A Study to Investigate the Consumer Behavior and Cultural Dimensions of Engineering Students in Pakistan

Abstract

The current study compares consumer behavior and Cultural Orientations between engineering and non-engineering students in Pakistan. Engineering students by virtue of their academic background are considered to have more technical know-how, more cognitive skills and can easily learn and adopt a new technology as compared to students from a non-engineering background. Furthermore the researchers were interested to find out that how the thinking skills and choice making of engineering students differ from other students and ultimately effects their consumer behavior and Cultural Dimensions. For this purpose three consumer behavior variables have been selected that are Customer Satisfaction, Customer Loyalty and Customer Switching. Cultural Dimensions are measured using the model proposed by Geert Hofstede. Two technologically sophisticated services are used in this study that is Mobile Phone and Debit Cards. The target population of the study consisted of 5000 students of which approximately 500 respondents were from various engineering universities in Pakistan. The comparison of consumer behavior and Cultural Dimensions differences was made through two group’s Discriminant Analysis. Differences in behavior and Cultural Dimensions have been reported among the engineering versus non-engineering students. Mobile Phone services satisfaction and loyalty were high among nonengineering students whereas engineering student’s registered higher satisfaction and loyalty in Debit Card services. Another interesting finding is difference in switching behavior. In case of both the services engineering students reported a higher mean score for switching. Score for Cultural Dimensions were also different among the two students type; whereby mean score for Masculinity was higher for engineering students as compared to other professions.