An Empirical Investigation On The Attitudes, Lifestyle and Spending Patterns of BPO Workers in The Philippines
An Empirical Investigation On The Attitudes, Lifestyle and Spending Patterns of BPO Workers in The Philippines
An Empirical Investigation On The Attitudes, Lifestyle and Spending Patterns of BPO Workers in The Philippines
The Business Process Outsourcing sector in the Philippines is one of the fastest-growing
industries, contributing about US$ 30 billion annually in export revenues to the country and
providing employment to more than 900 thousand people in 2013. BPO employees as a group
have been found to enjoy higher incomes than regular office workers, and are believed to be
driving consumption in the marketplace.
In view of their influence and impact on the economy, this study aimed to explore the attitudes,
lifestyle and the spending propensity and behaviour of BPO workers as a unique and significant
market segment in the Philippines. It also sought to determine associations between these
attitudinal factors and their propensity to spend and actual purchase behaviour.
Marketing theorists like Wells and Plummer have proposed that consumer profiling and targeting
using psychographics and lifestyle are more dynamic and effective in motivating and predicting
of buying behaviour and product usage.
In this empirical study covering a random sample of 200 BPO employees, correlation tests
showed moderate to low but significant associations between lifestyle attitudes on the one hand
and the propensity to consume and purchase behavior on the other.Comparative analyses of
purchase behavior using demographic variables did not yield significant associations between the
two constructs. This empirical study demonstrates the superiority of psychographics, i.e. lifestyle
attitudes, over demographic in explaining variations in consumer behavior.
Peter Drucker said that the purpose of the organization is to serve the customer. And if this is so,
then to serve the customer well, the marketing professional has to know that customer well.
Marketing literature is replete with concepts that prescribe strategies to reach and market
effectively to consumers. Kotler (1976) noted that it is worthwhile to distinguish different groups
in the marketplace and develop products that cater to their needs. He cogently explained the
marketing concept which is a management orientation that holds that the key task of an
organization is to determine the needs, wants and values of a target market.
In the Philippines, one such unique and contiguous consumer group that is perhaps the largest
single group of consumers is the close to one million strong employee workforce of the
Information Technology-Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry.
The BPO sector is the fastest-growing service industry in the Philippines, contributing about US$
30 billion annually in export revenues and is estimated to be providing employment to hundreds
of thousand people in 2013. BPO employees as a group have been found to enjoy higher incomes
than regular office workers, and are believed to be driving consumption in the marketplace.
In view of their influence and impact on the economy, this study aims to explore the lifestyle
attitudes, socio-demographic characteristics of BPO workers as a unique and significant market
segment in the Philippines. Because of their preponderance and their high-level visibility
particularly in the central business districts such as Makati, Ortigas Center and Fort Bonifacio,
they have received notice and even scrutiny from interested analysts and observers and common
people alike in terms not just of their growing impact on the domestic consumer market, but their
unique characteristics and their somewhat ostentatious lifestyles and behaviour. With realworld data provided by primary research, this research aims to validate these perceptions and
determine whether these hold true for the majority of members of this segment.
The study will also attempt to determine and measure associations between lifestyle attitudinal
factors and their propensity to spend and actual buying patterns using quantitative statistical
analytical methods. This will help professional marketers, marketing theoreticians and academics
to validate whether these postulated relationships and structural differences in psychographic
characteristics lead to specific patterns of consumption and spending by such a highly influential
segment of the Philippine consumer market.
With the empirical results from this study, they will be provided with evidence-based practical
information on the needs, attitudes, interests and lifestyle that are all important in formulating
effective marketing mix strategies.
BPO Workers as a Formidable Consumer Segment
The Philippine Information Technology-Business Process Outsourcing industry is the countrys
largest private sector job creator with an estimated workforce of 638 thousand as of the end of
2011 (BPAP IT-BPM Roadmap 2012). The BPO manpower has grown at an average of 21
percent annually between 2007 and 2011. Assuming that this growth rate is maintained, the
number of BPO professionals is estimated to be 920 thousand as of the end of 2013.
Very easily, it can be concluded that this fast-growing sector is the largest single group of
workers that are contiguously concentrated in thriving consumer marketplaces (usually around
IT export processing zones) in several key points in Metro Manila and in BPO-friendly cities
around the country. In these BPO zones, shopping malls, restaurants and other eating places,
bars, lifestyle services such as spa and salons and other amenities have sprouted, taking
advantage of the large concentrations of BPO workers of companies that virtually run 24/7
operations.
