Consumer power: scale development and validation in consumer–firm relationship

The purpose of this paper is to report on the development and validation of a consumer power scale comprising a personal and a social power dimension. Personal power refers to consumers’ perceived ability to resist and ignore a firm’s marketing efforts. Social power refers to consumers’ perceived ability to influence a firm’s actions.

Following established scale development procedures, the construct definition and item generation preceded five studies that establish the scale’s dimensionality, psychometric properties and external, predictive and nomological validity.

Consumer power was modeled as a reflective first-order, formative second-order latent construct. The consumer power scale is psychometrically sound and possesses external and discriminant validity with regard to other power-related measures. Consumer power mediates the relation between consumers’ cognitive control and consumer satisfaction and between perceived choice and emotional responses.

This research uses episodic recall tasks to elicit power perceptions in various contexts. Results suggest that the scale is useful in comparative and longitudinal tracking of consumers’ perceptions of power in relation to a firm.

Building on a comprehensive literature review and rigorous scale development, this paper introduces a scale of consumer power that comprises a personal and a social power dimension. A critical analysis of and a predictive validity test of the scale against existing power scales highlight its unique contribution. The scale lends itself to further theory tests regarding antecedents, consequences and moderators of consumer power.