Chapter 2: Critical Literature Review

2.1 Introduction:

Critical literature review is considered to be a very vital section of any research. There are many reasons behind including critical literature review in any research study in general and business research study in particular. This section of the research provides an insight about already existing theories about the issue of research and gives researcher an opportunity to look at the issue of research from different angles. The beauty of literature review is to remain unbiased and include the comments of different scholars explaining the issue of research and analyzing critically in the light of evidences provided by these scholars. Critical literature review also plays a phenomenal role in developing understanding about what is already been done in the academic world about the issue of research currently investigated in the research work. Critical literature review helps in making context of the current ongoing research and provide opportunities to develop foundation of any new research related to the previous one, which could be done in future.

2.2 Critical Literature Review & Its Advantages:

There are many benefits of having critical literature review in a research study. Saunders et al (2009) explain that many of these benefits are as under:

• A structured literature review assists the research in developing research questions and objectives with the help of analysis of theoretical and empirical proofs.
• Critical literature review can help research in collection of authentic evidences relevant to the issue of research to support the argument.
• Critical literature review helps in finding loopholes in the existing research and can add something substantial through literature review into the academic knowledge.

2.3 Sources & Strategy to be used in literature review:

It is absolutely essential for a researcher to understand the issue or a problem leading him to conduct a research and provide arguments, which should be authentic and relevant in nature. In order to attain the objectives of the research and address the research questions raised at the start of research study, researcher must have a clear scope of research and literature to be used in the proposed research. Almost all of the research studies follow strategies to collect the relevant data, which in case of literature review would be theories and already established facts about the issue of research. Relevancy of the academic material used in the literature review adds to the value and authenticity of the research itself, this is why it has been given a lot of importance by every researcher.

Several resources could be used to make research authentic and valuable, discussing this piece of work in specific researcher is aimed to include information about the issue of research from different resources. Attainment of different set objectives would be made sure by collecting relevant information about the issue of research, which in this case are employee motivation and its effect on consumers who buys products in the environment. This research is aimed at explaining different consumer attitudes when the employees at workplace are motivated and provide quality service to them and in contrast to that effect of de-motivated environment on consumer attitude would be studied as well in this research study. Researcher would try to address these issues of research by collecting information from different relevant books on the subject. In addition to that different published articles from different journals would be included in this research to have fresh information about the issue of research. Furthermore, Internet would also be consulted to get the insight of online writers and to add any authentic research available online. Different magazines and newspapers may also be consulted to get the information and help research to attain and achieve the objectives of research.

2.4 Critical Literature Review and Key words:

There are many key words to be used in this literature review: this section would explain what information would be included in each key word:

2.4.1 Motivation and Employees:

The main argument in this section would be about motivation, employee motivation, emotional intelligence, and types of motivation, employee engagement etc. It would be made sure to keep the information about motivation specific and relevant to the issue of research because the topic of motivation itself is very broad.

2.4.2 Consumer Attitude:

This section would include understanding consumer, consumer behavior and attitude, factors influencing and effecting the consumer attitudes towards buying etc.

2.4.3 Co-operative Food:

This research is made specific to cover Co-operative food only. So the employee motivation and the check on consumer attitude would be checked or tested in this organization.

2.5 Keywords:

Employee, Motivation, Consumer, Consumer behavior, Consumer attitude, and Co-operative food etc.

2.6 Limitations to the Critical Literature Review:

Every researcher and researcher is challenged with many obstacles during the course of their research study. There could be many limitations to the research studies depending upon the size and issue of research. However, in this research study a researcher may face three kinds of limitations namely, Time, Finances, Word limit and Availability of resources.

2.6.1 Time:

Time is obviously one of the challenge and obstacle in order to attain the set objectives which forces research to be as specific as possible and not include anything broader because it would not be covered within the given timeframe.

2.6.2 Word limit:

Word limit could also be considered as a limitation to the project because it would bind a researcher to write number of words which are needed and not the amount of words researcher would like to include in the research.

2.6.3 Finances:

Money is another limitation to the research because researcher would have limited financial resources to conduct the research.

2.6.4 Availability of resources:

Although, the educational institution has provided necessary resources to the researcher to conduct the research and attain the set objectives of the research. However, there are still many resources, which could not be included in this research because they are not available to the researcher.

