This study addresses the influence that the use of social media for posting travel-related content has on holiday destination choice. The study builds upon the Theory of Conspicuous Behavior and the Theory of Planned Behaviour and aims at understanding whether expected Social Return, referring to the amount of positive feedback that travel posts have on social media, is a determining factor of destination decisions. A model entailing E-Word of Mouth, Social Return, Attitudes, Subjective Norm, Perceived Control and Intention to Visit is proposed and tested with a survey of 177 respondents who had an Instagram account. Data was analyzed using Structured Equation Modelling. The results highlight that Instagram promotes social recognition attributed to e-tourists that share a travel experience considered charming and trendy. Such social recognition is tangibilized by the constructs of e-WOM and social return. The study finds that the intention to visit is impacted by e-WOM, Social Return and Subjective Norm. However, the impact of Attitudes and Perceived Behavioral Control on the Intention to Visit was not supported.

The purpose of this study is to reveal differences towards conspicuous consumption of the hard-hit by the recession Greeks and foreign consumers. For the purposes of this research a survey was carried out in Greece. Tandem cluster analysis was performed in order to separate consumers based on their conspicuous consumption patterns and tendencies. The analysis resulted in a three cluster solution and deduced that the recession-hit Greeks buy branded luxury goods, as hypothesized and expected.

Consumer ethics (CE) is defined by Muncy and Vitell (1992) as the moral standards to guide consumers’ behaviors in obtaining and disposing of goods and services. Regarding ethical issues, consumers have concerns on human, animal or environmental welfare (Gregory-Smith, Smith, & Winklhofer, 2013). As Liu, Yang, and Zeng (2015) describe, unethical consumer behavior (UCB) may cause underlying damage to society, reflecting the dysfunctional, dark or sinister side of consumer behavior. In consumer ethics literature, early studies focus on discussing the dark side of consumer behavior or unethical consumer behavior (UCB), such as returning goods you damaged, taping a movie off the television, shoplifting, etc. (Vitell & Muncy, 2003), counterfeit consumption (Tang, Tian, & Zaichkowsky, 2014; Wilcox, Kim, & Sen, 2009). In last few decades, more attention has been given to the study of the bright side, for instance, green purchase (e.g., Lee, 2008 & 2009; Chan, 2008); sustainable consumption (Lee, 2014), or fair trade (Chatzidakis, Kastanakis, & Stathopoulou, 2016). Within the studies on the bright side of consumer ethics, some of them investigate consumers’ attitude towards green purchase and its relationship with green purchase intention and behavior (e.g., Chai & Chen, 2009; Chen & Chai, 2010; Cherian & Jacob, 2012; Han, Hsu, & Lee, 2009; Vermeir & Verbeke, 2006). Among these studies, the semantic-differential scale of attitudes towards green purchase (AGP) developed by Taylor and Todd (1995) is more commonly adopted (e.g., Chai & Chen, 2009; Chan, 2001, Chen & Chai, 2010; Mostafa, 2006 & 2007). This AGP scale contains three items, namely i) I dislike/like the idea of purchasing green products, ii) Purchasing green products is a bad/good idea, and iii) I have a/an unfavourable/favourable attitude towards purchasing a green version of a product. Some other studies on the bright side of consumer ethics investigate consumers’ intention to purchase different green products, such as organic skin/hair care product (Kim & Chung, 2011), organic food (Paul & Rana, 2012), the relationship between environmental concern and green products purchase (Kangun, Carlson, & Grove, 1991), ecologically packaged products purchase (Schwepker & Cornwell, 1991) or organic vegetables (Sparks & Shepherd, 1992). There are several green purchase intention (GPI) scales asking if respondents will buy product of green version, less polluting for ecology or environmental concern (Chan 2001; Chen & Chang, 2012; Taylor & Todd, 1995). Vitell and Muncy (2005) develop a consumer ethics scale with four categories of (un)ethical consumer behaviors, they are i) ethical consumer behaviors (i.e., recycling and doing good), ii) unethical consumer behaviors (i.e., actively benefiting from illegal activities [e.g., returning damaged goods when the damage was your own fault]; passively benefiting at the expense of others [e.g., lying about a child’s age to get a lower price], iii) questionable but generally legal practices [e.g., using a coupon for merchandise you did not buy], and iv) no harm/no foul activities [e.g., returning merchandise after buying it and not liking it]. In this scale, the ‘recycling’ and ‘doing good’ categories are similar to the Taylor and Todd’s (1995) AGP scale. It is quite surprising that there seems no research putting them together in studying green purchase intention. This conceptual paper attempts to fill this research gap. Conspicuous consumption, another type of consumption, also reveals some aspects of consumer ethics. It has been clearly defined that conspicuous consumption involves extravagant consumption (Veblen, 1899/1915), purchase of luxury goods (e.g., O’Cass & Frost, 2002; Shukla, 2008) or scarce products (Gierl & Huettl, 2010) to display wealth or to demonstrate personal taste (e.g., Blumer, 1969; Bourdieu, 1979/1984; Trigg, 2001). Extant literature illustrates that some terms are associated with conspicuous consumption behavior, such as ‘materialism’ (e.g., Podoshen, Li, & Zhang, 2011), ‘unnecessary expenses’ (e.g., Veblen (1899/1915), ‘conspicuous waste’ and ‘overconsumption’ (e.g., Carr, Gotlieb, Lee, and Shah, 2012; Chaudhuri, Mazumdar, & Ghoshal, 2011), ‘luxury consumption’ (Kwek & Lee, 2013), and ‘conspicuous taste’ (Bourdieu, 1979/1984). A relatively more complete scale of conspicuous consumption orientation developed by Chaudhuri et al. (2011) contains 12 items, which explicitly covers all items related to wealth, status and taste. With a closer look on the definition and the terms to describe conspicuous consumption, it is not hard to find out explicit remarks or implicit comments that various kinds of conspicuous consumption can be unethical, creating negative impacts in economical, socio-culturally and environmental contexts. First, conspicuous consumption can be a waste of economic resources. For instance, in conspicuous consumption feasting in Chinese communities, ordering more foods than enough would create wastes. Besides, conspicuous consumption is associated with impulse/impulsive buying (Zhang & Shrum, 2009). In modern economies with higher materialism, conspicuous consumption is highly related to expenditures of visible goods like high fashion clothing (O’Cass, 2001), jewelry, cars (Bloch, 1981; Charles, Hurst, & Roussanov, 2009), housing or mobile phones (Spero & Stone, 2004). Impulsive conspicuous consumption of new fashion in every season is another type of consumption creating more wastes. Second, conspicuous consumption can be harming to environment. For example, to demonstrate wealth or status, some people eat endangered species or killing wild animals, e.g., shark fin (Eriksson & Clarke, 2015), monkey or turtle. conspicuous consumption of clothing, ornaments or decorative items made of endangered species (e.g., ivory from elephant, skin from fox are also harming the nature. Given the ethical feature of conspicuous consumption is obvious, it is surprising that ethical issues of conspicuous consumption have yet been discussed prominently. Moreover, seldom of the studies in conspicuous consumption or CE discuss the bright side of conspicuous consumption. In fact, some types of consumption can be ethical and conspicuous. For instance, Griskevicius, Tybur, and Van den Bergh (2010), when they study conspicuous conservation, they prove that status competition can help promote pro-environmental behavior. Alike, Sexton and Sexton (2014) reveal the green buying of energy saving vehicles. There are in fact more examples of ethical and conspicuous consumption, like consumption of eco-friendly clothing, accessories or dining, etc. In this regard, if there are more conspicuous and green consumptions, e.g., eco-friendly vehicles, decoration material, clothing or cuisines, conspicuous consumption can facilitate the development of a greener and harmonious societies on the contrary. Nowadays, amid the proliferation of environmental protection ideology, more consumers are willing to have green purchase. If the purchases are also ‘socially visible’, we may call them as ‘conspicuous green purchase’. Following this logic, if consumers have a higher tendency in consumer ethics and conspicuous consumption, they may have a higher green purchase intention (GPI). This proposition may be particularly valid for branded fashion, visible consumer electronics, or vehicles. In conspicuous GPI, consumers can show off their wealth, fashion taste and conservation virtue through displaying green products or green purchase publicly. Recently, a sustainable consumption report published by the Consumer Council in Hong Kong (Consumer Council, 2016) reveals that Hong Kong people has a high level of awareness and purchase intention of sustainable products, but they have a low level in action taking. In this regard, perhaps, the conspicuousness in the consumption of green products can be an additional motivation to enhance consumers' purchase intention. Surprisingly, there seems no research to explore to find out the mediating effect of conspicuous consumption on the relationship between AGP and GPI. This conceptual paper tries to fill this research gap. To sum, this conceptual paper aims to explore the relationship between these four constructs, attitudes towards green purchase (AGP), consumer ethics (CE), conspicuous consumption (CC) and conspicuous green purchase intention (CGPI). More specifically, this paper tries to examine the mediating effects of CE or CC on the relationship between AGP and CGPI. Considering the discussion above, the following propositions are generated. P1: A person with positive AGP tends to have a higher CGPI than a person with negative AGP. P2: A person with a higher CE orientation (recycling and doing good) and positive AGP tends to have a higher CGPI than a person with a lower CE orientation. P3: A person with a higher CC orientation and positive AGP tends to have a higher CGPI than a person with a lower CE orientation. This conceptual paper has both theoretical and practical implications. It helps integrate four constructs, namely attitudes towards green purchase, consumer ethics, conspicuous consumption and green purchase intention in one study, building better theories in these areas. This paper also helps marketers of green products to pay more attention to the market segment that consumers are both ethical and conspicuous consumption oriented, hence conveying more appropriate promotion messages and selecting right channels of distribution. Finally, more green purchase would help us to make better societies with higher moral standard in consumption.