According to Nielsen Philippines Outcall study, BPO workers are more influential in setting
market trends than the average Filipino because of their huge gross accumulated annual income
of P250 billion. Earning substantially higher salaries that result in significant purchasing power,
BPO workers as a group are most likely to spend on quality products, giving opportunities for
consumer companies to conduct product optimization and give them an array of high-quality
products they can purchase. (Nielsen Philippines; Business Mirror; 2013).
Nielsen said that call center professionals (which account for about 75% of total BPO
manpower) have different spending patterns compared to office employees of other sectors who
usually earn minimum wage-level salaries. It claimed that BPO workers usually give importance
to and indulge ingadgets and smart phones, designer coffee, go on weekly out of town trips and
after shift drinking sessions, and have been observed to incur past due loan bills and neglected
credit card fees. Moreover, it has estimated that as high as 76% of BPO workers consume
alcoholic drinks, compared to just 40% of the other members of the working population.
The study also reported that BPO employees have high spending on clothing and other luxuries
because they need to have the latest trends to look good and to cope with work demands and
social pressures that come with the nature of their jobs. It said that they believe these
expenditures on lifestyle products help boost their self-esteem and confidence. (Lifestyle Change
for Philippine Call Centre Agents; Nielsen Philippines - Executive Boutique for Call Center
Excellence; 2013).
Psychographic Profiling andLifestyle Measurements
The continuing drive of the marketing profession to better understand sizeable market groups
with similar needs, characteristics and buying behaviour has led to efforts in creating the concept
of market segmentation and targeting.
Market segmentation, is considered as "one of the most fundamental concepts of modern
marketing"(Wind,1978). In a pioneering work, Wendell R. Smith (1956) defined segmentation as
a concept based upon more precise adjustment of product and marketing effort to satisfy specific
consumer or user requirements. It involves dividing a market into distinct groups of buyers with
different needs, characteristics or behaviour who respond to separate products or to marketing
mix strategies. (Philip Kotler, Stewart Adam, Linden Brown & Gary Armstrong; Principles of
Marketing, 2006; Pearson Education)
Since the late 1970s, there has been recognition of the inadequacy of using the traditional mode
of clustering these markets around demographic metrics. Thus, psychographic profiling and
measurements beyond demographic measures came to the fore. Because needs are the underlying
motivation for purchase and consumption, consumer psychologists and marketing theorists have
proposed that lifestyles and values were more accurate predictors for anticipating consumer
needs and wants and for motivating consumer behaviour.
The concept and application of lifestyle and lifestyle patterns in market segments was first
introduced in 1963 by William Lazer. Marketing textbooks and literature consider behaviour
(notably trial, purchase and loyal usage) as part of and as a manifestation of the overall attitudes
held by consumers(for example, the means-end chain concept).
Lifestyle is an overt and observable trait and characteristic of consumers that embody their
interests, attitudes and opinions within a cultural or a specific group of people or consumer
segment. Lifestyle has a contextual meaning in marketing. Bell (1958) stressed the symbolic
significance in the consumption of products. Rainwater, Coleman and Handel (1959)
underscored the importance of interpreting shopping and consumption behavior in their broader
lifestyle context.
Chernev(2011) has postulated that the choice of brands as one of the possible ways of consumer
self-expression in terms of his or her lifestyle. Customers believe that their identity will be
reinforced or supplemented if they publicly associate themselves with a lifestyle brand or other
symbol-intensive brands. (Chernev, A.; Hamilton, R., Gal D. 2011)
The early attempt at lifestyle research and measurement was developed by Wells (1967) who
postulated lifestyle as consisting of activities, interests and opinions (AIO). The AIO formulated
lifestyle into what activities consumers spent their time on, which areas about life they were
interested in and what were their opinions of themselves and the world around them. He argued
that traditional usage behaviour or product attribute and benefit segmentation are inadequate in
analysing the sovereign consumer as a person (Wells, 1972)
Other concepts that later evolved included the Values and Lifestyles or VALS construct using
attitude scales and which resulted in a typology of eight consumer types which revolved around
three primary motivators: Ideals, Achievement and Self-Expression (Peter and Olson, 2010).
