The effect of power distance beliefs on the inconspicuous versus conspicuous consumption of luxury accessories in China and the USA

ABSTRACT

Inconspicuous luxury consumption is increasing compared with traditional conspicuous luxury consumption. Thus, properly conceptualising and empirically operationalising inconspicuousness are important. Extant literature has not yet reached a consensus on the antecedents of consumers’ purchase intentions between inconspicuous and conspicuous brands. Building on an overarching framework that integrates both the power distance belief (PDB) literature and the social attitude functions theory, this research proposes that low- (vs. high-) PDB consumers tend to hold a value-expressive (vs. social-adjustive) attitude towards luxury consumption, which in turn leads them to prefer inconspicuous over conspicuous luxury brands. Both a field survey in China and an experiment in the United States showed convergent support for the hypotheses. This research not only contributes to the PDB and social attitude functions literature streams but also offers important insights for luxury marketers.

KEYWORDS:

• Luxury consumption
• conspicuous luxury
• inconspicuous luxury
• power distance belief
• social attitude functions

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Han et al. (2010) separate luxury consumers into four groups based on their need for status: patrician, parvenus, poseur, and proletarian.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the SSHRC Insight Grant [grant numbers 435-2017-1363].

Notes on contributors

Ling Jiang

Ling Jiang is an assistant professor in the Marketing Department at the School of Management, University of Quebec in Montreal. Her primary research centers on brand consciousness, consumer perception, with a focus on luxury and counterfeit luxury consumption. With a particular interest in cross-cultural consumer behaviors, she also conducts research on consumer identity and the consumer decision-making process in multicultural context. Ling’s articles have been published and cited in various international academic journals including International Marketing Review.

Huachao Gao

Huachao Gao is currently an assistant professor of international business and marketing at the Peter B. Gustavson School of Business, University of Victoria. His research centers on exploring consumer purchase decisions from a cross-cross cultural perspective. Specifically, how individual consumers from different countries/regions or with different cultural background might be different in processing marketing information, evaluating marketing offerings, and making final purchase decisions. His research articles have appear in academic journals, including Journal of Consumer Research and Journal of Marketing.

Linda Hui Shi

Linda Hui Shi is associate professor of international business and marketing at the Gustavson School of Business, University of Victoria, Canada. The focus of Linda’s work is on global customer relationship management, cross-cultural branding, and international entrepreneurship. Linda’s work has been published on International Business Review, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of International Marketing, Journal of Business Research, among other journals. Linda is best-known for her articles on global customer (account) relationship management. She also serves in the editorial board of Journal of International Marketing.