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The increased income and modernity have greatly impacted Chinese consumers’ attitudes and purchasing behavior, making them more sophisticated than ever before. The purpose of this paper is to examine the interrelationship among social stratification, materialism, post-materialism, and consumption values contributing uniquely to understanding Chinese consumers in the context of drastic economic and social changes.

Survey method was used to test the proposed model and answer the research questions. The data were collected in Shanghai, the largest city on the eastern coast of China. A multi-stage random sampling strategy was employed to acquire a representative sample of the population in the city. A total of 2,910 completed questionnaires were used for data analysis.

The results show that objective social status has a negative effect on post-materialism, whereas subjective social status has a positive effect. Social status does not seem to have a significant effect on materialism. Post-materialism also has a strong positive effect on the consumption orientations of emotional value and social value.

China was chosen as the research context in this study. As a booming emerging market, China provides an intriguing platform to examine social stratification and materialism. At the macro level, China is developing a new social structure due to the drastic social and economic changes. At the individual consumer level, as China moves further into a market-oriented economy, traditional Chinese values have changed rapidly. Western consumption values and phenomena such as overspending and conspicuous consumption have begun to take hold in China, especially among young people. It is critical for business managers to understand the shift of consumption values among Chinese in order to successfully capture this market.

A cursory review of past literature reveals that researchers have examined materialism primarily along two avenues: one puts materialism within a macro framework involving political interest or civic engagement (e.g. Davis et al., 1999; Inglehart, 1990); the other one takes a micro perspective exploring the impact of materialism on consumer attitudes and behavior (e.g. Park and Rabolt, 2009; Xiao and Kim, 2009). However, little research has been conducted linking the two approaches. The present study intends to examine the interrelationship among social stratification, materialism, post-materialism, and consumption values. Hopefully, it will shed some light on the connection between macro environment and micro consumer behavior. Furthermore, the current research provides evidences for the emerging transformation to a post-materialistic marketplace.

While the idea of post‐materialism is more than 20 years old, consumer researchers have given it little attention. This paper engages in an interdisciplinary exploration of this important cultural phenomenon. The Protestant work ethic, with its emphasis on ever‐increasing levels of production, contributed to the rise of the consumption culture and the legitimation of the market society. It appears that the very premise which facilitates the market society – specialization and the production of consumption – also paves the way for a post‐materialist revolution. This paper advocates a macro, more humanistic, and socially relevant perspective of consumer research.

Drawing on the multiplicity of context approach, this study investigates whether female entrepreneurs are more likely than male entrepreneurs to create environmentally oriented organizations. This study aims to examine how context, measured by gender socialization stereotypes and post-materialism, differentially affects the kinds of organizations entrepreneurs choose to create.

To test the hypotheses, this study utilizes Global Entrepreneurship Monitor data from 2009 (n = 17,364) for nascent entrepreneurs, baby businesses owners and established business owners in 47 counties. This study also utilizes the World Values Surveys to measure gender ideologies and post-materialist cultural values at the country level. To test the hypotheses, a logistic multi-level model is estimated to identify the drivers of environmental venturing. Data are nested by countries, and this allows random intercepts by countries with a variance components covariance structure.

Findings indicate that female entrepreneurs are more likely to engage in ecological venturing. Societies with high levels of post-materialist national values are significantly more likely to affect female entrepreneurs to engage in environmental ventures when compared to male entrepreneurs. Moreover, traditional gender socialization stereotypes decrease the probability of engaging in environmental entrepreneurship. Likewise, female entrepreneurs in societies with strong stereotypes regarding gender socialization will more likely engage in environmental entrepreneurship than male entrepreneurs.

The present study uses a gender analysis approach to investigate empirical differences in environmental entrepreneurial activity based on biological sex. However, this research assumes that gender is the driver behind variations in ecopreneurship emphasis between the engagement of males and females in venturing activity. The findings suggest that female entrepreneurs pursuing ecological ventures are more strongly influenced by contextual factors, when compared to male entrepreneurs. Future research can build upon these findings by applying a more nuanced view of gender via constructivist approaches.

This study is one of the few to investigate ecologically oriented ventures with large-scale empirical data by utilizing a 47-country data set. As a result, it begins to open the black box of environmental entrepreneurship by investigating the role of gender, seeking to understand if men and women entrepreneurs equally engage in environmental venturing. And it responds to calls that request more research at the intersection of gender and context in terms of environmental entrepreneurship.