These three factors are in turn constrained or are supported by Resources (which include income,
education, skills) which affected the typology classifications and overt behaviour. These
constructs, however, have not been transplanted here in the Philippines, obviously due to the
vastly different economic and social conditions as well as cultures between the country and the
Western world.
Nevertheless, Plummer (1974) expressed belief that psychographics and lifestyle variables can
be correlated with buying behaviour, product usage and other consumption variables, which
results in a more dynamic picture of consumers. In a review of psychographic research, Wells
noted that the empirical research has shown positive but only moderate to weak associations
between lifestyle attitudes and direct consumer behaviour (Wells, 1975).
Conceptual Framework
In this study, the author seeks to investigate three sets of attitudinal constructs: (1) Lifestyle
Attitudes, (2) Propensity to Spend Attitude and (3) Purchase Behaviour, and their interrelationships between them.
The author postulates that Lifestyle is a determinant to both the Propensity to Spend and
Purchase Behaviour. Like the VALS framework, Lifestyle attitudes consist of self-rated
consumerist type attitudinal variables that provide indications on how they view themselves in
terms (a) beliefs and lifestyles and (b) propensity to spend for specific products.
It is postulated in this study that BPO workers, by virtue of the specifically different working
schedules conditions, exposure to highly liberal Western culture (and their interaction with
American and other Western clients), higher salary incomes and other factors, possess as a group
a unique and homogeneous set of attitudinal and belief patterns and spending pattern. These
psychographic and attitudinal measures are deemed more strong in predicting propensity to
spend and actual purchasing behaviour than demographic variables.
Propensity to
Consume Attitude
Lifestyle Attitudes
Purchase
Behaviour
Demographic
Characteristics
Operational Definition
The author defines Lifestyle Attitudes as personal beliefs that relate to different dimensions
involving the consumers consumption-related and/or values about him/herself, specifically:
a
Early adoption/innovation. This pertains to the tendency to be among the first to try the
latest shopping products such as gadgets.
Trend following. This measures a consumers desire to keep in step with the latest in
fashion and other product trend.
Image/Brand consciousness. This indicates the predisposition to favour and purchase well
known and branded products.
Variety seeking. This involves the tendency to try out new experiences and new things.
Risk-taking. This pertains to the general willingness to take risks in everyday life.
Care-free. This measures a consumers belief that he/she should not worry about life and
should just enjoy what it offers.
Peer-consciousness. This measures a persons concern about what other people think of
him/her.
Self-treating. This pertains to the tendency to treat and reward ones self from time to
time.
The propensity to consume attitudes is a class of 5-point scaled question that asked for the
tendency of the consumer-respondent to use or consume five (5) easily identifiable purchase
items: taxicab, designer coffee, restaurant/food service, cigarettes and alcohol. These are
common small luxuries that the BPO workers are observed usually to indulge in and spend their
money on. The study purposively did not include high-value products because other marketing
mix variables come into play in the purchase of these product class, other than lifestyle or
internal attitudinal factors.
Purchase behaviour shall be defined as the allocation of income by the respondent in spending
for specific expenditure items, namely food, housing, health, childrens education, transportation,
savings and shopping products. A 5-point numerical scale was used to measure the respondents
level of money allocated from his/her income for these specific expenditure items.
H2: There is an association between lifestyle attitudes and the propensity to spend among BPO
workers.
H3: There is an association between lifestyle attitudes and the purchase behaviour, that is the
income allocation of BPO workers on specific expenditure items.
Ostensibly, the null hypotheses form of these three sets of propositions will be tested using the
Pearsons product moment correlation and/or the Chi-Square and Cramers V tests.
Since the very assumption of segmentation and targeting is the identification of consumers
needs, wants, usage requirements, tastes, and preferences, which can be meaningfully and
relatively homogeneous, the study also aims to determine whether the formulated attitudinal
constructs of Lifestyle and Propensity are indeed homogeneous for the BPO market segment. A
test of reliability for these attitudinal construct measures will also be conducted using the
Cronbachs alpha method.
