Jordanian children's perception of fathers' communication structures and patterns: scales revision and validation

Abstract

PurposeBased on father‐child dyadic responses, this paper is aimed at revising and validating the scales of fathers' communication structures, identifying Jordanian fathers' communication structures and patterns.Design/methodology/approachBased on two different studies, group interviews face‐to‐face, self‐administered questionnaires and drop‐off self‐administered questionnaires were respectively employed to solicit young children's and fathers' responses. While the first study (n=100) depended on convenience sampling procedures, proportionate stratified random sampling technique that relied on young children of ages 8‐12 was conducted to select the participants of the second study (n=916). Fathers' consent on the participation of their young children in the group interviews was obtained before collecting data.FindingsChildren of ages 8‐12 can precisely perceive family communication patterns (FCP) as adolescents and mothers. The influence of culture on fathers' communication structures and patterns is not clear. Jordanian fathers are principally classified as pluralistic fathers in their communication related to consumption issues and there is significant association between fathers' consumer socialisation goals and their communication structures and patterns.Research limitations/implicationsThe development of fathers' communication dimensions was based on a single‐country study and the two research samples were restricted to the public schools of Amman metropolitan.Practical implicationsMarketers can directly target Jordanian children in their advertising campaigns since children are more likely to make their own purchasing decisions. The marketers may focus on young children in their promotion campaigns to influence the family decision making related to products and services since their fathers adopt concept‐oriented communication structures.Originality/valueAn important contribution of this study is that neither fathers' communication structures nor young children's perceptions were previously used in revising and validating the scales of family communication structures and patterns at the level of collectivistic or individualistic cultures.

Influence of Demographics on Family Communication Patterns in Family Purchase Decisions

“…Socio-oriented communication dimension is often used by fathers than by mothers with their children on family purchase decisions; however, the concept-oriented communication dimension is mostly used by mothers to communicate with their children (Hsieh, Chiu, & Lin, 2006). Jordanian Fathers play an important role in cultivating consumption-related skills in their children (Al-Zu'bi and Crowther, 2008). Fathers generally communicate with their daughters during purchase decisions of holidays (Watne et al, 2014).…”

“…Another study by Al-Zu'bi et al, (2008) was based on the family communication pattern of fathers situated in Jordan, finding them to be Concept-oriented.…”