Generation Y Muslim Female and Male Decision Making Styles in Malaysia : Are They Different ?

Previous studies have suggested that demographics, including gender, education level, religiosity and nationality affect consumer behavior. This research explores the influence of gender on the shopping behavior of Generation Y Muslim consumers in Malaysia. The structured questionnaire was distributed to a sample of 500 consumers aged between 18 and 34. Completed data from 486 respondents were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics, while factor analysis and ANOVA were conducted to identify construct validity and differences in segment groups. Results indicated that eight decision-making style factors were identified for young Muslim consumers. There are significant differences between male and female consumers related to Brand Consciousness, Brand Loyalty, Recreational Consciousness and ValueImpulsiveness. However, male consumers are similar to the females with respect to Fashion-Fun Consciousness, Quality Consciousness, Confused by Over-Choice and Imperfectionism. Implications for retailers and marketing practitioners as well as recommendations for future research are also discussed. General TermsDecision Making Styles KeywordsMuslim Gen Y; Gender; Consumer Decision Making Styles (CDMS); ANOVA; Malaysia


INTRODUCTION
The study of consumers" decision making styles holds the key to understanding their purchasing behavior.Marketers and advertising agencies have long relied on consumers" decision making styles information to segment the markets (Durvasula et al., 1993 [15]; Quester & Lim, 2003 [42]) [42].Investigations into consumer decision-making are well established in the marketing and consumer behavior research.Many researchers (Areni & Kiecker, 1993[4]; Shim, 1996[48]; Miller, 1998[31]; Fan & Xiao, 1998 [17]; Mitchell & Walsh, 2004 [33]; Bakewell & Mitchell, 2006 [7]; Kavas & Yesilada, 2007[26]; Yasin, 2009[59]; Mokhlis, 2009[35]; Mishra, 2010 [32]; Seyyed Ali et al., 2011[46]) have examined the decision-making styles of consumers in the developed (US, New Zealand, Germany and British) and developing countries (China, Turkey, Malaysia, India and Iran).Those studies used either the original Consumer Styles Inventory (CSI) developed by Sproles and Kendall (1986) [51] or the modified versions which included items to suit different cultural orientations (e.g.Tai, 2005) [53].Sproles and Kendall (1986) [51], who employed 40 items pertaining to affective and cognitive orientation in decision making, grouped the styles or traits into eight dimensions: 1) Perfectionism or High-quality Consciousness; 2) Brand Consciousness; 3) Novelty-Fashion Consciousness; 4) Recreational, Hedonistic Shopping Consciousness; 5) Price or Value for Money Shopping Consciousness; 6) Impulsiveness; 7) Confused by Over-Choice; and 8) Habitual or Brand Loyal Orientation.A few studies have found that gender has a significant impact on buying behavior, citing notable differences between the decision making styles of male and female consumers (Bakewell & Mitchell, 2003 [5]; Mitchell & Walsh, 2004[33]; Yasin, 2009[59]).However, the number and scope of such studies are relatively few and limited.Even more limited are studies which delve into the purchasing behavior of male and female Muslim youths.Thus, this study is aimed at answering the following research questions: 1) Does gender influence the consumer decision making styles of young adult Muslim consumers?2) Are there any differences in the decision making styles of male and female Muslim youths?Since there is currently a dearth of research investigating the Muslim youth decision making styles, the findings of this study will add to the growing knowledge in this area and provide implications on segmentation and expanding business across cultures.

