Journal of Consumer Marketing最新文献

Purpose

Fashion companies have been among the first to ride the new trend and develop projects for the Metaverse, considering Generation Z (Gen Z) as a relevant target. The paper aims to investigate Gen Z consumers’ intention to use digital fashion items in the Metaverse.

Design/methodology/approach

The study relies on the technology acceptance model (TAM). The authors include specific aspects of the Metaverse: the user-avatar identification and the development of an alternative identity; fashion innovativeness is discussed as a moderator variable. The model is tested on Gen Z consumers, with 329 survey responses collected in 2022 and analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM).

Findings

The paper shows that the two external and explanatory variables the authors added, i.e. user-avatar identification and alternative identity, positively and directly impact the individual attitude to use digital fashion items in the Metaverse. Moreover, according to the proposed research model, the moderating effect concerning fashion innovativeness has positive and negative consequences.

Originality/value

Using TAM, the authors explored consumers’ perceptions (perceived usefulness and ease of use), attitudes and intentions regarding the new technology context (digital fashion in the Metaverse). This study enriched TAM with new consumer marketing constructs (user-avatar identification and alternative identity) and their relationships with consumers’ intention to use digital fashion items in the Metaverse. This study also contributed to TAM by exploring the relevance of moderating the effects of consumer fashion innovativeness on consumers’ intentions and attitudes in the novel context of digital fashion in the Metaverse. The paper contributes to the academic debate by focusing on the individual and personal sphere of the consumer moving in the Metaverse digital environment. The marketing-focused study develops research on Gen Z consumers to provide new insights and possible opportunities for marketers in the Metaverse.

Purpose

This study aims to develop and validate a measure for conspicuous compensatory consumption. Compensatory consumption phenomenon is gaining increased significance in consumer behavior literature. In a symbolic-rich culture, the use of possessions creates a perfect venue for self-construction and self-repairing to make up for one’s psychological deficiencies and inadequacies.

Design/methodology/approach

A mixed research design of qualitative and quantitative methodologies is adopted by using elicitation techniques, interviews and survey data. Extensive development and validation procedures are used. A series of studies, encompassing a total sample of 1,782, are reported.

Findings

The current study offers a valid and reliable measure for conspicuous compensatory consumption by chronologically following the stages of the scale development process. Compensatory consumption had a negative influence on subjective happiness and a positive influence on negative affect and satisfaction with life. Respondents with high materialism scores had significantly higher compensatory tendencies than the low materialism group. The low self-compassionate group had significantly higher compensatory tendencies than the high self-compassionate group.

Originality/value

The current study provides theoretical contributions to consumer behavior research by providing a valid and reliable measure for conspicuous compensatory consumption. Contrary to past scales that followed a mood-alleviation perspective where therapeutic shopping is used to regulate negative emotions, this scale is novel in adopting a self-completion approach where products are pursued for a tactical effort to offset threatened self-concepts.

Purpose

The purpose of this research is to investigate the influence of service provider benevolence trust and privacy concerns on the intention to adopt smart services (SS), in line with the privacy paradox. It also seeks to analyze the role of smart connected product (SCP) usage, between current and potential users.

Design/methodology/approach

The study specifically focuses on one type of SS: smart-connected car insurance based on the “pay as you drive” and/or “pay how you drive” principle. Data were collected through an online survey of 362 French drivers. Hypotheses are tested using structural equation modeling and a multigroup confirmatory factor analysis.

Findings

The results show that trust in the benevolence of the service providers positively influences the intention to adopt SS, regardless of how familiar consumers are with SCP. Conversely, privacy concerns have a negative impact on such intention, but this effect only occurs among consumers who already own SCP.

Practical implications

From a managerial perspective, this research could help service providers to successfully develop and promote SS, by establishing a relationship based on benevolence and transparency regarding the use of personal information. In addition, managers should promote SS differently when addressing SCP users, seeking to reassure them or avoid addressing privacy concerns.

Originality/value

Our study adds to the privacy paradox theoretical framework by empirically analyzing drivers of SS adoption. It highlights the key but distinct roles of privacy concerns and benevolence trust.

Purpose

The study uses the meaning transfer model to integrate celebrity advertising and branding under the broad paradigm of celebrity–brand communication. Specifically, the paper aims to examine the influence of celebrity attributes (authenticity and identification) on brand advocacy and purchase intention through brand personality appeal and brand identification.

Design/methodology/approach

The study adopts two scenario-based research designs (involving nonfictitious and fictitious celebrities) for a cross-sectional structural path analysis.

