Search results

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of key demographics (i.e. gender, age, education and income) on the rich Muslim consumers’ Domains of Living (DoL). DoL were broken down into being, belonging and becoming domains. Relationship between the DoL and luxury consumption behavior (LCB) was analyzed as well. Being domain included elements that indicated who one is and how one defines the self; belonging domain linked an individual to his/her environment; and becoming domain referred to the set of social activities that an individual performed.

A questionnaire-based survey was conducted to get insights into the LCB of affluent Muslim consumers and how these insights related to key demographics and DoL. The researched population was Qatari consumers who were buying luxury products and belonged to a high-income bracket. Stratified sampling method was considered appropriate because the key objective of the study was to generalize the results across the affluent Qatari population. Stratification of the population was primarily done through the selected demographic variables. This research survey, conducted in Qatar, resulted in the collection of 213 usable questionnaires. General Linear Model Multivariate Analysis and Multiple Regression Analysis were used to establish the goodness of fit and to test the proposed hypotheses.

Results indicated that there were significant LCB differences between the genders, age groups, income levels and educational background. Furthermore, there was a significant association between the three DOLs and LCB. There were indications that for affluent Qatari Muslims, consumption of luxury products had become a socially accepted norm. Fulfillment of luxury needs did not isolate rich Muslims from their family and friends or made them unhappy about luxury consumption. This behavior could be related to high levels of affluence among Qataris that makes acquisition of luxury products easy and not effort or time intensive.

Islamic luxury markets need to adopt an appropriate balance of global (considering global luxury trends) and local (based on cultural, social and religious forces) marketing strategies to engage rich Muslim consumers.

This paper presents LCB from the perspective of affluent Muslim consumers within the context of DoL and through the lens of key demographic variables.

This study aims to investigate the influence of quality of lifestyle (QoL) on affluent Muslim consumers that in turn influences their interests or inclinations, either towards “relationship” or “materialistic” QoL, when purchasing luxury products or services.

This research uses a questionnaire-based survey involving 233 Muslim customers. Data were analysed using exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling.

The results show that relationship QoL of the consumers insignificantly affects their materialistic QoL. Thus, one way of achieving their quality lifestyle is through sharing and generosity and not through materialistic QoL. Also, their relationship QoL affects their basic necessity QoL through physical and community relationships but not through their social relationship. Furthermore, basic necessity QoL negatively affects both materialistic QoL and luxury purchase inclinations, indicating that they generally tend to go for material goods once their basic needs are fulfilled. Finally, there is a significant positive effect of materialistic QoL on their interest in purchasing luxury products or services.

The small sample size used in this research represents the main limitation of this research. This study provides further evidence that the preferences for luxury products/services are not the same across cultures. In the affluent country of Qatar, consumers initially prefer relationship QoL over materialistic QoL. After they have surpassed the basic necessity QoL, only then they would go for materialistic QoL and be inclined to go for luxury products/services.

This study has found that there are great opportunities for international luxury product marketers to market their products and services to Muslim customers in the lucrative market of Qatar or in other affluent Muslim markets similar to that of Qatar.

The findings imply that the lifestyles of affluent Muslim consumers are slightly different from consumers in other societies/cultures in terms of their preference for luxury goods and services. Their interests in buying luxury products and services are somewhat guided by their religious convictions, which caused them to give preference to basic necessity QoL over materialistic QoL, at least at the initial stage of their lifestyle.

The novelty of this study is its focus on understanding whether luxury consumption in a “new rich” Muslim developing country (Qatar) nourishes “materialistic” or “relationship” values of QoL. Also, although researches on materialistic QoL are in abundance, research on relationship QoL is somewhat limited. Thus, the major contribution to this study is the adoption of a more comprehensive approach to investigating QoL of consumers in an affluent Muslim country.

The purpose of this research paper was the study of an affluent Islamic market, going through a rapid economic and social transformation, from an ethical consumption perspective. More specifically, impact of environmentalism, consumption ethics, fair trade attitude and materialism was investigated on the ethical consumption behaviour of Muslim consumers.

A research framework was put together after consulting relevant literature, Islamic scholars and Islamic marketers. The developed research framework was tested in the Islamic State of Qatar. As an outcome of an online questionnaire-based survey targeting Muslim (Qatari) consumers in a public university, 243 usable questionnaires were collected. After reliability and validity checks, AMOS SPSS 20 was used to conduct structural equation modelling analysis on the collected data.

