the women in our sample were slightly more innovative than the men, and age was negatively correlated with innovativeness (r = .17). Note that Rogers (1995) repeatedly stated that age was negatively related to the propensity to innovate, and these results are quite similar to those reported by Goldsmith (1991). Age was negatively correlated with time spent shopping (r = – .14) and uncorrelated with spending. Sex was positively correlated with time spent shopping (r^sub pb^ = .30; women reporting more shopping than men) as one would expect, but sex was uncorrelated with spending. These small correlations, however, are relatively weak compared to the larger ones relating the focal variables, so that we are confident that demographic differences did not influence the pattern of pattern of theoretical relationships.

Construct Measures

We used the Domain Specific Innovativeness scale or DSI (Goldsmith and Hofacker 1991) made up of six items to measure consumer innovativeness or a consumer’s tendency to shop for and to buy new products relatively earlier than other consumers do (see Table 2 for the items used in the study). It was adapted to refer to the general marketplace instead of a specific product category. Common factor analysis showed that the DSI items split into two factors. The two factors explained 35.9 and 9.8 percent of the total variance respectively. While the construct of domain specific innovativeness is modeled as unidimensional, the two factors were formed by the positive and negative items. They were correlated at – .42. This split is an artifact of the balanced, half positively and half negatively worded items (Goldsmith 200Oa). Consequently, we summed the items as a single scale. Coefficient alpha was .71. The scores covered most of the theoretical range (6 to 30) running from 12 to 30, where higher scores represent greater innovativeness. The mean score was 20.4, a bit higher than the theoretical mean of 18, suggesting that this sample was a bit more innovative than the population at large, probably owing to its youthful bent. Skewness and kurtosis were both low at -.151 and .088. Since these figures were both below 1.0 and they were less than twice their standard errors, it appears that the distribution of DSI scores was close to normal, as were the scores for the other multi-item scales.

TABLE 2

QUESTIONNAIRE ITEMS USED IN THE STUDY

TABLE 3

DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS AND CORRELATIONS

The Market Maven scale (MMS) showed similar performance with scores ranging from 10 to 42 out of a possible range of 6 to 42. Higher scores indicated greater levels of mavenism. A common factor analysis showed that the MMS formed one factor explaining 56.9 percent of the total variance. Coefficient alpha was .88. The mean was 28.7 with skewness of -.762 and kurtosis of .437.

The opinion leadership scale (OLS; Flynn et al. 1996) is used here to measure a consumer’s propensity to be asked for and give advice to other consumers about methods and means of shopping. Common factor analysis revealed a positive/negative factor split for the opinion leadership items. This scale is composed of three positively worded statements and three negatively worded statements. The two opinion leadership factors explained 39.2 and 10.4 percent of the variance respectively and were correlated at -.57. We summed all six items as a single scale where higher scores indicated greater opinion leadership. This scale has a theoretical range of 6 to 42. In this application, the scores ranged from 12 to 39 with fewer extreme scores than have been reported in other applications (Flynn et al. 1996). The meanwas 28.7 and the skewness and kurtosis were -.422 and .124, respectively.

The price sensitivity scale (PSS) measures overall reaction to prices (Goldsmith 1996). The six-item scale was also influenced by the direction of wording of the items. Exploratory factor analysis detected two factors formed by the positive and negatively worded items. These positive/negative splits were not considered relevant, and the scales were treated as unidimensional in the remaining analysis. Skewness and kurtosis were .166 and .263, respectively. Coefficient alpha was .76. The scores on the six-item scale ranged from 10 to 30 with a mean of 18.1, right at the theoretical midpoint. Higher scores indicate greater price sensitivity.

The survey instrument also included two single items designed to measure the relative time spent shopping and the relative money spent on consumer goods. Descriptive statistics for the two dependent variables are as follows. Scores on the question about the total amount of time spent shopping ranged from 1 or “much less than average” to 5 for “much more than average.” The mean score was 2.82 (sd = 1.02), meaning that the sample saw themselves as spending a little less than “average time” shopping in various venues. This score is only slightly lower than 3.00, the midpoint of the scale. The other dependent variable asked about the relative amount of money respondents spent in an average year. These scores also ranged from 1 or “much less than average” to 5 for “much more than average.” In this case, the mean was 3.22 (sd = .82). The sample saw themselves as spending a little more than average. Table 3 contains descriptive statistics for the measures.

Data Analysis

The six hypotheses were tested by correlating the scale scores and the measures of time and money spent shopping. Discriminant validity for the scales was demonstrated using confirmatory factor analysis. Finally, the research question was assessed by using multiple regression analysis.

RESULTS

Nomological Validity and the Hypotheses Tests

The set of hypothesized relationships among innovativeness, market mavenism, opinion leadership, and price sensitivity represent the nomological network proposed here. These relationships were tested by correlating scores on the scales with each other. Confirmation of the hypotheses strengthens the nomological validity of the constructs and their measures. Hypotheses 5 and 6 bear on the criterion-related validity of the scales.

