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“Seeing is being”: Consumer culture and the positioning of premium cars in China

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  • Bartikowski, Boris
  • Cleveland, Mark

Abstract

Researchers recognize the indispensable role of inwardly vs. outwardly-focused social identities as predictors of consumers' attitudes toward local vs. global brand positioning. Extant studies typically report symmetric assimilative identity effects, meaning that consumers high on national/ethnic identity favor brands with a local (vs. global) consumer culture positioning, and vice-versa for consumers high on an outward (e.g., cosmopolitan) identity disposition. Such identity outcomes may not be generalizable, but rather, be affected by the specific consumption context as well as the individual trait of consumer need for uniqueness (NFU). Focusing on the Chinese premium car market, our experimental study consistently supported assimilative effects for the role played by ethnic identity. For cosmopolitanism however, such effects only held for low NFU consumers, whereas contrastive identity effects emerged for high NFU consumers. These results challenge some findings reported in the literature. Implications of these asymmetric identity effects for marketing theory and practice are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Bartikowski, Boris & Cleveland, Mark, 2017. "“Seeing is being”: Consumer culture and the positioning of premium cars in China," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 195-202.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:77:y:2017:i:c:p:195-202
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2016.12.008
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Adriana Grigorescu & Amalia-Elena Ion, 2022. "Qualitative Analysis of Sustainability and Innovation Within the Luxury Business Sector," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 13(4), pages 3150-3171, December.
    2. Grigorescu Adriana & Ion Amalia Elena, 2020. "Innovation and product management – The direction of the 21st century luxury market," Proceedings of the International Conference on Business Excellence, Sciendo, vol. 14(1), pages 1035-1045, July.
    3. Moutinho, Paula & Andrade, Inês & Macedo, Angela, 2022. "Functional food consumption by Portuguese university community: Knowledge, barriers and motivators," Economia agro-alimentare / Food Economy, Italian Society of Agri-food Economics/Società Italiana di Economia Agro-Alimentare (SIEA), vol. 24(2), July.
    4. Paula Moutinho & In?s Andrade & Angela Macedo, 2022. "Functional food consumption by Portuguese university community: Knowledge, barriers and motivators," Economia agro-alimentare, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 24(2), pages 1-29.

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