The results showed consumption ethics, environmentalism and fair trade attitude as significant determinants of ethical consumption behaviour. There was an insignificant association between materialism and ethical consumption behaviour. The findings suggested that most Muslim consumers within this affluent market showed an interest in ethical consumption. However, an insignificant association between materialism and ethical consumption behaviour implied that even though Muslim consumers demonstrated ethical consumption behaviour, they were not anti-materialism. The outcome suggests that due to the high levels of affluence among Muslim consumers, it is possible that they may be practising ethical and materialistic consumption simultaneously.

This research should assist marketers in understanding the ethical consumption behaviour of Muslim consumers who are faced with ethical and materialistic consumption options within an affluent Islamic market.

The research should add to the body of consumer behaviour knowledge, as it provides an insight into the consumption behaviour of Muslims who are facing social and religious ideology conflicts which makes their ethical consumption behaviours more sophisticated.

The purpose of this study is to empirically probe into the impact of product-related factors on the purchase intention (PI) of luxury products by Muslim consumers in Malaysia and their commitment to purchase (CP) these products. It tests if PI influences CP and how moderating variables affect the PI–CP relationship in the context of purchase of such products.

Data were collected from a sample of 186 Muslim consumers drawn through a series of carefully conducted mall intercept interviews in six major shopping malls located in different parts of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, using a structured, self-administered survey questionnaire. Data were analyzed using a moderated regression analysis.

Although Islam does not seem to encourage spending on luxuries, sampled Muslim consumers did not seem to have much inhibition about purchasing luxury products. Their PI was found to be significantly influenced by product advantage and brand awareness, while PI–CP relationship pertaining to luxury products appeared to be positive. Of the two moderating variables examined in the study, only advertising exposure was found to strengthen the PI–CP relationship, while perceived risk, the other moderating variable, seemed to weaken it.

As the study was conducted in a single country setting (i.e. Malaysia), the findings may lack generalizability. Future researchers may enlarge the scope of the study by including other countries, particularly other Muslim countries, to obtain generalized findings.

Manufacturers as well as marketers of luxury products should emphasize the product-related factors in their promotional efforts and increase familiarity of the brand through repeated exposures for brand recognition and brand recall.

This study also provides food for thought for Muslim scholars and researchers about the Muslim consumer psyche.

To date, this is the first research undertaking to empirically study the PI–CP relationship in the context of purchase of luxury products in a predominantly Muslim country. The study will be useful to marketers, academics and other researchers working in this area.

This paper aims to investigate the potential effectiveness of using corporate social marketing (CSM) as part of an advertising campaign targeting local Muslim consumers in Dubai. It aims to assess whether Dubai’s local Muslim community’s construal of corporate commitment has evolved beyond philanthropy toward receptiveness to a more embedded corporate societal engagement.

The examination is based on the framework of corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication that postulates a relationship between internal outcomes, such as the awareness of a cause, and external outcomes, such as the likelihood that a consumer will purchase a product. The authors designed a questionnaire using authentic advertisements for the same product, one with a CSM message and one without, and queried respondents’ opinions of the advertisements, their willingness to purchase the product and their perceptions of the company. Complete responses were collected from 245 Emirati women.

Significant differences in response to the CSM versus the non-CSM advertisement emerged. The product advertised via the CSM strategy engendered enhanced perceptions of the company among respondents, coupled with a heightened willingness on their part to purchase the product. This indicates that Emirati consumers have gone beyond the simple expectation of philanthropy, which is frequently associated with Muslim consumer loyalty, and value more evolved corporate social commitment.

While Muslim groups have been investigated extensively from various marketing perspectives, the present study is the first to investigate the impact of incorporating CSR into an authentic advertising campaign targeted at Muslim consumers.

The aim of this research is to explore how religiosity (RG) could influence the Islamic apparel brand personality (IABP) dimensions, and to determine the degree to which IABP, attitude (ATT), subjective norms (SN) and purchase intention (PI) are influenced by RG. In addition, this research attempts to investigate the significant relationship between IABP and the components of the theory of planned behavior in the apparel industry in Egypt.

This research adopts a quantitative research method to provide insights relating to relationships between variables. The research data were collected through a conducted survey of Muslim females in Egypt. A convenience nonprobability sampling technique for data collection was used. To achieve the research purposes, confirmatory factor analyses, reliability and validity tests and structural equation modeling were adopted.

The research results show that RG has a positive significant relationship with ATT, SN and PI of Islamic apparel. Moreover, it was that only ATT has a positive significant influence over the PI of Islamic apparel unlike SN and Perceived behavioral control (PBC). Results also found that there is a positive relationship between IABP with ATT and SN. However, the relationship between RG and IABP was not statistically supported.