While conspicuous consumption received much attention from marketing scholars, the focus has largely been on what motivates consumers to engage in these types of behaviors rather than on what prevents conspicuous consumption. Yet, psychological research shows that the individuals who purchase conspicuous products may suffer low subjective well-being overall because there are never-ending discrepancies between the actual and ideal self. Simply put, excessive conspicuous consumption can be detrimental for the consumers’ well-being. Accordingly, from the perspective of cause-related marketing, it is equally important (if not more) to understand how such behaviors can be discouraged. Informed by the literature on the self-concept, selfcongruence, and psychological distance, our study addresses this issue by establishing a novel psychological mechanism that discourages consumers to engage in conspicuous behaviors. Specifically, we establish that: Because self-transformation motivation induces individuals to pursue their ideal-self, this will lead them to seek conspicuous products that reflect an ideal-self. On the contrary, because selfexpression motivation induces individuals to pursue their actual-self, this will lead them to seek non-conspicuous products that more closely represent their actual-self. This research provides important insights for cause related marketing campaigns that want to help people to control the purchase of conspicuous products.

This research investigates luxury consumption preferences for different types of luxury goods (quiet vs loud) and shopping environments (online vs offline), as a function of individual motivation (bandwagon vs snob) and self-construal (independent vs interdependent), using a quantitative approach (online survey). Bandwagon-motivated consumers, as well as those with higher levels of interdependent self-construals show significant preferences for conspicuously branded luxury goods. Conversely, snobmotivated consumers show significant preferences for inconspicuously branded luxury goods. Finally, consumers displaying preferences for conspicuously branded luxury goods engage in both webrooming and showrooming behaviours, highlighting the complementary nature of online and in-store shopping. Results are discussed in the light of luxury consumption in the 21st century.

Along with the growth of disposable income and the improvement of consumers’ living condition, consumers are no longer satisfied only with the fulfillment of functional needs of products. Instead, they seek to meet higher level of demand such as emotional and symbolic needs when consuming products. One reflection of this kind of pursuit in consumer behavior is “conspicuous consumption”, which is the tendency for individuals to enhance their image and communicate status to others through overt consumption of possessions (O’Cass & McEwen, 2004). Moreover, the emergence of social networking service (SNS) has boosted the phenomenon of such overt consumption. For example, a consumer who bought a new luxury sports car uploads a photo of his/her car on Facebook to show off his/her wealth, status, uniqueness, taste, etc. In this context, if a product is scarce due to a limited supply, then consumers might use the product for conspicuous consumption (Gierl & Huettl, 2010). Thus, it can be inferred that consumers who have conspicuous consumption tendency will be attracted by new product which is scarce in its early diffusion process. Moreover, the literature has added new content to conspicuous consumption with the development of social economy and value. Consumption value goes far beyond satisfying functional needs, and consumption and possessions are regarded as the extension of the self (Belk, 1988). Hence, consumers would be eager to present and show off their “extended self” on SNS using new products. As a consequence, this research aims at exploring the relationship and internal mechanism between the new paradigm of conspicuous consumption and consumers’ new product adoption intention, mediated through perceived consumption value. Different traits of consumers and resulting value perceptions are influential on consumer adoption behavioral intention and outcomes (e.g., Kastanakis & Balabanis, 2014). Despite the fact that identifying and adequately meet the needs of target consumers is essential in new product success, current literature still lacks understanding on how consumers perceive value of new products based on their needs for conspicuous consumption in adopting new products. Moreover, even though there are some evidence in the literature showing that consumers with high needs for conspicuous consumption accept new products more quickly, there is limited guideline for managers for how and why different perspectives of conspicuous consumption tendency affect new product adoption intention