Search results

The purpose of the current research is to determine if status and non‐status seeking Australian teenagers differ in their attitudes toward buying domestic and foreign (i.e. Italy, Japan, China) luxury brand apparel.

A total of 365 teenagers participated in this study through a self‐completed questionnaire. Fishbein's Multi‐Attribute Attitude Model was used to measure and compare attitudes toward buying domestic and foreign made apparel. Repeated measure ANOVA and t‐tests were utilized to examine whether the groups differed with regards to their attitudes toward buying luxury brand apparel, using a comparison of apparels “Made in Australia” with those “Made in Italy”, “Made in Japan” and “Made in China”.

The research findings indicate that status‐seeking teenagers have overall, a more positive attitude toward foreign luxury brand apparel as compared to Australian luxury brands, with the exception of Chinese brands. On the other hand, non‐status seeking teenagers reported that they have more positive attitude towards Australian brands than foreign brands, and consider Australian luxury brands superior to all three foreign brands with regards to ease of care and comfort.

The findings is only limited to Australian teenagers and cannot be generalized to other nationalities or age cohorts.

The study suggests that the Australian apparel industry should concentrate its marketing strategy on enhancing the attributes of “fashionable” and “brand name” of Australian apparel that both status and non‐status seeking teenagers prefer in foreign apparel.

The paper fills a gap in the literature by validating the study in Australia and focusing on the attitudes of status (and non status) seeking teenagers.

The purpose of this research is to explore how a successful global and a local brand may compete side by side in an existing market place based on consumer‐based brand equity and consumers' status‐seeking motivation for purchasing a global versus local brand.

The data for this research were collected through a self‐administered survey from students in a large Western Australian university.

The results show that a global brand is generally preferred in terms of all the dimensions of consumer‐based brand equity over a local brand. However, a significant interaction emerged between the type of brand and high versus low status‐seeking motivation consumers. A global brand is strongly favoured in terms of awareness, perceived quality and overall brand equity by high status seekers while a local brand seems to enjoy loyalty and overall brand equity among low status seekers. A global brand is also clearly preferred over a local brand along all dimensions of consumer‐based brand equity amongst high status‐seeking consumers. Further, a local brand is clearly preferred in terms of consumer‐based brand equity over the global brand by Australians whereas the global brand remains a clear favourite with non‐Australians.

Findings may not generalize beyond Australian sample and the product category.

This empirical research explores how global and local brands may compete with each other based on their strengths. This research also addresses a theoretical gap identified by Yoo and Donthu.

Using data from securities analysts, who are awarded status by the third-party organization Institutional Investor magazine, we examine the emergence of competition and articulate a model of competitive response among actors aware of the importance of status and some of the dimensions on which it may be gained. We predict analysts’ initiating or ceasing coverage of stocks in response to other analysts initiating coverage on stocks they cover. We find that competition can emerge because of status seeking rather than as a response to own capabilities or market needs, with compelling, and potentially negative, market implications for overt status seeking.

Prior research studying the mechanisms by which brand reputation influences consumer behaviors has largely relied on respondent measures of brand reputation, resulting in an inability to ascertain the causal direction of relationships. Using third party measures, this paper aims to study the effects of brand reputation, via self-expressive brand perceptions, on both firm-directed and other customer-directed customer voluntary sharing behaviors (CVSB). It then assesses the moderating effect of consumer status-seeking on the relationships studied.

To prevent common method bias and substantiate causality claims, a third-party brand reputation measure is combined with a consumer survey. Process is used to test the hypotheses using 359 consumer responses collected via Amazon MTurk.

The results indicate that higher inner-self and social-self expressive perceptions derived from strong brand reputations increase consumer knowledge sharing and social influence behaviors. The effect of social-self expressive brand perceptions on CVSB is positively moderated by consumer status-seeking.

Firms should leverage existing brand reputation investments to strengthen customer perceptions of their brands as self-expressive and facilitate greater social and knowledge-sharing engagement by status-seeking consumers.

This study identifies a new mechanism linking brand reputation and CVSB: consumer perceptions of the self-expressiveness of brands. Moreover, it distinguishes the effects of two dimensions of brand self-expressiveness and substantiates the customer engagement behavior value of investing in brand reputation as measured by third parties.

This study investigates factors that motivate social media users to retransmit rumors. We focus on everyday rumors rather than catastrophic rumors and develop a model of everyday rumor retransmission based on the uses and gratification theory, the rumor retransmission model, and the basic law of rumor.

An Internet survey is conducted to collect data and test the proposed model. This study’s hypotheses are tested through partial least squares regression analysis.

The results show that socializing, information seeking and status seeking increase the intention to retransmit rumors. Perceived rumor credibility has a moderating effect on the impacts of socializing and status seeking on retransmission intention.

Our research model provides a theoretical foundation for future studies that want to explore motivations or values that determine rumor-sharing intention on social media. The findings can help government agencies and businesses to manage rumor retransmission on social media.

