Title: Attitude of Indian consumers towards luxury brand purchase: an application of 'attitude scale to luxury items'

Authors: Shamindra Nath Sanyal; Saroj Kumar Datta; Asok Kumar Banerjee

Addresses: College of Management, Institute of Engineering and Management, D-1, Salt Lake Electronics Complex, Sector – V, Kolkata – 700091, India ' VIT Business School, VIT University, Vellore – 632014, Tamil Nadu, India ' Institute of Engineering and Management (Ashram Campus), GN-34/2, Salt Lake Electronics Complex, Sector – V, Kolkata – 700091, India

Abstract: The objectives are to study consumers' attitude about luxury goods with special reference to the Indian consumers and to select the themes (cognitive, affective and behavioural) from the existing ones from the 'attitude scale to luxury items' suggested by Dubois et al. (2005) for the 'none available' item spaces as mentioned in a priori classification of attitudes to luxury using the C-OAR-SE procedure by Rossiter (2002) and Stegemann et al. (2007). Consumers' attitude about luxury goods in Indian perspective has been examined through an empirical investigation that was carried out among urban respondents belonging to different social strata in Kolkata Megapolis, West Bengal, India. We have proposed three hypotheses where separately attitude and subjective norms toward luxury brands positively affect the intention to use the goods. Furthermore, intention to use luxury brands does not positively influence actual usage of the same. Finally through qualitative process, we have determined the 'none available' item spaces as mentioned in a priori classification of attitudes to luxury. The findings support the hypothesis that luxury consumption intentions affect actual luxury brand consumption behaviour. The findings show how nuances occur between measures of attitudes, subjective norms, and intention.

Keywords: consumer attitudes; luxury brands; subjective norms; buying intentions; India; consumers; luxury goods; luxury items; construct definition; object classification; attribute classification; rater identification; scale formation; enumeration; reporting; C-OAR-SE; urban respondents; usage; consumption intentions; consumption behaviour.

DOI: 10.1504/IJICBM.2014.064696

International Journal of Indian Culture and Business Management, 2014 Vol.9 No.3, pp.316 - 339

Received: 16 Jun 2013
Accepted: 18 Jul 2013
Published online: 13 Sep 2014 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article