Teorias da ação e o comportamento passado: um estudo do consumidor no comércio eletrônico

Abstract

Models and theories of social psychology related to action are broadly used to explain and predict consumer behavior. Nonetheless, in case of repetitive or habitual behaviors, past behavior emerges in literature as an important construct, which might increase the explanation power of such models. Another characteristic of action theories is that, due to the difficulty of forecasting effective consumer behavior, research usually tries to explain and predict behavioral intention, taken as an immediate antecedent and proxy of corresponding behavior. In this research, the aim is not only to investigate the relationship between attitude and intention but also the relationship among intention, past behavior and the target behavior. By using the survey method, via form available on the internet, 306 valid questionnaires were obtained in December of 2006, answered by registered customers of a virtual video rental store in Belo Horizonte. Data concerning their past renting behavior and the behavior of renting movies some weeks after data collection were obtained from database of the researched company. After data preparation and assessment of constructs indicators' reliability and validity, hierarchical regression was employed in order to estimate the additional explaining power of constructs concerning past behavior compared to constructs of the Theory of Planned Behavior (AJZEN, 1985), adopted as framework. Results of this research show that past behavior accounts for more variance of posterior behavior than behavioral intention does. Academic and managerial implications of results are presented and discussed, as well as research limitations, and suggestions for new studies are provided.