PAST LITERATURE 2.1 Generation Y and shopping
Generation Y, also known as the Millennials or echoboomers, refers to the demographic cohort following Generation X.Although there is no single definition nor precise dates used to define Generation Y, a few researchers (Bakewell & Mitchell, 2003[5]; Broadbridge et al., 2007[8]; Morton, 2002[37]) use birth years ranging from 1977 to 1994 to classify this group of consumers.Others consider those born between 1980 and 1994 to be members of Generation Y (Archana & Heejin, 2008) [3].Kapoor and Solomon (2011) [25] define Generation Y as youths who are born between 1980 and 1999, while William (2008) [58] and Tay (2011) [54] [12] since they have high income at their disposal (Morton, 2002) [37].They are savvy consumers because they are often early adopters of new technologies and are extensive users of the Internet.In the food service industry, the Generation Y consumer group represents the key market segment due to the eating habits and lifestyle of its members.In addition, Gen Y is important for marketers because of the impact that they have on their families' purchase decisions (Renn & Arnold, 2003) [43].College students alone represent the most lucrative market segment although a majority of them are unemployed and are thus financially dependent on study loans and parental support.Businesses are seeking to capture this market segment because these students are embarking on a transition period which is a turning point that can change their previous shopping behaviors (Mishra, 2010) [32].While this segment is a potentially lucrative target for many marketers, it is also complex and requires further investigation.As such, in many consumer behavior studies involving youths and young-adult population, respondents were selected among college/university students.One aspect of college students" shopping behavior that interests many researchers in the field is their decision-making styles.In China, Kwan et al. (2004) [28] distributed questionnaires to 180 male and female University students in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou to identify the decision making styles of young Chinese consumers.A research examining cross-cultural differences in consumer decision making styles in Singapore by Leo et al. (2005) [29] included Singaporean and Australian samples with the mean age of 21 to 36 years.In the United Kingdom, Bakewell and Mitchell (2006) [7] conducted research on the decision making styles of female and male undergraduates aged between 18 and 22 years.Mishra (2010) [32] used 425 postgraduates to study decision making styles among youth-adult consumers in India.In Malaysia, Mokhlis (2009) [35] selected 400 public university undergraduates as research respondents for his investigation into the influence of gender on male and female consumers" shopping styles.In essence, the researchers found that these young adult consumers are different, yet alike in their shopping or decision making styles behavior.

Consumer decision making styles
According to Sproles and Kendall (1986, p. 276) [51] consumer decision-making styles (CDMS) refer to "the pattern, mental and cognitive orientation towards buying and shopping that shape the consumers" choice to buy something or reject them".Durvasula et al. (1993) [15], on the other hand, define decision-making styles as a mental orientation describing how a consumer makes choices.Investigations on CDMS can be categorized into the following approaches: the psychographic/lifestyle approach (Well, 1974) [56]; the consumer typology approach (Kenson, 1999[27]; Ownbey & Horridge, 1997 [39]; Shim & Kotsiopulos, 1996 [47]) [47]; and the consumer characteristics approach (Sproles & Sproles, 1990 [52]; Walsh et al., 2001[55]).Presently, the best and most comprehensive model that measures consumers" characteristic traits is the Consumer Styles Inventory (CSI) developed by Sproles.The CSI, which was developed to measure shopping attitudes and behaviors for personal goods, describes consumers as having eight traits: i) Perfectionist, high-quality consciousnessreferring to those consumers who search carefully and systematically for the best quality products; ii) Brand consciousnessfocusing on consumers who buy the more expensive, well-known brands; iii) Novelty-fashion consciousnessreferring to consumers who like new and innovative products; iv) Recreational, hedonistic consciousnessfocusing on consumers who find shopping as a pleasant activity and shop just for the fun of it; v) Price conscious and "value-for-money" consciousnessthose with high consciousness of sales prices and lower prices in general; vi) Impulsivenessthose who tend to buy at the spur of the moment and appear unconcerned about how much they spend; vii) Confused by over choicethose consumers who experience an information overload because there are too many brands and stores from which to choose; viii) Habitual, brand-loyalthose consumers who have favorite brands and stores, and keep on choosing these repetitively.
It is important to note that there is a general consensus among researchers that decision-making styles can vary across cultures from market to market or from segment to segment.For instance, the CSI used by Mokhlis (2009) [35] on a Malaysian sample yielded different results due to the cultural differences, implying that CSI in its original form cannot be generalized without some modification.
In fact, Sproles and Kendall (1986) [51]have recommended using the inventory with different population groups to determine the generality of its applicability.As such, further investigation carried out to determine the cross-cultural applicability of the CSI could contribute to the existing body of knowledge.