Findings

Celebrity authenticity, celebrity identification and celebrity–brand congruency significantly influence brand advocacy and purchase intention, with brand personality appeal and brand identification emerging as effective mediators.

Originality/value

The study highlights how vital brand personality appeal and brand identification are in transferring positive perceptions about a celebrity endorser into brand advocacy and purchase intention. These results will allow marketers to realize the relative influence of celebrity attributes on the partnered brand.

Purpose

This paper aims at understanding the role of customer inspiration in driving loyal (versus competitive) showrooming behaviour and positive word of mouth towards a retailer.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper designed a model of customer inspiration in the showrooming context and tested it with data from more than 600 showroomers.

Findings

Showroomers are inspired in-store by salesperson quality and offline-to-online integration services. Inspired-by is positively related to inspired-to, which in turn drives loyal showrooming behaviour and positive word of mouth.

Originality/value

This paper develops the construct of customer inspiration in an omnichannel context and uncovers novel antecedents and consequences. The outcome provides useful implications for retailers in dealing with showroomers, with the aim of increasing their loyalty.

Purpose

The objective is to identify the effects of suspicion as well as knowledge gaps, especially in noninterpersonal contexts. This study aims to propose a robust framework for future research. The overarching goal is to foster a comprehensive understanding of consumer suspicion, its implications and its potential avenues in the ever-evolving field of consumer behavior.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on a focused review of the literature, this study synthesizes the effects of suspicion in interpersonal and noninterpersonal contexts to unveil its importance for consumer behavior.

Findings

The cognitive, affective and behavioral effects of suspicion are identified. Furthermore, a discernible imbalance is observed, as the predominant focus on interpersonal consumer contexts leaves a significant gap in the comprehension of how consumers navigate and perceive suspicion in noninterpersonal interactions. This topic is important especially in an era dominated by complex brand interrelationships and digital touchpoints. Also, the operationalization of the suspicion construct in a plethora of studies seems to be suboptimal, suggesting a need for improvements with respect to its dynamic nature. In this regard, this review provides insightful directions to advance research in the abovementioned domains.

Research limitations/implications

The synthesis of the findings of the empirical articles did not focus on variations in consumer suspicion across different cultures or regions. In addition, the dynamic nature of suspicion and the evolving landscape of consumer behavior mean that findings and implications may require periodic reassessment to maintain relevance. Also, this review did not delve into the methodological diversities across the studies examined.

Practical implications

This review offers marketers and businesses critical insights into the consumer suspicion dynamics. By understanding these nuances, companies can tailor strategies to mitigate suspicion and optimize consumer relationships.

Originality/value

Through synthesizing the effects of suspicion and providing avenues for future research, this study significantly contributes to consumer behavior literature.

Purpose

Customers’ proactive helping behaviours involving personal initiative taking may present an effective solution for assisting other customers in avoiding harmful brands. Accordingly, this study aims to propose a model explaining the role of positive psychological capital (self-efficacy and optimism) in influencing customers’ proactive helping behaviours involving personal initiative taking. The study additionally provides greater clarity regarding the moderating effect of emotional self-control within the suggested model.

Design/methodology/approach

Survey data were collected from 256 respondents in South Africa, who reported on their perceptions and the degree to which they engage in proactive helping behaviours to assist other customers in avoiding harmful brands. Hypotheses were tested using regression analysis.

Findings

General self-efficacy and social optimism influence customers’ proactive helping behaviours. Emotional self-control moderates the indirect effect of general self-efficacy on customers’ proactive helping behaviours through social optimism.

Research limitations/implications

Greater insight is obtained into the interplay between factors representing a positive psychological state and self-control of negative emotions and these factors’ effect on customers’ proactive helping behaviours involving personal initiative taking.

Originality/value

The research extends knowledge of proactive helping behaviours involving personal initiative taking to assist other customers in avoiding harmful brands and subsequently provides a baseline for further research in this regards. Practically, the research is useful to social agents of society concerned with promoting responsible purchasing practices.

Purpose

This paper aims to propose a multilevel framework of fashion consumer ethics that unpacks how ethical consumers publicly express their identity through sustainable fashion (SF). The author explores SF’s cognitive, relational and contextual dynamics, highlighting how attitude–behavior (A-B) gaps might impede consumers’ ethical identity and social image alignment.