2.7 Motivation:

The changing world of communication and technology has seen many terminologies and concepts emerging, which never used to be on the agenda of the company before. Motivation or employee motivation is one of those terms which was neglected for quite enough time but later on scholars determined the importance of motivation at work place so that the achievement of personal goals and the organizational objectives be made sure. According to Brooks (2006) motivation can be seen as a will to perform a certain task or assigned duty. Furthermore, he is of the view that every individual is different in nature and abilities. The thoughts of every individual would be different and there is a certain need to identify the difference and variance of these individuals.  Mullins (2005) says that motivation is often used to determine the direction of a certain task to be done by an individual. Motivation is a thought, which sets the direction or way of doing to achieve certain duty. According to Mullins (2005) motivation can be defined as ‘the degree to which an individual wants and choose to engage in certain specified behaviors’. He further explains that motivation could be described as a driving force for people to assist in attaining their set personal or organizational objectives in a short or long-term. Brooks (2006) further explains that there could be kinds of people as explained above and could be divided as well motivated individuals or less motivated individuals. It is highly important to know who are the well-motivated individuals as described by Brooks. The question may arise here that who could be called as well motivated individuals? Brooks (2006) comes up with an answer to the question and is of the view that well motivated individuals could be explained as the ones who accept change in the organization and similarly those who could be explained, as less motivated individuals are the ones who are not comfortable enough to accept the organizational change.

Levesque (2007) differentiates to the point of view of Brooks (2006) and is of the view that after researching for so long about the employee motivation, the outcome of the study suggested that well motivated individuals are those who are being given the comfortable environment to work in and enjoy their time whilst at work rather than looking at their wrist watches every two minutes. He further explains that passing of time in a quick manner is very much linked with the environment that organizations have to offer to their employees in order to get the job done, this environment helps these employees to enjoy their work and pass the working hours quickly. Armstrong (2006) explains that the term motivation is often taken easy but it involves a lot of complexities. Due to the variation in people’s thoughts it is really difficult to determine facts about motivation and apply it on everyone. Every human has different needs and desires; it really makes an issue of motivation complex because it is difficult to apply a theory designed for one group of people to be implemented on all.

According to Gorman (2007) motivation is a desire, which is strong enough to force people act on it. He further explains that motivation could be anything for a human being from possession to position, health to wealth and from relation to riches. Motivation could be seen as a true motivation if a person who is said to be motivated takes some practical steps in order to implement what he desires through the motivation.  Gorman (2007) describes that motivation is consisted of three basic facts, which are, firstly, it is a strong desire and an individual acts on it. Secondly, it is a sense of feeling where individuals are made to think that they have to do something, they act upon it and do it. Thirdly, it has the energetic feeling, which is directed or channeled towards the attainment or achievement of a goal. Gorman (2007) further believes that motivation could be seen in the perspective of four different terminologies, which he calls parts of motivation and includes action, feeling, decision and result. According to him motivation can be an action, a feeling, a decision and a result finally.

2.8 Types of motivation:

Motivation as explained above is an important issue in order to get good performance out of the employees at work place. Motivation can have different aspects, which could be discussed but mainly according to many scholars of the issue: motivation could be divided into two types i.e. extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation. Detailed discussion on both of these kinds of motivation are discussed below:

2.8.1 Intrinsic motivation:

According to White (1959) cited in Deci & Ryan (1985) came up with the concept or a kind of motivation, which could be seen as a foundation to derive the motivational theory. He further explains that the concept, which could be perceived as a feeling, effected by the interactions humans have with the environment around him whether at home or work place.  He came up with this new concept of intrinsic motivation and was of the view that motivation is usually explained as an independent energy of ego of a person. His explanation meant that different individuals could see intrinsic motivation differently as psychologists believe that ego is a portion of a person’s personality, which however is different in every individual.

In this age of communication where world is changing everyday with the invention of new technologies and new theories coming into the mainstream. Human beings are bound to work as machines and get rewarded to fulfill their needs in terms of cash, salary, allowances etc. The importance of intrinsic motivation is unmatched where machines are taking place of humans. Intrinsic motivation is really important and essential at workplace and one of many ways to develop it in individuals around you at work place is to give them supervisory tasks. Most of the times when self-supervision is given to the employees they tend to work hard to prove a point or two. This behavior of working hard due to having check on himself develops the intrinsic motivation in the employees instead of dragging employees and asking them to do a certain task without thinking if a certain employee who has been assigned a task is happy to do it? Satisfaction is key to develop this kind of motivation in employees because when a certain task is achieved while being a self-supervisor gives a lot of satisfaction on the successful completion. This satisfaction forces or drives these employees to become highly intrinsically motivated and perform well to align and achieve their personal objectives as well as their organizational objectives. Solving challenging problems and facing these type of situation while supervising themselves tend to satisfy them and develop this type of motivation on them due to the pride they have about what they did and how did they resolve an issue which needed consideration and that had been solved under their supervision. This satisfaction due to completion of work or task develops the intrinsic motivation, which has a far deeper effect on them as compared to extrinsic motivation. [Thomas, 2002]

