Who creates luxury? Unveiling the essence of luxury creation through three perspectives: a scoping review

Abstract

Purpose

Past research on luxury is fragmented resulting in challenges to define what the construct of luxury means. Based on a need for conceptual clarity, this study aims to map how research conceptualises luxury and its creation.

Design/methodology/approach

This study presents a scoping review of luxury articles published in peer-reviewed journals. Of the initial 270 articles discovered by using the database of Scopus, and after control searching in Web of Science and reference scanning, 54 high-quality studies published before the end of 2020 were found to meet the inclusion criteria and comprised the final analytical corpus.

Findings

The findings demonstrate that research approaches luxury and its creation from three different perspectives: the provider-, consumer- and co-creation perspectives. In addition, the findings pinpoint how the perspectives differ from each other due to fundamental and distinguishing features and reveal particularities that underlie the perspectives.

Research limitations/implications

The suggested framework offers implications to researchers who are interested in evaluating and developing luxury studies. Based on the identified luxury perspectives, the study identifies future research avenues.

Originality/value

The study contributes to the luxury research stream by advancing an understanding of an existing pluralistic perspective and by adding conceptual clarity to luxury literature. It also contributes to marketing and branding research by showing how the luxury literature connects to the evolution of value creation research in marketing literature.

Citation

Gummerus, J., von Koskull, C., Kauppinen-Räisänen, H. and Medberg, G. (2023), "Who creates luxury? Unveiling the essence of luxury creation through three perspectives: a scoping review", Qualitative Market Research, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/QMR-02-2023-0025

Introduction

Luxury’s role in the Western society has transformed over the years, proving its resilience (Christodoulides and Wiedmann, 2022; Kotur and Dixit, 2022). This implies that luxury is more versatile in terms of its conceptualisation, maybe even more so now than ever before. From standing for products characterised by excellency, uniqueness and creativity (Cristini et al., 2017), luxury has extended to embody brands introducing affordable alternatives through brand extensions, small accessories and reduced prices for ends of lines sold online (Truong et al., 2009) or via pop-up stores (Klein et al., 2016). This has resulted in what is termed democratisation of luxury, luxury brands available to the masses (Banister et al., 2020; Nueno and Quelch, 1998; Septianto et al., 2020). Simultaneously, luxury brands and retailers have established rental businesses of luxury goods, which disrupts the value of luxury ownership by offering ephemeral access to new (less affluent) customer groups (Christodoulides et al., 2021) and launched strategies for reselling so-called pre-loved luxury items (Lee and Malik, 2022). Some non-luxury producers even use luxury as a buzzword – such as Deluxe at Lidl – suggesting that anything upscale compared to the base product/brand is luxury, which contributes to ambiguity about what luxury means. Moreover, luxury has expanded from products to services such as hospitality, tourism (Correia et al., 2020; Kotur and Dixit, 2022; Iloranta, 2022) and retailing (Kapferer, 2015).

As Holmqvist et al. (2020b, p. 116) stresses “the concept of luxury is notoriously difficult to define”. This seems to appear in both practice and in research, whereby researchers (Hemetsberger et al., 2012; von Wallpach et al., 2020; Wiedmann, 2021) have started to question what the concept of luxury means today, whether luxury always needs to derive from luxury brands, and if not – who then creates luxury. Luxury research has a long tradition of focusing on prototypical brand characteristics such as extravagant price, outstanding quality and composition, artistry and creativity (Geiger-Oneto and Minton, 2019; Hennigs et al., 2012, 2015; Kapferer, 2014, 2015; Ko et al., 2016, 2019; Wang, 2022) implying that luxury is created within the firm and luxury is embodied in the highly differentiated branded offerings (i.e. products and/or services). A rather recent, but a growing stream of luxury research is moving to focus on the subjective, personal consumer experiences of luxury – even to moments of luxury experiences going beyond luxury brands (Hemetsberger et al., 2012; Holmqvist et al., 2020a; Kauppinen-Räisänen et al., 2019b; von Wallpach et al., 2020) implying that luxury is created by the one who experiences. In acknowledgment of multiple perspectives on luxury, Wirtz et al. (2020) note that research has shifted from objective luxury qualities to subjective customer experiences of such qualities, whereas Yeoman and McMahon-Beattie (2014, 2018) interpret this as a move from materialism to experientialism. However, others imply that the ongoing shift is more ground-breaking (von Wallpach et al., 2020) and claim that the new assumptions of what luxury is, “fundamentally change our understanding of luxury from its groundings in status consumption towards a transient and abstract concept” (Hemetsberger et al., 2012, p. 483). Similarly, Kotur and Dixit (2022) contradict “old luxury” with its focus on prestige with “new luxury” that is by nature experiential and individual. These shifts – that simultaneously contribute to the confusions about luxury’s conceptualisation – parallel a discussion spanning over two decades about what luxury means and who in fact creates luxury (Holmqvist et al., 2020b; Miller and Mills, 2012a; Vigneron and Johnson, 1999).

Against this background, our study responds to the need of conceptual clarity in luxury research and thus adds to previous research such as Gurzki and Woisetschläger (2017), Rathi et al. (2022), Sharma et al. (2022) and Wang (2022). While these earlier works provide a high-level overview of the major themes and clusters in luxury research, our study is concept-driven and attempts to meet fundamental conceptual needs. Hence, our study attempts to map how research conceptualises luxury and its creation. It does so through two principal research questions: Who creates luxury? What does luxury mean? To answer the questions, we used a scoping review approach by reviewing literature on luxury creation (Pham et al., 2014). In addition to providing means to map the literature, this review approach provides aids in clarifying the scope of the relevant literature and its key concepts and defining conceptual boundaries (Peters et al., 2015).

We start by presenting our research procedure involving a scoping review. After that we discuss the findings of the study, which provide a comparative discussion of the most central and distinctive characteristics in the three identified perspectives on luxury and its creation. The article ends with a future research agenda and a discussion of its theoretical contributions and implications for researchers.

Research procedure with scoping review

A scoping review, which provides an approach to map a vast and complex body of literature, clarifies key concepts and define conceptual boundaries of a topic, was considered appropriate to fulfil the aim of the current study (Peters et al., 2015). An essential notion is that scoping reviews do not aim to produce critically appraised and synthesised answers to specific questions, but rather provide a useful overview of the current state of the literature (Munn et al., 2018). Scoping reviews should not be confused with systematic or traditional literature reviews. Systematic reviews usually address narrowly focused research questions, while traditional literature reviews typically lack a priori protocol for search and inclusion/exclusion criteria of studies (Anwar and Ozuem, 2022; Arksey and O’Malley, 2005). We followed the general guidelines for conducting a scoping review (Arksey and O’Malley, 2005; Levac et al., 2010). We also took guidance from well-cited scoping reviews in diverse fields such as health psychology (Davis et al., 2015), pedagogy (O’Flaherty and Philips, 2015) and research methodology (Pham et al., 2014).

The review strategy

The stages of our review were as follows: identify relevant studies, determine and apply inclusion/exclusion criteria and analyse the selected studies. Firstly, to identify relevant studies, we decided to use the comprehensive database of Scopus, and scope relevant articles by using the keywords “luxury” and “creation”. The search was limited to articles published by 2020. This resulted in 270 articles (Figure 1). In the second stage, three detailed inclusion/exclusion criteria were set. The first criterion was that studies were eligible for inclusion, if the study was published in English in a peer-reviewed journal within the area of business and management, which for example includes marketing, branding, hospitality, retailing and tourism. As a result, 77 articles were selected for further inspection. The second criterion related to the quality of the publication. To identify high-quality research, the article was included if it was published in a journal on AJG 2 level (Academic Journal Guide) or higher. Such journals are implied to publish research that is of an acceptable standard. As a result, 42 journal articles were chosen for full-text examination. These were read by the authors and screened for relevance. The third criterion excluded articles from the more detailed analysis if they were not positioned within luxury research and/or had no or very few luxury references. As a result, 17 articles were excluded. Hence, 25 articles were selected for further full-text analysis (see Appendix). To capture additional relevant research that might have been missed in our search in the Scopus database, we took two additional steps. Firstly, we performed an identical control search with the same keywords (“luxury” and “creation”) in the Web of Science database. This control search revealed 5 additional articles that met our inclusion criteria (Appendix). Secondly, we scanned the references of all our selected articles to ensure that our corpus was representative and captured influential work (i.e. frequently cited) in the luxury domain. This reference scanning led to the addition of 24 articles (Appendix). Consequently, a total of 29 articles were added to our initial selection of 25 articles. All in all, the final analytical corpus comprised 54 high-quality luxury studies.

