Peers and Parents’ Influence on Consumers’ Buying Decisions Making of Electronics (e) - Gadgets: the case of Addis Ababa University Student’
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Date
2026-12-02
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
In the digital age, relationships between parents and their children as well as among peers have changed. This has led to a shift in the social, cultural, and communication environment, which in turn has altered the way and direction of influence between parents and children as well as among peers. The purpose of this study aims to investigate how parents and peers use their social power base to influence AAU students' BDM of an e-gadgets. Only quantitative research methods and both descriptive and explanatory research designs were employed to address the research objectives and questions. Convenience and stratified random sampling approaches were used to limit delimited the study. A structured questionnaire was adapted and distributed to 383 AAU second-year and above undergraduate students from four AAU branches (College of Technology and Built Environment, College of Natural and Computational Sciences, School of Commerce, and College of Social Sciences, Art, and Humanities) in order to collect quantitative data. The descriptive and inferential analyses were used to examine the quantitative data. Descriptive data show that the total mean variable score of social power bases, including Expert, Referent, Legitimate, Coercive, and Reward power, is 2.674 (SD =.955). The mean of the combined variable for peer and parental influence on the dependent variable "BDM" was 3.3174 (SD = 0.696). In this situation, social power bases of parents and peers was found to have a stronger link to students BDM. Similarly, the empirical findings of the multiple regression revealed that parent and peer predictor variables of Referent, Legitimate, and Reward power, and peer Expert power have significant effect on students BDM, however both parental and peer coercive power have not a significant effect on students BDM. These independent variables were likewise found to be significant joint predictors of performance, according to the findings. Finally, based on the study's findings, recommendations for marketers, retailers, parents, students, and researchers were given.
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Social Power Bases, Parent, Peer, Influence, and buying decisions making (BDM