Search results

This study aims to explore: consumer experiences of intense moral dilemma arising from identity multiplicity conflict, expressed in the marketplace, which demand stark moral choices and consumer response to intensely felt moral tension where their sense of coherent moral self is at stake.

The authors gathered ethnographic data from amongst ethical consumers, and theorised the data through theory of life projects and life themes to explain how multiplicity can become an unmanageable problem in the midst of moral dilemma.

The authors reveal that in contrast to notions of liberating or manageable multiplicity conflict, some consumers experience intense moral anxiety that is unmanageable. The authors find that this unmanageable moral tension can provoke consumers to transform self and consumption choices to construct a coherent moral self. The authors identify this transformation as the meta life project.

This work contributes to knowledge of multiplicity, consumer life themes and life projects, moral dilemma and ethical consumption by showing that some experiences of moral anxiety arising from multiplicity conflict are unmanageable, and these consumers seek moral self re-unification through the meta life project.

This study provides practical guidance to companies, marketers, public organisations and activist groups seeking to understand and harness consumers’ moral codes to promote ethical consumption practices.

The authors extend current theory of multiplicity into the moral domain to illustrate limitations of framing consumer experiences of multiplicity conflict as being either liberating or manageable when consumers’ sense of moral self is at stake. This article is of interest to academic, marketing practitioner and public policy audiences.

The purpose of the present study is to examine how local consumers disassociate themselves from migrants' acculturative practices and negotiate their identity through the symbolic consumption of fashion.

Data for this interpretive study were obtained via phenomenological interviews with locally-born Chinese youth in Guangzhou, China, to examine their acculturative consumption practices as well as their subjective experiences of perceived threats to their lifestyle imposed by the influx of outsiders. Snowballing and purposive sampling methods were adopted in recruiting the research participants.

Data analyses revealed that local consumers adopt three dissociative strategies (stigmatization, avoidance and self-assertion) in order to ascribe meanings to their fashion consumption practices as a means of resolving identity conflicts and differentiate themselves from the migrant consumers.

This research offers a single perspective (i.e. that of local-born young consumers residing in Guangzhou) on the locals' attitudes aimed at distinguishing and negotiating their identities in an intercultural setting via specific fashion-clothing choices. This research has theoretical implications for the consumer acculturation theory and identity negotiation.

Findings yielded by the present study have important implications for commercial companies focusing on fashion consumption, in particular for marketing practices aimed at rural-urban identification and youth market segmentation.

This study contributes to the existing discussion on consumer acculturation by offering an intracultural perspective to the understanding of local consumers' responses to migrants' acculturation. It also provides managerial insights for fashion retailers, prompting them to rethink their market segmentation strategies to address population mobility in the marketplace and better understand how it alters the in-between social relationships that result in different consumption patterns and practices.

This study contributes to the existing discussion on youth consumer acculturation theories by offering an intercultural perspective to the understanding of local consumers' responses to migrants' acculturation attempts. It also offers managerial insights for fashion retailers, prompting them to rethink their market segmentation strategies to address population mobility and better understand how it alters the social relationships that result in different consumption patterns and practices.

The aim of the study is to analyse negotiations about ownership and style in access-based apparel related to processes of identity construction.

The study applies a qualitative and interpretative method and relies on semi-structured depth interviews and focus group interviews with clothing library users as the main data source. The conceptual context of this paper is that of consumer culture theory approaches to consumer identity construction and the role of object ownership in consumer identity projects.

The empirical analysis highlights how processes of consumer identity construction related to symbolic values of clothing and self-possession mechanisms related to ownership are negotiated in encounters with access-based types of fashion consumption with effects on potential consumer adoption of access-based forms of consumption. The findings are structured in six analytical themes.

There are several aspects of this research which are of relevance to the sustainability agenda and which have societal implications. Identity has been identified, in previous research, as a key conceptual tool for exploring, predicting and deepening the understanding of pro-environmental and sustainable behaviours. As such, if the aim is to strengthen the commitment of societies to environmental and sustainable behaviours, then this will require greater knowledge of consumers' identities and meaning-making processes. This is a challenge, not least in terms of recognizing the barriers identified in this study as relating to issues of consumer identity construction.