through perceived value of the product. In addition, consumer behavior literature of conspicuous consumption has overemphasized the role of status seeking without fully understanding other motives and needs for it. Accordingly, we will start by examining different types of conspicuous consumption tendencies and studying how they affect different value perceptions, which lead to new product adoption intention. A large number of studies from various disciplines have defined “conspicuous consumption” differently. Earlier, Veblen (1899) proposed the term “conspicuous consumption” to describe the behavior of rich American people who spent a significant portion of their time and money on unnecessary and unproductive leisure expenditures. As indicated, in early days, “conspicuous consumption” was thought to be only occurred to the upper class of the society that wishes to display wealth or status through luxury consumption. However, Mason (1988) pointed out that conspicuous consumption is not only associated with the rich and privileged, but is a worldwide phenomenon that is easily observed at all social and economic levels. Moreover, recent research advocates that conspicuous consumption is not only about displaying wealth, but also about delivering self-images and enhancing social standing through consumption. The symbolic meaning of products is commonly used as an outward expression of consumer self-concept and connection to the society (Chaudhuri & Majumdar, 2006). The motives to show their social status, unique taste or conformity trigger overt consumption of different kinds of goods to satisfy the need of belonging, increase their popularity, as well as be highly respected, admired, or envied (Gierl & Huettle, 2010). Drawing from current literature (e.g., Chaudhuri & Majumdar, 2006; Chen, Yeh, & Wang, 2008; Gierl & Huettl, 2010; O’Cass & McEwen, 2004; Shukla, 2008), this research defines conspicuous consumption as the tendency for individuals to enhance their image and communicate status to others through overt consumption, and proposes it to be a multidimensional concept consists of three dimensions namely ostentation of a high social status (a superior position within a social hierarchy), demonstration of uniqueness (differences from people belonging to the same social group), and demonstration of conformity (similarity to people belonging to a certain social group). We aim at examining the individual differences in three different conspicuous consumption tendencies and how they are related to new product adoption intention. It is important to study new product success from the consumer’s perspective because the success of new product eventually depends on the decisions of consumers to adopt or reject the new product (Im, Bhat, & Lee, 2015). According to Hirschman (1980), innate personality of the consumer has an important influence on whether to adopt new product or not. Moreover, Venkatesh and Brown (2001) found that relevant others such as friends, family, and other important connections can influence the adoption decision. As such, those who are influenced by the people around them will choose products that can convey an image congruent with the social image they wish to project. (Sheth, Newman, & Gross, 1991). New products, depending on their characteristics and types, can be used to show social status, uniqueness, or conformity. When the new product is first launched in the market, it is often released at a high price, though it is not a necessity to most consumers. Thus, adopting the high priced but unnecessary new products or frequently upgraded products in a certain category can signal economically rich status. In addition, consumers adopt new products to demonstrate their needs for uniqueness due to the scarcity in early diffusion process. Finally, new product can also help consumers conform to a certain group they wish to belong. For example, when most of a consumer’s friends or colleagues have adopted iPhone, he/she also is willing to adopt iPhone in order to assimilate with the group member and achieve a sense of belonging. In conclusion, there might be positive relationships between consumers’ tendency to demonstrate high social status, uniqueness and conformity and new product adoption. Im et al. (2015) argued that consumers’ evaluation of or attitude toward a product and ultimate decision to adopt depends on their perceptions of the product’s value. Thus, perceived value may act as an important determinant in new product adoption. Besides, now that perceived value is derived from subjective evaluation and judgement of consumers, different consumers involved in the purchasing process can vary on the perceptions of new products (Perkins, 1993). Moreover, individuals tend to perceive what they need and want while ignoring other irrelevant stimuli around (Schiffman & Wisenblit, 