Having less or saving more: the role of social responsibility perception in reducing guilt over luxury purchases
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to challenge the notion that “having-less” – limiting consumption of scarce resources to a select few – represents a social responsibility route toward guilt reduction. It rather argues that “saving-more” – the purposeful pursuit of conscious and collaborative consumption – captures consumers’ true representations of responsible luxury which in turn reduces anticipated guilt.
Design/methodology/approach
Six experiments using different operationalizations of saving-more (vs. having-less) and a mix of fictitious and real luxury brands were conducted on real luxury buyers.
Findings
The findings demonstrate that saving-more (vs. having-less) leads to a stronger purchase intention; an effect explained by a higher responsible luxury perception and lower anticipated guilt associated with saving-more (vs. having-less). Furthermore, the ability of saving-more (vs. having-less) in building responsible luxury perception and reducing anticipated guilt is stronger (vs. weaker) when luxury is distributed based on deservingness (vs. entitlement).
Research limitations/implications
This research proposes a novel distinction between two responsible luxury approaches: promoting limited consumption for business goals, that is, having-less and promoting conscious consumption for societal goals, that is, saving-more.
Practical implications
Brand managers can enhance responsible luxury perception and reduce consumer guilt through corporate communication, product communication and collaborative product accessibility modes. Managers must also convince consumers that their access to luxury is based on real achievements.
Originality/value
This study empirically invalidates the notion that merely invoking scarcity and rarity tactics is an expression of social responsibility. It integrates social responsibility and fairness accounts of guilt into a coherent theory of guilt over luxury consumption.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Supporting information: Additional Studies (Study 5 and Study 6) for Testing Model 1 are provided in Web Appendix 5 and Web Appendix 6. The manipulations for Study 5 and Study 6 are provided in Web Appendix 7 and Web Appendix 8 respectively.
The authors are thankful to Dr Adil Zahoor, Assistant Professor, Department of Management Studies, Islamic University of Science and Technology, Awantipora, India for his invaluable suggestions during the revisions of this paper.
Citation
Khan, S., Fazili, A.I., Thaichon, P., Quach, S., Parry, M.A. and Bashir, I. (2024), "Having less or saving more: the role of social responsibility perception in reducing guilt over luxury purchases", European Journal of Marketing, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJM-10-2022-0744
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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