Although boycotting campaigns have been increasing, a limited amount of academic research has been focussed on the antecedents of consumers’ participation in the retail field. This paper presents an examination of consumers’ intentions to boycott the “unethical” supermarket products by a Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) application. Materialism/Post-materialism was incorporated in the research as a moderating variable.

Personal interviews were taken in a sample (420) selected by a probability sampling method. Structural equation modelling was performed to analyse the data.

TPB was found powerful to explain boycotting intentions. Consumers, who more strongly intent to boycott, are affected more by social norms than by attitudes and perceived behavioural control. Those consumers believe more strongly that boycotting “unethical” retail products will generate valuable outcomes, will comply with their referents’ expectations and will not be obstructed by any barriers. Post-materialists were found to hold stronger intentions than materialists. Materialists are mostly influenced by their attitudes and their perceived control over participation in boycotting. On the contrary, post-materialists are solely influenced by their feelings regarding social pressure to boycott.

Control for social desirability should be included in future research. National or multinational samples more effective for generalization. The ability of other psychographics or demographics to moderate TPB relationships could be further investigated.

Retailers, who try to avoid potential boycotts, should primarily aim to diminish the social influence towards boycotting. Secondarily, they should aim to decrease the consumers’ positive attitudes and perceived controllability over participation in boycotting. On the other side, consumers’ groups or associations when designing a boycott campaign should address their call targeting to post-materialist consumers. Messages for a boycotting call should enhance the important referents’ pressure towards a friendlier society in which people’s action is able to ethics in the market.

In this study, TPB was expanded by the incorporation of values, namely Materialism/Post-materialism, as a moderating factor.

The diversity of perspectives means that one can find many factors and models of proenvironmental behavior. However, they typically suffer from limitations and varying degrees of validity in specific contexts, suggesting that today the prime goal should be to learn and improve the models which have been already developed. In this study, the authors build on the model for predicting proenvironmental behavior developed by Oreg and Katz-Gerro (2006), namely one of the most comprehensive cross-national proenvironmental behavior models and one of the few not to be limited to either a local or single-country context or specific proenvironmental behavior.

By using the statistical matching technique, the authors merged data from two existing databases without common identifiers – the International Social Survey Program (environmental module) and the European Social Survey (Round 5). The resulting multinational data concerning 9,710 observations enabled a replication with extensions of Oreg and Katz-Gerro's (2006) proenvironmental behavior model that incorporates newly added Schwartz's theory of human values. To achieve the study's main objective, that is, to present improvements to the original model of proenvironmental behavior, the authors used structural equation modeling (SEM) procedures to estimate four competing models in the R program.

This study implies that Schwartz's individually measured motivational types of values (benevolence [BE], universalism [UN], self-direction [SD]) are predictors of people's proenvironmental behavior, while his conceptualization of post-materialism yields a better model fit than Inglehart's country-level post-materialism scores. The results also corroborate previous findings that post-materialist values can stimulate proenvironmental behaviors through attitudes, perceived behavioral control and intentions. The present study reveals that proenvironmental attitudes did not change substantially in the 10-year period, even though the world's environmental and sustainability challenges have largely increased. Surprisingly, the mean value of several of the perceived threat variables even decreased.

The authors externally validate one of the most comprehensive proenvironmental behavior models by reproducing it using new multinational large-sample data with nearly 10,000 observations collected 10 years later. The most significant addition to the original model introduced in the current study is the inclusion of Schwartz's motivational types of values, which are measured at the individual level, namely BE, UN and SD. The authors also extend the model by adding proenvironmental behavior measures and group the construct into three latent variables: saving natural resources, green purchasing and environmental activism.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how cultural values influence the entrepreneurial process. It conceptualises the relationship between post-materialistic values and entrepreneurial intention to explain low entrepreneurial activity.

The study was conducted in Saudi Arabia with non-entrepreneurs. An online survey returned 405 valid questionnaires, representing a 27 per cent response rate. The data were analysed using partial least structural equation modelling.

The paper identifies key factors that explain the influence of changing cultural values on entrepreneurial activity. The results show that post-materialistic values influence entrepreneurial intention by decreasing desirability and entrepreneurial self-efficacy.

The study conceptualises the interplay between cultural values and entrepreneurial intention in Saudi Arabia. Further insights can be developed by comparing Saudi Arabia with other countries. The study was conducted as a “snapshot” of the current situation of entrepreneurship in Saudi Arabia with a cross-sectional survey design.

The paper holds important implications for entrepreneurship educators when addressing unsupportive cultures for entrepreneurial activity. Cultural and motivational approaches are suggested. While the former focuses on aspects that encourage the desire and confidence to start a business, the latter involves encouraging setting venture creation as a goal.

