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The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has drastically affected the public discourse on tourism in news reporting and on social media, potentially changing social perceptions of travel and its utility for conspicuous consumption. Prestige enhancement is a common tourist motivation, yet, as tourists have been portrayed as irresponsible and even dangerous during the pandemic, the benefits of travel for personal prestige may have been affected. The purpose of this study is to monitor changes in tourists’ personal prestige during the early pandemic in 2020.

The authors developed an innovative study design implicitly measuring the personal prestige of tourists shown on experimentally manipulated social media posts. Three measurement waves were issued to compare the personal prestige of tourists just before, during and after the first lockdown situation in Germany.

Differences regarding evaluations of tourists’ prestige were found for prestige dimensions of hedonism, achievements, wealth and power, suggesting that prestige ascription to tourists has been affected by the changing discourse on leisure travel.

This study contributes to the discussion of the socio-psychological effects of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic on customer benefits of leisure travel. It exposes possible impacts of the pandemic on tourisms’ value for conspicuous consumption and prestige enhancement.

This chapter focuses on brokerage in the prestige economy of the Gabor Roma ethnic subgroup in Romania. It argues that the necessity of the brokers’ employment as well as their economic importance comes from the significant uncertainty characterising the prestige-object transactions, that is, these brokers are occasional entrepreneurs specialised in risk management. The theoretical purpose of the chapter is to demonstrate that brokers and goods mediated by them can be associated with more than one socially constructed transactional identity (cultural, political, economic, etc.) at the same time. It also aims to highlight the shifting nature of these identities – they are not constant and context-free qualities, but highly context-sensitive social constructions that can appear in various combinations.

Being a prestigious institution depends on gaining respect in the eyes of various stakeholders with diverse expectations. Existing research is silent on how university characteristics affect judgments of prestige and, therefore, presents an incomplete picture of prestige dynamics in higher education. This paper aims to fill this gap in the literature by empirically examining the stakeholders’ evaluation of university characteristics in terms of prestige value.

The entire population of universities (public and private) in Turkish higher education constitutes the sample of the study. The analytic hierarchy process technique is applied to ascertain how stakeholders prioritize university characteristics in terms of prestige value, and regression analysis is used to determine the effects of these characteristics on university selectivity.

The findings suggest a novel conceptual model of university prestige, which establishes its multilayered and fragmented nature. Accordingly, universities may be subject to multiple prestige hierarchies based on universal or context-specific criteria, in the eyes of various stakeholders, and based on different markers of success.

The empirical analyses are limited to the stakeholder groups that are key to university outcomes in Turkish higher education, and to selectivity in admissions as the only visible marker of success in this context.

The study enhances existing literature that posits that universities are subject to a single prestige hierarchy based on common metrics of performance. It illustrates the uneven landscape in which university prestige evolves by developing a wider and deeper focus on university characteristics.

In a period of profound crisis for professions, this paper aims to develop knowledge about the role of proactive personality in the relationship between accountants’ occupational prestige and goal orientation.

The study draws upon the literature on professions and employs a multiple linear regression analysis to test the mediating role of proactive personality when accountants challenge external events threatening their profession. The study focuses on Italy, an area characterized by a high degree of precariousness where, over the past 30 years, accountants have been facing many threats undermining their occupational prestige.

The findings show that proactive accountants are more goal-oriented, unless they perceive that others consider their career to be prestigious. Therefore, the study demonstrates that occupational prestige – more volatile and subject to external forces– can shape proactive personality – usually internally determined and more stable – insofar a perceived low occupational prestige can be mediated by a proactive personality towards goal orientation.

The study has both academic and practical implications, showing that context-related factors are buffered by personal characteristics when professionals react to external events affecting their prestige.

The paper sheds lights on the critical issues of setting and achieving goals in uncertain situations, and enhances our understanding of the accounting profession, by identifying new reactions and behaviours based on personal factors as well as exogenous and contextual factors.

The purpose of this study is to examine the degree of ethnic identity and demographic characteristics (the length of residency in the USA, education, income, age, and origin of ethnicity) in relation to brand purchases for status.

The research is based on a survey of 324 retail customers of Hispanics (n=173) and Asians (n=151) with analysis performed using regression analysis, t‐tests, and ANCOVA.

The stronger an immigrant identifies with his/her ethnic culture, the more likely he/she is to purchase high‐priced branded products for status purposes. Immigrants with higher incomes are more likely to purchase high‐ priced prestige brands. Younger immigrants report a greater propensity to purchase high‐priced prestige brands. No relationship with the dependent variable was found with length of time in the USA, education, and origin of ethnicities of immigrants.

The major contribution of this research is to demonstrate the importance of ethnic identity strength, to reveal the major demographic variables on immigrant consumer behaviors, and to identify means by which practitioners can effectively use ethnicity strength, income, and age to target immigrant consumers.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of perceived external prestige on turnover intentions among retail employees in India. Moreover, this study aims to explore the mediating effect of affective commitment on the relationship between perceived external prestige and turnover intentions.

This study is quantitative in nature. The data for the present study were collected from 186 employees working in various retail stores. Existing, established scales were used to measure the research constructs.

The results of the study indicate a negative relationship between perceived external prestige and turnover intentions. A negative relationship was observed between affective commitment and turnover intentions. Moreover, affective commitment was observed to partially mediate the relationship between perceived external prestige and turnover intentions.

This study provides valuable insights into understanding the significance of perceived external prestige in retaining employees working in the retail sector. Findings of the study indicate that adoption of non-conventional human resource strategies, like a focus on enhancing external prestige of the organization may be one of the ways to enhance employee commitment and reduce turnover intentions, and thus to retain employees in economies with highly mobile workforce.

