Family structure and decision making styles among Iranian couples

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to determine whether family structure influences decision-making styles (DMSs) of Iranian couples.

Design/methodology/approach

A self-administered mall survey was conducted to discover the family structures and DMSs of Iranian couples. Data were randomly collected from a sample of 800 spouses in four big cities of Iran. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and multivariate analysis of variance were used to examine proposed hypotheses.

Findings

The EFA and CFA results show seven DMSs for Iranian couples. Also, the findings indicate family structure has a significant effect on DMS. In the other words, the results show a difference between DMSs of egalitarian and husband-dominated spouses.

Research limitations/implications

One of the limitations of the study deals with product involvement, because consumer DMSs for each product category may vary. Also, children’s influences are not considered in this study, while gender/number of children may be particularly influential in family structure. Therefore, conclusions made from these findings may be limited to spouses with similar demographic characteristics.

Originality/value

The present research identifies seven DMSs for Iranian couples. It also examines whether family structure is an effective factor for DMS of spouses.

Citation

Lotfizadeh, F. and Heidarzadeh Hanzaee, K. (2014), "Family structure and decision making styles among Iranian couples", Journal of Islamic Marketing, Vol. 5 No. 2, pp. 241-257. https://doi.org/10.1108/JIMA-04-2013-0031