INTUITIONISTIC FUZZY AUTOMATA AND APPLICATIONS TO CONSUMER INVOLVEMENT IN MARKETING

Ting-Yu Chen (Taiwan) and Li-Hsuan Yen (Taiwan)

Received October 10, 2007

Abstract

Fuzzy set theory has become important in social science and management fields. In this study, we extend the applicable domain of fuzzy systems to marketing management. The purpose of this study is to develop an automaton model that can explain the complicated relationship among antecedents, consequences and different types of consumer involvement at the same time to understand the internal state of consumers better. Specifically, we make the most of the intuitionistic fuzzy sets, which give additional degree for hesitation, to transform the opinions belonging to human beings into the quantitative numbers. 19 antecedents and 10 consequences of consumer involvement are collected from the literature. Consumer involvement is categorized into product involvement, advertising involvement, purchase involvement, situational involvement and enduring involvement. We take advantage of the intuitionistic fuzzy automata that the inner operation resembles the development of consumer involvement for individuals to develop an integrated model of consumer involvement. The intuitionistic fuzzy automata not only have a great ability to deal with plenty of variables, but also help us observe the degree of hesitation for consumers’ attitude and opinions. Besides, several implications and composition that make the automata operate are discussed in this study.

Keywords and phrases: fuzzy system, consumer involvement, intuitionistic fuzzy set, intuitionistic fuzzy automata, implication, composition.