Design/methodology/approach

The framework theoretically reconstructs fashion consumer ethics by integrating social intuitionism, social representation theory and the public sphere. This theorizing process sheds light on fragmented attempts found in previous research to understand how ethical consumers express their self-identity and socially represent their image through SF, avoiding A-B gaps.

Findings

The theoretical propositions suggest how ethical consumers’ self-concept is expressed at the cognitive level, leading to ethical commitment toward self-associated fashion brands; social image is manifested at the relational level, giving rise to consumers’ ethical engagement in SF; and ethical consumers’ self-verify their identity-image alignment in the public sphere, thus addressing A-B issues.

Originality/value

The sociopsychological approach suggests a novel understanding of ethical consumers’ individual and social representation through SF consumption. The framework interprets SF as an “aesthetic of existence,” co-constructed collectively and symbolically expressed publicly. As a result, the proposed model combines different theories to introduce new causal mechanisms and constructs of ethical consumers’ cognition, sociological relations and public spheres.

Purpose

Given the growing acceptance of cashback offers (e.g. $10 PayPal cashback within 24 hours of the transaction) among retailers, this paper aims to understand how consumers evaluate them vis-à-vis traditional price-discounts and their subsequent impact on retailers’ promotional strategies.

Design/methodology/approach

Six experimental studies examine if and when consumers can discern differences in the time-of-reward-accrual (i.e. the waiting time associated with receiving promotional savings) of cashbacks and price-discounts. Building on evaluability theory, we propose that the time-of-reward-accrual of promotion is hard-to-evaluate. Put simply, consumers find it hard to assess the duration of waiting time associated with receiving promotions. Consequently, consumers’ perceptions of cashbacks vis-à-vis price-discounts can be influenced by whether they evaluate both promotions simultaneously [joint-evaluation (JE) mode] or independently [single-evaluation (SE) mode].

Findings

The initial four studies show that the time-of-reward-accrual of promotions is hard-to-evaluate. Cashbacks appear just as appealing as price-discounts when consumers evaluate them independently (SE-mode) but lose their appeal when consumers view them alongside price-discounts (JE-mode). The next two studies further enhance the generalizability of our findings by replicating the observed effects for different purchase types (hedonic vs utilitarian) and varying promotional benefit levels (high vs low).

Originality/value

By shedding light on evaluations of time-of-reward-accrual of promotion, this paper adds a new dimension to research on promotions. The paper also extends the application of evaluability theory beyond domains such as hiring, fairness judgments and product bundle assessments. The paper presents evaluation mode as a boundary condition to explain contradictory predictions from prior research for consumers’ preferences for delayed vs immediate promotions.

Purpose

Despite the continued focus on online sharing through social media, little consumer research has looked at this behavior as an independent construct or tried to determine how it relates to other consumer behaviors. Consequently, this study aims to explore the concept of social media sharing disposition (SMSD), proposes a measure of the construct, and, in five studies, assesses its reliability and validity and its relationship to other online and offline consumer behaviors.

Design/methodology/approach

Five studies using surveys were carried out to assess the SMSD construct. The studies gathered data to assess the properties and validities of SMSD, as well as its ability to assess offline and online sharing behavior.

Findings

The results indicate that SMSD is a useful construct that helps to explain people’s social media and offline sharing behavior, although its focus is primarily on social media sharing. It also displays convergent, discriminant and predictive validity. These results indicate that SMSD can be used to predict the likelihood of consumers sharing online information. They also confirm that SMSD works effectively in different cultural contexts. SMSD can also be used to assess consumer offline sharing behavior.

Research limitations/implications

There was neither an investigation of actual differences in behaviors among consumers in the number of posts or online reviews they undertook, based on SMSD, nor a study of whether individuals are more likely to incorporate brand information into their posts. Future research could explore these behaviors to determine whether they can be explained by SMSD. There was also no focus on a rationale for engaging in social media sharing; that is, there are no proposed antecedents of SMSD. Additional studies could assess antecedents of this construct.

Practical implications

Marketers interested in engaging consumers as participants in the dissemination of online (electronic) information can segment and target consumers on the basis of SMSD. Therefore, it can be used to determine who should be targeted with information to disperse to other consumers. It is likely that there is a relationship between SMSD and social media influencer (SMI) activity, so it could also be used to identify SMIs among consumer bases. It can also be adapted and applied to understanding offline sharing behavior.

Originality/value

The paper reports on SMSD and establishes that it is an additional construct that can help explain consumer information sharing. The construct relates to a social media context, where it may be increasingly difficult to identify consumers who engage in differential sharing of digital information.