2016). Since consumers with three different types of conspicuous consumption tendency have different needs and wants, they will respond differently to the value offered by products. Thus, we propose the mediating role of perceived value between conspicuous consumption and consumers’ intention of new product adoption. Another important individual level variable that impacts perception of new product is creativity-seeking personality, which refers to the tendency to seek information that is novel and meaningful (Im et al., 2015). Since novelty and meaningfulness are important features of innovation that are embedded in new products, consumers who seek for them are more likely to appreciate the new products more. Thus, we assert that creativity-seeking personality is also important in forming new product adoption behavior. Moreover, according to Im et al. (2015), novelty affects perceived hedonic value while meaningfulness influences perceived utilitarian value. This research attempts to explore the moderating role of creativity-seeking personality on the relationship between conspicuous consumption and perceived value to reveal the synergy effect of conspicuous consumption and creativity-seeking personality. Creativity-seeking personality consists of a novelty-seeking personality (a personal tendency related to the willingness to seek information that is new and different), and a meaningfulness-seeking personality (a personal tendency related to the willingness to seek information that is useful and relevant) (Hirshman, 1980; Im et al., 2015). Specifically, we propose that demonstration of uniqueness has a stronger impact on hedonic value among consumers with high level of novelty-seeking personality and demonstration of conformity has a stronger impact on utilitarian value among consumers with high level of meaningfulness-seeking personality. As such, drawing on the existing literature about conspicuous consumption, creativity-seeking personality, perceived value and purchase intention, this research proposes the mediating role of perceived value through which conspicuous consumption impact consumers’ new product adoption intention. In the meantime, this research explores the moderating role of creativity-seeking personality on the effect of conspicuous consumption on perceived value of new products. Accordingly, our research model is given as demonstrated in Figure 1. We expect the positive relationship between conspicuous consumption and new product adoption intention. Moreover, we predict perceived value mediates the impact of conspicuous consumption on new product adoption intention whereas creativity-seeking personality plays a moderating role. This research has several academic contributions and managerial implications. First, this research distinguished three types of conspicuous consumption from modern perspective including ostentation of a high social status, demonstration of uniqueness, and demonstration of conformity. By testing the impact of three types of conspicuous consumption on new product adoption intention, this study extends existing literature by identifying drivers of new product adoption. Second, it shed light on a mediating mechanism of perceived value through which conspicuous consumption conveys its effect on new product adoption. Third, it identified the moderating role of novelty-seeking personality and meaningfulness-seeking personality on the effect of conspicuous consumption on perceived value. Though we are proposing the theoretical model in Figure 1 based on prior literature in this paper, we expect to empirically validate the relationships in the model by collecting data through multiple experiments using Mechanical Turk. Before the data collection, we will go through the IRB approval for the subject pool and research design. As for managers, they can flexibly apply the consumers’ tendency of conspicuous consumption and creativity-seeking personality as market segmentation tool and implement the appropriate marketing strategy to improve new product adoption behavior for better new product performance. First, managers should be aware that conspicuous consumers are not a homogeneous group. They need to understand the heterogeneous drivers of consumers’ motives regarding conspicuous consumption and formulate appropriate marketing strategy to segment them. Second, this research provides some guidelines in new product promotion. For example, advertisement of the new products can highlight the different kinds of value when targeting consumers with different types of conspicuous consumption tendency. Third, as for sales people, they can provide novel product information to consumers who have tendency to demonstrate uniqueness and provide meaningful product information to consumers who have tendency to demonstrate conformity to increase purchase intention of consumers.