Gender, shopping behavior and decision making styles
Some researchers suggest that both male and female youth are interested in shopping and that it is an activity carried out actively by both genders.Others, however, theorize that gender differences are fundamental to understanding purchasing behavior.Areni and Kiecker (1993) [4] and Prince (1993) [41] conclude that compared to women, men are more independent, confident, externally motivated, competitive, and more willing to take risks especially with money.Shoaf et al. (1995) [49] maintain that men show a weaker sensitivity to the opinions of their friends, and they commonly make careless decisions (Campbell, 1997) [9].In one study, teenage boys were found to be more utilitarian, whereas teenage girls are more social conscious (Shim, 1996) [48].
Men also spend less time shopping than women and generally do not take responsibility for food and clothing purchases (Miller, 1998) [31].Men were also reported to be less interested in clothing and fashion (Cox & Dittmar, 1995) [11], and they do not perceive shopping as being pleasant and desirable as compared to female consumers (Dholokia, 1999) [14].Bakewell and Mitchell (2004) [6] revealed that male shoppers have twelve decision making styles, whereas females have eleven.Besides the eight styles identified by Sproles and Kendall (1986) [51], four other new styles for males have emerged in their study: Time-energy Conserving, Confused Time Restricted, Store Loyal /Price Seeking and Store Promiscuous.For the female shoppers, the three additional new styles were Bargain Seeking, Imperfectionism and Store Loyal.These findings further lend support to the widely held view that male consumer decision making styles are different from those of their female counterpart.Anic et al. (2010) [2] identified eight decision making styles among their sample of 304 undergraduates in the Republic of Macedonia.A comparison between the genders revealed differences in four styles: Brand Consciousness, Novelty/Fashion Consciousness, Recreational/Hedonistic Shopping Consciousness and Habitual/Brand Loyal.Female consumers appear to be less "brand conscious" and "brand loyal", but are more "novelty and fashion conscious" and more interested in "hedonistic shopping".These results are in line with two other empirical studies by Sproles and Kendall (1986) [51] and Wesley, LeHew and Woodside (2006) [57].In Iran, Hanzaee and Aghasibeig (2008) [22] identified ten male and eleven female decision-making styles among Generation Y consumers.However, nine styles were found to be common for both genders: (2010) [36], and no attempt was made to identify differences between the decision making styles of the male and female respondents.Recent studies have shown that apart from gender, culture is also a strong predictor of consumer decision making styles.Solka, Jackson and Lee (2011) [50] compared the decision making styles of Generation Y consumers in a previously planned economy country (Poland) and a country identified as a capitalist market driven country (United States) using Jackson and Lee"s (2010) [23] Consumer Decision Making Styles (CDMS) instrument.Inter-cultural differences between young UK and US male and female undergraduates were also reported by Bakewell and Mitchell (2006) [7] in their later study.Males appear more brand conscious compared to females.Young male shoppers also show the Perfectionism and Recreational Shopping Consciousness traits, which explain why male shoppers are effective in their shopping activities.Additionally, although the study found that some men do perceive shopping as a form of leisure, they are confused about which shops to visit, and are therefore identified as having the Confused Time-Restricted traits.The results of these studies suggest that decision making styles do vary between genders and cultures, implying that the same marketing technique that is effective in reaching females in one culture will not be as effective in reaching females in another culture.

Measurement and scale
To measure the shopping behaviour styles, the Consumer Styles Inventory (CSI) developed by Sproles and Kendall (1986) [51] was employed with some modification adopted from Leo et al. (2005) [22].Also included were a few items developed by the researchers to suit the Muslim respondents.A total 43 items were used to measure the eight different styles of consumer decision making: Perfectionism/Quality Consciousness (8 items), Brand Consciousness (7 items), Price/Value Consciousness (3 items), Fashion/Novelty Consciousness (5 items), Recreation/Enjoyment Consciousness (8 items), Impulsiveness/Carelessness (4 items), Confused by Over Choice (4 items) and Brand Loyal/Habitual (4 items).A five-point Likert scale statements ranging from "Strongly Disagree" (1) to "Strongly Agree" (5) was used.Seven questions were developed to gather demographic information.These include gender, ethnicity, age, education level, status, income level and residence.Both nominal and ordinal scales were used to measure these variables.