Hypothesis 1 stated that the consumer innovativeness and market maven scales are positively correlated because they describe similar constructs. The correlations in Table 3 show that the hypothesis was supported (r = .44, p < .01). Feick and Price (1987) reported correlations between the MMS and single item measures purporting to reflect innovativeness that ranged from .14 to .34. Because their measures of innovativeness were both single items and domain specific (food and drugs) and our measure was a multiple item scale describing a more general level of innovativeness matching that of the market maven, the larger size of our correlation is not surprising.

Hypothesis 2 addressed the issue of the similarity between innovativeness and market mavenism and the accompanying discriminant validity of the measures. The moderate correlation (r = .44) indicating that the scales shared only about 19% common variance argues in favor of discriminant validity, even when it is corrected for attenuation due to unreliability in the measures (r^sub corrected^ = .56). An exploratory factor analysis followed by oblique rotation of the market maven and consumer innovativeness items together revealed a two-factor solution in which each item loaded on its “correct” factor and no two items loaded on the same factor, further evidence that the two constructs are different but related.

Moreover, we used confirmatory factor analysis via LISREL 8.0 to model the twelve items comprising the DSI and MM scales as a two- factor model versus a one-factor model (see Anderson and Gerbing 1988; Bagozzi et al. 1991). The two-factor model showed a better fit to the data (X^sup 2^ on 53 df = 145.98) than did the one-factor model (X^sup 2^ on 54 df = 285.19) and the modification indices did not suggest that the model fit could be improved by allowing any of the items to load on both constructs, indicating further evidence for the discriminant validity of the items and scales (see Table 4). Thus, there is good evidence for the discriminant validity of the items in the Market Maven and Innovativeness scales, and hypothesis 2 is further supported. Similar evidence for the discriminant validity was found for the other scales as well (see Table 4).

TABLE 4

CONFIRMATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS TESTS FOR DISCRIMINANT VALIDITY

Hypothesis 3 stated that both scales should be correlated positively with a measure of opinion leadership. This hypothesis was also supported (r’s = .46 & .45). This finding confirms the frequently reported correlation between domain specific innovativeness and domain specific opinion leadership (e.g., Goldsmith et al. 1997) and replicated Feick and Price’s (1987) finding that the market maven scale was correlated with measures of opinion leadership.

Hypothesis 4a proposed that innovativeness and price sensitivity would be negatively correlated, indicating that innovators are relatively price insensitive compared to other buyers. This proved to be the case, with a correlation of – .31, consistent with previous research (e.g., Goldsmith 1996). The non-significant correlation of -.09 between the MMS and price sensitivity was consistent with hypothesis 4b, suggesting that market mavens are not primarily concerned with prices.

Hypotheses 5 and 6 stated that both scales would be positively correlated with measures of time spent shopping and spending. The DSI was correlated .50 with time spent shopping and .31 with spending. The market maven scale was similarly related to shopping and spending with correlations of .29 and .23 respectively. Thus, both hypotheses were confirmed. Both innovative consumers and market mavens reported spending more time and money shopping than other shoppers do. This result provides evidence for both the criterion- related validity and the nomological validity of the concepts.

Relative Influence of Innovativeness and Market Mavenism

Finally, in order to answer the research question, what are the relative influences of consumer innovativeness and market mavenism on shopping behavior, we performed regression analysis. These results appear in Table 5. The criterion measures of shopping (time & spending) were regressed separately across the DSI, MMS, sex, and age. Because the tolerance in both analyses was close to 1.0, multicollinearity was not deemed a concern (Norusis 2002, pp. 529- 530). Backward elimination was used to determine if both variables belonged in the regression equation (Hair et al. 1998, pp. 178- 179). The results were consistent for both dependent variables. The MMS was removed from the equation, leaving the measure of consumer innovativeness, indicating that after accounting for variance in the dependent variable attributable to consumer innovativeness, the MMS explained no additional variance. The analysis shows that although mavenism is related to shopping and spending, this influence is less important than that of innovativeness.

TABLE 5

REGRESSION RESULTS

Although the market maven is a distinct concept from consumer innovativeness and is associated with the two shopping behaviors it is not identical with consumer innovativeness and may not be the best way to identify the first buyers of new retail goods. Consumer innovativeness was a stronger predictor of time spent shopping and spending. Marketing researchers need to be careful to distinguish innovators from market mavens when trying to predict market behavior, especially if their concern is with early buyers.

DISCUSSION

Summary

The purpose of this study was to examine the nomological relationships among measures of consumer innovativeness, opinion leadership, price sensitivity, shopping and buying, and the market maven scale. The results of the analysis showed that, as hypothesized, the measures were correlated (with the exception of price sensitivity and the MMS).

Thus, the study succeeded in verifying a pattern of relationships that form a nomological network in which innovativeness and market mavenism are related to each other and to other constructs in theoretically predicted ways. It is apparent that both consumer innovators and market mavens act as opinion leaders, shop, and buy more than other consumers do. Moreover, the measure of consumer innovativeness and the MMS were positively correlated, as hypothesized, but there was also ample evidence for discriminant validity, suggesting that these are two related but distinct constructs. Finally, consumer innovativeness did a better job than the MMS of predicting the study’s behavioral criteria: time and money spent shopping. These findings are consistent with previous studies. They confirm what we know about the characteristics and behaviors of some shoppers. They also extend our knowledge of the relationship between consumer innovativeness and market mavenism.

