Do consumers evaluate products and services differently? The mediating role of intangibility.

摘要

This thesis explores an area in consumer behavior related to services marketing. Specifically, it examines whether consumers evaluate what are traditionally referred to as products and services differently. A major difference between products and services is their level of tangibility. Products are tangible and services are intangible. To avoid confusion the term "market offering" is used to replace "product" and "service." Tangible-dominant market offerings are essentially the same as products. Intangible-dominant market offerings are essentially the same as services.;Subjects in the research are asked to evaluate alternatives in a purchase situation. Half of the market offerings are tangible-dominant and half are intangible. The main research questions are whether consumers evaluate tangible- and intangible-dominant market offerings differently according to: (1) Number of attributes evaluated; (2) Types of attributes evaluated, specifically intrinsic versus extrinsic attributes, search versus experience versus credence attributes, and cognitive versus affective attributes; (3) The impact of atmospheric attributes; and (4) The level of attribute abstraction.;The results suggest that consumers do evaluate tangible-dominant market offerings differently than intangible-dominant market offerings along a variety of factors. Consumers may evaluate tangible-dominant market offerings with intrinsic, search, and non-atmospheric attributes. They may also evaluate tangible-dominant market offerings at relatively low levels of abstraction. Conversely, consumers may evaluate intangible-dominant market offerings using extrinsic, experience and credence, and atmospheric attributes. Additionally, they may evaluate intangible-dominant market offerings at higher levels of abstraction.