According to Carr (2004) intrinsic motivation is a phenomenon, which helps to incline employees towards the interest they may have. The occurrence of intrinsic motivation at work place or within employees takes place when their skills and experience are valued and their impulsive needs are fulfilled and they feel satisfied from what they do. He also goes on to say that intrinsic motivation increases in employees when they are given choices by the management to complete their work, through feedback and allowing them to have self-supervision whilst performing any assigned task. Deci & Ryan (2000) also supports the argument put forward by Thomas (2002) and believes that intrinsic motivation may occur or increased in employees or at work place when they are given an opportunity and independence to manage and supervise themselves personally. Deci & Ryan (2000) argue that a positive feedback or a verbal appreciation of employees after completing a certain assigned task may strengthen their belief in what they do and hence motivate them intrinsically. The nature of job is also very important for an intrinsic motivation to be developed in individuals because there might be situations where employees may not feel comfortable performing the assigned task and would love to do something else. Management should always have the comfort of employees in mind because assigning the staff a work they love to do may increase chances to develop high level of intrinsic motivation in them, which would result in the alignment of their personal goals with the organizational objectives and help them attain these objectives.

According to Arnold et al (2005) giving individuals’ authority at work bounds them to be highly responsible at the same time and the feeling in the employees for having the higher responsibility motivates employees a lot. The job description or the content of certain task also determines the intrinsic motivation in employees at work place because as explained above it is highly important for any employee to love what they do. Arnold et al (2005) further go on to say that if the employees or staff is provided with the means of communication to achieve the goals set by the organization also assists in making employees feel motivated especially intrinsically motivated. Deci & Ryan (2000) agree with the above discussed argument and adds that feedback to the employees is another effective way to make the employees of any organization feel intrinsically motivated which may help achieve the organizational objectives through their hard work and dedication which would be developed due to the feeling of intrinsic motivation. Many theories about the existence of intrinsic motivation are refused by different scholars who believe that there is only one type of motivation and that is extrinsic however, there are still a lot of researchers who believe on the effective existence of intrinsic motivation and see it as a factor to make employees work hard and achieve the organizational objectives.

2.8.2 Extrinsic motivation:

Extrinsic motivation is the type of motivation, which is directly related to materialistic aspect of feeling motivated. There is no doubt about the existence of such motivation because many employees in the world work hard to fulfill their needs and feel satisfied. According to Deci & Ryan (2000) extrinsic motivation can be defined as “A construct that pertains whenever an activity is done in order to attain some separable outcome (P-7)”. People who are said to be extrinsically motivated show their dedication and hard work to value the instrumentality and the rewards they would be getting for their hard work which may assist them in fulfilling their needs and desires through materialistic means unlike intrinsic motivation. They further explain that these individuals who are extrinsically motivated may have very low emotional attachment with the work they do and mainly focus on the external rewards they would be getting due to the completion of their work successfully.

Motivation has different theories in place, some of them are applied in the organizations and some are not because they are no popular and lack the necessary evidence to be implemented at work place. According to Stredwick (2005) motivation theories can be of three different kinds i.e. instrumentality theories, need theories and cognitive theories. He further goes on to explain that theories of instrumentality came into existence in the early 1900s and most of the instrumentality theories believed that revenue is the ultimate return of work of an individual and except revenue there cannot be any other return, which may be provided to the employees at work place. These instrumentality theories were implemented in the early ages and resulted in high number of absenteeism and strikes from employees. Whereas the need theories focused on people’s needs and one of the most popular model designed to understand the needs of people was by Maslow in 1954 where he designed the prism to understand the needs of people. In his hierarchy of needs the higher needs become motivators once the individuals achieve the lower order of needs. The main needs included in the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs are written below in order from top to bottom:

• Self actualization
• Esteem
• Social needs
• Safety needs
• Physiological needs

