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This study aims to examine the role of face consciousness, materialism and risk of embarrassment in determining consumer purchase intention toward counterfeit luxury brand. In addition, the authors explore boundary conditions of these relationships.

Study 1, a survey research (N = 321), examines the mediating role of risk of embarrassment between face consciousness on the purchase intention toward luxury counterfeits. Study 2 (N = 345), an experimental study, examines the moderating role of brand prominence of counterfeit (i.e. whether it contains prominent brand signals). Study 3 (N = 315) explores how the above-mentioned relationships are moderated by consumers’ moral rationalization (i.e. whether consumers seek rationalization when behaving unethically).

First, this research shows that risk of embarrassment mediates the negative relationship between face consciousness and Chinese consumers’ purchase intention toward luxury counterfeits, whereas this relationship was not found between materialism and counterfeit purchase intentions. Second, this negative mediating effect holds only when the counterfeit brand is highly prominent. Third, the mediating effect depends on consumers’ moral rationalization, with a positive impact on the purchase intention toward luxury counterfeits, regardless of brand prominence.

This study represents a preliminary inquiry into the dynamics between face consciousness and materialism in influencing Chinese consumers’ purchase intention toward counterfeit luxury products. Unlike their Western counterparts, whose materialistic views of possessions predict their counterfeit luxury consumption (Davidson et al., 2019), Chinese consumers are more likely to be driven by the social implications of counterfeit luxury to communicate a prestigious social image to others on account of genuine luxuries’ high social recognition.

While Chinese consumers are one of the most potent global luxury buyers, they are immersed in the world’s biggest counterfeit luxury market. By digging into the core value of Chinese consumers (i.e. face consciousness), this research provides a number of managerial implications for luxury goods companies to engage in international efforts to educate consumers against counterfeit luxury.

This study makes at least three contributions to the counterfeit consumption literature. First, this study represents a preliminary inquiry into the dynamics between face consciousness and materialism in influencing Chinese consumers’ purchase intention toward counterfeit luxury products. Second, this research identified the complex mechanism of face consciousness as an independent variable on consumers’ purchase intention toward luxury counterfeits. Finally, the authors examined the boundary conditions of brand prominence and consumers’ moral rationalization. The findings may help luxury brand managers identify strategies to discourage counterfeit consumption.

The advent of COVID-19 was followed by an increased demand for organic products along with newfound customer interest in healthy consumption habits. This study aims to explore the impact of multidimensional consciousness on consumers’ attitudes and purchasing intentions toward organic food brands.

Given the importance of culture on customers’ decision-making, data were collected from the USA and India to examine the potential cultural differences with respect to organic products. A conceptual model is derived and tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The results indicate that organic consciousness (e.g. for organic standards) is the most important predictor of attitudes, whereas environmental consciousness appears to be the prime motive in the formation of purchase intentions. Multidimensional (i.e. organic, environment, health and social) consciousness can predict attitude and intention. However, organic standards and social consciousness fail to directly influence customers’ purchasing intention. The impact of each dimension of consciousness varies between USA and Indian customers.

This study provides an understanding of customers’ sustainable consumption behavior by clarifying the relative impact of multidimensional perceived values. Also, because of the growth of organic food market globally, the findings of this study offer valuable insights by identifying the cultural difference between Western and Eastern customers’ behavior.

Online brand is becoming a popular and major gateway for consumers for booking various services specifically when they travel for several purposes. The present study aims to explore whether exposure to two separate yet similar modes of communication intervene consumer's brand trust and their subsequent loyalty intention toward the brand. The study further aims to investigate whether consumer's price consciousness has any influence on association between brand trust and brand loyalty in the process of decision -making.

The present study follows a different approach to data collection. The data have been retrieved from online brand (Oyo) page on Facebook through Google Form application. In all, 289 useable responses were retrieved from the travelers aged between 18 and 30. Structural equation modeling using SPSS 25.0 and Amos 26.0 has been applied to examine the effects of brand communication and online reviews on brand loyalty through brand trust.