This research has investigated the significance of perceived external prestige in retaining employees in a context which is different, in several ways, from contexts where most of the previous research has been conducted. It, thus, contributes to current theoretical understanding about perceived external prestige and it impact on work attitudes.

The purpose of this study was to examine the antecedents and consequences of brand prestige in the private country club industry. More specifically, it was proposed that five attributes of a private country club form brand prestige: golf course conditions, service quality during a round, food and beverage cart service, golf shop and clubhouse food and beverage service. In addition, it was also hypothesized that brand prestige can result in three managerial outcomes: social value, brand attachment and brand loyalty. During the theory-building process, it was proposed that brand consciousness moderates the relationship between brand prestige and its outcome variables.

Based on the theoretical relationships between the conceptual constructs, a model was proposed and then tested utilizing data collected from 290 amateur golfers in the USA.

Data analysis results show that four attributes of a private country club (all except for food and beverage cart service) help to enhance brand prestige and, thus, aid in the creation of social value, brand attachment and brand loyalty. Lastly, brand consciousness plays a moderating role in the relationship between brand prestige and brand loyalty.

First, private country clubs are required to consider golf course management before (e.g. hiring top golf architects) and after operating the club (e.g. hiring competent golf course managers). Second, private country clubs need golf course rangers with much experience who can properly manage pace of play. Third, the golf shop needs to prepare diverse souvenirs that well symbolize the private country club. Fourth, the clubhouse at private country clubs needs to provide services at the same level as that found in fine dining restaurants.

Despite the important role played by the prestigious image, no research has attempted to empirically test its influence on the private country club industry. Therefore, this study is the first to apply the concept of brand prestige to the private country club industry. In this regard, the study extends the existing literature on brand prestige by finding the antecedents and consequences in the private country club industry.

This study aims to investigate the relationships among perceptions of advertising, sales promotions, brand prestige and brand love, as well as the development of passion-driven behavior among family restaurant customers. Based on the well-established framework of marketing mix elements and brand, this study proposes and tests a research model that attempts to understand the inter-relationships between the two dimensions of advertising (i.e. advertising spending and attitudes toward advertisement), two dimensions of sales promotions (i.e. monetary promotion and non-monetary promotion), brand prestige, brand love and passion-driven behavior, as well as compares local and global family restaurant brands.

The research model of this study was tested based on responses from 265 family restaurant customers in Korea (i.e. 105 from Outback Steak House, 78 from T.G.I. Fridays, 45 from VIPS and 37 from Ashley). Data were analyzed using frequency, reliability, confirmatory factor and correlation analyses, the structural equation modeling and multi-sample methods.

The verified model confirmed that brand prestige was significantly influenced by attitudes toward advertisement, monetary promotion and non-monetary promotion. Also, brand love was significantly affected by the amount spent on advertising, attitudes toward the advertisement and monetary promotion. Passion-driven behavior was significantly impacted by brand prestige and brand love. Lastly, the results identified that the brand origin (i.e. local and global family restaurant brands) moderated one of the hypothesized relationships (i.e. the impact of brand prestige on brand love).

The study suggests that a family restaurant brand manager may want to emphasize planning and developing marketing mix elements focusing on advertising and sales promotions.

This research illustrates the influences of the two dimensions of advertising and two types of sales promotions on brand prestige and brand love, which in turn led to passion-driven behavior from family restaurant customers.

The purpose of this paper is to identify consumer segments based on the importance of food quality and prestige benefits when buying food for a special occasion; dinner party with friends.

Using cluster analysis, the importance of food quality benefits (quality, taste and health) and prestige benefits (prestige quality, hedonic, uniqueness, price and social) were investigated. The consumer segments were profiled using individual consumer characteristics (involvement in luxury, willingness to pay and socio-demographics).

Food quality benefits are the most important benefits when buying food for a party with friends and the authors identified four distinct consumer segments based on 20 different food quality and prestige benefits: perfectionists, premium, luxury seeking and value focussed. Three of the four consumer segments (perfectionists, premium and luxury seeking) find conventional food quality benefits important but differ in the importance they attribute to the different prestige benefits. The value focussed segment is not driven by prestige consumption but wants high quality at an affordable price.

This study demonstrates that consumers are driven by different food and prestige benefits when buying food for a special occasion.

This study suggest some important differences between premium consumers, looking for food quality and hedonic benefits, and luxury seeking, with a relatively higher focus on prestige quality, uniqueness and social benefits. This study also identifies a significant distinction between perfectionists and value focussed consumers. Both segments are focussed on food quality benefits but differ in their focus on value and prestige benefits.

In this paper, the authors aim to propose that status differentiation, the extent to which people differentiate their behaviors or attribute power to others according to perceived status differences, moderates the effect of stretch direction upward or downward and brand image prestige or functional on consumers 2019 responses to line extensions.

This study was a 2 (culture: Chinese vs American) × 2 (stretch direction: up vs down) × 2 (brand image: prestige vs functional) experiment design. Study 2 was a 2 (status differentiation: high vs low) × 2 (stretch direction: up vs down) × 2 (brand image: prestige vs functional) experiment design.

The results of two studies show that high status differentiation has a positive prestige-enhancement effect on an upward extension but a detrimental effect on a downward extension. This effect is more pronounced for prestige brands than for functional brands. In addition, the authors have found similar patterns for the prestige perceptions of the parent brands after extension.

This research makes important contributions to the fields of cross-cultural psychology. The status differentiation beliefs could be primed temporarily and had a significant impact on individuals’ responses to line extension.

The research identifies status differentiation as an important factor for marketers to consider when extending their brands to global markets.

Past research on vertical extensions has examined numerous factors influencing consumers’ responses. This paper is the only one to examine culture factor.