How do adolescents define their own competencies in the consumption field? A portrait approach

The genesis of the concept of competence in consumer behavior

The concept of competence is not explicitly confronted in the different studies on consumer behavior. Competence is, in effect, analyzed via a multitude of dimensions and concepts allowing one to more or less identify the contours of this complex notion. Most of the work done during the 1980s and 1990s on the notion of competence was limited to studying the process of how consumers treat information (Park et al., 1994; Selnes and Grønhaug, 1986). The cognitive dimension of the purchase process (Darpy and Volle, 2007) and the knowledge held by the consumer and their expertise, have been the object of several French and Anglo-Saxon studies on consumer behavior (Alba and Hutchinson, 2001; Carlson et al., 2009; Korchia, 2004). In the Anglo-Saxon literature, Alba and Hutchinson (1987) were the first to propose a conceptualization of the notion of knowledge via a definition with two dimensions: familiarity and consumer expertise. Their article published in the Journal of Consumer Research influenced the majority of French marketing researchers interested by this question (Korchia, 2004). Aurier and N’Gobo (1999) and Aurier and Passebois (2002) are responsible for the most influential works in the French literature concerning consumer ‘knowledge/expertise’. They studied knowledge held in consumers’ memory. These works distinguish between declarative knowledge (information concerning the product) and procedural knowledge (the consumers’ expertise).

From the early 2000s researchers have studied the creation mechanisms of new knowledge, an aspect that had previously been unexplored in marketing research. These studies are part of the consumer culture trend (Arnould and Thompson, 2005; Holt, 1995; Özçaglar-Toulouse and Cova, 2010) and research on the consumption experience (Hetzel, 2002; Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982; Ladwein, 2004). In 2005, CCT was consolidated in the French literature (Özçaglar-Toulouse and Cova, 2010) and since that time the notion of consumption competence has appeared in the consumer behavior literature (Bonnemaizon and Batat, 2011c; Bonnemaizon et al., 2008). These works propose establishing a conceptual and semantic transfer that marks the shift from consumer expertise (a notion defined in the traditional marketing approaches) to consumer competence (a multidisciplinary notion that is part of the CCT trend). Consumer competence can thus be considered as a practical competence because its acquisition by the consumer requires time and multiple experiences. Blasius and Friedrichs (2003) consider that practical competencies are part of the cultural capital defined by Bourdieu (1986) and can be transformed into social or economic capital. Moreover, the founders of the CCT movement rely on the notion of cultural capital to explain the process by which group members evaluate knowledge and competencies. Thus competencies and knowledge can be defined by the norms, significance, symbols and values shared by group members in their consumption culture (Belk and Costa, 1998; Kates, 2002; Kozinets, 2002; McAlexander et al., 2002). Differentiated from expertise (a notion that, according to Alba and Hutchinson (2001), reflects the consumer’s cognitive and processual capacity to achieve tasks linked to a product) and knowledge (a concept defined in consumer behavior by Korchia in 2004 as the totality of market-related information stocked in the long-term memory of the consumer), competence can be used and recreated in different consumption contexts. In this sense the ‘competent’ consumer is the individual who, having acquired knowledge through personal experience in a specific area, is capable of reusing the knowledge in other consumption situations, by putting it into practice to obtain and create a satisfactory value and significance. The competent consumer thus combines their know-how, knowing how to react and how to be, without which it is impossible for them to make sense of information and make judgments concerning value (Holbrook, 1999). The majority of these works are particularly interested in the competencies of adult consumers, ignoring the competencies constructed by young consumers because they consider their competencies and knowledge as being insufficiently acquired, particularly in the case of adolescents.