Empirical evidence supports that even after having strong brand communication, online reviews play a crucial role in consumer's brand loyalty through brand trust. The study further reveals that price consciousness acts as a significant moderator in the relationship between consumer's brand trust and brand loyalty.

The current research contributes to the online brand and marketing knowledge by empirically showing the pertinence of consumer–brand relationship in an online brand context through a parsimonious model by examining how the two distinct mechanisms of communication influences consumer brand trust and loyalty intention.

The parsimonious framework of consumer–brand relationship adds to explicating the dual marketing challenges of communication and to draw a positive consumer response (i.e. consumer brand loyalty). The study attempts to examine the impact of two distinct yet identical modes of communication which facilitate shaping consumer brand trust that reinforce the strategic value of the circumstance and equips it with solid theoretical structure within an endeavor of the strategic significance of online brand managers.

Deepfakes are fabricated content created by replacing an original image or video with someone else. Deepfakes have recently become commonplace in politics, posing serious challenges to democratic integrity. The advancement of AI-enabled technology and machine learning has made creating synthetic videos relatively easy. This study explores the role of political brand hate and individual moral consciousness in influencing electorates' intention to share political deepfake content.

The study creates and uses a fictional deepfake video to test the proposed model. Data are collected from N = 310 respondents in India and tested using partial least square–structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) with SmartPLS v3.

The findings support that ideological incompatibility with the political party leads to political brand hate, positively affecting the electorates' intention to share political deepfake videos. This effect is partially mediated by users' reduced intention to verify political deepfake videos. In addition, it is observed that individual moral consciousness positively moderates the effect of political brand hate on the intention to share political deepfake videos. Intention to share political deepfake videos thus becomes a motive to seek revenge on the hated party, an expression of an individual's ideological hate and a means to preserve one's moral self-concept and strengthen their ideologies and moral beliefs.

The study expands the growing discussion about disseminating political deepfake videos using the theoretical lens of the negative consumer-brand relationship. It validates the effect of political brand hate on irrational behavior that is intended to cause harm to the hated party. Further, it provides a novel perspective that individual moral consciousness may fuel the haters' desire to engage in anti-branding behavior. Political ideological incompatibility reflects ethical reasons for brand hate. Therefore, hate among individuals with high moral consciousness serves to preserve their moral self.

The fashion industry has been accused of being the second largest environmental polluter in the world. Millions of tons of post-consumer waste are dumped in landfills and garbage disposal sites each year. However, environmental concerns are emerging as a mainstream issue among modern-day consumers. This critical problem has prompted fashion retailers and brands to embrace sustainable practices to address consumers’ environmental concerns by reducing pollution. Given this background, this research aims to understand consumer’s perceptions of value towards second-hand fashion consumption in the context of Sri Lanka.

This exploratory study uses a qualitative approach to understand consumers’ perceptions of value towards second-hand fashion consumption.

This research uses the theoretical model of the means-end chain model and shows five consumer’s values of second-hand consumers: price-consciousness, consciousness on emotional bonds, comfortability consciousness, quality and brand consciousness and social and environmental consciousness. Furthermore, the authors show non-second-hand fashion consumers’ values as social status consciousness, hygienic consciousness, comfortability consciousness, quality and brand consciousness and self-expressive consciousness.

This research sheds some light on the emerging knowledge of second-hand consumption. This research further points out certain practical implications by drawing attention to a few opportunities and challenges associated with the second-hand fashion business within the Sri Lankan fashion retail sector, in particular when launching new fashion brands catering to second-hand fashion consumers.

This empirical paper is an endeavor to explore the relationship between social media advertising (SMA) and customers' purchase intention (CPI) in three South Asian countries. SMA was further divided into three relevant dimensions: perceived relevance (PR), perceived informativeness (PI) and perceived credibility (PC). Furthermore, the authors incorporated a single mediator: customers' brand consciousness (CBC) to test the mediating effects on the direct relationships.