At the third stage, the selected 54 articles were analysed in detail. We focused on the luxury creator and luxury conceptualisation as the unit of analysis. At this stage, we detected that luxury creation equaled value creation. Hence, in addition to the luxury studies, we also turned to value creation frameworks (Grönroos, 2008; Grönroos and Voima, 2013; Heinonen et al., 2010; Korkman, 2006; Normann and Ramirez, 1993; Vargo and Lusch, 2004, 2008). It became evident that the value creation framework would serve as a “method theory” (Jaakkola, 2020, p. 20), which can be defined as “a meta-level conceptual system for studying the substantive issue(s) of the domain theory at hand”, or simply put, “a theoretical lens” (Lukka and Vinnari, 2014, p. 1309). Using established theoretical frameworks for analysis of, and clarification around, a concept or topic is in line with MacInnis (2011) guidelines for conceptual advancement in the marketing field.

To gain an overview of value creation, we consulted the review by Gummerus (2013) which provides a synthesised framework of several value frameworks. Gummerus (2013) identified three categories of value creation co-extant in the marketing literature, namely, provider creation, consumer (customer) creation and co-creation, in line with the work of Grönroos and Voima (2013), where the category names derive from the main actor responsible for the creation. In provider creation, the focus rests on how “firms gain competitive advantage through their activities/resources” (Gummerus, 2013, p. 19), and value stems from firm resources and the capabilities that firms apply on the market. Customer value creation is controlled and dominated by the customer. It entails value formation as a sociological phenomenon (Korkman, 2006), during which value-in-use emerges (Heinonen et al., 2010, 2013). Finally, co-creation entails the ways in which resources (people and materials) are contributed with and applied by multiple actors (Vargo and Lusch, 2004, 2008; Vargo et al., 2008). It is embedded in interactions between parties, either in provider–firm dyads (Grönroos, 2008; Grönroos and Voima, 2013) or among actors in service systems (Normann and Ramirez, 1993; Vargo et al., 2008).

To sum up, our analysis followed the qualitative abductive reasoning process (Dubois and Gadde, 2002), in which we iteratively moved back and forth between the selected luxury studies and the three categories of value creation in accordance with Gummerus (2013) and Grönroos and Voima (2013). Along the process, the three categories provider-, consumer- and co-creation perspectives were refined to apply in the luxury context.

Three perspectives on “who creates luxury”

With the basic premise that the “creator” takes the lead role in creating luxury and conceptualising luxury, the study identifies three perspectives from the body of luxury research: provider-, consumer- and co-created luxury. The “creator” responsible for luxury creation defines and characterises each perspective. In so doing, it also reveals how the perspectives clearly differ from each other when it comes to fundamental features (e.g. source of luxury, ontological assumption, and role of consumer vs provider) simultaneously as the features provide insights to what luxury means. An essential notion here is that the perspectives are not necessarily mutually exclusive, whereby the boundaries are neither clear-cut nor monolithic. This follows the logic that entirely discrete categories rarely exist in qualitative analyses (Lincoln and Guba, 1985). Still, there are more distinctive aspects across the perspectives than there are commonalities (cf. Sandberg and Alvesson, 2021), justifying the detected categorisation.

Below we begin with answering – “who creates luxury” – by discussing the detected underlying particularities for each creator-based perspective on luxury, and then we respond to the second research question – “what luxury means” – by summarising the fundamental and distinguishing features.

Provider-created luxury

The perspective of provider-created luxury implies that luxury is created within the firm or brand (Han et al., 2010; Koronaki et al., 2018) and becomes embedded in the offering during production (Dubois and Duquesne, 1993; Kapferer and Bastien, 2009, 2012). This perspective is in line with traditional value chain thinking (Porter, 1985), in which goods are manufactured outputs with embedded value (Vargo and Lusch, 2004). Kapferer (2012a, p. 67) argues that “luxury is creator driven, not consumer oriented” and that luxury as a unique business strategy means “positioning […] brands more as pieces of art than as products” (2012 b, p. 461). Hence, it is the producer, based on the defined luxury strategy (Kapferer, 2014, 2015), who creates luxury. Notably, provider-created luxury does not mean that the firm is necessarily indifferent to or cannot study consumer perceptions of the offering, but instead that such perceptions relate to firm-defined characteristics of luxuriousness. For example, Miller and Mills (2012b) studied brand luxury in terms of “consumer assessment that a brand symbolises prestige, lavishness and opulence” (p. 1744).

The review revealed that within this perspective luxury creation is conceptualised through three unique characterising dimensions: offering characteristics (price and quality, e.g. Beverland, 2005; Fuchs et al., 2013; Godey et al., 2016; Han et al., 2010), luxury strategy based on restricted availability (scarcity/exclusivity and rarity, e.g. Dion and Arnould, 2011) and value proposition of distinction and heritage (Fionda and Moore, 2009; Kapferer and Bastien, 2012). The dimensionality of these characteristics is displayed in Table 1.

The offering characteristics include extravagant price; outstanding quality; excellent, superior and outstanding composition; precise artistry; spiritual creativity; divine design; and innovation (Dubois and Duquesne, 1993; Han et al., 2010; Kapferer and Laurent, 2016; Ko et al., 2019; Miller and Mills, 2012a; Tynan et al., 2014). Freire (2014) identified a set of luxury values that characterise both luxury and its advertising, including raw materials and a respect of craftsmen, their expertise and artistry. Luxury is supposed to be priceless and to attract extraordinary people (Kapferer and Bastien, 2009, 2012). These characteristics are conveyed by brand managers as unique selling points of luxury products and services.

Luxury also requires a special, luxury business strategy (Kapferer and Bastien, 2009) or unique business model (Kapferer, 2012b) of restricted availability, which implies exclusivity/selectivity and scarcity/rarity (Dubois and Duquesne, 1993; Kapferer and Valette-Florence, 2018) of the offering. The provider (producer or brand owner) is selective about who may access the offering (Kapferer, 2014), garnering exclusivity through strategic, deliberate shortage of supply, such as selective distribution (Han et al., 2010; Kapferer and Valette-Florence, 2016; Liu et al., 2019), limited access due to time or editions and pricing strategy, with the offering being available mostly for the elite or for those sufficiently affluent to purchase the offering (Kapferer, 2014). Scarcity refers to something being limited or narrow in supply, and it may entail planned, artificial or natural rarity (offerings are unique, objectively incomparable and/or unusual) (Chailan, 2018; Kapferer, 2012a, 2012b). A luxury strategy is managed by a “very strict set of rules” (Kapferer and Bastien, 2009, p. 313), demarcating it from traditional marketing. For example, according to a luxury strategy, growth is gained by raising prices and maintaining scarcity (Kapferer, 2012b). Price may not even be displayed, as it need not impact the purchasing decision: “price does not have to be explained rationally: It is the price of the intangibles (history, legend, prestige of the brand)” (Kapferer et al., 2014, p. 3) that is central.

