Ramifications of luxury consumption in East Asian collectivistic cultures
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School of Business |
Bachelor's thesis
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Authors
Date
2016
Department
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Markkinointi
Language
en
Pages
30
Series
Abstract
When the aim is to understand consumer behaviour as a whole, people around the world cannot be perceived to have similar motives and mind-sets behind luxury goods consumption, as consumers have differing ideologies and worldviews depending on their cultural and societal backgrounds. Existing literature has dissected the characteristics of East Asian collectivistic tradition as well as the background and mind-sets for luxury consumption in collectivistic and individualistic cultures separately. In relation to the previous research, this paper addresses the cultural and societal characteristics of collectivistic cultures which inherently affect the meaning and ramifications of people’s luxury consumption. Accordingly, the findings are compared to those of the existing literature concerning the practice of luxury consumption in individualistic cultures. Findings of this paper suggest that there are four key divergences between collectivistic and individualistic consumer cultures regarding the consumption of luxury products: values which consumers are looking for, understanding the public meanings of luxury consumption (promoting hierarchical status or promoting personal meanings), the weight of group affiliations on consumption decisions and the legitimately perceived reasons for luxury consumption, as in either conforming to group pressure or making personal decisions. A model of cultural approaches to luxury consumption is presented to clarify these interrelationships. Furthermore, implications for East Asian luxury marketers, limitations of the study and possibilities for future research are discussed.Description
Thesis advisor
Del Rio Olivares, MariaKeywords
luxury, collectivism, individualism, consumer value, East Asia, consumer behaviour, hedonic, symbolic, self-concept