The competence at the heart of the young consumers’ socialization process

Studies focusing on competencies of adolescents as consumers fall into opposing camps. On the one hand, there are researchers who support the idea that young consumers are competent actors in a ‘competent childhood’ (Buckingham, 2004; Ekström, 2005; Tufte, 2003). On the other hand, there are researchers who point to the vulnerability of young consumers due to a lack of experience, giving rise to the idea of a ‘vulnerable childhood’ (Cook, 2005; Kline, 2006; Pechmann et al., 2005). Among the authors who have explored the competencies of the young in terms of ′consumption, Lachance (2004) conducted several studies on the consumption competencies of youth in Quebec in the areas of fashion and personal finance. Lachance considers that the autonomous practice of all social roles implies achievement of a performance and supposes a notion of competence in the exercise of the relevant activities. As a result, young people can be perceived as either competent or vulnerable consumers depending upon the areas of consumption or according to other economic and sociocultural criteria.

Over the past ten years, there has been growing interest in studies on young consumer socialization (Brée, 2007; Gollety, 1997, 1999; Roedder-John, 2001), young consumer empowerment, thanks in part to Internet use (Cook, 2008; Kline, 2006), and the bricolage process by adolescents of creating their identities (Marion, 2003). This interest is motivated by the evolution of the context of the hyper-consumption society that adolescents evolve in. This includes democratization of the use of new medias and the emergence of new consumption and socialization tendencies, such as internet purchasing, product personalization, and social networks and blogs (Lardellier, 2006; Pasquier, 1999). Adolescents can thus be considered as pioneers and experts in the domain of technologies. Currently, 50% of new products are introduced into families thanks to the children (Le Bigot et al., 2004). Adolescents, in fact, become more competent in their mastering of technological products than do adults. There are few studies on the consumer capacity of youth, and those that do exist in marketing have, until present, been limited to the notion of price expertise and learning (Damay, 2007). They have not tried to clarify the way adolescents define their own consumption competencies. In reality, all these marketing studies address the socialization and learning process of the young consumer, but without retaining the notion of consumption competency that results from these processes, and that is an integral part of a young person’s socialization process. This article attempts to fill this gap and respond to two research questions: ‘How do adolescents define consumption competence?’ and ‘How do they see themselves in terms of being a consumer in society?’ Are they competent or vulnerable actors? To respond to these questions, a strategy involving long-term, deep immersion in the context of adolescents is required. This is presented in the next section.

The portraits: An approach adapted to studying the young consumer

We favored a new approach, that of ‘portraits’ (Colas, 1999; De Singly, 2006), to avoid the disappearance of the process of individualization or to lose the behavioral specificities of each adolescent. The portrait is a representation of an individual or of a more or less complex reality, by way of speech, painting, but, above all, via writing that is voluntarily descriptive, illustrative and normative (Lafond, 1959). In management sciences, the ‘written portrait’ stems from narration that allows recreation of lived experiences by providing the scientific reader a manifest and intelligent form. The researcher thus attempts to lead the scientific reader into the zone of interaction by retelling the facts through the accumulation of material, and by putting these materials in relation with one another via interpretations that allow the researcher to reconstruct the missing links in the causal chains and to put them in a narrative form (Colas, 1999).

