Consumer entitlement theory and measurement

Previous studies of personality observe that a healthy individual maintains a level of entitlement. Consumer entitlement concerns the extent to which a customer expects special treatment in retail environments. To date, marketing scholars have not investigated consumer entitlement at the buyer-seller interface. This article represents an initial attempt to examine this construct in a retailing context. The development of a scale, the consumer entitlement inventory (CEI), is reported. The scale's psychometric properties were examined, with the use of an undergraduate sample (N = 410). Antecedents and implications for consumer entitlement are discussed. (C) 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.