We also detected that the value proposition of distinction and heritage is a unique aspect of provider-created luxury. Firstly, research underscores that luxury’s value proposition has traditionally had an essential function in distinguishing social classes from each other, i.e. social stratification (Kapferer and Bastien, 2009, 2012). Hence, luxury consumption is driven by conspicuous status seeking, because luxury offerings provide a means to signal wealth, status and power to others. In line with this, Chang and Ko (2017) found in their study on perceived post-purchase risk that consumers perceive a higher level of self-image risk and a lower level of functional risk in luxury (private golf courses) than in non-luxury services (public golf courses).

Throughout history, such provider-created luxury items have been powerful social dividers (Veblen, 1899/1994). Hence, one can imply that social distinction and status – like invisible status – are embedded in luxury offerings (Han et al., 2010). Secondly, research also highlights that heritage and legend are embedded in luxury’s value proposition (Park, 2014). Not only does the provider of the luxury offering have a long history, but this history becomes embedded in the product or brand identity (Dion and Borraz, 2017). An essential aspect of such a heritage is that it cannot be faked; an authentic heritage with its trust and reputation is built over time (Kapferer, 2012a, 2012b).

Consumer-created luxury

The second perspective identified is consumer-created luxury (Bauer et al., 2011; Hemetsberger et al., 2012; von Wallpach et al., 2020). This perspective views luxury as consumer-generated during an experience (Bauer et al., 2011; Kauppinen-Räisänen et al., 2019a). Hemetsberger et al. (2012, p. 483) described luxury experiences “as moments of luxury, which are an integral part of consumers’ everyday lives”. Furthermore, this perspective views luxury as subjective, relativistic and situational; it is anything the consumer defines as luxury at a certain point in time (Bauer et al., 2011; Cristini et al., 2017; Hemetsberger et al., 2012; Kauppinen-Räisänen et al., 2019b). Hence, this view aligns with consumer-created value as “embedded and formed in the highly dynamic and multi-contextual reality and life of the customer” (Heinonen et al., 2013, p. 104).

The literature analysis revealed that for the consumer-created perspective luxury creation is conceptualised through three particularities (Table 2): luxury as experiential, luxury as self-directed and transformational and luxury as meaningfulness in life.

Luxury as experiential entails consumers enjoying “having, doing, being, sharing, and becoming through meaningful luxury experience, be it little, “everyday” luxuries or extraordinary ones” (von Wallpach et al., 2020, p. 492). Consumers are “emotional beings concerned with achieving pleasurable experiences” (Atwal and Williams, 2009, p. 341) rather than calculative seekers of features and benefits, like quality or status. Accordingly, the lived experiences of, for example, gardening, moments of silence or a tranquil moment alone (Kauppinen-Räisänen et al., 2019a; von Wallpach et al., 2020) are luxury. Consumers become immersed in these experiences as they resort to them “to escape from ordinary life and enjoy a precious moment of luxury” (Bauer et al., 2011, p. 17). The interpretations of luxury are manifold: Seo and Buchanan-Oliver (2019, p. 5) studied consumption practices and found that consumers “construct multiple and divergent personalized meanings” of luxury brands that relate to their life goals (e.g. performing an affluent lifestyle vs. escaping in/with luxury brands).

Luxury as self-directed and transformational. Luxury may also contribute to the consumers’ sense of self because luxury may offer “an opportunity to live out different selves’ and invite ‘self-enhancement and self-transcendence” (Hemetsberger et al., 2012, p. 483). Kauppinen-Räisänen et al. (2014) linked luxury self-gifting to self-directed motives when consumers made luxury brand purchases to remunerate, console, celebrate or show self-regard. Luxury is also transformational and may help (re)construct and transform the self (Seo and Buchanan-Oliver, 2019). For example, Bauer et al. (2011) posited that “luxuries in general have the potential to change individuals and transform them into their ideal self”.

Luxury may also contribute to meaningfulness in life. Experiences emerging from “precious moments” may contribute meaningfulness to one’s life (von Wallpach et al., 2020, p. 499) and self-worth (Kauppinen-Räisänen et al., 2014). Research has found that luxury may contribute prudential value or well-being (Kauppinen-Räisänen et al., 2019a, 2019b). Consumers’ luxury moments may entail “growth and advancement, bliss and eudaimonia, unity with the other, and awe and self-transcendence” (von Wallpach et al., 2020, p. 491). Because this view suggests that luxury may be anything that a consumer defines as luxury at a certain point in time, luxury may reside outside the traditional commercial sphere of luxury brands.

Co-created luxury

The perspective of co-created luxury is an emerging research stream (Sarasvuo et al., 2022). Co-created luxury has been studied in contexts with a high degree of firm–consumer interaction, such as hospitality (Chathoth et al., 2020; Harkison et al., 2018), retailing (Choi et al., 2016) and digital (Quach and Thaichon, 2017) and social media (Koivisto and Mattila, 2020; Pentina et al., 2018). Co-created luxury refers to the activities in which multiple actors, such as the firm and the customer engage to co-create value (Carrigan et al., 2013; Holmqvist et al., 2020b; Koivisto and Mattila, 2020; Quach and Thaichon, 2017) in line with the value co-creation literature (Gummerus, 2013; Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004). Often, customer-to-customer or firm–customer interactions are essential, as exemplified by Harkison’s (2018) definition of co-creation as “an active interaction between a company and a customer to create value” (p. 14). Such interaction may be active (such as posting brand-related content online) or passive (reading brand-generated content) (Kefi and Maar, 2020). Nevertheless, co-creation also entails a dimension of customers contributing to brand meaning (Pentina et al., 2018; Roper et al., 2013; Schroeder et al., 2015) – but unlike in consumer-created luxury, this meaning-making contributes to brand value/meaning rather than to the consumers’ perceptions of the self. This view is mirrored in Pentina et al. (2018): “the greatest brand meaning cocreation potential lies in conversations and exchanges among luxury consumers” (p. 64).

Based on the scoping review and analysis of the selected literature, we detected that for the co-created perspective luxury creation is conceptualised through four dimensions (Table 3): luxury as multi-actor activities, luxury as co-constructed, luxury as reflecting shared values and luxury creation through resource integration.

Luxury as multi-actor activities involves dyadic co-creation between firms and customers and networked co-creation. Within the dyadic co-creation, the customers and the providers collaborate: The customers benefit the brand as they “actively participate in brand-related activities” (Choi et al., 2016, p. 5827). The provider may design an interaction platform (Choi et al., 2016; Harkison et al., 2018), where interactions take place and provider personnel engage in dialogue with customers to co-create luxury, in line with value being co-created within the joint sphere during customer and firm interactions (Grönroos and Voima, 2013; Holmqvist et al., 2020b). Luxury co-creation may also be networked (Holmqvist et al., 2020c), as acknowledged in social media contexts: Quach and Thaichon (2017) posited: “co-creation and co-destruction of the luxury brand experience include conversations and sophisticated interactions between many parties, such as the brand itself, staff, customers, and other related groups, for example, consumption communities and social network users” (p. 163). Although Merz et al. (2009) suggested that branding in general is moving from dyadic relationships to a networked perspective of co-creation, such a multi-stakeholder view is yet to be widely established.

Luxury as co-constructed highlights how meanings that add to brand value are constructed and relate to cultural meanings: In their study of Chinese luxury brands, Schroeder et al. (2015) postulated that “brands do not only draw upon meaning resources from particular cultures and histories, but that new cultural meanings and practices emerge and develop in relationship to brands” (p. 262). This meaning-making directly adds to brand luxury and thereby its value: “the look and the sound of luxury, or how the consumer feels consuming luxury is paramount and forms part of the brand luxury image” (Miller and Mills, 2012a, p. 47). Such brand co-construction was found to derive from consumer-to-consumer conversations online, creating “new visual, textual, and mental associations for the brand” (Pentina et al., 2018, p. 65).