The authors purposively selected 1937 fashion-conscious individuals based on a cross-sectional survey design. The authors applied SPSS 25 for explanatory statistics and structural equation modeling (SEM) (through AMOS 25) for testing the hypothesized relationships.

Based on the responses and the application of statistical measures, the authors revealed that all of the three dimensions of SMA have significant positive relationships with CPI. CBC is also significantly and positively related to CPI. Regarding the mediating effects, CBC was identified to have full mediation effects on the relationships between PR and CPI and PI and CPI. On the contrary, the same variable was found to have partial mediation on the relationship between PC and CPI.

South Asia is a growing business hub and the largest consumer market in terms of population. This empirical study was undertaken to reveal the role of SMA on CPI in the three highly populated South Asian countries, which is rare in academia. The outcomes of this empirical study are expected to be useful for further research attempts regarding SMA and consumer behavior. Businesses and policymakers are also expected to benefit from formulating SMA-related strategies to retain present buyers as well as attract the prospective ones.

Brand centrality is a religion-like brand–customer relationship, which refers to the extent to which a brand is in the center or heart of a consumer’s life. While its role in the fast fashion industry is prominent, its drivers and effects have not been comprehensively studied. This study aims to investigate the relationships between three psychological drivers (i.e. fashion-conscious, chronic shopping orientation and self-esteem), one behavioral driver (i.e. the average frequency of shopping), brand centrality and relationship quality in the fast fashion industry.

A survey of 250 fast fashion consumers was conducted and partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze the data.

The study shows that fashion consciousness and chronic shopping orientation are positively related to brand centrality, whereas self-esteem is negatively related to brand centrality. The findings also show that shopping frequency moderates the relationship between fashion consciousness and brand centrality, and between chronic shopping orientation and brand centrality. Post hoc analysis indicates that brand centrality fully mediates the relationship between chronic shopping orientation and relationship quality.

This study is one of the first studies to investigate the psychological and behavioral drivers of brand centrality.

La centralidad de la marca es una relación religiosa entre marca y cliente que se refiere al grado en que una marca está en el centro o corazón de la vida de un consumidor. Aunque su papel en la industria de la moda rápida es destacado, sus impulsores y efectos no se han estudiado exhaustivamente. El presente estudio investiga las relaciones entre tres impulsores psicológicos (la conciencia de la moda, la orientación a las compras crónicas y la autoestima), un impulsor conductual (la frecuencia media de las compras), la centralidad de la marca y la calidad de las relaciones en el sector de la moda rápida.

Se realizó una encuesta a 250 consumidores de moda rápida y se utilizó (PLS-SEM) para analizar los datos.

El estudio muestra que la conciencia de la moda y la orientación a las compras crónicas están positivamente relacionadas con la centralidad de marca, mientras que la autoestima está negativamente relacionada con la centralidad de marca. Los resultados también muestran que la frecuencia de compra modera la relación entre la conciencia de la moda y la centralidad de marca, y entre la orientación de compra crónica y la centralidad de marca. El análisis post-hoc indica que la centralidad de la marca media totalmente la relación entre la orientación a las compras crónicas y la calidad de las relaciones.

Este estudio es uno de los primeros en investigar los impulsores psicológicos y conductuales de la centralidad de marca.