2.9 Self –Efficacy and Work:

Self-efficacy is the belief of an individual or the confidence one has in his skills and abilities to do a specific assigned task in the given time and the background. Self-efficacy plays an important role in the whole work motivation process. If a specific task is assigned to the employee in an organization, self-efficacy will assist him to integrate the information and evaluate the capabilities they have and how relevant are those capabilities to the relevant task assigned. Furthermore, it also determines whether these capabilities will be initiated and if they are initiated how they will be expended and for how long it will sustain. People having high level of self-efficacy will often go on to perform the specific assigned task successfully and the people with low level of self-efficacy will often fail to perform a task. Self-efficacy has a positive impact on work performance of the employees; self-efficacy also makes an effective contribution to work motivation. According to the social cognitive theory, employees base their actions or activities on both intrinsic and extrinsic aspect of motivation to perform a specific task. But the same theory also explains that self-efficacy also contributes a lot in motivation at work because employees besides depending on the intrinsic and extrinsic aspect of motivation also thinks about their skills and capabilities and think if they are capable enough to perform a specific task. It is obvious that employees would not only work on the base of self-efficacy unless they see motivators whether intrinsic or extrinsic, which may motivate them to move further. Self-efficacy undoubtedly plays an essential role in contributing to the employee’s successful completion of any assigned task by an organization.  [Porter et al, 2003]

2.10 Emotional Intelligence and Employees:

According to Wolff et al. (2002) emotional intelligence is one of the important factors to make sure that employee is satisfied with the task he is appointed to attain. He states that empathy which is popularly knows as an important facet of emotional intelligence helps employees to improve their performance and become self-starter and in addition to that application of emotional intelligence on the employees encourage them to become future leaders. Kellett et al. (2006) seconds Wolff et al. (2002) and is of the view that understanding the emotions of employees and showing empathy makes it easier for employees to love the task they are appointed on to do. According to Campbell et al. (1996) motivation could be seen as on of the most important and essential determinant, which could improve the individual’s performance in an organization. According to them motivation is usually said to be consisted of the direction of an individual and intensity of a feeling with which a person would try to attain his or her objectives has a direct effect on the performance of a person. Moreover, personality and rational ability of performing a duty has an indirect impact on the performance of any individual working in an organization. On the other hand according to Cherniss (2010) the ability of emotional intelligence to predict or improve job performance through emotional intelligence techniques still remains controversial because the authors and scholars in support of implying emotional intelligence techniques in the organization to improve individual performances have provided not enough proofs of the subject. According to Joseph and Newman (2010) the process of appraising and expressing emotions in the organization with employees could generate feelings when they would be facilitated. This approach could help learn employees about the emotional knowledge and promotion of growth individually and collectively as an organization.

2.11 Employee Engagement:

Cook (2008) gives a different perspective to motivation and is of the view that in addition to the psychological and humanistic approaches to achieve the employee engagement in attaining of any assigned task it is equally important to think about their other materialistic needs. He further explains that high-level of extrinsic motivation could be achieved by increasing the employee earning, awarding of bonuses and other different allowances. This high level of extrinsic motivation directs these employees to work hard and achieve the set goal individually as well as in a broader perspective where organizational objectives are needed to be attained. Kahn (1990) is considered to be the founder of the concept of employee engagement where he researched on the summer camp and one of the architecture firm employees. According to Kahn (1990) employee engagement can be defined as “harnessing of organization members’ selves to their work roles; in engagement, people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performances”. Moreover he explains that individuals who are said to be engaged employees are the ones who are focused and integrated and work specifically to promote their performance of the assigned role. According to Kahn (1990) engaged employees are willing to focus on their job role and try to improve it every second because of three antecedent conditions which could be met by doing this. These conditions are explained below:

Psychological safety: Feeling of psychological safety to apply themselves in their role performances before other people

Psychological availability: Availability of adequate personal resources so that such performances could be devoted

Psychological meaningfulness: Meaningfulness of the fact that such personal efforts for an organization would be appreciated and are worthwhile

Bakker et al. (2007) believes that leadership also plays a necessary role in achieving the employee engagement. According to him moderate traits in leadership and good leadership skills help employees to follow the leader, which directs employees to work hard and achieve their goals both on personal as well as on the organizational level. Lee (2005) explains that renovation in the leadership skills actually directs employees to follow the leader and affects the performance of the employees working under such leaders positively. Furthermore, apart from improvement in the performance of employees it is also essential to note that the level of job satisfaction and motivation at work increases highly with the presence of the transformational leadership skills at work place.