Luxury as reflecting shared stakeholder values. Customers and luxury brands share and reinforce similar values, shown in the appreciation of unique characteristics, such as quality or aesthetics (Harkison, 2018; Tynan et al., 2010; Wu and Yang, 2018), which characterises servicescapes, personnel and other provider resources (brand communication materials with which customers interact) and also customers. For example, in luxury brand flagship stores, both firm representatives and customers value and contribute to the sophisticated, luxurious atmosphere (Choi et al., 2016), exemplifying the importance of fit between the values of the stakeholders.

Luxury creation through resource integration entails that both consumers (Carrigan et al., 2013) and providers (Stiehler, 2015; Kefi and Maar, 2020) share their knowledge, skills, and materials with each other (Gummerus, 2013; Vargo and Lusch, 2008). Quach and Thaichon (2017) found that resources such as love, status, information and services were exchanged during luxury provider–customer interactions and demonstrated how customers can co-create by engaging in online discussions on or with their beloved brands. The provider’s/employees’ ability to share resources, such as valuable insights with customers adds to the customers’ luxury experiences (Harkison, 2018; Kauppinen-Räisänen et al., 2020). Likewise, followers may receive emotional value from the aesthetic appeal of brand posts online (Kefi and Maar, 2020. However, value destruction may also occur when brand owners fail to reciprocate the interactions (Quach and Thaichon, 2017) if they reject resource sharing.

A comparison of the three perspectives

Next, as a further step to improve conceptual clarity, we compare the three perspectives and summarise how they differ from one another when it comes to fundamental features, namely the source of luxury creation, ontological assumption underlying luxury creation and the role of consumer versus the provider in luxury creation. These features provide insights to what luxury means across the three perspectives (Table 4).

By unveiling the perspectives’ underlying particularities, our study illustrates how past research has approached luxury and its creation. The studies taking a provider perspective discuss luxury as a special type of offering, whereby luxury is unilaterally created by the producer or the brand owner (Chailan, 2018; Ko et al., 2016), whereas luxury is unilaterally created by the consumer in studies taking a consumer perspective (Kauppinen-Räisänen et al., 2019b; von Wallpach et al., 2020). Studies approaching luxury from the co-created perspective implies that luxury is created bi- or multilaterally among the actors (Harkison, 2018; Harkison et al., 2018; Holmqvist et al., 2020b, 2020c). The actors can be provider-consumer dyads or comprise consumer-consumer dyads or triads or groups.

The second feature differing the perspectives from each other is the source of luxury creation (offering, experience or interactive activities), which gives rise to substantially different luxury conceptualisations. When luxury is viewed as an offering created by the provider, luxury becomes an output of a provider-controlled production process. From this perspective, luxury studies focus on how a provider manages a luxury brand, for example (Fionda and Moore, 2009; Miller and Mills, 2012b). In contrast, when luxury is seen as an experience created by the consumer, luxury becomes a phenomenon that is situated in the consumer’s lifeworld and emerges in a consumer-determined process. Studies from this perspective relate to how consumers experience a luxury brand and its meaning to the self (Hemetsberger et al., 2012; Seo and Buchanan-Oliver, 2019). When the source of luxury creation is viewed as interactive activities between the provider and consumer or other actors, luxury becomes co-created. Past studies have for example contributed with insights to how consumers interact with a luxury brand and the co-created brand meanings (Miller and Mills, 2012a; Pentina et al., 2018). An essential issue related to the source of luxury is that the different sources of luxury creation are not mutually exclusive. Hence, luxury as an offering (provider-created) may coincide with luxury as an experience (consumer-created) or luxury as interactive activities (co-created). For example, a provider-created luxury brand may be collectively celebrated, reinforced or – if not mutually agreed upon – co-destructed by consumers in a brand community. So far, the predominantly studied source of luxury is the provider-created offering. However, consumer-created experiences and co-created activities as sources of luxury are gaining increasing interest among researchers, mirroring the shift in value research from a provider-dominant view (so-called goods-dominant logic, see Vargo and Lusch, 2004, 2008) to value being stipulated as an experience (Helkkula et al., 2012) and/or co-created in interactive processes (Grönroos, 2008; Grönroos and Voima, 2013; Vargo and Lusch, 2004).

A third feature differing the perspectives from each other is their underlying ontological assumption. An ontological assumption refers to a belief about the nature or structure of the reality that is being studied (Crotty, 1998). In the provider perspective, luxury is viewed as a special type of offering, and luxury is assumed to be embedded in a discrete entity that is exchanged. The consumer perspective, in turn, considers luxury to emerge during an experience that is endogenous to the consumer. Hence, from this perspective, luxury does not exist unless it is experienced by the consumer. In the co-creation perspective, luxury is assumed to emerge in interactive activities, to be collectively determined among multiple actors, and thus be mutually dependent.

Lastly, we detected that the roles of the consumer and provider differ in the three perspectives. In provider-created luxury, the provider’s role typically is that of a manufacturer, brand-owner and a designer. The customer’s role varies from that of a buyer to a connoisseur to a collector who is highly qualified to identify and acknowledge the value of luxury. Hence, the customer is a carefully selected target (Han et al., 2010; Miller and Mills, 2012b). Within consumer-created luxury, the provider has no active role because the consumer as experiencer controls the creation of luxury. The provider may, however, have the role of a facilitator, whereby “the firm facilitates processes that support customers’ value creation” (Grönroos, 2006, p. 324), which the consumer as an experiencer may draw upon to create luxury. The consumer determines whether provider resources are needed or important in the experience, which differs from co-creation where both parties are needed to fulfil the interaction. In the co-created perspective, the provider assumes the role of a collaborator and a designer of the interactive space, whereas the consumer assumes that of a collaborator and a contributor to the brand value. These interactive spheres can be designed in a manner that supports consumer experiences – for example, by allowing consumers to take photos of service encounters that play a role in consumer experiences.

A future research agenda

The developed framework advances conceptual clarity in luxury research, whereby it can be used not only in evaluating prior research but also for directing new research areas. The framework is discussed below together with some emerging avenues for future research.

While past research has focused on luxury created within the firm and being embodied in the highly differentiated branded offerings for the means of competitive advantage, one research field for future research from the provider-created luxury perspective relates to luxury industry’s role in the topical plea for a sustainable foundation. For example, additional research is needed to understand the paradoxes of the offering characteristics related to creativity and innovations. Innovations have provided reusable so-called sustainable plastic alternatives for affordable luxury (e.g. Kumakai, 2020), while exclusive luxury rests on the most superior materials (Ko et al., 2019). Hence, are these paradoxes transforming the luxury industry, and if so, how? Research could also focus on how firms could embrace the idea that sustainability is about much more than firms’ relationship with the environment (Cristini et al., 2022; Seidman, 2007). One might ask: “How do such informed sustainable luxury strategies affect value propositions in the luxury firm’s micro and macro environment?” and “What is the luxury industry’s responsibility for functioning as a role model in the transformation towards a sustainable world?”.

