Configurations of cognitive and affective responses forming customer attitudes toward a luxury brand

ABSTRACT Although most relationships are not symmetrical but interrelated, studies on the antecedents of customer attitude using SOR framework have focussed on the main effects and primacy issues of particular predictors, such as cognitive and affective responses, and few studies have examined configuration effects of cognitive and affective responses during shopping. To fill this gap in the research, this study elucidate on the combined effect of cognitive responses, affective responses and personal traits, which have been identified as important moderators for customer attitude, on customer attitude toward the brand, particularly in the luxury fashion retail context. Employing fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), which is a set-theoretic method, this study offers six combination patterns of cognitive responses, affective responses, and personal traits leading to customer’s positive attitude toward a luxury brand. Results of six combinations show three major findings as follows: (1) cognitive responses are more important than affective responses, (2) avoiding negative emotions is more important than evoking positive emotions, and (3) the combinations leading to positive attitudes differ by the level of brand familiarity.