According to Cook (2008) employee engagement has many essential factors behind it, which make the employees willing to perform to there fullest. She further explains that it is the energy and passion of the employees who give their best of their efforts on continuous basis in order to play an important role in the success of their organization. The element of willingness and motivation comes to these employees at two levels; person level and organizational level. Therefore, it is really important that personal objectives of the employees in an organization have the same direction as of their organizational goals. Cooks (2008) argues that engagement has different meaning to different people. But most of the scholars and researchers agree that engagement is the psychological commitment to the organization and belief in the organization and its products and expect themselves to deliver the outstanding performance possible to help the organization succeed. Engagement of employees is not written or signed in the physical contract between an employee and organization, it deals with more of a psychological aspect than the physical one. Cooks (2008) further explains that employee engagement is something which an employee or group of employees has to offer to organizations to firstly achieve their own personal objectives and love what they do. Besides that engaged employees help organizations to grow and make profits with choosing growth for themselves as well within the organization.  It even has a flourishing effect on customer’s behavior they way they look at employees of any organization give them a feeling about the organization itself and level of motivation in there. Different scholars have different explanations and theories to check the levels of employee engagement in the organization, which makes an issue of engagement a bit complex because there is no such theory, which is been agreed upon by all the authentic writers of employee engagement and could be implied on all the individuals or employees in any organization.

2.12 Consumer Behavior:

Consumers are said to be the most essential part of any business since the concept of businesses came into existence. With the passing time business have changed a lot so are the consumers. Most of the organizations in today’s age give the highest importance to understanding their consumers and their behavior. Consumers are the source of generating revenue for the businesses and should rightly be the point of focus for any business in the world. Some of the important definitions of consumer behavior by different authors and scholars are recorded below:

2.13 Defining Consumer Behavior:

According to Kardes et al (2008) consumer behavior is defined as ‘ Consumer behavior entails all consumer activities associated with the purchase, use, and disposal of goods and services, including the consumer’s emotional, mental, and behavioral response that precede, determine or follow these activities’. This is a thorough definition given by the author who mainly focuses on the consumer behavior activities and the factors which forces a person or an individual to go into the consumer behavior process and adapt these activities to become a final consumer. The theme of this definition given by Kardes et al (2008) is mainly about the psychological aspects or factors which directs or forces a human being to enter into the process of buying and behave in a certain manner or follow the actions and activities given in this definition. On the other hand Macinnis & Hoyer (2009) defines consumer behavior and are of the view that “Consumer behavior is the totality of consumers’ decision with respect to the acquisition, consumption and disposition of goods, services, time and ideas by human decision-making units (over time)”. This definition is also concise enough and explains different activities a human follows from acquiring a certain product to the disposal of it. It also focuses primarily on the human decision-making system to make a decision about acquiring, consuming and then disposing a certain product or a service.

Both of the above discussed definition looks concise and clear but they however, lack the complete process of behaving of consumers written as a definition. These definitions have mainly focused on the psychological aspects involved in buying a product or the human-decision making system which forces or give direction to the consumer to buy a certain product which may fulfill their need or desire and ultimately this fulfillment of their need or desire will satisfy them. Question may be raised here that is consumer behavior only about the psychology of consumers and the decisions human make under some circumstances? Obviously there would be a lot of factors which would direct these human beings to make decisions but precisely is it only the psychological aspect, which should be highlighted when discussions are done on the consumer behavior?

Kotler (2010) defines consumer behavior as “The buying behavior of final consumers – individuals and households that buy goods and services for personal consumption”. This definition given by Kotler (2010) is the shortest discussed until now and does not include the psychological aspect of consumer behavior to the extent, which was discussed in the above definition. It is concise and covers almost all the sides of consumer behavior as final consumers are those consumers who are ready to consume and buy products or avail services. Individual consumers and household consumers are also discussed in this definition, which gives an idea to the reader that consumer, can be a single individual or even the whole household or organization. Consumers are different all over the world and their motives of buying a certain product or availing a service may be different. Consumers get their motives influenced from different aspects around them such as society, culture, friends, ethnicity or even religion. They become final consumers and buys products or avail services so that their motives can be achieved and give them satisfaction. The transformation of an individual to the final consumer depends on their needs or desires, some needs are undoubtedly same for all the people all over the world such as physiological needs but some needs or desires can be altogether different in these people. Culture, society, demography and too many other factors assist in designing person’s needs and desires and directs individuals to enter into the buying process and become final consumers as explained by Kotler (2010) in his definition.  There are said to be many factors influencing consumer behavior’s decision making and providing the direction to become a final consumer. One of the most influential and important factor on which modern marketing depends can be consumer satisfaction. Research study needs to explain the terminology, and is as under.

