• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.6 no.4
• /
• pp.75-94
• /
• 2011

Our objective is to investigate the various variables that influence the purchase intention of small enterprise products and to interpret the impact of these variables in terms of individual differences. Need for cognition, need for uniqueness, and self-regulation are selected to explain the choice or purchase intention. The major reasons that consumers are reluctant to purchase small enterprise products are mainly due to problems in quality and distribution channel. When these problems are resolved, it is interesting to see how the individual differences affect purchase intention for small enterprise products and how the impacts will be changed. Previous studies assumed uni-dimensionality of need for cognition and need for uniqueness. We relaxed the assumption, incorporated the nature of multi-dimensionalities for these variables and showed that sub-dimensions of these variables have different effects on the purchase intention. After improving the conditions of quality or distribution channel, promotion focus and prevention focus for sub-dimensions of self-regulation have positive impacts on the purchase intention and sub-dimensions of need for cognition and need for uniqueness have enhancing or reducing effects on purchase intention. These results can be interpreted that consumers expect some levels of quality or distribution channel to reach consumer choice. Results for cluster analysis showed that how sub-dimensionalities of individual difference variables are combined to form groups and how these groups are related to purchase intention. Emphasis of quality over price has a negative correlation with purchase intention of small enterprise products.