Open Access Article

Title: Deciphering Luxury Consumption Behavior from Knowledge Perspective

Authors: Chi-Hsien Kuo; Shinya Nagasawa

Addresses: Author address listing can be found in the "About the Authors" section at the end of the article.

Abstract: Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explain the psychological processes from brand knowledge to behavioral outcomes in luxury consumption. Method - Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) method is applied to test the structural relations of the psychological processes, mediated through brand trust and brand desirability, and explain how brand knowledge can result in consumer behavior. This study focuses on three distinctive dimensions of brand knowledge: brand familiarity, luxury involvement, brand country-of- origin identification, and their intermediating paths through brand trust and brand desirability to affect purchase intention and result in purchase action or verbal recommendation. Findings - Brand knowledge in general does strongly associate with the psychological processes involving with trust and desirability that increase purchase intention and promote behavioral outcomes. The meditation effects are much stronger via the perception of desirability than that of trust, and this finding is consistent for both luxury involvement and brand country-of- origin identification. Limitations - The dataset used in this study is not adequately representative, and the sample size could be expanded. Further studies may include cross-cultural comparison, and survey or interview of business practitioners to provide in-depth understanding of luxury consumer behavior and customer long-term relationship management. Implications - Practitioners of luxury goods marketing should invest in marketing strategies that address certain social peer groups to significantly influence their target market. Originality - This paper extends consumer brand knowledge research to luxury field. Besides, this paper provided novel routes for both academia and business sector research.

Keywords: Luxury goods marketing; luxury retail strategy; consumer brand knowledge perspective; luxury in the digital era.

DOI: 10.1504/JBM.2020.141277

Journal of Business and Management, 2020 Vol.26 No.1, pp.1 - 21

Published online: 05 Sep 2024 *