Zentrale oder periphere Informationsverarbeitung in der Anbieter-Nachfrager-Interaktion: Voraussetzungen, Konsequenzen und Implikationen im Persönlichen Verkauf

Abstract

It is, in part, the way of exchanging and processing information in the marketing of complex goods and services that determines the quality of the salesperson-customer-interaction, the probability of sales success, and future exchange. In this study, the authors propose a framework for understanding the key mechanisms that lead to central or peripheral processing of information. In particular, the framework draws together three different approaches. The authors specify the moderating role of the motivation and the ability to process information. By varying the difficulty of judging the following situations of the customer buying process (dependent variable), the authors discover that key proposals of the elaboration-likelihood-model are no longer valid, depending on how easy customers can assess the dependent variable. The high level of specificity of the empirical study allows extraction and confirmation of multiple propositions, facilitates further empirical testing, and encourages theoretical development of the proposed model.