As opposed to the ideal-type often used in management science that tries to establish a type based on concrete traits, portraits target individual knowledge stemming from general themes (Lafond, 1959). The portrait starts with the singular, replacing a phenomenological unit centered on characteristics of a mass of individuals, by a phenomenological unit centered on the individual and their singularity. The portrait thus completes the ‘ideal-type’ typologies and opens the door to interpretations by the reader himself (Colas, 1999). In contrast to a life story where the researcher orients the interview toward a description of pertinent experiences to study their subject, the portrait takes its inspiration from the contingency of the circumstances of the phenomenon, thus leaving a great deal to chance (Colas, 1999). Colas argues that ‘the researcher knows (hopes) that things other than that for which he has come will happen, a “fatal product”, the “detritus” of the initial interaction that he gets to reassess’ (Colas, 1999, p. 4). The portrait method lets researchers enrich their data by creating value of the fatal residue of their experiences and of their interactions with the actors. However, this method remains very marginal in the management sciences literature and is nonexistent in marketing literature. To our knowledge, there is only one doctoral dissertation that uses the portrait method to describe the profiles of members of an organization and their interactions (Colas, 1999). In youth sociology, De Singly (2006) was the first to have used this method to analyze the moments of tension and negotiation between adolescents and their parents surrounding the subject of autonomy in social and extracurricular activities. This approach is adapted to studies on youth because it very effectively takes into account the context of actions, and the identities and perception of adolescents (Passeron and Revel, 2005). In our research, we followed the steps recommended by Colas (1999) to create the portraits of adolescents and their consumption competences (see Appendix A). Using this innovative approach, these portraits were enriched by a chronological narrative (Bruner, 1990; Clandinin and Connelly, 2000) of our different meetings, retracing an informal reality (Colas, 1999) via the experiences lived with the adolescents and the resulting anecdotes. The essential contribution of the portrait method is that it allows us to ground ourselves in a logic of singularity for each adolescent and to deeply examine how they define their consumption competencies and perceive themselves as consumers in society. In addition to using portraits, we chose to mobilize other sources of information to explore the juvenile context in which these competencies emerge (Thompson, 1997). The observations and comprehensive interviews were complemented with photographs, drawings and collages created by the adolescents (see Appendix 5). These personal documents contributed to a better understanding of the adolescent consumption culture. Additionally, they helped us situate the exchanges with our research object (using their own definition of the consumption competence) in terms of their personal areas of consumption interest.

Presentation of the sample and the study

Given the lack of consensus concerning the definition of adolescence in the human sciences literature, we have chosen to use the one established by Fosse-Gomez (1991) that refers to three phases of adolescence. There is a period of transition, a schooling phase, and a time of depending on the family. For Fosse-Gomez the adolescent is defined as an individual between 12 and 18 years of age, living with a family and attending school. Thus the sample chosen for this study is composed of a heterogeneous group of 18 adolescents (nine girls and nine boys) between the ages of 11 and 15 (see Appendix 6) that we followed for six months. In contrast to Fosse-Gomez’s definition (1991), in this research, we chose to study adolescents aged 11–15 attending a middle school. This is justified by the results of one of our previous studies focusing on youth aged from 11 to 25 and their socialization via mobile phones (Batat, 2006). The results of that study highlighted the symbolic meaning and significances adolescents aged 11–15 attribute to their mobile phone usages. These usages are completely different from the usages of other age groups that were under study (high school students (16–18), university students (19–22) and young adults in transition (23–25). Additionally, the choice of this age range is justified by the diversity of consumption practices among adolescents in the 11–15-year-old age group who are ‘digital natives’ (Tapscott, 1998) and familiar with the internet from a very early age (Batat, 2006). There are a fairly small number of studies dedicated to adolescent behavior in this age range (Fosse-Gomez, 1991; Gentina, 2008) in comparison to research targeting the subject of the child consumer (Brée, 1993, 2007). In the present study four criteria were respected in the construction of our sample. There was variety in the parent’s socio-professional profiles, in the social realities of the adolescents, and in terms of living situations (rural vs. urban). Finally, there were diverse family structures (nuclear, single parent, blended). We recruited the adolescents for our sample from a private middle school in south-west France with a large population of 11–15 year olds. Our strategy for getting ‘close’ to the adolescents included informal forms of addressing one another, proposing subjects that interested them (television series, celebrity gossip, reality TV, fashion, first loves, music, technology, films, video games, etc.) and by giving them candy at each session.