2.14 Consumer satisfaction:

“Consumer satisfaction means accordance of subjective expectations and the actual satisfaction of needs towards products and services”. [Meffert & Bruhn 1982 cited in Purohit, 2004 P-1] Consumer satisfaction takes place when the expectations of any customer or consumer are same as the performance of the product with which these emotions were attached. The alignment of performance of the product with the expectation consumer has produces satisfaction in consumers’ mind. The term satisfaction however lacks the modern research and definition, which has limited the abilities of the research. Furthermore, satisfaction’s explanation is more of taken in the context of consumer satisfaction only. The term satisfaction itself is understood as an evaluation and not an emotion, which a person may feel after meeting his expectation with the level of performance of the product. Giese & Cote (2000) explains that due to lack of definitional identity of the term satisfaction it becomes really difficult to do research about such terminology. However it is evident that satisfaction is understood differently than what it really is or can be. The definitions of this term could be better and based upon empirical proofs and evidences but unfortunately there are not many definitions of the term are in place, which makes the topic of satisfaction as a process of evaluation rather than measure it as a feeling or emotion, which is found in humans. It is also vital to understand the total process of buying relevant to consumer behavior, because without the sound understanding of the processes and theories related to consumer behavior it would be difficult to understand the essence of consumer behavior.

2.15 Model of purchasing decision:

According to Kotler (2003) cited in Turban (2010) the purchasing decision model comprises of five different phases consisted of several activities and decisions that a consumer makes in a day-to-day life. First of these five stages is a) identifying the need, b) searching the relevant information, c) evaluating the options and alternatives available, d) buying and delivery of the product of service and finally e) evaluating the product or service after the occurrence of purchase. Turban (2010) explains that since every individual is different and on top of that every individual is a consumer so it would be harsh and untrue to say that every individual who is a consumer would go through all of these stages in order to buy something. Furthermore, different consumers may see the process of purchase differently and may or may not include all the stages explained in this model or go through the stages in accordance to their taste and personalities which are of course influenced by the culture, demography, geography etc. Consumers going through the purchasing process of any product may go onto one stage and than revert back to the earlier stage or in some cases consumers may altogether skip one stage of the model and jump on to the next one, as explained it really depends upon the consumer.

2.16 Explanation of purchase-decision model:

As explained above purchase-decision model is comprised of the following five stages. There is a certain need to understand these five phases of the model in more detail. According to Alex (2010) the occurrence of identification of need takes place when customer or consumer faces confusion and a kind of discrepancy between the genuine and the desired state of any need. Marketers usually take advantage of the confusion of the consumer and imply different techniques to convince a consumer to buy products or avail the services they offer to him. Turban (2006) explains that when a consumer recognizes the need, he or she tends to locate the possible alternatives available to the product. Consumers make decisions at this point of time and decide which product to buy and from who to buy it to satisfy the need recognized by him. Consumers’ information search may be influenced by the advertisements, promotions or word of mouth etc. to buy a certain product or to buy it from a certain retailer. Alex (2010) similarly explains that in phase of information search consumers usually decide which product to buy however they also allocate the alternatives available and prioritize them in accordance to their need. Consumers would evaluate the alternatives and make a decision about buying a product and enter the final purchase stage or become a final consumer. Finally, consumers would decide about how to pay and arrange the payment to buy a certain product to satisfy their need. Normally consumers also get information about the post-purchase activities such as warranties and insurance of a product or service etc. Turban (2006) describes that consumers do get excited about the customer services they would have after buying the product or a timely resolution of a problem or issue they might face in future while using the product. Furthermore, with the explanation of purchase decision making process which each individual adapts in a certain manner at the time of satisfying his needs, there is a certain need to understand the a consumer and its attitude towards buying, using, disposing off the product etc.