Consumer-created luxury provides many interesting avenues for future research. Firstly, luxury has been defined by creativity, excellence and exclusivity (Cristini et al., 2017), where a basic assumption has been that luxury relates to the pursuit of pleasure or positive experiences in general. However, Scott et al. (2017) stress that consumer experiences often comprise both positive and negative aspects. Hence, instead of approaching luxury as something solely positive, future research could focus on how luxury deploys negative aspects. Scott et al. (2017) explain that consumers sometimes seek pain to free themselves from themselves, whereby luxury consumption might be driven by pain – such as that experienced in swamp soccer played in Finland – an essential aspect of the luxurious experience. Secondly, the recent ideas on luxury immersion and escapism (Holmqvist et al., 2020a; von Wallpach et al., 2020) deserve to be studied further, for example in other contexts such as interactions with nature. Organic spaces may provide whole-person and holistic experiences that even contribute to the meaningfulness in life or human well-being. Thirdly, prior research has contributed with insights to how luxury contributes with value, such as prudential value or even well-being (Kauppinen-Räisänen et al., 2019a, 2019b). What seems to be uncovered, however, is what destroys such value. Hence, research could focus on what and how activities or experiences destroy luxury. A better understanding of value destruction in the context of luxury would allow brands to address negative issues in value creation and instead harness positive ones. Finally, future research could focus on the emerging research field of frugal consumption and those who experience, or those luxury consumers who are endowed with, a sense of responsibility to limit their consumption for the common good (Cristini et al., 2022). Hence, future luxury consumption might increasingly be driven by the plea for artisanship, natural elements or heritage. Future research could focus on how creativity, excellence and exclusivity appear in consumers’ desire for luxury.

When it comes to the third perspective – co-created luxury – the emerging co-creation literature (Vargo and Lusch, 2017) recognises the importance of resources, activities and processes for co-creation. It seems that luxury research has yet to explore these aspects from a multi-stakeholder perspective. Providers, customers and other parties (e.g. influencers, collaborators, communities and governmental bodies) hold, acquire and share resources, but how do these actors together co-create luxury? Facilitating and deploying resource creation, integration and flows (whether knowledge, skills, cultural capital or material resources) are pivotal in today’s networked society, particularly in social media, and offer a fruitful research area. Although there is evidence of consumers acting as active brand marketers (Koivisto and Mattila, 2020), there is limited understanding of the shifting roles and boundaries between actors. What more, regarding co-creation, there is only little understanding of how the luxury actor network functions to create and disperse/divide value for the brand and the consumer. Although recent work has identified the integration of art and luxury (Kapferer, 2014; Koronaki et al., 2018), the way multiple parties also contribute to the success of luxury requires further research. In addition, as most prior work has focused on provider–consumer interactions, more research that focuses on the consumer-consumer interaction and extends beyond dyadic co-creation is encouraged.

Conclusions

Luxury has many faces and the perspectives on the luxury concept are versatile as well as ambiguous both in practice and research. With the attempt to respond to the need of conceptual clarity in luxury research, this qualitative study has scoped articles published in peer-reviewed journals related to luxury marketing within business and management. The study was concept-driven and mapped how research conceptualises luxury and its creation, and pinpointed underlying particularities. Below, we document the study’s main theoretical contributions and implications to luxury research. We also discuss the study’s limitations.

Theoretical contributions

This paper makes three contributions to luxury and marketing research. Firstly, the study used value creation frameworks (Grönroos, 2008; Grönroos and Voima, 2013) as a “method theory” or “theoretical lens”, as we see luxury creation equal to value creation. In doing so, the study is able to identify a pluralistic perspective in luxury research. Hence, the study contributes to the luxury research stream with an understanding of three perspectives based on the luxury “creator” – the provider-, consumer- and co-creation perspectives.

Secondly, our study contributes to the luxury literature and adds to previous research such as Gurzki and Woisetschläger (2017), Rathi et al. (2022), Sharma et al. (2022) and Wang (2022) by advancing conceptual clarity. On the one hand, the study characterises the perspectives by identifying their distinct key concepts and particularities. On the other hand, the study contrasts features that can be compared across perspectives and that distinguish them from each other. These features entail the source of luxury creation, ontological assumption behind luxury creation and role of consumer vs provider in luxury creation. By illuminating these particularities, we wish that researchers are able to make better informed choices while conducting further research, for example whilst choosing literature, questioning underlying assumptions made in research and building up scales for empirical studies.

Thirdly, the current study contributes to marketing research by showing how the luxury literature connects to the evolution in marketing theory, where the focus has shifted from firm value creation to co-creation of value and, to some extent, to consumer creation of value. The evolving luxury classification is parallel to the development of marketing research in general (Payne et al., 2009; Vargo and Lusch, 2017). Although co-created luxury clusters dyadic firm–customer co-creation and networked co-creation under the general category of co-creation, differentiating between these two types of co-creation (firm–customer vs networked) is important because they have disparate implications for firms. The first allows firms to interact, gather information and influence customer perceptions of the firm, whereas the latter is more opaque and more independent of the firm but is nonetheless influential due to the potential of co-creation to take place in new arenas, such as social media. This is in line with the difference between brand identity (as defined by the firm) and brand image (as defined by the customer), which is made within the branding but not within the luxury literature (de Chernatony, 1999). Whereas brand identity forms through the actions of brand managers, brand image emerges when consumers experience the brand (e.g. through ads, social media, social interactions; Nandan, 2005). These two concepts may diverge or be in line, and thus understanding both is equally important. In a similar vein, researchers benefit from understanding the three perspectives that co-exist in luxury research.

Implications for researchers

The study has implications for researchers studying luxury. The developed framework advances conceptual clarity in luxury research, whereby it can be used in evaluating prior research and for directing new research areas. Namely, the developed classification sharpens conceptual clarity by pinpointing particularities and by contrasting the fundamental features of the three perspectives aspiring to facilitate comparisons of findings across studies. Such organising or classification equals an ordering type of theory, one that “identifies, explores and sorts out distinctions that allow us to reason in more differentiated and nuanced ways about the nature of phenomena” (Sandberg and Alvesson, 2021, p. 501). Hence, the provided perspectives may serve as a springboard for further empirical research, where the particularities (dimensions and sub-dimensions) offer coordinates for empirical studies of luxury (Alvesson and Blom, 2022; Cornelissen, 2017). Careful consideration of these perspectives can facilitate a more conscious selection of study approaches to luxury and encourage researchers to contribute to the ongoing development of the field. Also, the study uses the developed framework and puts forward some emerging avenues for future research, which may inspire additional luxury research within branding.

Limitations

Our study with its scoping review focusing on the luxury creator and luxury conceptualisation as the unit of analysis comes along with some limitations. Firstly, the study was limited to the databases of Scopus, the keywords used in the search, and the applied exclusion versus inclusion criteria. Although the strategy was profoundly considered, we also made a control search in Web of Science and reference scanning of all our selected articles for some additional or different publications. Secondly, the review was limited to English publications only, whereby we may have excluded important publications in other languages. Lastly, the review included mainly publications in journals on AJG 2 level or higher, whereby papers published in lower-level journals, conference proceedings or for example university series were excluded.

Figures

Figure 1.

Scoping review process

Table 1.

Provider-created luxury

Dimension	Sub-dimension	Description	Author
Luxury as offering characteristics	Quality	Superior material, completely or semi-handcrafted	Beverland (2005), Chailan (2018), Fionda and Moore (2009), Freire (2014), Fuchs et al. (2013), Godey et al. (2016), Han et al. (2010), Kapferer (2014) Kapferer and Laurent (2016), Ko et al. (2019), Koronaki et al. (2018), Miller and Mills (2012a, 2012b), Park (2014), Tynan et al. (2014)
	Price	Priceless, exorbitant and prestige pricing in line with the luxury strategy Luxury is maintained through raising prices
Luxury strategy based on restricted availability	Exclusivity/ Selectivity	Exclusivity gained through strategic and deliberate shortage of supply, e.g. through selective distribution, pricing strategy	Dion and Arnould (2011), Dubois and Duquesne (1993), Han et al. (2010), Kapferer (2014), Kapferer and Valette-Florence (2016, 2018), Liu et al. (2019)
	Scarcity/Rarity	Scarcity gained through planned, artificial and natural rarity, e.g. offerings being unique, objectively incomparable, limited in number	Dion and Arnould (2011), Dubois and Duquesne (1993), Chailan (2018), Kapferer (2012a, 2012b), Kapferer and Valette-Florence (2016, 2018)
Value proposition of distinction and heritage	Social distinction/ Status	Hierarchical sign of social superiority; luxury signals social structure and social distance	Chang and Ko (2017), Dion and Borraz (2017), Kapferer and Bastien (2009, 2012)
	Heritage/Legend	Source of distinction and symbolic capital	Fionda and Moore (2009), Kapferer and Bastien (2012)

Source: Authors’ own work

Table 2.