The different meetings with the middle schoolers took place over 48 sessions at a pace of two sessions per week (Monday and Friday from 2 pm to 3 pm) for six months. The mixed gender group of 18 adolescents participated in all the sessions and everyone was systematically filmed. While there was no in situ use of an analysis grid, the exchanges revolved around their consumption practices in terms of their interests (sports, music, clothes, new technologies, going out, movies, etc.). The sessions were not all of the same nature and required lots of flexibility and capacity to adapt depending on the context. The study also required a large capacity for empathy, putting oneself in the adolescent’s shoes, with all their preoccupations and trying to think like them, in other worlds, seeing the world through their eyes (Fulton Suri, 2003; Gee, 1986; Plowman, 2003). We used a hybrid methodology (see Appendix 7) to produce rich portraits underscoring the different perceptions of the consumption competence. We also chose to define the themes of the sessions, but remained open to suggestions made by the adolescents and to exchanges between them, during which we pulled back. In this way, the pertinence of the sessions could be increased by the ‘open ‘ and not ‘selective’ approach of the observer (Cathelat, 1990).

The sessions were recorded in a journal, in the form of a chronological narrative of 400 pages. During the creation of the portraits, use of this journal helped the author retrieve information about the places (exchanges between the adolescents, the place, ambiance, observed behaviors, facial expressions, etc.) and the time passed with the adolescents. Using analysis of the chronological narrative as a starting point, we developed 18 portraits (see Appendix 8) comprising a total of 700 pages, roughly 40 pages per portrait, including works by the adolescents. The 18 adolescents had a month to create these works alone at home. To analyze these documents, we asked each adolescent to comment on and explain the motivations that were linked to each photo, drawing and collage.

Data analysis method

Analysis of the material was undertaken once all the data had been collected. It followed a two-part interpretive process (see Figure 1). The first step consisted of creating the 18 portraits from the chronological narrative by following the same steps used by Colas (1999). Mobilization of an abductive process allowed us to elaborate the portraits by progressively integrating unplanned ex-ante phenomenon as the research progressed. In doing so, we developed the portraits by classifying their contents according to eight categories that regrouped the main themes linked to learning, the adolescent consumption culture, and the definitions the adolescents had given of competencies. The eight categories were defined via content analysis of the qualitative data (Bardin, 1977) using an open coding approach (Strauss and Corbin, 1998). In this article, we made the choice to center our intra- and inter-portrait analysis on two themes linked to adolescent consumption competence that are studied in categories 6 and 7 (see Figure 1). We also did a two-level (intra-portrait and inter-portrait) interpretive analysis (Arnould and Wallendorf, 1994; Hetzel, 2002) to define the consumption competencies perceived by the adolescents. This two-step interpretive approach took into account the researcher’s subjectivity and their reflections as the results were collated (Denzin and Lincoln, 2005). The subjective interpretation was done following the steps recommended by Deslaumiers (1991), namely the first step wherein the data are destroyed and the second during which they are used to reconstruct the results.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

Implementation of the analysis in two phases.

Intra-portrait analysis coding was done using a model similar to that proposed by Arnould and Wallendorf (1994) with observational and verbal data. Interpretive coding followed a fine thematic analysis that targeted determining the dimensions of consumption competence identified in each portrait. First, the categories associated with the object of our research (competence, know-how, mastery, etc.) were defined, this was followed by the themes (socialization agents, learning to consume, using new technologies, etc…) and finally by behaviors, (competent behavior, vulnerable behavior, construction of competencies, etc.).

The intra-portrait analysis brought out the coding categories linked with the definition of the competence of each individual adolescent. We then conducted an interpretive inter-portrait analysis consisting of comparing the recurring semantic categories identified in each adolescent’s portrait in order to draw out the explicit or tacit common social logics. Having done this, we identified 11 competence dimensions corresponding to discourses relative to consumption experiences and to observations made in the field. The validity of the results follows both criteria developed by Girod-Séville and Perret (1999), who themselves apply the interpretative approach. These criteria are: (1) ideographic, being applied to phenomenon that are studied in situ and thus understanding them derives from the context; and (2) empathetic, reflecting the researchers’ ability to ‘put themselves in the others’ shoes’ and perceive what they feel. We also performed self-confrontations by presenting the adolescents with videos that had been made during the sessions to see their reactions to their own declarations and those of the others.