The research provides practical implications for brand managers, designers and producers in the Islamic apparel sector on how to increase PIs by extending IABP as well as for Egyptian policymakers. The practical implications include the possible approaches that stakeholders of Islamic apparel brands need to address while promoting, and this will influence marketing strategies in general and branding specifically.

This study extends our understanding of consumers’ Islamic apparel purchasing intentions using TPB to determine its rationale. Unlike other studies, this study operated RG and IABP to assess their influence on Islamic apparel PI in Egypt.

This paper explores reasons behind Muslim fervour, in response to advertisements that cause them offence – where marketing promotions and brands are seen to contradict or challenge the tenets of their religion (Islam) and culture.

The authors investigate Egyptian Muslim Millennials’ perceptions post 2011 Egyptian Arab Spring revolution qualitatively – through a series of iterative focus groups, diaries, and laddered coding procedures.

In contrast to the way in which media stories regularly highlight this phenomenon locally, internationally, and inside and outside of the Muslim world, we find that the landscape is more cultural, contextual, dynamic, politicised, and subtle. In addition, religiosity may not in fact be the determining factor and its presence is much more nuanced. The socially mobile, educated, and digitally connected Egyptian Muslim millennial demographic, that grabbed headlines during the Arab Spring for their influence, were found in this study to describe offence as being annoying or provocative advertisements where the message, theme or execution disregards their intelligence. Furthermore, parents, access to basic utilities, and having a stable living environment command a greater influence than religiosity for them. Finally, an environmental paradox exists, where restricted living conditions juxtaposed in parallel with escapism offered by social-media consumption, leads millennials towards being more accepting of advertising that could be classified as offensive.

This study is of value for researchers, educators, and professionals in the fields of advertising, marketing communications, consumer behaviour, and sociology.

The observations raise questions concerning how the media reports stories, or advertisers conduct their campaigns – as to whether they are representative, motivated by sociopolitics or propaganda, an intended tactic, highlight unintended poor execution, ambivalence, or part of a wider phenomenon.

The authors present a new dual-process personality/religiosity conceptual model – designed to explain the stepwise process of Muslim opinion-forming, behaviour, and consumption of advertisements. Furthermore, we illustrate this with a supporting allegory the authors call a “Narnia paradigm”, drawing from C.S. Lewis’s fictional story “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”.

The purpose of this paper is to examine customer attitudes toward purchasing counterfeit luxury products (ATPCLP) in two cities in two different countries (Saudi Arabia and Malaysia) by testing the relationships between the various reasons for purchasing those products: social status insecurity, status consumption and value consciousness.

Questionnaires were distributed conveniently to urban customers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Altogether 658 useable questionnaires were collected and analyzed using descriptive statistics, general linear model of univariate analysis of variance and structural equation modeling.

Quality, price, popularity and status signaling represent the main motivating factors for their brand choices of counterfeit luxury products among the two country groups of customers. As expected, customers' social status insecurity influences their ATPCLP, but not their status consumption. However, status consumption does positively moderates the relationship of their social status insecurity and their ATPCLP. Furthermore, customers' value consciousness influences their ATPCLP and moderates the relationship between status consumption and ATPCLP. The impact of status consumption on ATPCLP depends on the importance one places on the value of the products. However, the authors found no differences in social status insecurity, status consumption and value consciousness, on their ATPCLP among the customers. Some implications and limitations of the results are discussed.

The use of convenience sampling and mainly college students (in Saudi Arabia) as respondents represent the main limitations of this study.

The practical implication of this study is to discourage the purchasing of counterfeit luxury products in their respective country Malaysian marketers need to stress that their genuine products are of top quality while Saudi marketers need to stress that their genuine products are of well-known brands that are sourced from well-known countries of origin. Besides, Malaysian marketers need to offer genuine products that are not overly priced or ones that indicate value-for-money while Saudi marketers need to convey the message that their genuine products could help enhance or uplift their customers' social status. In this study, the authors did not find any support for differences in ATPCLP between the two rather different Muslim-majority countries. This could be due to the fact that the majority of the respondents were females in their mid-20s and that both countries have a growing number of young customer base, which makes them particularly attractive target customers for branded/luxury products and, at the same time, easy preys to luxury products counterfeiters. This implies that there are still more opportunities for academics to study the topic or related topics in the future.

As far as the authors know, no one has undertaken a comparative study involving two very different Islamic majority countries (more conservative mono-cultural and mono-ethnicity Saudi Arabia versus less conservative multicultural and multi-ethnicity Malaysia) before.