品牌中心性是一种类似于宗教的品牌-客户关系, 指的是一个品牌在消费者生活中处于中心或核心的程度。虽然它在快速时尚行业中的作用很突出, 但它的驱动和影响还没有得到全面的研究。本研究调查了三个心理驱动因素（即时尚意识、长期购物取向和自尊心）、一个行为驱动因素（即平均购物频率）、品牌中心性和快时尚行业的关系质量之间的关系。

对250名快时尚消费者进行了调查, 并使用部分最小二乘法-结构方程模型（PLS-SEM）来分析数据。

研究表明, 时尚意识和长期购物取向与品牌中心性呈正相关, 而自尊心与品牌中心性呈负相关。研究结果还显示, 购物频率分别调节了时尚意识以及长期购物导向对品牌中心性的影响。事后分析表明, 品牌中心性在长期购物取向和关系质量之间具有完全中介作用。

本研究是最早研究品牌中心性的心理和行为驱动因素的研究之一。

This study aims to assess both internal and external factors that impact consumer attitudes and intentions with regard to the purchase of non-deceptive counterfeits. More specifically, this study examines the impact of integrity, brand consciousness, performance risk and social risk on the attitude and in turn on the purchase intention of consumers towards non-deceptive counterfeits.

A total of 679 valid responses from the university students in two different Gulf countries, namely, Oman (264) and Qatar (415) were gathered through a self-administered structured questionnaire and analysed through partial least square‐structural equation modeling.

All the predictors of consumer attitude appeared significant in both country samples except integrity. However, brand consciousness appeared insignificant in the sample of Oman. In addition, Purchase intention towards the non-deceptive counterfeits was significantly predicted by attitude and subjective norm in both samples.

In the domain of non-deceptive counterfeit literature, the findings of the study will substantially add value. Particularly, in the Gulf country context, the impact of internal psychological and external risk factors on the attitude and purchase intention of non-deceptive counterfeits will enhance the insights of existing literature and extend and proof the robustness of the theory of reasoned action.

With rapidly changing marketing landscape, nowadays, the formulation of various marketing strategies is increasingly focused on how consumers tend to make decisions. To meet the highly demanding consumer expectations, market segmentation can be used as an important marketing strategy. Due to gender marketing concept familiarity in the contemporary world, gender difference is one of the reference features in the process of market segmentation for marketers. This research is aimed to examine various determining factors that foster consumer purchase decision-making and the differences between consumers of different genders while making shopping and purchase decisions with special reference to an emerging economy, i.e. Pakistan.

Based on a cross-sectional sample of 367 consumers, the study adapted Sproles and Kendall's (1986) Consumer Style Inventory (CSI) to scrutinize the decision-making of both genders in Pakistan. For data analysis, the exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis in addition to the structural equation modeling has been used.

The study emphasized that, with the exception of quality awareness, brand consciousness, fashion consciousness, option overload and price consciousness greatly affect buying decisions. In addition, when it comes to consumer purchase decision-making, significant gender variations were discovered for both fashion consciousness and price consciousness.

Drawing upon the distinctive cultural characteristics of Pakistan and its people, in-depth research was conducted on purchasing behaviors of Pakistani consumers and the decision-making characteristics of customers of different genders were summarized. The outcomes are expected to make a significant contribution to the field of gender marketing by organizations.

This study aims to examine the positive impact of showrooming on the fashion retail business by examining the interrelationship between deal-seeking on mobile devices and digital coupon redemption intention on mobile shopping intention.

Purposive sampling was used to obtain data from 496 fashion apparel customers using the database of an online survey collection platform. Stimulus organism response (S-O-R) theory was used to examine the influence of showrooming on showroomers' mobile shopping intentions.

The findings suggest price consciousness is negatively related to showrooming and product involvement is positively related. In addition, showrooming affects the intention to redeem digital coupons and mobile deal-seeking. The intention to redeem digital coupons boosted mobile deal-seeking behavior. The impact of mobile deal-seeking on showroomers' mobile purchase intention is significant.

This research focused on fashion product consumers and generalization of the findings may be limited. The literature on positive effect of showrooming phenomenon on brick-and-mortar stores are scarce further extensive research may provide substantial generalization.

This demonstrates how showroomers may be successfully enticed to make purchases on the Brick-and-Mortar (B&M) store's online channel.

This study provides insights on navigating the showroomers into online channel customers.