Sampling
The sample for the present study was selected among Generation Y Muslims who make up the approximately 10.8 million youths (Muslim and non-Muslim) within the ages of 15 to 34 in Malaysia.However, only those aged between 18 and 32 were selected as research respondents due to their greater appropriateness for the questionnaire methodology.This segment of the population comprises mainly students and working adults.

Pilot test and Data collection
Pilot test was conducted with 43 items using the fivepoint Likert scale.A sample of 30 was chosen to verify the items used.A similar questionnaire was later selfadministered to a non-probability via convenience sampling using a sample of 500 respondents.The respondents included undergraduates, public and private sector employees as well as young entrepreneurs.These respondents were enrolled as full-time students at different universities in Malaysia, working in different organizations or running their own businesses in various locations throughout the country.

Hypotheses testing
The following hypotheses were tested using ANOVA analysis: H1: Gender influences the decision making styles of Muslim youth.H2: Male and female Muslim youths are significantly different in certain dimensions of their decision-making styles.

Respondents Profile
The number of female respondents (289) was higher than their male counterparts (197).See Table 1.The data also indicate that all respondents were Muslim but not all were Malays.Some were Chinese, Indian or indigenous Muslims.About 76.3 per cent of the respondents fell within the 21-30 age group, and more than 60 per cent had degree-level qualification.College/university students made up 59.7 per cent of the sample while the remaining (49.3 per cent) were nonstudents.Since a majority of the respondents were students, 64 per cent of them earned monthly incomes of between RM0-RM1000.The 91(18.7%) respondents who earned more than RM3000 per month were considered as belonging to the middle-income group in Malaysia.Most of the respondents were residing in urban areas which mean that they had easier access to malls and big shopping venues.

Factor Analysis and Discussion
Following the disconfirmation of Sproles and Kendall"s (1986) [51] original model, exploratory factor analysis was conducted to assess the construct validity.
Exploratory factor analysis identified the Eigenvalue, KMO and Barlett"s Test score.Consistent with Sproles and Kendall"s, principle components analysis with varimax rotation method was performed and the number of factors was determined based on the eigenvalue criterion (λ > 1).Barlett"s Test of Spherecity was found to be statistically significant (7270.09,p = 0.00) and the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) value was 0.838.This indicates that the sample was suitable for factor analytic procedures (Hair et al., 2006).Factor loadings for decision making styles items are shown in Table 2. Out of the 43 items, 42 items had a factor loading score of 0.40 or more, and were considered for further analysis (Chen et al., 2002[10]; Kwan et al., 2004[24]).Principal component analysis revealed the presence of eleven factors (42 items) with eigenvalues exceeding more than 1, explaining 60.37 per cent of the total variance, which exceeds the 60% threshold used in social sciences (Hair et al., 1995).For the eight factors (33 items), the variance was valued at 52.56 per cent, which satisfies the percentage of variance criterion for social science (Hair et al., 1998).In other studies, the variance are: Sproles and Kendall (1986)[51] -46 per cent; Fan & Xiao (1998) -35 per cent; Ghodeswar (2007)[18] -57 per cent; and Yasin (2009)[59] -57.06 per cent.Factor 1 represents "Fashion Consciousness" which comprises six items, explaining 17.33 percent of the variance with eigenvalues of 7.45.Factor 2, known as "Quality Consciousness/Perfectionism" and consisting of four items, contributes 8.45 percent of the total variance with eigenvalues of 3.64.Factor 3 which measures "Confused by Over Choice" comprises four items.Factor 4 which contributes 5.20 percent of the total variance with eigenvalues of 2.24 is related to "Brand Consciousness" and consists of five items.The fifth factor representing "Brand Loyalty" and consisting of three items, explains 4.20 percent variance with eigenvalues of 1.81.Factor 6, known as "Recreational Shopping Consciousness" and consisting of four items, contributes 3.92 percent of the total variance with eigenvalues of 1.69.Factor 7 and 8 are newly emerged factors.Factor 7 contributes 3.74 percent of the total variance with eigenvalues of 1.61 and was renamed as "Value-Impulsiveness".It consists of four items.Finally, Factor 8 which comprises three items was renamed as "Imperfectionism" and explains 3.09 percent of variance with eigenvalues of 1.33 respectively.Factors 9, 10 and 11 were dropped from subsequent analysis as the alpha scores were too low (< 0.50).In sum, eight factors were found to represent the decision making styles of Muslim youths in Malaysia.This result is consistent with Mokhlis (2010) [36] even though the two factors of Value-Impulsiveness and Imperfectionism in this study were not found in the said study.The alpha values were calculated (see Table 2) to assess the internal consistency reliabilities of the scales.The alpha scores fell within the range of 0.60 -0.80.Five variables had above 0.70 Cronbach"s alpha values while three factors had less than 0.70 alpha scores.According to Sekaran and Bougie (2013) [45], the closer the Cronbach"s alpha is to 1, the higher its internal consistency reliability.Thus, the alpha scores for the present study can be considered as acceptable and good.

Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and discussion
ANOVA was run on the eight factors to identify the differences between male and female decision making styles.Compared to Muslim males, females appeared to be less Brand Conscious, Brand Loyal and Value-Impulsive.In contrast, females scored higher on Recreational Consciousness as compared to the male youths.This may explain why females consider shopping as a pleasant experience, and they shop just for the fun of it.No significant differences (p > 0.05) were found in the four other factors.In other words, both the male and female Muslim youths share the following traits: Fashion Consciousness, Quality Consciousness, Confused by Over-Choice and Imperfectionism.Therefore, H1 and H2 were supported.

Comparison with Other Studies
Even though no comparison can be made between the present results and previous studies due to respondent differences, some of the differences found between the male and female Muslim consumers" decision making styles can still be explained.Studies done in Turkey, Macedonia, Iran and Malaysia suggest that the male and female consumers are significantly different in four decision making styles (see

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
Numerous studies have demonstrated that the use of the original CSI or its adapted versions in different countries and cultures would yield varied results whereby the number of decision making styles dimensions may be different or similar to the eight in the original CSI.The present research found eight dimensions of decision making styles among Muslim youths in Malaysia.Out of those dimensions, male and female youths are significantly different in four dimensions: Brand Consciousness, Brand Loyalty, Recreational Consciousness, and Value-Impulsiveness.However, they are similar in four other dimensions: Fashion Consciousness, Quality Consciousness, Confused by Over-Choice and Imperfectionism.From these findings, the researchers conclude that the differences in their decision making styles mean that male and female Generation Y consumers react differently to marketing strategies.Thus, an effort to segment these consumers correctly will better assist advertisers and marketers in their promotional efforts to target these groups of consumers.Another key finding of this study is that both male and female Generation Y Muslim shoppers are fashion conscious and they pursue quality in their purchases.Thus, producers and retailers should continue to introduce the latest designs while improving the "quality" aspect to their labels in order to capture and retain these shoppers.

Limitations and Future Research
One of the findings of this study is the confirmation that gender is a predictor of consumer decision making styles among the Muslim Generation Y cohort.Further research should embark on the Muslims of the Baby Boomers generation and investigate the differences and similarities between the two generational cohorts.Also, future studies that investigate only religiously homogeneous groups of consumers should be conducted in other settings.In addition, even though CSI can be employed to investigate Muslim decision-making styles, effort should be taken to develop and validate the Muslim Consumers Styles Inventory (MCSI).