Previous studies indicated that post-materialistic values negatively influence entrepreneurship; this paper contributes further by exploring how this relationship manifests by exploring the intervening factors between post-materialistic values and entrepreneurial intention. It advances entrepreneurship research by investigating deep assumptions underlying the formulation of entrepreneurial intentions. It also responds to the need to understand the difference in the levels of entrepreneurial activity across countries.

Despite the growing scientific evidence regarding risks caused by global warming and climate change, virtually no studies have been conducted to investigate general public’s attitudes toward this phenomenon in a non-Western context. The purpose of this paper is to investigate factors influencing concern for global warming in a representative sample of 2,551 respondents in Egypt.

The study uses logistic and Bayesian logistic regression modeling techniques to test the influence of post-materialistic tendencies, religiosity, political orientation and locus of control on concern for global warming in Egypt.

Results contradict the post-materialist hypothesis and show that concern for global warming is driven by religiosity, political orientation and internal locus of control.

The findings highlight the importance of investigating the specificity of global warming and environmental concern in a non-Western context.

The purpose of this paper is to link national cultural values to personal pro‐environmental value orientations, in order to investigate why the salience of pro‐environmental value orientations differs cross‐culturally. A value‐based model is proposed and tested in a multinational study.

An empirical investigation of 1,096 consumers was conducted in five nations with a different cultural profile on the two cultural dimensions in‐group collectivism and assertiveness. The paper applies multi‐group structural equation modelling to test the moderating effect of culture on the impact of pro‐environmental values on attitudes and subjective norms.

The study reveals that the influence of a pro‐environmental value orientation differs substantially, according to national cultural values. While an ecocentric value orientation is important in the US, Canadian, German, and Australian samples which hold individualistic values, an anthropocentric value orientation is salient in the Russian sample, characterized by collectivistic values. The hypothesized influence of the national cultural value assertiveness, however, could not be established decisively.

First, the present study considers culture as a national value on an aggregated level. Future studies should take into account cultural values at different levels of aggregation. Second, since only one collectivistic society is the object of the investigation, the results are limited in terms of generalizability.

In order to address the ecocentric value orientation in the analyzed individualistic societies, marketers should emphasize benefits for the environment in the USA, Canada, Australia, and Germany. By contrast, the positive consequences for humankind in general and future generations should be stressed in the collectivistic Russian sample.

The paper contributes to the literature by integrating both individual and national perspectives on the value‐based drivers of environmental concern. The study also provides insight into pro‐environmental consumer behavior in an emerging market (namely Russia), which has so far been neglected in cross‐cultural research.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how cultural value in materialism affects corporate supply of trade credits.

Using a sample of 14,710 firm-year observations of Chinese listed firms from 1998 to 2012, the authors examine the influence of regional materialism on accounts receivable.

The authors find that listed firms within more materialistic tend to extend less trade credit to their customers, in particular in long-term categories of trade credit. Such negative effects can be significantly mitigated by state control, suggesting the effects are more pronounced in privately controlled listed firms. The negative effects of materialism still hold after controlling for other regional factors, such as trust, GDP per capita or institutional development.

The authors show materialism as a cultural construct varies across Chinese regions, and it could have important impact on corporate supply of trade credits, besides the previous found effects on consumer use of credit.

This paper expands the literature about the influence of materialism on economic decision making from the individual level to the corporate level.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the role of materialism and brand consciousness in determining the luxury consumption among the young Indian consumers.

In order to measure materialism, brand consciousness, attitude toward luxury brands and purchase intention, pre-established scale items were used to design the self-administered questionnaire. A valid sample of 342 respondents was collected through mall intercepts, in-store intercepts, luxury brands exhibitions and festivals and international airports. The relationship was tested using regression analysis.

The findings support that the materialism and brand consciousness are positively related to the luxury consumption in India and play an important role in predicting the behavior of the young luxury buyers. The Indian youth is buying expensive luxury brands as symbols of status success and wealth in order to fulfill their materialistic goals. The desire to own and possess the well-known and expensive brand names demonstrates the importance the consumers attach to the social and symbolic value of the luxury brands.

The study reveals that the young Indian luxury buyers choose to buy brands that are most advertised. Creative advertisements enhancing luxury brands’ symbolic and social value can be effective. The study has implications for the international luxury brands, as they are expensive, well known and famous among the global consumers.

The key contribution of the study is the establishment of materialism and brand consciousness as important antecedents in the development of attitude toward luxury brands among the young Indian consumers.