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This paper aims to address how the status consumption tendency of consumers in emerging markets is negatively influenced by five individual traits: self-control, self-actualization, religiosity, future orientation and self-efficacy.

A conjoint experiment measured the importance of certain smartphone product attributes. A latent class regression analysis was then employed to estimate segment-level part-worths using conjoint data collected from 500 Bangladeshi consumers.

The results revealed three segments with members that differ in how they evaluate smartphone product attributes. Those susceptible to a product's brand name (i.e. status seekers) appear to have low self-control, are less religious and are more myopic.

An issue may exist with generalizability, as the analysis was conducted based on data collected in one country and for one product category. However, this study's framework provides direction for future researchers to better understand status consumption in emerging countries.

The findings are useful for marketers selling status products to improve market segmentation and target their offerings more efficiently.

The originality of this paper is twofold. First, it investigates the influencing factors of status consumption that have not been addressed in the extant literature. Second, it is the first to use experimental data to measure segment-level status consumption accurately.

This paper aims to examine the online apparel shopping behaviour of Generation Y (Gen Y) in an unprecedented digital dissemination era.

For this purpose, a “mixed-method approach” was used with an explanatory sequential research design. Logistic regression was conducted to identify the role of various contemporary elements of shopping motives. Fifteen semi-structured interviews were conducted to explain quantitative outputs.

It finds that Gen Y consumers demonstrate “fashion-hunting”, “variety-seeking”, “status/recognition-seeking” and “deal-hunting” behaviours in online apparel shopping. “Haptic impressions” gained via hands and other “socio-psychological benefits” trigger their apparel shopping behaviour. They make better and more informed purchase decisions based on prior online research and user-generated content shared by friends/relatives on social media portraying the true characteristics of “digital natives”. They do not trust online retailers for premium apparel shopping due to associated “product risk” and lack of transparency in their “exchange/return/refund policy”. Finally, they are increasingly inspired to have an “integrated online and offline shopping experience”.

Online retailers can use the findings of this study to develop more effective marketing strategies to serve Gen Y consumers.

The study measured actual behaviours on a holistic gamut of shopping motives consisting of utilitarian, hedonic, physical product-specific (apparel) and emerging elements of shopping motives in the technology-enabled era of shopping exclusively. Therefore, the results of the study offer significant, realistic and useful theoretical contributions to the existing literature on the subject matter along with valuable inputs to practitioners alike.

This study aims to understand how consumers evaluate downscale vertical line extensions of a prestige/luxury original equipment manufacturer (OEM) in the European automotive market. The authors investigate the moderator effects of innovativeness and the need-for-status traits on the relationships between consumers' extension perceived fit (EPF), extension attitude (EA) and extension perceived value (EPV).

Experimental design with quantitative analyses based on a sample of 419 participants. Participants were randomly assigned to two treatments: low-fit and high-fit extension simulations.

The purchase intention of the downscale vertical extension of a luxury OEM brand is directly influenced by EPV and indirectly influenced by consumer EA and EPF with the parent brand. Findings also suggest that parent brand equity is transferable to extensions that present closeness and consistency with the brand’s heritage. Moreover, the need for status strengthens the relationship between the EPF and the extension perceived social value (EPSV).

The authors developed a realistic simulation of a downscale model of a well-known prestige/luxury car brand. The authors test the influence of innovativeness and need-for-status personal traits on consumer extension acceptance.

Electric cars (EC) adoption represents a strategic action aimed at promoting environmental sustainability. Although Millennials and Gen Z represent the greatest potential market for EC, their adoption remains low; thus, this study focused on examining the role of motive in predicting EC adoption intention within these two generations’ population. Built upon the fundamental motive framework, this research explores the motives that lead to EC adoption intention. Subsequently, this study aims to examine the role of performance expectancy as the mediating variable and EC attributes beliefs as the moderating variable that can promote EC adoption intention.

Both exploratory and confirmatory methods were used in this investigation. Using an exploratory approach, this research explores the fundamental motives and the attributes of EC that influence EC adoption intention. Using a confirmatory approach, this research tests the mediating role of performance expectancy. To collect the data, an online survey was administered to 260 young consumers in Indonesia.

The results of PLS-SEM analysis from the data revealed that self-protection, kin-care, status and affiliative motives influence EC adoption. Furthermore, performance expectancy mediates the relationship between self-protection, mate acquisition, affiliative motives and EC adoption intention. Among EC attributes, the short-haul performance strengthens the indirect relationship between affiliative motive and EC adoption intention.

The main limitation of this study is that it only focuses on the practical attributes of EC, whereas psychological attributes that were found to be more influential in consumer’s purchase decisions were not examined.

Marketers need to explore EC attributes that can strengthen the relationship between consumers’ motives and EC adoption intention by increasing consumers’ evaluation of performance expectancy. In this study, marketers can promote short-haul performance, as it will lead to EC adoption for consumers with affiliative motives.

This study ties together two lines of research on the adoption of EC, exploring EC attributes and examining consumers’ motivation to choose EC, especially Millennials and Gen Z. In this way, EC attributes facilitate the fulfillment of consumers’ needs and promote EC adoption intention.

The main goal of the study is to investigate how same-brand slogans simultaneously in use in two emerging markets, namely Turkey and Russia, differ semantically. The study further examines in what ways the industrial competition structure impacts the semantic slogan design within these two contexts.

The study uses the method of semantic explication that is based on a 19-device taxonomy. This method is applied to 56 slogan pairs in the Turkish and Russian languages launched for the same brands/products across 6 industries.