Social and task groups need a few high-status members who can be leaders and trend setters, and many more lower-status members who can follow and contribute work without challenging the group's direction (Caporael (1997). Personality and Social Psychology Review, 1, 276–298; Caporael & Baron (1997). In: J. Simpson, & D. Kenrick (Eds), Evolutionary social psychology (pp. 317–343). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum; Brewer (1997). In: C. McGarty, & S.A. Haslam (Eds), The message of social psychology: Perspectives on mind in society (pp. 54–62). Malden, MA: Blackwell). When groups come together without a priori status differentiation, a status hierarchy must be implemented; however, if the new members are too homogeneously status seeking, then it is not clear what will result. We argue that hierarchy will develop even in uniformly status-seeking groups, and that the social context and members’ relational characteristics – specifically, the degree to which they are group oriented rather than self-serving – will predict which status seekers succeed in gaining status. We discuss why and how a “status sorting” process will occur to award status to a few members and withhold it from most, and the consequences of this process for those who are sorted downward.

Misinformation on social media has become a great threat across the globe. Therefore, the authors aim to provide a comprehensive understanding of social media users' misinformation combating behavior, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, the authors merged the uses and gratifications theory, social cognitive theory and theory of prosocial behavior into one theoretical framework (e.g. information seeking, status seeking, entertainment and norms of reciprocity) to understand their effect on users' prosocial media sharing experience and misinformation self-efficacy to combat misinformation.

The authors collected data from 356 social media users through “Google Forms” during the third wave of coronavirus in Pakistan. Further, the authors applied structural equation modeling for hypotheses testing.

The authors noted that entertainment and perceived norms of reciprocity positively affect social media users' prior experience and misinformation self-efficacy to enhance their misinformation combating intention. However, information seeking positively affects social media users' prior experience and insignificantly affects their misinformation self-efficacy. Similarly, status seeking was noted to be insignificantly associated with social media users' prior experience and misinformation self-efficacy.

The authors tested this model of misinformation combating intention in a developing country during the COVID-19 pandemic and noted that entertainment and status seeking motives are context-specific. Therefore, this study may likely benefit researchers, academicians and policymakers to understand the causal relationship between motivations and the behavior of combating misinformation on social media within a developing country.

In this study the authors merged three theories (e.g. uses and gratifications theory, social cognitive theory and theory of prosocial behavior) to understand information seeking, status seeking, entertainment and norms of reciprocity as the main motives for social media users' misinformation combating intention.

In recent years business organisations have recognised the great profits potential offered by the demand for status goods and have sought to encourage still higher levels of status seeking among consumers. To this end, many products are designed and promoted either wholly or partly as status symbols, with marketing strategies geared to securing rapid rates of social obsolescence in goods and services on offer. At the same time, we still know remarkably little about conspicuous consumption itself or about buyer behaviour in the market for status goods. This article examines the special characteristics of the conspicuous consumer and explores ways in which marketing planning may be improved.

In today's competitive marketplace, companies are devoting an increasing amount of time and money to establishing themselves as socially responsible, in an effort to appeal to the value system of their target customers (Sen and Bhattacharya). In the current study, the paper focuses on corporate social responsibility (CSR) appeals in which the company promises to donate a portion of the purchase price to a charitable cause and requests a matching donation from the customer. More specifically, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the joint effects of status, proximity to CSR, and empathy towards the cause on consumers' willingness to donate money to a charity.

The study used written scenarios and a 2×2×2 between subjects quasi experimental design to test the hypotheses. The authors predicted that status would interact with empathy and proximity of the cause to influence customers' donation behavior.

The results supported these predictions. Status seeking individuals exhibited higher levels of prosocial behaviors when the cause was a national one, particularly when the individual felt empathy towards the distant cause. Conversely, empathy feelings had a positive impact donation intent when the cause was a local one and status seeking was not activated.

The results of this study have significant implications for marketers and managers who are considering launching a CSR program. By aligning the cause with the type of consumer, corporations may be able to obtain a higher response rate from customers, thereby increasing the level of consumer involvement and engagement.

The literature on help-seeking at work has experienced significant growth in the past decades. However, our knowledge about this research domain remains fragmented and lacks sufficient theoretical integration. Therefore, this paper aims to comprehensively integrate the extant literature on help-seeking behavior at work and propose an overarching, organized framework to propel this field forward.

A state-of-the-art review and theoretical development on help-seeking at work are conducted.

First, the authors provide the conceptual clarity of its definitions, key characteristics, types and measurement techniques. Second, the authors develop a fine-grained and integrative process-based framework consisting of antecedents, proximal psychological mechanisms, subsequent influencing processes and distal outcomes to advance our understanding of seeking help in the workplace. Third, the authors offer a detailed agenda for future research to target opportunities within the field.

The current study is comprehensive in surveying the full body of knowledge on help-seeking at work. It uniquely provides a coherent overarching framework that organizes prior findings and channels future research. Additionally, this review paints a complete picture of what has been done and what needs to be done in the field. More research can be spurred based on our conceptual framework.