Consumer-created luxury

Dimension	Sub-dimension	Description	Author
Luxury as experiential	Lived experience	A first-hand sensorial and emotional involvement in an event or occurrence	Atwal and Williams (2009), Banister (2020), Bauer et al. (2011), Godey et al. (2016), Hemetsberger et al. (2012), Holmqvist et al. (2020a), Park (2014), Seo and Buchanan-Oliver (2019), Tynan et al. (2014)
	Immersion	An experiential activity stimulating senses, generating pleasure and allowing relaxation	Holmqvist et al. (2020a), Kauppinen-Räisänen et al. (2019a, 2019b)
	Escapism	A moment that is transient and fluid and frees one from everyday life	Banister et al. (2020), Bauer et al. (2011), Holmqvist et al. (2020a, 2020b), Kauppinen-Räisänen et al. (2014), von Wallpach et al. (2020)
	Interpretation	Interpretation of luxuriousness. Multiple and divergent meanings. Focus on meaning for the self	Seo and Buchanan-Oliver (2019), von Wallpach et al. (2020)
Luxury as self-directed and transformational	Self-worth/Self-communication	Luxury signal to self. ‘Because I am worth it’. Self-gifting	Bauer et al. (2011), Hemetsberger et al. (2012), Kauppinen-Räisänen et al. (2014)
	Identity building and transformation	Luxury as becoming integral to the self and being part of private identity building. Luxury used to influence oneself due to its motivational function. Luxury as a means to construct and transform the self	Bauer et al. (2011), Kauppinen-Räisänen et al. (2014), Seo and Buchanan-Oliver (2019), von Wallpach et al. (2020)
Luxury as meaningfulness in life	Well-being	Meaningfulness, contentment and significance of life represent luxury	Cristini et al. (2017), Kauppinen-Räisänen et al. (2019a, 2019b)

Source: Authors’ own work

Table 3.

Co-Created luxury

Dimension	Sub-dimension	Description	Author
Luxury as multi-actor activities	Dyadic firm–customer co-creation	Consumers’ active involvement and interaction with providers. Often no temporal or spatial separation between the provider and the consumer (dialogue or interaction)	Choi et al. (2016), Harkison (2018), Harkison et al. (2018), Holmqvist et al. (2020b), Quach and Thaichon (2017)
	Networked co-creation	Customers create content (often inspired by the brand) and share resources with others. Multiple interactions between different stakeholders (brand owner, employee, customer, social groups, others)	Chathoth et al. (2020), Holmqvist et al. (2020b, 2020c), Kauppinen-Räisänen et al. (2020), Koivisto and Mattila (2020), Quach and Thaichon (2017)
Luxury as co-constructed	Brand value is constructed through meaning-making	Consumers (co-)construct brand meanings, which contributes to brand value	Miller and Mills (2012a), Pentina et al. (2018), Roper et al. (2013), Schroeder et al. (2015)
	Creation of brand associations	Co creation of visual, textual, and mental associations for the brand	Miller and Mills (2012a), Pentina et al. (2018), Schroeder et al. (2015)
Luxury as reflecting shared values	Expectations of interaction and stakeholder characteristics	Luxury characteristics refer to products, servicescape design, personnel and other customers, but also high expectations for interaction/reciprocity	Harkison (2018), Harkison et al. (2018), Holmqvist et al. (2020b), Quach and Thaichon (2017)
	Shared brand values	The actors share similar values, be it social distinctions or cultural meanings, and contribute to embellishing them	Choi et al. (2016), Harkison (2018), Schroeder et al. (2015), Tynan et al. (2010), Wu and Yang (2018)
Luxury creation through resource integration	Provider–customer	Provider generates resources for the customer	Kefi and Maar (2020), Stiehler (2015), Quach and Thaichon (2017)
	Customer– provider	Customers become resources for the provider	Carrigan et al. (2013), Quach and Thaichon (2017)

Source: Authors’ own work

Table 4.

Distinguishing features for the three perspectives

Perspective	Source	Ontological assumption	Role of consumer	Role of provider
Provider-created luxury Unilaterally created by the producer/brand owner	Offering Luxury is an output of a provider-controlled production process	Luxury is a discrete entity	Carefully selected target, buyer, connoisseur, collector	Manufacturer, brand-owner, designer
Consumer-created luxury Unilaterally created by the consumer	Experience Luxury emerges in a consumer-determined process relative to the consumer’s lifeworld	Luxury is endogenous to the consumer	Experiencer	Facilitator
Co-created luxury Bi- or multi-laterally created among actors (Provider–consumer dyads, consumer-consumer/other actors)	Interactive activities Luxury emerges in-between, in dialogue/joint activities among several actors	Luxury is mutually dependent	Collaborator, contributor	Collaborator, designer of interactive space

Source: Authors’ own work

Table A1.

Final selection of Scopus articles (keywords “luxury” and “creation”) (N = 25)