The purpose of this research is to understand the importance of value orientation on conspicuous consumption in the youth market segment in Southeast Asia. In particular, the focus is to understand three different types of value orientation (specifically cultural values, material values and religious values) and its effects on conspicuous consumption behaviour.

An integrative theoretical model is proposed based on Hofstede's cultural dimension, the materialism value scale and religious commitments to predict the relationship for the value orientations of Generation Y's (Gen Y's) conspicuous consumption behaviour. The data was collected from undergraduate students enrolled in general education courses in three universities in Malaysia. Using cross-sectional data, 262 sets of valid questionnaires were used to perform the statistical analysis for the measurement and structural model using partial least squares equation modelling (PLS-SEM) path modelling.

We position our study by raising the pertinent question of “Seriously, Conspicuous Consumption?” to establish a clear understanding of whether Malaysian Gen Y individuals are conspicuous consumers and, if they are, which of the three values matter the most. In order to answer the question of whether Malaysian Gen Y engages in conspicuous consumption, we arrive at an understanding that, given multi-value orientations, conspicuous behaviour can be motivated and impacted by one value orientation and constrained by others. Hence, value orientation offers an insightful explanation of one specific type of consumer behaviour in the context of Asia as an emerging global market. Thus, our study provides two key theoretically significant findings. In general, our findings provide insights into how the multi-value orientations (i.e. cultural, material and religious orientations) contribute to several bodies of literature—namely, conspicuous consumption, international marketing and transcultural marketing. The results revealed that collectivism and materialism were positively and significantly related to conspicuous consumption. Uncertainty avoidance, although significant, had a negative relationship with conspicuous consumption. The other values (masculinity, power distance and religious values) were not significantly related to conspicuous consumption.

Purchasing luxury goods is becoming an emergent phenomenon in Asia, particularly among young consumers. This paper provides marketing managers, particularly brand owners, with practical and realisable examples of how to plan and execute their marketing plans. A more profound understanding of this relationship may also serve to aid marketing managers in devising more focused marketing strategies and thus allocate marketing resources more efficiently. Hence, marketers could develop an effective communication strategy so that the target consumers will be aware of their goods because the purchase of luxury goods is likely to be motivated by social, cultural and personal factors.

This article examines the impact of value orientations on conspicuous consumption behaviour in Malaysian Gen Y consumers. The model proposed in this study is useful in predicting conspicuous consumption among Gen Y. By identifying the factors influencing this emergent type of consumer behaviour, global retailers will be informed about this particular market segmentation in terms of its preferences and desires. The article discusses the research findings and concludes with managerial implications and limitations.

Prior research has found that consumers’ purchasing behavior varies amongst consumers of different cultures. The purpose of this paper is to examine the behavior of consumers of luxury products by investigating the relationships between their collective-oriented values (pertaining to religion, family, and community), and their materialism or materialistic orientation, resulting in them using such products to signal their social status to others, and whether they are getting satisfaction from using such products, in an effort to understand how the behaviors vary between Malaysian and Saudi Arabian consumers.

Data were collected by a questionnaire survey where 1,388 self-administered questionnaires were collected from Baby boomers, Generations X and Y respondents in two major cities: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The authors also assessed the structure and reliability of the constructs developed for this research as well as tested some hypotheses regarding their interrelationships, across the two different cities/cultures.

Findings demonstrate the complexity of cultures and lifestyles of consumers and societies. For Saudi consumers, their materialistic tendency is significantly influenced by their religious, family values (inverse relationship), and community values, whereas for the Malaysian consumers, this tendency was only significantly influenced by their family values. For the Saudis, there were strong positive relationships between materialistic values and product status signaling and between product status signaling and product satisfaction, whereas for the Malaysians, both relationships were also positive but only moderate in strength. Overall, the results show that the Malaysians were more materialistic than the Saudis. But, since the Saudis have higher income, they are in a better position to fulfill their materialistic desire than their Malaysian counterparts.

The convenience sampling used for the study is the main limitation. Another limitation of this study is that it was done in only one major city in each of the two countries.

Consumers from the two cultures/cities do use luxury products to signal their status in the society, despite their different cultures and country income levels and that the consumption of those products gave both of them satisfaction. Hence, as a practical implication, international marketers of luxury products and services could and should continue to market their products and services in these two countries. However, they need to understand that the factors that influence the consumers’ materialism are different between the two cultures/cities and hence their marketing strategies need to take this into consideration.

All the issues discussed in this study have not been previously empirically investigated and compared in two different developing countries – Saudi Arabia, a mono-cultural and high-income country) and Malaysia (a multi-cultural and upper middle income country) despite their rapid growth rates and economic importance.