In real life most are searching for ways to pursue happiness through positive affirmation from others. This practice includes conspicuous luxury consumption in capitalist societies. Veblen Thorstein critically describes this construct as lavishing money on unnecessary evident goods as a means to gain social status and recognition from others (Veblen, 1899). Following Veblen, researchers have examined various antecedent and consequent factors of conspicuous luxury consumption behaviour from broad research streams such as power, social class, culture and materialism (e.g., Berger & Ward, 2010; Han, Nunes, & Drèze, 2010; Lee & Shrum, 2012; Rucker & Galinsky, 2008, 2009; Sivanathan & Pettit, 2010; Wang & Griskevicius, 2014). Though research on conspicuous luxury consumption has received great attention over the past decade, and previous research discovered how various factors affect conspicuous luxury consumption, the ways in which core factors influence conspicuous luxury consumption are still not well understood. In this research, we revealed two important factors; self-focus versus other-focus and self-transformative versus self-expressive motivation. In multiple experiments, the major dependent variable is the logo size of luxury brands, which is generally accepted to reflect the conspicuous consumption intentions of the purchaser. This research reveals the following two important findings. First, individuals have a greater desire for conspicuous luxury products when they focus more on others than themselves, because of brand logo visibility of luxury consumption. This is because focusing on others makes individuals more concerned about others’ opinions of them and social criticism (Fenigstein, Scheier, & Buss, 1975), thus leading individuals to gravitate towards the products that can guard against potential social criticism. This in turn, makes other-focused individuals place more value than self-focused individuals on conspicuous luxury products that have socially favourable indicators. Secondly, the current research shows that individuals who are motivated to transform themselves into the person they wish to be prefer conspicuous luxury products more than those who are motivated to express their actual selves. This is because conspicuous luxury products are highly associated with an ideal self. The current research offers several important contributions. First, the studies reported here will enrich the extant conspicuous luxury consumption literature by unveiling the fundamental motivations lying behind the various factors that have been shown to influence conspicuous consumption in previous research (e.g., Lee & Shrum, 2012; Rucker & Galinsky, 2008, 2009). Second, the findings of this research highlight ways to attenuate conspicuous luxury consumption that affect the happiness of individuals; the self-focused and self-expression. Consequently, this research’s findings advance understanding of luxury consumption as most research has focused more on antecedents that increase conspicuous luxury consumption behaviour (e.g., Lee & Shrum, 2012; Sivanathan & Pettit, 2010; Wang & Griskevicius, 2014) than factors that decrease conspicuous luxury consumption behaviour (Stillman, Fincham, Vohs, Lambert, & Phillips, 2012).

This research aims to the effect of a sexual signaling system for a mate attraction on luxury products purchase. Some research has examined priming of mating motives such as looking at pictures of attractive opposite-gender can increase males’ stated willingness to purchase luxury products. This research extends costly signal theory into promotional message or model. we suggest that men tend to purchase luxury products, exposed to ads with attractive women models rather than attractive men according to costly signaling. Likewise, women may tend to purchase luxury products, exposed to ads with attractive women according to intra-sexual competition theory. Three experiments are conducted to examine the hypotheses.

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between conspicuous consumption tendency, brand attitudes, and purchase intentions of college students regarding eating out by limiting conspicuous consumption tendency among several psychological variables to acquire a more precise and concrete influence factor on consumption behavior to eat out. First, as for sensing other people, pursuing individuality and brand orientation among conspicuous consumption tendency of restaurant costumers had significant effects on brand attitudes, whereas the influence of status symbols and pursuing trend factor on brand attitudes was not verified. Second, as for sensing other people, pursing individuality, pursuing trends, and brand orientation factor among conspicuous consumption tendency had significant effects on purchasing intention. Otherwise, the significant effect relationship between status symbols factor and purchasing intentions was not confirmed. Third, as purchase intentions increased, brand attitudes of consumers increased according to existing research. Thus, this study suggests a more departmentalized marketing strategy method to create profits and enhance competitiveness of food service enterprises, and academic implications suggest fundamental data of relevant studies on conspicuous consumption tendency and purchasing behavior of consumers to eat out

Building on a sociological perspective, this study empirically examines how transformation expectations relate to conspicuous consumption and impulse buying by comparing Eastern (Thai) and Western (U.S.) consumers to scrutinize how consumers from completely different cultural and economic profiles diverge from each other with respect to their product/service expectations and their purchase and consumption tendencies. While Thailand represents a small developing economy, the U.S. denotes a large developed nation. Furthermore, Thai culture is characterized by a relatively high uncertainty avoidance, large power distance, femininity, and collectivism, whereas American culture is viewed as an individualist, masculine, risk-taking, and small power distance one (Hofstede, Hofstede & Minkov, 2010). The relationships set forth in this study are woven together based on the expectations states theory (EST), which generally bridges consumers’ expectations with their actions (i.e., the behaviors of buying impulsively and consuming conspicuously in this study). Our focal construct, transformation expectations, is treated as a second-order construct, consisting of four dimensions: “self-,” “relationship,” “hedonic,” and “efficacy” transformations. We postulate that transformation expectations positively influence conspicuous consumption and impulse buying, and that the relationships are moderated by culture. The data were collected from consumers in Thailand and the U.S. using a self-administered survey by means of quota and purposive sampling techniques. Our final sample size consists of 347 Thai consumers and 320 American consumers. The findings in this study show support for all hypothesized relationships. Both Thais and Americans tend to consume more conspicuously and purchase more impulsively when they have higher expectations that a product enables them to transform their lives. Surprisingly, the test of the moderating effect of culture showed a stronger relationship amongst Thai consumers. This finding contradicts to previous empirical evidences suggested in the literature. Future study thus should replicate and/or extend this study to confirm and validate the results so that appropriate marketing strategies can be tailored to fit diverse groups of consumers across the globe.