Author(s)	Definition	Characteristics	Source	Creator
Beverland (2005)	N/A	“Characteristics of luxury brands include high price, excellent quality, specialized distribution channels, a prestige image associated with the brand, an element of uniqueness or exclusivity, a strong brand name and logo, and a history of high performance.” (p. 197)	Offering Empirical context: Luxury wine producers.	Provider
Fionda and Moore (2009)	“[…] luxury brands are […] defined in terms of their excellent quality, high transaction value, distinctiveness, exclusivity and craftsmanship.” (p. 349)	Components inherent to the creation of the luxury fashion brand; clear brand identity, luxury communications strategy, product integrity, brand signature, prestige price, exclusivity, luxury heritage, environment and consumption experience, luxury culture. (pp. 355-356)	Offering Empirical context: British luxury brands.	Provider
Tynan et al. (2010)	“Luxury goods exist at one end of a continuum with ordinary goods, so where the ordinary ends and luxury starts is a matter of degree as judged by consumers.” (p. 1157)	Key identifiers of luxury brands […] are “high quality, expensive and non-essential products and services that appear to be rare, exclusive, prestigious, and authentic and offer high levels of symbolic and emotional/hedonic values through customer experiences.” (p. 1158)	Interactive activities Empirical context: British, heritage brands, an automotive company, a designer of fashion clothing, and a department store.	Co-created
Miller and Mills (2012a)	Brand luxury is “functional (product-centric), symbolic (brand-centric) or experiential (experience-centric), valued for self-indulgent and hedonic purposes, or shared with others and valued for esteem maintenance or esteem building purposes.” (p. 47.) “[…] luxury has not really changed its meaning from ‘old luxe’.” (p. 49)	“[…] luxury brands […] have positive reputations, high kudos and regard. […] magnificence, extravagance, opulence, sumptuousness and lavishness sufficiently capture the true essence of brand luxury.” (pp. 48-49)	Offering Interactive activities Conceptual paper.	Provider Co-created
Miller and Mills (2012b)	Brand luxury is “an assessment associated with intangible elements of the brand.” (p. 1472) “[…] a consumer assessment that a brand symbolizes prestige, lavishness and opulence” (p. 1474)	“Intangible elements include a history of success, or the brand's corporate identity, culture and spirit, or the brand's reputation, or how visionary, trendy and up-to-date the brand is and/or the brand's careful management” (p. 1472)	Offering Empirical context: Designers handbag.	Provider
Carrigan et al. (2013)	N/A	“[…] exclusive, expensive products […]. […] distinct characteristics of heritage, premium quality, design, exclusivity, and aesthetic value […]”. (p. 1278)	Interactive activities Conceptual.	Co-created
Fuchs et al. (2013)	“Luxury fashion brands [are defined in the study] as brands that offer premium-priced products that entail the highest level of quality” (p. 77)	N/A	Offering Empirical context: e.g., Prada, Gucci, Louis Vuitton.	Provider
Park (2014)	“[…] new luxury [is defined] as successful luxury brands or products that have a short history and are fairly new to the market.” (p. 248.)	New luxury brands are characterized at best by high-quality exotic materials, story, after-service and Internet access to the brand (p. 255).	Experience Empirical context: Korean luxury brands (Sang A, Jimmy Choo).	Provider Consumer
Tynan et al. (2014)	N/A	Luxury car equalled with luxury brand (e.g. Porsche, Aston Martin, and Ferrari). (Note: Consumers’ luxury experience not characterized)	Experience Empirical context: Luxury car driving experience.	Provider Consumer
Schroeder et al. (2015)	Luxury associated with “Chinese values [or Confucian values] of harmony and simplicity.” (p. 273)	[Luxurious] cultural heritage brands are characterized by “aesthetic, cultural and historical legacy.” (p. 276.)	Interactive activities Empirical context: Chinese luxury brands (Shanghai Tang, Shang Xia).	Co-created
Stiehler (2015)	“.. luxury and […] its meaning […] differ depending on the circumstances” (p. 398)	Premium quality, exclusivity, inessentiality, high price; reputation of excellence; and a heritage of craftsmanship (p. 397)	Interactive activities Empirical context: Luxury brands.	Co-created
Choi et al. (2016)	“Luxury fashion brand are defined as brands that have a global reputations, inspire customer desires, and are associated with tradition and innovation.” (p. 5828)	Social/conspicuous, aesthetic/self-expression, experiential/hedonic experience, product quality.	Interactive activities Empirical context: Chanel and Karl Lagerfeld.	Co-created
Godey et al. (2016)	N/A	Status, price premium	Offering Experience Empirical context: Burberry, Dior, Gucci, Hermès, and Louis Vuitton.	Provider Consumer
Dion and Borraz (2017)	“Luxury draws on social stratification and is considered the exclusive privilege of the elite, who use it as a sign of distinction and an affirmation of their status” (p. 67) “Luxury is not defined by the object or the brand, instead ‘the social relationships that develop around them”. (p. 67)	Luxury is mirrored by the “material and social cues of the servicescape” (p. 81)	Offering Empirical context: Luxury brand stores.	Provider
Quach and Thaichon (2017)	Luxury brands are identified as “high quality, expensive and non-essential products and services […]”. (p. 164)	“[…] rare, exclusive, prestigious, and authentic, and offer high levels of symbolic and emotional/hedonic values through customer experiences”. (p. 164)	Interactive activities Empirical context: Louis Vuitton, Chanel, and Burberry.	Co-created
Chailan (2018)	N/A	“luxury brand [is] made up of brand elements that, by definition, are inimitable and associated with internally-built luxury features”. (p. 418)	Offering Empirical context: luxury brand companies having initiatives to arts.	Provider
Harkison (2018)	N/A	“luxury hotel and lodge experience is materialised through a process of co-creation, involving managers, employees and guests.” (pp. 14-15)	Interactive activities Empirical context: Hotels defined as ‘New Zealand Luxury Lodge’ and ‘Fivestar Exceptional’.	Co-created
Harkison et al. (2018)	“experiences and expectations are […] defining the standard of luxury” (p. 1726.)	“luxury hotel and lodge experience is very personal, emotional and complex”. (p. 1735)	Interactive activities Empirical context: Hotels defined as ‘New Zealand Luxury Lodge’ and ‘Fivestar Exceptional’.	Co-created
Koronaki et al. (2018)	“A luxury brand's relevance is […] evaluated upon its ability to generate value for its consumers”. (p. 408)	Luxury is characterized by “the perceived intangible benefits that consumers gain from [luxury]; such intangible benefits essentially refer to the value arising from consumption”. (p. 408)	Offering Empirical context: Louis Vuitton.	Provider
Pentina et al. (2018)	Luxury brands are defined as “conspicuous possessions characterized by exclusivity, prestige, and premium pricing […], possess distinct brand identities and meanings distinguished by specific associations […]”. (p. 58)	“luxury brands [are] characterized by precise and specific positioning based on exclusivity, heritage, uniqueness, and association with high society”. (p. 55)	Interactive activities Empirical context: Luxury consumers’ SM behavior.	Co-created
Wu and Yang (2018)	Acknowledges the definition for luxury brands by Tynan et al. (2010).	“[…] generally non-essential, high quality and associated with premium prices. Luxury products are also instilled with various meanings of history, culture and art. They are expensive, exquisite and unique and can trigger hedonic enjoyment …” (p. 2039)	Interactive activities Empirical context: Luxury hotels.	Co-created
Chathoth et al. (2020)	N/A	N/A	Interactive activities Empirical context: Luxury hotels in Hong Kong and Macao.	Co-created
Holmqvist et al. (2020b)	N/A	N/A	Experience Interactive activities Empirical context: Ladurée.	Consumer Co-created
Kauppinen-Räisänen et al. (2020)	A luxury store is defined as a place that contributes “to the experiential delight […], while also providing opportunities to build, enhance, and celebrate brand relationships.” (p. 1)	Luxury is mirrored by the cues of physical and social context (servicescape). (p. 5)	Interactive activities Empirical context: Luxury brand stores.	Co-created
Koivisto and Mattila (2020)	“A luxury brand […] defined as having high quality, offering authentic value, conveying a prestigious image, being worthy of a premium price, and inspiring a deep connection […]”. (p. 571)	N/A	Interactive activities Empirical context: UGC posted on SM on a LV event.	Co-created

Table A2.

Additional articles from control search in the Web of Science database (N = 5)

Author(s)	Definition	Characteristics	Source	Creator
Freire (2014)	“[…] luxury is oriented towards the acquisition of new sensations and experiences, to conspicuous consumption and to search for emotional benefits.” (p. 2667)	“[…] luxury brands provide more uniqueness, status and hedonic value than non-luxury brands.” (p. 2667)	Offering Empirical context: Luxury advertising.	Provider
Chang and Ko (2017)	“[…] luxuries are mostly consumed to satisfy symbolic and hedonic desire.” (p. 95)	“[…] luxuries can be characterized as high quality, expensive and non-essential products that appear to be rare, exclusive, prestigious, and authentic, offering high levels of symbolic, emotional, and hedonic values to the customer.” (p. 95)	Offering Empirical context: Luxury services.	Provider
Liu et al. (2019)	N/A	“Luxury brands should exercise restraint in selling via digital channels since this ‘massification’ contradicts the essence of ‘luxury’, namely, exclusivity and rarity […].” (p. 397)	Offering Empirical context: Luxury fashion brands.	Provider
Holmqvist et al. (2020c)	“[…] luxury is strongly connected to hedonism.” (p. 749)	“[…] luxury being exclusive, prestigious, hedonic and even escapist.” (p. 748)	Interactive activities Empirical context; Luxury brands.	Co-created
Kefi and Maar (2020)	“[…] this study views “high quality, expensive and nonessential products and services that appear to be rare, exclusive, prestigious, and authentic and offer high levels of symbolic and emotional/hedonic values through customer experiences” as key identifiers of luxury brands.” (p. 580)	“[…] hedonic and symbolic values should be particularly crucial to the marketing of luxury brands through which customers can express or enhance their status, social identity, and uniqueness.” (p. 580)	Interactive activities Empirical context; Luxury brand fan pages.	Co-created

Table A3.