Research and Data Collection Methods
The study was based on a two-stage random survey covering 200 respondents who are
employees from 52 BPO companies in Metro Manila in 2013. The sample consisted of 106
females and 94 males whose age ranged from 18 years old and above. A total of 161 (81%)
respondents worked in voice-based contact center companies, which more or less mirrors the
industry percentage share of 77% attributable to call center companies in the IT-BPO space.
The study utilized a structured research instrument and was administered through face-to-face
interviews of respondents and through self-administered method (if the randomly selected BPO
company disallowed interviews) during the field survey. The survey instrument used for the most
part the 5-point interval scaling for variables on lifestyle attitudes, propensity to spend and
purchase behavior of the selected BPO employees.
Statistical treatment method used consisted of the Pearsons product moment correlation for
hypotheses testing involving associations and ANOVA and chi-square tests for tests of
independence.
The chi-square method was also used as a test of homogeneity measure to determine
independence between the lifestyle and propensity to spend attitude variables versus sociodemographic variables. Homogeneity is defined statistically in this study as a condition that
shows independence between these two sets of constructs, that is there is likely to be no
statistical difference in attitudinal scores between different classes of respondents as measured by
demographic variables such as age, gender, income, etc.
The statistical analyses were conducted using the Stata statistical package software.
The findings contradict the observations of people about the seemingly profligate lifestyle
of BPO workers. While there appears to be some degree of indulgent consumption such as
the common and wide usage of gadgets, trendy clothes and even early morning drinking
sessions, these seem to be not validated by the empirical results of this study.
60.5%
Self-
41%
Peer consciousness
21.5%
Care-free
67%
Risk-taking
64.5%
Variety seeking
24.5%
Image consciousness
12%
Trend following
12.5%
20
40
60
Table 2. Mean Rating of BPO Workers in Allocation of Income for Each Broad
Expenditure Item
Shopping
Communicatons
Savings
Transportation
Children's Education
Health
House
Food
0
0.5
1.5
2.5
3.5
4.5
Table 3 Computed p Value for ANOVA Test of Socio-Demographic Variables Vs. Purchase
Income Allocation
Consumer Allocation of Income for Expenditure Item
Food
Housing
Health
Children's
Education
Transportation
Savings
Communication
Shopping
Products
Age
0.2328
0.1257
0.4200
0.0086
0.8025
0.3501
0.9302
0.7630
Gender
Sexual
Orientation
0.7187
0.7167
0.0995
0.9403
0.1693
0.3263
0.7609
0.9937
0.0025
0.1918
0.5434
0.2988
0.9249
0.8901
0.4115
0.7204
Civil Status
0.2165
0.1779
0.4553
0.0000
0.8706
0.4984
0.1192
0.4784
Education
Monthly
Salary
BPO
Activity
0.0312
0.6169
0.6035
0.3157
0.0966
0.9312
0.4934
0.0686
0.1143
0.9477
0.0485
0.7893
0.8283
0.4257
0.2066
0.2155
0.0018
0.4500
0.8867
0.5187
0.4230
0.2146
0.0043
0.5180
Correlation analyses between lifestyle and propensity to consume several product categories
yielded generally positive results (Table 3). BPO workers who considered themselves as early
adopters/innovators (1), trend followers (2), image/brand conscious (3), care-free (4) and selftreating (5) individuals exhibited markedly higher tendencies in the likelihood to consume -- in
particular designer coffee, eat-out in a restaurant and take a cab for transportation. But the
significant associations also extended to but to a lesser degree in the propensity for spending in
cigarettes and alcohol.
The paired correlations by these top three lifestyle constructs, however, manifested much weaker
associations with the consumption of cigarettes and alcohol. This shows that the propensity to
consume these two seemingly staple products is indifferent to whether the individual is, for
example, an early adopter or a laggard, and whether he/she is a trend follower or not.
Propensity to use taxicabs exhibited lower but still significant associations across the seven (7)
attitudinal characteristics, except for peer consciousness. This together with the dimension of
risk-takingattitude scored the lowest level of associations with the spending on the five
common expenditure goods.
Consumption on designer coffee exhibited the highest correlations with the lifestyle attitudes,
followed by taxicabs and restaurant. On the other hand, cigarette consumption showed
insignificant to weak associations with the lifestyle attitudes, except for the care-free lifestyle
attitude which had a significant correlation value.
