| Summary: | 碩士 === 靜宜大學 === 管理碩士在職專班 === 96 === Using your summer time wisely can help you achieve your goals in your future. Although there is a variety of summer camps and activities to choose from, parents often make their choices based upon which camps and activities would be the best for their children’s need and development. However, it is difficult for parents to choose the right camp because all camps have similar characteristics as merchandises which include intangibility, inseparability, and heterogeneity. The inherent uncertainty caused by these three characteristics increases parents’ perceived risk of choosing wrong type of camp for their children. In addition, due to the lack of organizations and legal regulations to supervise various camps, and the lack of consulting platforms to help parents to select a suitable camp, parents can do nothing but count on themselves by searching information from marketing or non-marketing resources in order to make a confident purchase of summer camp product. Thus, the purpose of this research is to explore 1) how different characteristics of summer camps can influence parents’ perceived risks, 2) how varying backgrounds among parents can affect their information search behaviors, and 3) the correlation of parents’ perceived risk of summer camps and their information search behaviors.
The samples of this study were selected from parents in Taichung area, who had arranged their children attending summer camps of 2008. There were 215 valid samples in total. The Cronbach’s α was used to test the reliability of internal consistency of perceived risk scale and information search scale. Factor analysis was also used to exact the four factor structures: commercial information, internet sources, word-of-mouth and experiences. It was found that the strength of parents’ perceived risk regarding the summer camp products varies depending on the characteristics of summer camp products such as types, price, days and lodging. Parents of different gender, educational backgrounds and income levels showed different information search behaviors regarding summer camp products. In contrast, no significant difference regarding information search behavior was found among parents of different ages, experiences and residences. In addition, there was a low to medium correlation between these parents’ perceived risks of summer camp products and their information search behavior.
The result showed that parents were concerned about physical risk, performance risk and financial risk when they purchase summer camp products. Therefore, it is suggested that in order to reduce parents’ perceived risks, summer camp organizers and the authorities should provide concrete norms such as the evaluation, certification and counseling of teachers, improvement of camp standard contract formulation, and complete information about summer camps. In addition, it is also suggested that researchers design more suitable research circumstances and use more diversity of samples to evaluate the perceived risk levels and information search behaviors of parents.
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