Results indicate that same-brand slogans differ semantically between Turkey and Russia. Moreover, firms tend to conform to a shared semantic pattern within a given industry, largely depending on the industrial competition structure. While strong local competition (as in the electronics and cleaning products industries in Turkey and in the personal care and beverages industries in Russia) leads firms to use self-reference, international competition (as in the automotive, personal care and beverages industries in Turkey and in the electronics and cleaning products industries in Russia) promotes them to use hyperbole in their slogan design.

Adopting a common semantic pattern within an industry may carry the risk of restricting brand differentiation and consumers' sense of novelty. Furthermore, the inclusion of brand names in slogans may make slogans sound assertive and lead consumers to overreact to the brand.

Unlike many studies exploring different-brand slogans through a syntactic or grammatical lens, this study investigates the semantic features of same-brand slogans launched in two emerging market contexts. It adopts a B2B perspective, unlike many extant studies that often focus on a B2C one.

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.

This study aims to explore how inconspicuous luxury consumption is being practiced in an Asian culture like Vietnam. Moreover, the ethical motivations that drive Vietnamese luxury consumers to engage in consuming inconspicuous luxury fashion products are also investigated.

A qualitative research approach was used to serve the purpose of this study. Specifically, the authors conducted two rounds of in-depth interviews with 42 Vietnamese luxury consumers recruited using the snowball sampling technique.

The findings from the interviews indicate that inconspicuous luxury consumption is on the rise in Vietnam. This study also reveals that inconspicuous luxury consumers in Vietnam share some common characteristics with their counterparts in Western and other Asian countries. Significantly, based on Hunt–Vitell model, the findings suggest that ethical considerations play a crucial role in motivating Vietnamese consumers to engage in inconspicuous luxury consumption. Together with typical motivations such as differentiation seeking, aesthetics seeking and status seeking, consumers buy inconspicuous luxury products to adhere to internalized norms and moral principles.

This study contributes to the extant literature by enriching knowledge pertaining to practices of inconspicuous luxury consumption, especially in the context of an emerging Asian country. Notably, an essential contribution of this study is to identify ethical considerations as a new emerging motivation driving inconspicuous luxury consumption. The link between ethical issues and inconspicuous luxury consumption has been largely unexamined in the literature. In this study, the Hunt–Vitell model’s process of ethical reasoning is used in a new context of inconspicuous luxury consumption in an emerging Asian economy.

The purpose of this theoretical chapter is to rework a promising but limited theory of the foundations of reciprocity. Reciprocity is often attributed to an “internalized norm of reciprocity” – a deeply felt moral obligation to help those who have helped us in the past. Leifer's theory of local action develops a radically different and compelling foundation for reciprocity – one in which the impetus for reciprocity is a thinly veiled battle for status. We rework the theory to offer a new one that addresses its limitations. The key idea is that the impetus for reciprocity is the desire to signal that one intends to create joint value rather than to capture it from the counterparty.

Our analytical approach rests on close examination of a puzzling and underrecognized feature of social exchange: people who initiate social exchange routinely deny giving anything of value (“it was nothing”) while the receiver inflates their indebtedness to the giver (“this is too much!”). We refer to this negotiation strategy as reverse bargaining and use it as a window into the logic of social exchange.

We develop a more general theory of how people manage the threat of opportunism in social exchange that subsumes local action theory. The key insight is that people who initiate social exchange and seek reciprocity must balance two competing objectives: to ensure that the person receiving a benefit recognizes a debt she must repay; and to mitigate the receiver's suspicion that the giver's ulterior motive is to capture value from the receiver.

The sale of second-hand goods in the luxury fashion space continues to soar. However, existing literature on this segment is limited and the factors that draw consumers to this space are not well understood. This study aims to fill this gap and proposes a conceptual model demonstrating the linkage between the motivators and barriers toward re-commerce in the luxury fashion space and actual shopping behaviors.

A survey sample of USA second-hand luxury fashion shoppers was collected. Participants were asked questions about various motivators and barriers toward re-commerce, as well as the participants' attitudes and shopping behavior. The results were analyzed using SmartPLS structural equation modeling (SEM).

Economic reasons, originality and self-extension were found to be statistically significant motivators of attitudes toward re-commerce, while status consumption, nostalgia and ecological motivators were not. Superstitious beliefs were also found to be statistically significant motivators toward attitudes of re-commerce. Attitudes were also found to be a significant predictor of shopping behavior as measured by dollars spent and shopping frequency.

This study is among the first to propose a conceptual model depicting the relationship between motivators and barriers to actual shopping behavior in the second-hand luxury fashion space. Many of the motivators and barriers examined in this study are novel and have not been considered in prior research. Superstitious beliefs in particular have not been studied in the context of re-commerce.

The purpose of the study is threefold: first, to identify what factors influence mobile users' willingness of news learning and sharing, second, to find out whether users' learning in the news platforms will affect their sharing behavior and third, to access the impact of sharing intention on actual sharing behavior on the mobile platform.

This study proposes an influence mechanism model for examining the relationship among the factors, news learning and news sharing. The proposed mechanism includes factors at three levels: personal, interpersonal and social level. To achieve this, researchers collected data from 474 mobile news users in China to test the hypotheses. The tools SPSS 26.0 and AMOS 23.0 were used to analysis the reliability, validity, model fits and structural equation modeling (SEM), respectively.

The findings indicate that news learning on the mobile platforms is affected by self-efficacy and self-enhancement. And news sharing intention is influenced by self-efficacy, interpersonal trust, interpersonal reciprocity, online community identity and social norms positively. News sharing intention has a significant effect on news sharing behavior, but news learning has an insignificant relationship with new sharing.

This study provides practical guidelines for mobile platform operators and news media managers by explicating the various factors of users' engagement on the news platforms. This paper also enriches the literature of news learning and news sharing on mobile by the integration of two theories: the social ecology theory and the interpersonal behavior theory.