Consumer purchase intention of intangible cultural heritage products (ICHP): effects of cultural identity, consumer knowledge and manufacture type
Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics
ISSN: 1355-5855
Article publication date: 25 May 2022
Issue publication date: 9 March 2023
Abstract
Purpose
Intangible cultural heritage products (ICHP) in this paper refer to the products made with handicrafts listed as intangible cultural heritage. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of consumer cultural identity and consumer knowledge on purchase intentions of ICHP, as well as the role of the perceived scarcity for such effects.
Design/methodology/approach
Three between-participants experiments were conducted to investigate the effect of cultural identity on purchase intention of ICHP and the underlying mechanism of the effect.
Findings
The results show that cultural identity has a positive influence on ICHP purchase intention, and this effect is stronger for consumers with higher level of consumer knowledge. Furthermore, perceived scarcity underlies such effect, but the scarcity account holds only for handmade ICHP, not for machine-manufactured products.
Practical implications
The current research suggests that ICHP should remain handmade to preserve their scarcity as a distinctive feature. Additionally, business practitioners handling ICHP should target consumers of high cultural identity, and/or provide iconic cues to activate their cultural identity situationally. Furthermore, it highlights the importance of consumer education programs about ICHP-related knowledge in enhancing the cultural identity effect.
Originality/value
This paper explores systematically the conditions and process of consumers' responses toward ICHP for the first time. Besides, it builds on accessibility-diagnosticity framework and provides novel knowledge about the functioning of consumer cultural identity. It also enriches our understanding of perceived scarcity from the supply side.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The first, second and third authors dedicate this paper to the memory of Professor Alain Jolibert (1943–2022).
Funding: The work was supported by the Social Science Foundation of Beijing, China (Grant No: 19YJA006) and Chinese Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities in UIBE (Grant No: CXTD9-03).
Citation
Zhang, M., Guo, X., Guo, X. and Jolibert, A. (2023), "Consumer purchase intention of intangible cultural heritage products (ICHP): effects of cultural identity, consumer knowledge and manufacture type", Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, Vol. 35 No. 3, pp. 726-744. https://doi.org/10.1108/APJML-11-2021-0831
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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