REFERENCES
agree that the members of Generation Y are born between 1980 and 2000.In the Malaysian context, Generation Y refers to individuals born from 1980 onwards and who entered the workforce after 1 July 2000 (PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2009).The multi-racial Generation Y segment make up 10.8 million (38.2%) of the country"s population (Department of Statistics, 2010)[13].Generation Y is an important emerging consumer market segment due to the sheer magnitude of the group.The statistics in 2009 revealed that this group of population will represent approximately 26 to 30 % of the total global consumer market, equivalent to trillions of dollar market worldwide (Ang, Leong, & Lee, 2009)[1].Generation Y consumers have greater spending power (Cui, Trent, Sullivan, & Matiru, 2003) and Carelessness by Over-Choice Styles, Time-Energy Conserving, Brand Consciousness, Careless, Habitual/Brand-Loyal and Low-Price Seeking.Another study conducted in Iran by Seyyed Ali et al. (2011)[46] using students from Tehran University and Azad University identified seven decision making styles.Out of the seven, males and females were found to be statistically significant in four decision-making styles: Perfectionism Consciousness; Novelty/Fashion Consciousness; Recreational/Hedonistic Consciousness; and Impulsiveness/Carelessness.Yasin (2009)[59] who surveyed 612 male and female consumers in Turkey ranging in age from 18 to 46 found statistically significant differences on four styles related to Brand Consciousness, Novelty/Fashion Consciousness, Recreational/Hedonistic Shopping Consciousness, and Confusion from Over-Choice.Compared to males, the female consumers" agreement on Brand Consciousness, Novelty/Fashion Consciousness, Recreational/Hedonistic Shopping Consciousness, and Confused by Over-Choice styles were higher.A study conducted in Malaysia byMokhlis and Salleh (2009)[34] revealed that male and female youths (both Muslim and non-Muslim) have eight and nine styles respectively.Six of those styles were similar for both genders: Quality Consciousness; Brand Consciousness; Fashion Consciousness; Confused by Over-Choice; Satisfying; and Value Seeking.In 2010, Mokhlis conducted another study in Malaysia using 477 students of different religious backgrounds.For the Muslim subsample (n=260), an eight-factor solution was extracted.The eight factors were Fashion Conscious, Quality Conscious, Impulsiveness, Recreational Conscious, Confused by Over-Choice, Brand Conscious, Value Conscious and Brand Loyal.However, the study did not identify differences between the male and female Muslim consumers.As such, the findings of the present study could fill the gap in this area and thus enrich the knowledge about the shopping behavior of Muslim young adults in Malaysia.A recent study by Madani et al. (2012)[30] on young Malaysian adults identified four factors representing their decision making styles: Novelty/Brand Consciousness; Perfectionist/High-Quality Consciousness; Recreational/Hedonistic Consciousness; and Impulsive/Careless Consumer.These results are dissimilar to those reported by Mohklis (2009)[35]; Following Roscoe"s recommendation (1975), a sample size of 500 youths was targeted.The decision was consistent with the rule of thumb method suggested by Hair et al. (2006, p. 136)[19] which states that the minimum sample size should be ten times the number of variables measured.This sample size (500) was bigger than those of other similar studies: Anic et al. (2010)[2] -304 respondents; Mishra (2010)[32] -425 postgraduate students; Mokhlis and Salleh (2009)[34] -386 undergraduate students; and Madahi et al. (2012)[30] -325 Malaysian young-adult female and male consumers.

TABLE 2 .
Table3indicates that male and female Muslim youths were significantly different (p < 0.05) in four factors of consumer decision making styles: Brand Factor Analysis Results (n = 486) Factor BL50 I have favorite brands that I buy every time.BL51 When I find a brand I like, I buy it again and again.BL52 I go to the same stores each time I shop.QC23 A product doesn't have to be exactly what I want or the best on the market to satisfy me.QC24 I really don't give my purchases much thought or care.QC25 I usually shop quickly, buying the first goods/services or brand that seems good enough.

TABLE 4 .
Comparison of decision making styles by gender All factors are listed according to the research findings *Factor that show significant different between male and female