본 연구는 고급레스토랑 이용 고객들의 체면민감성이 과 시적 소비성향과 구매의도에 미치는 영향에 대해 알아보기 위해 문헌고찰과 실증적 분석 연구를 진행하였다. 본 연구 결과의 주요 내용은 다음과 같다. 선행연구를 토대로 체면민감성 요인을 타인의식성 체면, 창피의식성 체면, 사회격식성 체면 총 3개 하위요인, 9개 문 항으로 구성하였다. 과시적 소비성향은 유명브랜드 선호 및 유행추구, 타인지향 총 2개 하위요인, 8개 문항으로 구성하 였으며, 구매의도는 단일 차원 4개 문항으로 구성하였다. 전체표본 430(100%)부 중 유효 표본 400(93%)부를 중심 으로 실증분석을 실시하였다. 응답자의 성별 특성을 보면 여 성이 264명(66%)으로 남성 응답자보다 더 많은 것으로 나타났으며, 연령은 30대가 209명(52.3%)으로 가장 많은 것으로 나타났다. 최종학력은 4년제 대학 졸업이 215명(53.8%), 직업은 회 사원이 235명(58.8%), 월 소득은 200-300만원 미만이 115명 (28.8%)으로 가장 많은 것으로 나타났다. 고급레스토랑 이용고객의 체면민감성이 과시적 소비성향 에 미치는 영향을 살펴본 결과는 다음과 같다. 첫째, 타인의식성 체면(t=3.095, p< .005), 창피의식성 체면 (t=6.615, p< .005), 사회격식성 체면(t=4.802, p< .005)이 유 명브랜드 선호 및 유행추구에 유의한 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 또한 타인의식성 체면, 창피의식성 체면, 사회격식 성 체면이 타인지향 과시적 소비에 미치는 영향을 살펴보면, 타인의식성 체면(t=7.587, p< .005), 사회격식성 체면(t=4.057, p< .005)이 타인지향 과시적 소비에 영향을 미치는 것으로 나 타났지만, 창피의식성 체면은 타인지향 과시적 소비에 유의 한 영향을 미치지 않는 것으로 나타나 부분채택 되었다. 이 연구 결과는 Kim et al.(2013)의 연구에서 골프클럽 소 비자의 체면민감성 특성이 과시소비 성향에 유의한 영향을 미친다는 결과와 유사하게 나타났으며, Lee et al.(2015)의 연구에서 타인 의식성 체면과 창피 의식성 체면이 과시적 체 면에 유의한 영향을 미친 것과 연구 결과가 유사하게 나타 났다. 또한 형식 의식성 체면 또한 과시적 소비에 유의한 영 향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 이는 유명브랜드나 유행이 소 비자들의 체면에 의해 영향을 많이 받는 것을 의미하는 것 으로 사료된다. 최근 들어 TV프로그램이나 인터넷 방송 등에서 외식과 관련된 컨텐츠가 많이 제작되고 있는데, 이를 적극적으로 활용 하여 외식 브랜드를 많은 소비자들에게 인식시키고 외식산 업의 유행을 만들기 위한 노력이 필요할 것으로 사료된다. 창피의식성 체면이 타인지향 과시적 소비에 영향을 미치 지 않는 것으로 나타났는데 이는 소비자들이 레스토랑 선택 시 남의 눈치를 보거나 타인에게 어떻게 비춰지는지에 대하 여 크게 염두에 두지 않는다는 것을 의미하는 것으로 사료 된다. 둘째, 고급레스토랑 이용고객의 체면민감성이 구매의도에 미치는 영향을 살펴본 결과는 다음과 같다. 타인의식성 체면, 창피의식성 체면, 사회격식성 체면이 구매의도에 미치는 영 향을 살펴본 결과 창피의식성 체면(t=3.233, p< .005), 사회격 식성 체면(t=3.247, p< .005)이 구매의도에 유의한 영향을 미 치는 것으로 나타났지만, 타인의식성 체면은 구매의도에 유 의한 영향을 미치지 않는 것으로 나타나 부분 채택 되었다. 고급레스토랑을 이용하는 고객들은 구매의사를 결정할 때 다양한 요인들을 고려하는데, 그 중에서도 체면과 관련된 요 인들이 중요한 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 따라서 외식 기업에서는 체면이나 과시적 소비성향과 같은 변수뿐만 아 니라 다양한 심리적 요인을 활용한 마케팅을 적극적으로 수 립할 필요가 있을 것으로 사료된다. 셋째, 과시적 소비성향이 구매의도에 미치는 영향을 살펴 본 결과 유명브랜드 선호 및 유행추구(t=12.384, p< .005)는 구매의도에 유의한 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났지만, 타인 지향 과시적 소비성향은 구매의도에 유의한 영향을 미치지 않는 것으로 나타나 부분 채택 되었다. 이 결과는 타인의식 성 체면이 구매의도에 유의한 영향을 미치지 않는다는 결과 와 유사하게 나타났으며 반면, 유명브랜드를 선호하거나 유 행에 민감한 사람일수록 고급레스토랑을 구매할 가능성이 더 높은 것으로 사료된다. 