Additional articles from reference scanning (N = 24)

Author(s)	Definition	Characteristics	Source	Creator
Dubois and Duquesne (1993)	“”trivial” products, without any clear functional advantage over they “non-luxury” counterparts.” (p. 36)	“Luxury goods are expensive in relative and absolute terms.” (p. 36)	Offering Empirical context: Luxury products.	Provider
Atwal and Williams (2009)	“The expression of “today’s luxury” is about a celebration of personal creativity, expressiveness, intelligence, fluidity, and above all, meaning.” (p. 340)	N/A	Experience Conceptual.	Consumer
Kapferer and Bastien (2009)	“Luxury converts the raw material that is money into a culturally sophisticated product that is social stratification.” (p. 314)	“[…] luxury is “superlative.” (p. 319) “[…] luxury is more than a logo. For them [luxury consumers] luxury is an appreciation of fine works, fine craftsmanship, creativity and the making of a legend.” (p. 321)	Offering Conceptual.	Provider
Han et al. (2010)	Luxury goods are goods “that the mere use or display of a particular branded product brings the owner prestige apart from any functional utility […].” (p. 16)	N/A	Offering Empirical context: Louis Vuitton, Gucci.	Provider
Bauer et al. (2011)	Luxuries “as consumers define them, are quite intimate and private objects, relating to consumers’ selves; becoming integral parts of consumers’ selves, rather than to aspired roles in society…” (p. 65)	Characterizes “consumer-defined luxuries […] as (a) transient – a fact that is reflected in the flexible, escapist, and unlocking power of luxuries; and (b) private in that these luxuries support consumers’ identity projects.” (p. 57)	Experience Empirical context: Consumer luxury experiences.	Consumer
Dion and Arnould (2011)	In the study context of retail: “luxury is producer rather than consumer oriented and seeks to generate awe rather than community.” (p. 502)	N/A	Offering Empirical context: Luxury brands.	Provider
Hemetsberger et al. (2012)	“[…] consumers’ desire for luxury is independent from accessibility, which necessitates a re-definition of the meaning of luxury on the side of consumers.” (p. 483)	“[…] consumer-experiential perspective luxury can be characterized as transient, which is reflected in its situation-specific, escapist nature, and its integration in consumers’ everyday lived experiences.” (p. 483)	Experience Empirical context: Consumer luxury experiences.	Consumer
Kapferer (2012a)	“[…] luxury strategy […] aims to create intangible value that makes luxury brands incomparable with any other brand, so they can avoid commoditization, which is the fate of most growth markets.” (p. 32)	E.g. beauty, quality, love of craft, emotion, expense, feelings of exclusivity, and privileged service (p. 28)	Offering Conceptual.	Provider
Kapferer (2012b)	E.g. “[…] luxury is a business model,’; ‘Luxury is the ambassador of the local culture and refined art de vivre.” (p. 456).	E.g. luxury is “being tied to rarity and exclusivity.” (p. 453).	Offering Conceptual.	Provider
Kapferer and Bastien (2012)	“Luxury as a concept is debatable and subjective; Luxury is an economic sector, once populated mainly by family firms but now more and more concentrated in publicly listed groups; Luxury is a specific strategy, not to be confused with a premium or fashion strategy, even if consumers sometimes lump the different kinds of companies together […].” (p. 475)	“Luxury producers tend to emphasize criteria such as being handmade, craftsmanship, quality excellence, or rarity.” (p. 477)	Offering Conceptual.	Provider
Roper et al. (2013)	“[…] luxury is a negotiated order of discourse, a contested domain of meaning; a cultural work in progress.” (p. 376)	N/A	Interactive activities Empirical context: Luxury brands.	Co-created
Kapferer (2014)	“[…] luxury is an economic sector […].” (p. 374)	“[…] [luxury and art] are both expensive creations and aim at the same target: the cultural elite. Luxury, like art, aims at immortality, or at least timelessness […].” (p. 375)	Offering Conceptual.	Provider
Kauppinen-Räisänen et al. (2014)	N/A	Intrinsic and extrinsic product characteristics, exclusive, unique, deviant, extraordinary.	Experience Empirical context: Luxury fashion brands.	Consumer
Kapferer and Laurent (2016)	“Luxury is both a concept and a macroeconomic sector.” (p. 1)	“[…] luxury most often induce high prices, such as rarity, noble quality materials, lengthy manual production, or uniquely qualified craftspeople.” (p. 2)	Offering Empirical context: Luxury goods.	Provider
Kapferer and Valette-Florence (2016)	“The concept of luxury is associated to rarity.” (p. 120) “Luxury is not a “concept” but a reality incarnated by brands and their magnificent stores concentrated on high street.” (p. 121)	N/A	Offering Empirical context: Luxury brands.	Provider
Cristini et al. 2017	“[…] luxury rests on asymmetry, which means that although all the three conditions [excellence, creativity, exclusivity] are sufficient to define luxury, they are not necessary. […] luxury can come without one of these conditions being high, still being perceived as luxury.” (p. 105)	Excellent quality, sustainable creativity, ultimate excellence, and meaningfulness.	Experience Conceptual.	Consumer
Kapferer and Valette-Florence (2018)	“All definitions of luxury relate to some form of rarity and exclusivity.” (p. 39)	N/A	Offering Empirical context: Luxury brands.	Provider
Kauppinen-Räisänen et al. (2019a)	“Because of its rarity, silence has by definition become a luxury, that is something unique and exclusive, perhaps affordable only to wealthy people.” (p. 295)	N/A	Experiences Empirical context: Consumer luxury experiences.	Consumer
Kauppinen-Räisänen et al. (2019b)	“[…] the antecedents of the meanings of luxury reside with the consumer.” (p. 242)	Context-dependent (e.g. commercial, non-commercial)	Experience Empirical context: Consumer luxury experiences.	Consumer
Ko et al. (2019)	A luxury brand is defined to be “high quality; offer authentic value via desired benefits, whether functional or emotional; have a prestigious image within the market built on qualities such as artisanship, craftsmanship, or service quality; be worthy of commanding a premium price; and be capable of inspiring a deep connection, or resonance, with the consumer.” (p. 406)	N/A	Offering Conceptual.	Provider
Seo and Buchanan Oliver (2019)	“within product-centric perspective, brand luxury is assumed to reside within the product itself. […] concerned with understanding the various attributes that imbue a product with brand luxury perceptions. […] the consumer-centric perspective is a meaning-based [..] explores ‘how’ consumers actively interpret and internalize luxury brand meanings.” (p. 415)	Excellent quality, high price, scarcity and uniqueness, aesthetics and polysensuality, superfluousness, ancestral heritage and personal history.	Experience Empirical context: Luxury brands.	Consumer
Banister et al. (2020)	N/A	“[…] everyday experiences of luxury, whereby luxury meanings, brands or consumers are not pre-defined.” (p. 459)	Experience Empirical context: Luxury consumption practices.	Consumer
Holmqvist et al. (2020a)	“exclusivity can be achieved in other ways than price. […] events in which consumers combine classic luxury aspects such as a hedonism, aesthetics and authenticity with an alternative form of exclusivity can become the escapist experience we term moments of luxury.” (p. 504)	Hedonism, authenticity, aesthetics, exclusivity.	Experience Empirical context: Salsa dancing.	Consumer
von Wallpach et al. (2020)	“[…] luxury has become multi-faceted and fluid and encompasses multiple meanings […].” (p. 491) “Luxury has also become more private and intimate, a means to develop the consumer self beyond sheer signaling, by enjoying having, doing, being, sharing, and becoming through meaningful luxury experience, be it little, “everyday” luxuries or extraordinary ones […].” (p. 492)	Freeing from, freeing to, happy, perfect, scarce, caring, exciting.	Experiences Empirical context: Consumer luxury experiences.	Consumer