Conceptualizing Involvement
The plethora of consumer behavior and social psychological literature on involvement suggests considerable interest in this construct. There has not, however, been a common conceptual or
methodological framework to its examination in either literature (Laaksonen, 1994; Jain and Srinivasen, 1990; Rothschild, 1984; Zaichkowsky, 1985; Traylor and Joseph, 1984).
Three main perspectives of involvement are evident in extant literature; product-centered, subject-centered and response centered orientations (Finn, 1983).
The product-centered perspective defines involvement as the perceived importance of the product to the consumer, i.e. whether the product is trivial and, therefore, unimportant, or serious and thus important.
The subject-centered view maintains that consumers differ in terms of involvement-type variables. Three sub-groupings of subject-centered definitions have been postulated. They include interest/importance, relevancy (goals/consequences) and commitment (ego involvement). In this perspective, involvement has been defined as either the level of interest the consumer has in a product category or how important it is to her; the level a consumer is involved with a product in so far as it is related to some achievable end or concerns information that will directly impact on them; and, the level of commitment the consumer exhibits with respect to her position on an issue (Greenwald and Leavitt, 1984; Rothschild, 1984; Simon, 1967).
The final alternative perspective views involvement as response-centered. This view holds that involvement is the active participation in information processing (Engel and Blackwell, 1982; Bettman, 1979).
Despite the many and varied ...