This study reveals multiple possibilities as well as barriers for implementing collaborative apparel consumption schemes in a fashion and apparel context. Some of the barriers might be explained by clothing's emotional character and close relationship to identity formation. Furthermore, the participants questioned whether access and renting services could substitute the meanings of owning. In conclusion, the authors argue that clothing may be a challenging type of goods to integrate in liquid forms of consumption and findings point out complexities amongst fashion-conscious consumers regarding meaning and identity values of collaborative apparel consumption. Theoretical contributions of an interpretative consumer identity approach for understanding barriers as well as possibilities for consumer adoption of access-based fashion are developed in the concluding sections of the article.

The purpose of this paper is to seek to enhance the understanding of non-profit marketing and consumer identities by exploring volunteering as a form of symbolic consumption. Specifically, it seeks to examine how young people – both volunteers and non-volunteers – understand and relate to volunteer stereotypes, and how they manage stigma in negotiating their social identities in relation to volunteering.

Grounded in consumer culture theory, the study uses mixed qualitative methods, incorporating focus groups, paired and individual interviews and a projective drawing task.

Five volunteering-related stereotypes were identified: the older charity shop worker, the sweet singleton, the environmental protestor, the ordinary volunteer and the non-volunteer. Participants related to positive and negative attributes of these stereotypes in different ways. This led volunteers and non-volunteers to engage in a range of impression management strategies, some of which bolstered their own identities by stigmatising other groups.

The sample was drawn from 39 individuals aged 16-24 years and living in Scotland.

Because stereotypes are acknowledged as a major barrier to volunteering, particularly among young people, a greater understanding of how these stereotypes are understood and negotiated can assist non-profit marketers in recruiting and retaining volunteers.

This paper draws on theories of consumer culture and stigma to explore volunteering as a form of symbolic consumption, examines volunteering stereotypes among both volunteers and non-volunteers and uses multiple qualitative methods to facilitate articulation of young people’s experiences in this area.

This research aims to develop and test the traditionscapes framework in which consumers appropriate local traditions as a resource to foster cultural identity in emerging markets.

A multi-level research approach with qualitative (n = 38) and quantitative data (n = 600) was employed in the context of gaucho traditions in the southern part of Brazil (Rio Grande do Sul state).

The findings indicate that traditionscapes operate in a fluid process that engenders local culture attachment into tradition value through the consumer identification process. Traditionscapes build a sense of local cultural attachment that functions as a source of social, cultural, and local identification. Findings also support our three-stage traditionscapes framework, emphasizing the identification process that depends on consumers' global culture resistance.

This research provides a novel viewpoint to the well-established relationship between tradition and globalization in consumption studies. We contribute to this debate by shifting the discussion to the fluid process of traditionscapes in which tradition value is engendered through consumer appropriation and identification with local traditions, even in a globalized context. Although recent research suggests that global culture can disrupt local traditions, traditionscapes operate as an extended perspective that coexists with other global cultural flows.

This paper aims to explore consumer behaviour on the popular anonymous social networking site (SNS) Yik Yak. It examines the reasons behind the turn to anonymous social networking and also considers the ways in which anonymity impacts consumers’ self-performances on SNS.

The study used a netnographic approach to explore Yik Yak across eight universities in Ireland and the UK. Data are based on observation and participation on the app. Screenshots on smart phones were the central method used to collect data. Data also included 12 in-depth interviews.

Young consumers are becoming fatigued by the negative effects of self-presentation on many SNS. By enabling consumers to engage in what they consider to be more authentic modes of being and interaction, Yik Yak provides respite from these pressures. Through the structures of its design, Yik Yak enables consumers to realise self-authentication in anonymised self-performances that engender a sense of virtue and social connection.

This research highlights the potential value of anonymous SNS in fostering supportive dialogue, concerning mental health amongst post-millennials.

By invoking a performative lens, this paper extends a novel theoretical approach to understandings of identity formation within consumer research. By highlighting anonymity as a dynamic process of socio-material enactments, the study reveals how consumers’ self-performances are brought into effect through the citation of various discursive arrangements, which promulgate distinct understandings of authenticity.

The purpose of this paper is to elaborate on a novel multi-modal enabling technique for contextualising brand consumption experiences.

A multi-modal interpretive narrative approach is presented as a means of investigating brands as experiential entities for use in consumer identity projects. It reports the strategic use of different modes of data collection: autobiographical narratives generated by solo participants to create a benchmark of identity and subsequent friendship pair guided discussion interviews. This offers a faster, cheaper and more convenient means of gaining access to consumer experiences of brands than traditional ethnographic methods, which require prolonged engagements within a community.

