The role of socio-psychological and personality antecedents in luxury consumption: a meta-analytic review

Abstract

Purpose

This paper conducts a meta-analytic review of literature focused on the salient socio-psychological and personality antecedents of luxury purchase intention. It investigates the role of moderators that can assist an effective market segmentation of the luxury market in both emerging and developed economies.

Design/methodology/approach

The final analysis includes 95 effect sizes from 42 studies conducted in 15 countries, spanning 5 continents, from 2000 to 2020. The review examined moderating role of Hofstede's cultural dimensions, market type (emerging vs developed) and other study characteristics.

Findings

Findings show that socio-psychological antecedents had a more salient role than personality antecedents in driving luxury purchase intention (LPI), across both emerging and developed markets. Normative influence, status consumption and materialism exhibited a stronger influence on LPI in emerging markets than developed markets. Further, stronger effects for normative influence and status consumption on LPI were found in high power distance cultures. The role of seeking uniqueness was more salient and the role of normative influence was less salient in studies with a higher percentage of females. Conspicuous consumption was a stronger driver of LPI for fashion luxury products than other luxury products. The study also proposes distinct definitions of status and conspicuous consumption as there is often theoretical overlap of these constructs in literature.

Research limitations/implications

A meta-analytic review may leave blind-spots due to lack of sufficient number of studies investigating certain theoretically relevant moderators. The authors discuss these gaps, along with study limitations.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no previous study has conducted a meta-analytic review of the antecedents and moderators of LPI. With the extension of luxury demand beyond the developed countries in the West to the “new rich” consumers in the East, it becomes imperative to conduct a meta-analysis for a richer understanding of the drivers of luxury demand across different cultural orientations and market segmentations.

Citation

Bharti, M., Suneja, V. and Chauhan, A.K. (2022), "The role of socio-psychological and personality antecedents in luxury consumption: a meta-analytic review", International Marketing Review, Vol. 39 No. 2, pp. 269-308. https://doi.org/10.1108/IMR-02-2021-0096