The 11 dimensions of consumption competence defined by adolescents

Am I a competent consumer? The adolescent’s vision of their role as consumer in society

The 11 dimensions of consumption competence defined by the adolescents between the ages of 11 and 15 show the potential they have in their consumption habits. It is their capacity to seek out information from different on- and offline sources and to appropriate consumption objects via personalization, bricolage and customization in order to satisfy their symbolic and tangible needs that supports our idea concerning why these adolescents define themselves as competent consumers. This being said, this competence depends upon the context in which it is studied (Belk, Wallendorf and Sherry, 1989) and is often approached from a juvenile perspective, that is, when adolescents compare themselves to other adolescents and not to adults. Thus, when they compare themselves to adults, they consider themselves incompetent in certain consumption areas, notably those reserved for adults (purchase of a car, an apartment, managing a bank account, paying bills, etc.). They say they need further education in certain areas where they feel vulnerable. ‘It’s really too bad, at school we don’t learn anything about consuming in the adult world or in other areas. But we do discuss nutrition with certain teachers. They give us advice about eating well and how to avoid problems like obesity, bulimia and anorexia. You know a lot of girls in my class want to be thin like models. It would be great if parents taught their kids to pay attention to what they consume’ (Mathieu, 13).

Contributions to the literature

Our results show that consumption competence emerges and is formed in an adolescent culture where identity, symbolic, transgressive, digital, creative and social aspects lead adolescents to define their consumption competencies differently from adults. From a theoretical perspective, this research makes contributions on several levels. First, our results contribute to enriching previous works on juvenile consumption cultures (Kjeldgaard and Askegaard, 2006; Thompson and Haytko, 1997). The results of these studies clearly show that young consumers possess a creativity that they mobilize in appropriating and transforming the global culture with the intent to construct their own identities and consumption culture. Our study thus contributes to enriching the theory of the glocale juvenile consumption culture (Glocal Youth Consumer Culture) of Kjeldgaard and Askegaard (2006) that studied the structures that organize consumption by Danish youth. Kjeldgaard and Askegaard (2006) show that the glocale culture of these young consumers can be defined via three dimensions: construction of one’s identity, the center/periphery, and the juvenile culture as a consumption site.

Beyond the glocale culture of the young defined in a national context (Danish society), our research has permitted analyzing the intermediate level of the consumption practices of the young by deeply studying a subgroup of youth who belong to a first cultural bubble (that of adolescents) that is itself influenced by the cultural norms of a second cultural bubble, that of the French consumption society. Our results (indicated in Figure 2) permit us to enrich the three dimensions defined by Kjeldgaard and Askegaard (2006), in particular the first dimension linked to identity construction and the third dimension, understanding juvenile culture as a consumption site. Having done this, our research shows that the dimensions of the competence are heterogeneous and are completely grounded in a culture of juvenile consumption made up of various subgroups of youth that have their own codes and standards.

Our results also contribute to marketing theories on economic socialization of young consumers (Brée, 1993; Roedder-John, 2001) where the majority of the studies do not focus on the skills or creative potential that the young are likely to develop during their socialization. Our study allows enrichment of the socialization models for youth by introducing the concept of competence that is strongly grounded in a culture of juvenile consumption. Thus, the consumption competence built by the young cannot be understood except via an emic approach founded on the significance attributed by the young to their consumption acts.

Another theoretical contribution of this work is the creation of a definition of competence in the consumption domain. Based on our cross-disciplinary literature review and the results of our empirical study conducted with adolescents between the ages of 11 and 15, we offer the following definition: consumer competence is multidimensional and brings together several significances that are attributed by the consumer as a function of the norms and codes of their own consumption culture. In our case, that culture is that of the adolescent. As a result, the competence is closely linked to the culture and consumption practices in which it emerges and develops. From this perspective, the competence combines several dimensions that can vary depending on the sociocultural context, the consumption domains and the specificities of the groups of consumers. These competencies (11 dimensions identified in this study) are indispensible because they permit the consumer to integrate a consumption culture and to define an identity and social status recognized by the members of their own consumption culture. A final contribution of this research is the underscoring of the vulnerability of the young consumer. This study shows the importance of integrating the TCR logic into the French marketing literature. In this way, the consumption education, the vulnerability and the well-being (Pechmann et al., 2011) of children and adolescents will benefit by being studied in marketing research using the TCR approach.