Table 4. Correlation Matrix Between Lifestyle Attitudes and Propensity to Consume
Variables (by Product Category)
Lifestyle
Early
adoption/innovation
(+)
Taxi (m)
Alcohol
(w)
0.2178
0.4178
0.2485
0.1271
0.173
0.3152
0.4893
0.3286
0.0711
0.2278
0.2802
0.3174
0.2151
0.451
0.2712
0.1186
0.3119
0.1539
0.0129
0.1025
0.0281
0.1318
0.1346
0.2175
0.1715
Care-free (+)
0.4065
0.2663
0.2403
0.2055
0.1974
Peer consciousness
Self-"treating" (+)
0.1401
0.1963
0.2046
0.2545
0.2083
0.204
-0.0012
0.1727
0.0725
0.3009
indulgent drinking by BPO workers. The association in this product category is weaker but also
significant among the variety-seekers and trend followers.
5
The associations between lifestyle and purchase behaviour as elaborated in the conceptual
framework appear to be weaker compared to the propensity to spend attitude variable.
Early adopters, trend followers, image-conscious and variety-seekers exhibit weak to moderate
correlations with spending allocation for communication and shopping products, which to a
certain extend could be anticipated by the conceptual model. These two products could be
considered discretionary spending, and the findings seem to bear out and validate the
predictive dimension of these four attitudinal measures on consumption. These same lifestyle
variables also exhibited the highest explanatory strength in the variations in the propensity to
spend variables.
Table 5. Computed Pearsons Product Moment r Coefficient for Correlation Between
Lifestyle Attitudes and Purchase Income Allocation (by Expenditure Item)
Income Allocation to Major Expenditure Items
Transportation (i)
Savings
(w)
Communication
(+)
Shopping
Products
(+)
Food (-)
-0.1247
0.0177
0.108
0.0577
0.0599
0.1744
0.2896
0.3693
0.0031
0.1146
0.0014
-0.0638
0.05
0.0936
0.2692
0.4476
0.0601
-0.0321
-0.0083
-0.0331
0.0941
0.1183
0.1696
0.2646
-0.1032
-0.1076
-0.0463
0.0003
-0.0875
0.0327
0.1071
-0.1147
-0.1153
-0.0036
-0.029
-0.1109
0.0544
-0.0725
0.0763
0.1951
0.117
0.0446
0.2452
0.0805
0.0502
0.1548
0.0382
0.1433
-0.0751
0.0375
-0.0726
-0.1048
0.0535
-0.0385
0.0968
0.2014
0.0175
0.0181 -0.0768
-0.031
-0.0676 0.0495
0.0266
i = Insignificantlycorrelated lifestyle attitude variables
w = Weak, but significantly positive associations (at 5 percent significance level)lifestyle
variables with product spending allocations
0.126
Lifestyle
Early
adoption/
innovation (+)
Trend
following (+)
Image
consciousness
Variety
seeking
Risk-taking (i)
Care-free (i)
Peer
consciousness
Self-"treating"
(w)
Health
(-)
Children's
Education
(-)
Housing
(-)
Test of construct reliability for the eight lifestyle attitude and five propensity to consume attitude
variables yielded a Cronbachs alpha value of 0.8146 value which is above the threshold for
validity, indicating that these constructs were reliable in measuring the intended concepts that
they represented.
Cross chi-square tests (13 x 8 combinations) were also performed between the attitudinal
variables and the eight socio-demographic variables (age, gender, etc.) as part of the scope of this
study. The analyses (almost 100%) showed no statistical difference in the level of scores of
respondents on all 13 attitudinal metrics in each of the socio-demographic variables. This
indicates homogeneity in the attitudes of BPO workers, and that these attitudinal metrics are
independent of and are not affected by demographic characteristics.
Conclusion
On the whole, the findings and analyses arrived at in this study seem to be confirmed by the
model which has been developed by the author using psychographic constructs such as lifestyle
to predict consumption behavior of homogeneous market segments. The conceptual model
demonstrated significant strength in making predictions about the purchase patterns and
propensity to consumption attitudes of BPO workers.
Chernev, A.; Hamilton, R., Gal D. (2011). "Competing for Consumer Identity: Limits
to Self-Expression and the Perils of Lifestyle Branding". Journal of Marketing75
Rainwater, Lee, Richard P. Coleman, and Gerald Handel (1959), Workingman's Wife, New York:
Oceana Publications.