RELIGIOUS COMMITMENT AND LUXURY PURCHASE INTENTION Drawing insights from social identity theory, this research investigates the interactive effects among consumers’ perceived social value, religious commitment, and global identity on their purchase intention of luxury fashion products in a cross-cultural context.
Authors Jieqiong Ma a JungHwa Hong b Boonghee Yoo a Jie Yang b
Affiliations a Department of Marketing and International Business, Hofstra University b Department of Management and Marketing, the University of Texas at Tyler
Moderating Effect of Religious Commitment
Introduction To better understand the burgeoning global luxury market, existing literature has investigated consumers’ purchase behavior on luxury goods from various perspectives. Religious identity is an important aspect of social identity and has a great impact on consumer behavior (Coşgel & Minkler, January 2). Specifically, religion affects consumer psychology and behavior through four dimensions—beliefs, rituals, values, and community (Mathras et al., 2016). Similar to religious identity, global identity is also a widely shared social identity across the world (Katzarska-Miller et al., 2014). Despite the apparent association between religion and global identity, little empirical research has examined luxury consumption taking into consideration both.
Objective This study aims to extend the current understanding of how consumers’ various social identities and the selfverification process impact their purchase intention of luxury goods. Specifically, this study explores how consumers’ religious commitment and global identity affect their purchase motivations of luxury goods in a cross-country setting.
Conclusion By comparing two potentially contradictory social identities (i.e., global identity and religious commitment), our study provides a more comprehensive understanding of how consumers’ social identity and self-verification process influence purchasing luxury goods. As our study finds, compared to those of lower global identity, consumers of higher global identity realize that the social value of luxury goods can be more successfully satisfying their global culture and identification goals. This phenomenon is found in both U.S. and Thai samples. In addition, religious commitment, depending on the teachings of a specific religion, operates as a positive or negative moderator between social value and luxury purchase intention. The U.S. and Thai samples in our study showed the opposite effect of their religious commitment, as taught by their religious teachings and traditions.
Results The regression analysis results suggest all hypotheses are supported. H1: the positive relationship between social value and purchase intention of luxury goods. H2a: the positive moderating effect of religious commitment to Christianity. H2b: the negative moderating effect of religious commitment to Buddhism. H3: the positive moderating effect of global identity between social value and purchase intention of luxury goods.
Methodology A total of 307 responses from the U.S. and 283 responses from Thailand were used, which have substantially different religions and cultures. The average age of American participants was 39.01, ranging from 18 years old to 60 years old. The average age of Thai participants was 35.81, ranging from 19 years old to 55 years old. Gender distribution was balanced for both samples, with 57.3% female respondents for the American sample and 53% for the Thai sample.
Moderating Effect of Global Identity
Moderating Effect of Religious Commitment
Moderating Effect of Global Identity