Managerial implications

The results of this research suggest that it is necessary for companies to integrate a logic founded on the competencies developed by consumers, particularly when it comes to the young. Adopting such a perspective allows going beyond the traditional marketing approach by developing a policy centered on the consumer and their creative potential. Thus juvenile consumption practices and the resulting competencies can be considered as a source of inspiration for marketers in their attempts to co-create (Vargo and Lusch, 2006, 2008) offerings with adolescents. Bonnemaizon and Batat (2011a) called into question the idea of absolute co-creation in the sense put forth by Vargo and Lusch (2006) by showing that the concept of competence is at the heart of the notion of value co-creation in the context of a well-defined consumption domain. Co-creation of offers in the consumption domains where adolescents have digital competencies, such as producing online content, can generate value. In this way companies can put in place actions to accompany the young in their process of constructing competencies in areas such as music, audio-visual and online practices. A first direct managerial contribution resulting from this study concerns recognition by companies of the competencies of adolescents that emerge in their consumption culture. This competence has consequences on company communications that target young consumers, but above all on the management and integration of the competencies of these young people. For example, recognizing the digital competencies of adolescents in terms of use of social networks such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter can incite companies to involve young people directly (creation and production) or indirectly (ideas, suggestions, communication, etc.) in the creative process of the offer. In areas such as the film or recording industries, professionals can call on adolescents who will be associated with the creation and promotion of products via mobilization of their collective intelligence. This is called crowdsourcing (Bayus, 2010). By implicating adolescents and recognizing their consumption competencies, companies create loyalty and construct long-term relations with this group. Another managerial contribution consists of rendering companies responsible by inciting them to create actions to better educate the young, vulnerable consumer. These actions can take the form of responsible marketing and management (fight against obesity, education in ICT use, anti-smoking campaigns, etc.) that show interest in the well-being and education of other vulnerable consumers such as people with disabilities or with learning difficulties.

Limitations and further research

There are several limits that can be noted regarding this research. Certain have to do with the empirical study and the methodology that was used, others with the objectives of the research. Concerning the initial objective, the article does not quantitatively validate the 11 dimensions of competence. The empirical work was undertaken as an exploratory study. Furthermore, the study focused on a single group of adolescents between 11 and 15 years of age, and the resulting dimensions are linked to this context. As a consequence, in terms of the results, we are not able to confirm that these dimensions observed in the 11–15-year-old age range are different from those in other age groups such as high school or university students, or even middle school students in other towns and middle schools. A comparative study should be undertaken to attempt to verify the possible differences between age groups. Because of the exploratory nature of our research, we did not establish a link between the competence dimensions and the sociocultural profile of each adolescent. It is thus necessary to deepen this research angle by studying the profile and characteristics of each adolescent (characteristics, socio-demographics, social milieu, family structure, parents’ educational level, etc.). A second research angle consists of following, via longitudinal studies, the evolution of consumption competencies from childhood through adulthood and would undoubtedly provide a better understanding of the evolution and emergence of new competencies. Returning to our sample of 11 to 15 year olds, it must be kept in mind that applying methodologies reserved for adults is not compatible with this age group. Adolescents do not have the same relationship as adults do to research studies and the researchers carrying them out. In this sense, the researcher needs to develop collaboration strategies based on empathy and socialization with the adolescents even before launching the research. This approach helps create confidence with the adolescents during longitudinal studies, and gives the researcher an authentic vision concerning juvenile consumption. It was by following this process that we were able to define the dimensions of consumption competence.