Consumer narratives of actual brand consumption and of mediated brand consumption are enhanced using this method. The consumer narratives generated provided rich insights into the role of brands in contributing to national identity. The contextualised use and function of identity narratives provided by brands were identified in addition to the identification of national community rituals of consumption.

The multi-modal use of friendship pair interviews with solo autobiographical interviews is shown to offer benefits to qualitative consumer researchers focussing on brand/identity issues. The combination of data collection methods allowed for greater reflexive, memorial and contextualised discussion in the friendship pair interviews about brand narrative consumption and generated responses that advance beyond socio-political conventions concerning brands. Consequently, contextualised brand consumption experiences can be accessed more effectively than in conventional depth interviews.

This paper aims to conceptualize brand repulsion as a specific nuance of brand rejection, highlight the boundary work at play in situations of collective brand repulsion and extract implications for the brands that are at the centre of such situations and to delineate future directions for scholars.

The authors’ study of the “I Hate Apple” group on Facebook is grounded in a six-year long naturalistic enquiry designed to capture the boundary work performed by its members. The authors’ sources include netnographic data, online focus groups, observations and personal online correspondence with members and moderators.

This study’s findings reveal that certain brands serve the identity work of consumers by allowing them in erecting boundaries based on three major sources of repulsion: anti-fandom, anti-hegemony and anti-marketing. They show that for each type of boundary work, corporate and product brand repulsion seems prevalent.

This research limits itself to considering the types of boundary work related to brand repulsion as regards a single brand: Apple.

The study can help managers identify the types(s) of boundary work related to their brand and it provides practical recommendations for these various sources of brand repulsion. It also helps them distinguish between consumer brand repulsion directed against their product and their corporation.

This study advances knowledge in the field of brand rejection by exploring a specific nuance: brand repulsion. Its close examination of consumer collective practices offers a deeper understanding of the ins and outs of the paradoxical phenomenon of repulsion/attraction for a brand. The cultural lens is used as an original approach to this under-investigated nuance of brand rejection.

Despite the rich history of examining the connections between symbolic consumption and identity formation, nearly all the research has focused on brands and possessions; the role of activities has been critically overlooked. This study aims to expand marketing’s understanding of identity formation by examining it in conjunction with attribution theory, exploring the relationship between activity engagement and separation distress.

A pilot study (n = 90) using a thematic content analysis reveals six themes (i.e. separation distress, negative emotions, indifference, adapting, positive decision and acceptance), providing support for the conceptual model. The main study (n = 347) tests the conceptual model via five hypotheses.

Self-worth match with an activity predicts the perceived separation distress of stopping the activity. Furthermore, self-activity connection mediates this relationship, but only if consumers believe they are in control of or the cause for stopping the activity.

This research provides critical baseline understanding of activity consumption. Yet, future research on the topic of activities is needed to advance activity engagement as a unique category of consumer behavior.

To craft effective messaging and strategies, marketers should consider the meaning and value embedded in consumer activities (not just possessions and brands).

This research reveals that consumers use activities to construct their identity and manage their self-worth. It also demonstrates that stopping an activity may lead to separation distress.

This paper focuses on the relationships that consumers develop with experiential objects in the context of the Biennale of Contemporary Art Exhibition, viewed from a dialogical and intersubjective approach. The purpose of this paper is to elaborate on the interpersonal relationships that visitors of the Biennale establish with contemporary artworks and to understand the characteristics of these relationships as well as their role in shaping Biennale visitors’ identity narratives.

This research employs an instrumental case study that draws on multiple data sources and examines consumers’ relationships with contemporary artworks.

The case study evidence introduces the relationships that emerged from Biennale visitors’ interactions with contemporary artworks and the identity narratives evolving from these relationships. The findings suggest that Biennale visitors’ relationships with the contemporary artworks take the form of I-thou and I-it relationships. These two modes of interpersonal relationships by entailing different characteristics led investigated visitors to live different types of experiences of contemporary art consumption.

The first limitation of this research is that it focuses on the establishment of interpersonal relationships at the microgenetic level. Further research can provide additional insights by conducting a longitudinal case study. The second limitation is that it provides limited insights into the relationships that are revealed by consumers’ experiences with possessive objects. Future research may examine interpersonal relationships in terms of consumers’ relationships with their brands.

The understanding of visitors’ interactions and relationships with contemporary artworks provides insights into curatorial and marketing practices for such art institutions.

The findings of the current research provide new theoretical insights into the interpersonal relationships that consumers develop with experiential objects and into the distinctive identity narratives that evolve from the establishment of different types of interpersonal relationships.