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

PurposeThis 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/approachThe 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.FindingsFindings 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/implicationsA 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/valueTo 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.

The Right of Access to Environmental Information

The book discusses the normative impact of the Aarhus Convention on how England, America and China guarantees the right of access to environmental information. Through this analysis the book identifies each of these jurisdictions' unique conceptualisations of the right which, in turn, influences the design of their respective environmental information regimes. This allows these jurisdictions potentially to act as sources of legal reforms for each other to improve how the right is guaranteed via legal transplant theory, challenging the normativity of the Aarhus Convention. This is not to suggest that the Aarhus Convention exerts no normative influence on how the right is guaranteed; there are core substantive and core procedural elements which have to be met for the right to be effectively guaranteed, and the book shows that the Aarhus Convention does exert a normative influence over the procedural elements of the right.

Why you bought it: how influences to buy sports products from personal network members differ between social media and in-person settings

This major research project explores the extent to which normative and informational influences exerted by core and significant ties differ between social media and in-person contexts. Specifically, it focuses on how such influences persuade recreational athletes to buy sports products. Though normative and informational influences from a variety of personal ties have been studied in online and offline settings, they are seldom explicitly compared and contrasted. Moreover, recreational athletes and sports products have never been the subject of such studies. Based on qualitative interviews with six recreational athletes between the ages of 18 and 30, this study uses a content analysis with open coding to identify significant themes. The findings indicate that although in-person normative influence to buy sports products is easily identifiable, normative influence on social media is more difficult to detect. Yet regardless of the context, normative influence is powered by one’s desire for inclusion into a group. On the other hand, informational influence in the form of product recommendations does not differ between the examined settings. Thorough recommendations are more sought after than pithy ones, experts challenge recommendations and those who do not know much about a given product will seek information from experts. However, the findings also indicate that informational influence in the form of observation and analysis is preferred in offline situations compared with online ones. It is therefore clear that separate facets of normative and informational influence each present unique similarities or dissimilarities between in-person and social media settings.

Why you bought it: how influences to buy sports products from personal network members differ between social media and in-person settings

This major research project explores the extent to which normative and informational influences exerted by core and significant ties differ between social media and in-person contexts. Specifically, it focuses on how such influences persuade recreational athletes to buy sports products. Though normative and informational influences from a variety of personal ties have been studied in online and offline settings, they are seldom explicitly compared and contrasted. Moreover, recreational athletes and sports products have never been the subject of such studies. Based on qualitative interviews with six recreational athletes between the ages of 18 and 30, this study uses a content analysis with open coding to identify significant themes. The findings indicate that although in-person normative influence to buy sports products is easily identifiable, normative influence on social media is more difficult to detect. Yet regardless of the context, normative influence is powered by one’s desire for inclusion into a group. On the other hand, informational influence in the form of product recommendations does not differ between the examined settings. Thorough recommendations are more sought after than pithy ones, experts challenge recommendations and those who do not know much about a given product will seek information from experts. However, the findings also indicate that informational influence in the form of observation and analysis is preferred in offline situations compared with online ones. It is therefore clear that separate facets of normative and informational influence each present unique similarities or dissimilarities between in-person and social media settings.

Authoritatively speaking : a speech pragmatic analysis of authority and power

A speaker needs authority to perform some speech acts, such as giving orders. A paradigm example of this is when a manager orders their employee to take out the trash; ordinarily, these words will give the employee a normative reason of considerable strength for them to take out the trash, and so they should take out the trash, all things considered. I will explore three related problems regarding a speaker's authority. First, there is the problem of defining how and within what scope a speaker has the capacity to set norms for others -- I will call this the Authority Problem. An answer to the Authority Problem would settle what constitutes a manager's capacity to change the normative status of their employee. Second, there is the problem of showing how a speaker uses their authority to produce felicitous authoritative speech -- I will call this the Illocutionary Authority Problem. An answer to this problem will show how a manager exercises their capacity to alter the normative status of their employee, assuming they have such a capacity. Third, there is the problem of explaining how a speaker's right to produce authoritative speech can be systematically infringed -- I will call this the Problem of Discursive Injustice. An answer to this problem will explain how a manager can have their orders systematically misfire despite exercising their capacity to alter the normative status of others in the usual way, such as when the employee routinely misapprehends their manager's orders as being requests. To answer each of these problems within the philosophy of language, I draw on recent work in social and political philosophy. I defend the view that a speaker's authority to alter what someone else ought to do (by giving them and taking away normative reasons for action) is constituted entirely by the respect their addressee(s) have for their use of power directed at them. Further, a speaker's powers are the linguistic tools by which they attempt to exert this normative influence over their addressee(s). Finally, a speaker may be discursively entitled to use their power in specific institutions because of the role they occupy, and this speech can systematically misfire despite this entitlement because they are wrongfully deprived of the respect they deserve.