2.17 Consumer and the attitude:

According to Lancaster and Geoffrey (2005) consumer is normally understood as individuals who are occupants of the environment whose behavior and the cultural and social aspects affect attitude. The social and cultural values which act, as motivators in any consumer’s life is different because of the variety in culture and social values all over the world. There is a certain need to understand consumer from inner point of view because understanding the outer look of an individual who supposedly gets influenced as explained by different consumer behavior scholars is not enough. Lancaster & Geoffrey (2005) argue that although all the individuals are unique despite of the fact that some of them live in villages, some in towns, some are males and some are females, difference in age and social influences makes it almost impossible for the marketing scholars to determine the attitude of consumers. They further explain that a consumer as an individual tend to absorb the information he is bombarded with now a days, which help him develop the attitudes and perceptions about a certain product or service. Whenever a consumer has a need the information he is bombarded with usually assist him in making decision and choosing one thing over another. Understanding the whole human psychology and pattern of buying products or availing services is very difficult. However, some of the key logical concepts and terminologies, which are considered as highly important in understanding the consumer behavior, are following:

• Personality and the self-concept
• Motivation
• Perception
• Attitudes

2.18 Personality and self-concept:

Self-concept holds a lot of importance in every individual’s life because this is the image every person sees itself with and it is one of the biggest elements of making an individual behavior shown to the outside world. According to Solomon (2010) every individual sees it and portrays himself in a way, which would be acceptable to the groups of people with whom he or she interacts. Lancaster & Geoffrey (2005) further argue that marketers interest in the whole behavior of humans is related to their consumption or buying choices which every individual makes o satisfy a certain need or desire possessed by them. Solomon (2010) believes that individuals tend to fortify the image they have created in their minds about themselves to the world by different methods such as buying and wearing certain type of clothes or using different kinds of phones or to live in a house which they may think would portray their self-image to the outside world. Marketers tend to divide these different group of individuals and target them with the advertisements in accordance to their self-image so that a consumer feel that by buying a certain product or availing a service may help in showing their self-image to the outside world.

2.18.1 Motivation:

Blackwell et al (2006) explains that motivation which is normally considered, as a complex issue to research on and to understand is basically a direction to achieve something. Every individual is said to have motives in their life. Lancaster & Geoffrey (2005) agrees with Blackwell et al (2006) and adds that there has to be existence of need in order for a person to have a motive. Marketing professionals are usually interested in understanding the motives of individuals behind the need they possess. According to Solomon (2010) needs of individuals can be different such as physiological needs without which a human cannot stay alive followed by needs, which are psychological. Marketers distinguish among different individual groups possessing needs in accordance to the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and keeping in mind the economic restriction or freedom they may have. There should be a clear distinction between emotional interests in buying something with having power of buying a product. Marketers usually capitalizes on these distinction and divide people into groups and target them in accordance to what their needs could be.

2.18.2 Perception:

Lake (2009) is of the view that perception can be explained as a phenomenon with which consumers see the world around them, which is consisted of products and services. Perception is certainly important for organizations and companies because organizations get a chance to influence consumer’s perception and take advantage of that in terms of generating more and more revenue. Similarly, by influencing the perceptions marketers or organizations make sure that the product or a service is recognized and interpreted in there minds and hearts. Lake (2009) further explains that when marketers succeed in understanding the perception of the market they are dealing with then comes the time to tailor the marketing stimulus through advertisements, packages, promotions and pricing etc.

2.18.3 Attitudes:

According to Lake (2009) attitude deals with the general evaluation of anything. It shows how the customers or the consumers feel about the existence of products and services. Attitudes of consumers can tell a lot about the consumer’s being. Lake (2009) further adds on and is of the view that it is important to keep in mind that attitudes of consumers are generally learned, some direct experiences they go through in their lives form these attitudes in consumers. Individual’s personality and ideas in his mind influence the attitude of a person to a very larger extent. Furthermore, mediums like family, friends and their experiences and the exposure to any kind of media now days provide that necessary insight to the individual to make its own attitude.

2.19 Conclusion:

At this point literature review of the proposed research study comes to a conclusion. Two main areas of studies have been discussed in this chapter namely, motivation and consumer behavior. This chapter was focused on getting all the existing theories and ideas established already in the academic world about both of these issues. As evident secondary research in the literature review started generally and kept on narrowing down the subjects and topics relevant to the issues and problems of the research study. Finally, this chapter has been concluded with some substantial discussion on the areas of study where the necessary data was collected from the authentic sources such as books, journals, articles, newspapers, and magazines, Internet etc. in order to make this research authentic, valid and reliable and provide that necessary foundation to end it successfully while achieving all the research objectives successfully.