Methodological Implications

The findings are important methodologically because they reinforce or support the reliability, convergent and discriminant validity, nomological validity, and criterion-related validity of the Domain Specific Innovativeness scale, the opinion leadership scale, and the MMS. They also extend the application of the DSI beyond specific product categories where it has heretofore been restricted showing that it can be used to reliably and validly measure generalized innovativeness. Further methodological studies would make a positive contribution by examining predictive validity issues for the scales. Experiments should be performed on these topics to provi\de causal inferences.

Theoretical Implications

From the theoretical perspective, the findings distinguish the two focal constructs and show that they play independent roles in influencing shopping. Thus, we have a more complex view of the marketplace. It is populated by many different kinds of people, and we have studied only two. Future theory-oriented studies should add new constructs to the nomological model, such as involvement and expertise, to determine how they are related to innovativeness and market mavenism. Shopping and brand loyalty also deserve more attention. The antecedents to innovativeness should be studied as well to gain an understanding of the origins of this trait. More study should be given to understanding consumers at the other ends of the innovativeness/maven continuum. What factors explain their unique behaviors? Do market mavens actually experience better shopping outcomes than non-mavens? Another area for potential future research would be an analysis of how constructs like consumer innovativeness, market mavenism, and opinion leadership function in an e-business context. When word-of-mouth is not oral but written, and store offerings are not viewed in person but remotely, how do these consumer phenomena change? The availability of reliable and valid measures of consumer traits opens many possibilities for answering a myriad of research questions.

Managerial Implications

Managerially, the findings confirm that the segment of “best customers,” whom retailers are eager to cultivate, contains many innovators and market mavens. If a choice must be made, however, the study suggests that the innovator should be the strategic focus for new products instead of the market maven. One possible reason for this finding is that the consumer innovativeness concept and scale focuses more specifically on the key marketplace behaviors of buying, while the market maven concept and scale focus more on exploratory behavior, acquiring learning, and interacting with others. Retail management should make an effort to create long-term relationships with innovative shoppers and tailor strategies to their unique characteristics and concerns. They are knowledgeable about shopping and are interested in it. They can be attracted by interesting information and will spread the word to other, less involved consumers. Providing product-relevant information through personal contact, web sites, or direct mail may also help win their loyalty. Frequency marketing programs also might attract them. Market mavens might particularly be attracted by informational offerings. These would give them more bits that they can pass along to other consumers. Fashion shows, product demonstrations, grand openings, and trunk shows would all serve to attract the mavens. Promotional efforts that feature something “new” would be interesting both to market mavens and consumer innovators.

Limitations and Future Research

As with other studies, our study is limited in generalizability and has its shortcomings. Although the convenience sample of students is not a defect for the theoretical purposes of the study, it does limit generalization of point and interval estimates to larger populations. The findings may be limited to the specific measures used as well. Since no experiment was performed, no causal statements can be made with confidence. Any test of the nomological framework in which constructs operate is necessarily limited by time and space. Both innovativeness and market mavenism are related to many more constructs than those tested in this study. Despite these limitations, the findings were clearly in agreement with earlier research and do suggest important future studies.

Experiments could be performed to determine how the characteristic of market mavenism influences consumer reactions to advertisements, promotions, and other marketing stimuli. Market mavens do not appear to be especially price sensitive. Studies could further explore their reaction to prices. Innovators seem to be willing to pay more for new products; are market mavens bargain conscious and perhaps less attractive consumers for this reason? Many more theoretical constructs could be tested for their interaction with and relation to the two central constructs here. Future work could look at consumer expertise and confidence just to suggest two possibilities.

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Ronald E. Goldsmith

Florida State University

Leisa R. Flynn

Florida State University

Elizabeth B. Goldsmith

Florida State University

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Ronald E. Goldsmith (PhD. University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa) is currently the Richard M. Baker Professor of Marketing at the Florida State University. His articles have appeared in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, the Journal of Advertising, the Journal of Business Research, the Service Industries Journal, the Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, and others. He is also the co-author of Consumer Psychology for Marketing with Gordon R. Foxall.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Leisa Reinecke Flynn is professor of marketing at Florida State University. Her areas of interest include psychometric issues in marketing, opinion leadership, and psychological issues in consumer behavior. Her articles have appeared in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Marketing Letters, and the Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Elisabeth B. Goldsmith (Ph.D., Michigan State University) is professor of consumer economics at Florida State University. Her articles have appeared in the Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences, Journal of Product and Brand Management, and the Journal of Social Psychology, among others. Her research interests include gender, money, and on-line buying. She is the author of Personal Finance and Resource Management for Individuals and Families.

Copyright Association of Marketing Theory and Practice Fall 2003