본 연구의 시사점은 첫째, 기존의 소비 심리 연구와 달리 체면민감성, 과시적 소비성향과 같은 변수들을 추가함으로써 연구의 범위를 다양하게 설정하였고, 소비 심리 분석에 있어 서 유용한 변수가 될 수 있을 것으로 사료된다. 둘째, 본 연구에서 체면민감성, 과시적 소비성향 등이 실 질적으로 구매의도에 유의한 영향을 미친다는 것을 연구를 통해 확인하였다. 이는 소비자들이 자신과 타인을 구분 짓기 위해 또는 우월감을 표현하기 위해 자신의 형편을 고려하지 않은 소비를 하거나 또는 소비에 많은 의미를 부여한다는 것 을 다시 한 번 확인할 수 있는 연구 결과라고 사료된다. 기업들의 생존 경쟁이 점점 치열해지고 있는 현재 시점에 서 외식기업들은 인터넷이나 TV 등의 매체나 인쇄물, 잡지 등을 활용한 적극적인 마케팅을 통해 소비자들이 유명브랜 드 또는 유행하는 브랜드로 인식하도록 해야 한다. 또한 소 비자들의 니즈나 욕구 또는 체면이나 과시적 소비성향과 같 은 심리적 요인들을 지속적으로 연구하여 경쟁 기업과 차별 화를 이루어 내는 것이 중요한 과제일 것이다. 본 연구의 한계점 및 향후 연구방향은 첫째, 본 연구의 조 사대상을 객단가 8만원 이상의 고급레스토랑 이용고객으로 한정지었는데, 조사대상자의 범위를 다양하게 설정한 연구가 필요할 것으로 사료되며 또한 고 가격의 제품과 저 가격의 제품을 소비할 때 어떠한 차이가 있는지에 대한 비교 분석 등과 같은 다양한 측면에서의 연구들이 지속적으로 이루어 지면 더욱 의미가 있을 것으로 사료된다. 둘째, 본 연구에서 분석한 심리적 요인은 체면과 과시적 소비성향에 한정되어 있지만, 그 외에도 다양한 심리적 변수 들을 활용한 추가적인 연구가 이루어지면 소비자들의 소비 심리와 소비 행동을 분석하는데 유용한 기초자료로 활용될 수 있을 것으로 기대 된다.

The purpose of this study is to research the conspicuous consumption characteristic expressed in the modern fashion. The conspicuous consumptions are classified with 2 parts as follows as: 1. The motive of conspicuous consumption, 2. The effect of conspicuous consumption. And the motive of conspicuous consumption is 1) conspicuous consumption, 2) conformity consumption, 3) compensatory consumption. The effect of conspicuous consumption is 1) veblen effect, 2) bandwagon effect, 3) snob effect. The veblen effect is caused either by the belief that higher price means higher quality, or by the desire for conspicuous consumption to be seen as buying an expensive, prestige item. The bandwagon effect is people tend to follow the crowd without examining the merits of a particular thing. The snob effect refers to the desire to own unusual, expensive or unique goods. The conspicuous consumption has produced conflicting results of the homogeneous imitation and the different scarcity. Consequently conspicuous consumption characteristic expressed in the modern fashion refers to the conformable imitation and the different scarcity. The conformable imitation is pursuit of first lady look and imitation. The different scarcity refers to the desire to own exclusive or unique goods. The unique value is pursuit of limited edition and art mode.