Identity,self‐concept and young women’s engagement with collaborative,sustainable fashion consumption models

It is clear from extant theory that fashion consumption is intrinsically bound to self‐concept and social identity. As such, many individuals over consume in pursuit of ideal identities, particularly in periods of heightened awareness of identity development, such as their youth. This study thus takes one group of fashion over‐consumers, young females, and seeks to identify core motivations towards and barriers for collaborative consumption of clothing and fashion products, though the lens of self‐identity and social interaction. The study adopts a theory of planned behaviour approach, using in‐depth interviews to examine norms of behaviour in fashion consumption and develops a conceptual model for understanding of how these individuals construct a fashion identity within the social contexts of four alternative forms of consumption (renting, borrowing, swapping and purchasing second‐hand). Furthermore, the study examines perceived barriers to participation in these four alternative fashion consumption forms. The study finds that social and ethical implications of sustainable consumption behaviour are the least likely motivators towards engagement with collaborative fashion consumption models within this group, and that opportunities for individual identity expression are the most sought after benefits of such engagement. This research contributes to the literature regarding sustainability issues generally, in the context of fashion consumption, and deepens one’s understanding of young female consumers’ willingness to participate in sustainable consumption actions.     

Ethnic identity,socialization factors,and culture‐specific consumption behavior

This study is designed to discover the degree to which ethnic identity and socialization factors influence the culture‐specific consumption behaviors of Asian American young adults, in general as well as in specific situational settings. Findings indicated that perceived parental cultural identification tended to strengthen the ethnic identity, which in turn influenced Asian American young adults' culture‐specific consumption behaviors. However, although their perceived parental acculturation level had no effect on their ethnic identity, it directly weakened the subject group's culture‐specific consumption behaviors. The ethnic‐friendship orientation was found not only to influence ethnic identity but also to influence directly the group's culture‐specific consumption behavior. Further analysis revealed that a situational factor (i.e., the presence or absence of ethnic friends) influenced culture‐specific consumption behavior, regardless of the strength of ethnic identity. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Pet‐related consumption as a consumer identity constructor

The objective of this paper was to analyse how pet‐related consumption can be connected to consumer identity construction. This objective is based on the idea that consumers use symbolic meanings from possessions to construct and communicate their identities. Objects of attachment have especially been found to be closely connected to the formation of consumer identity. Furthermore, it is often assumed that consumers struggle to maintain a true sense of self or personal identity while retaining a feeling of belonging and social identity. This may be portrayed through layers of identity, which are composed of personal identity, social identity and other people. Empirical research was conducted using focus groups to create individual collages. The findings indicated that pet‐related consumption was used in the following six ways to construct consumer identity: ‘character developer’, ‘source of well‐being’, ‘means to connect’, ‘status communicator’, ‘object of devotion’ and ‘intermediary’, all of which found their places in the layers of identity. Each of these ways of using pet‐related consumption was paired with one other so that the extremes formulated three dimensions in a consumers' identity construction: the personal dimension, the social dimension and the dimension of emotional attachment. In conclusion, it was proposed that consumer identity construction illustrated via pet‐related consumption as created within both social interactions with meaningful others and those three dimensions is multi‐levelled and multifaceted. The paper invites future research to study both identity construction and emotional attachment, being such multifarious phenomena, and to explore the dynamic interactions that may exist.     

Green consumers and their identities: how identities change the motivation for green consumption

This research aims to fill the gap in green consumption literature from the perspective of values as types of intentions and identity‐based motivation. In two studies, we examine how the salience of personal and social identities can change the relationship between types of intentions and green consumption. The results demonstrate that when personal identity is salient, self‐transcendence intentions influence green consumption more than self‐enhancement intentions. This is because personal identity (compared with social identity) increases the positive effect of congruent intentions (self‐transcendence) on green consumption. However, when social identity is salient, self‐transcendence and self‐enhancement intentions have a similar impact on green consumption. This is because social identity (compared with personal identity) reduces the negative effect of self‐enhancement intentions on green consumption. Finally, we discuss theoretical and managerial implications for values as types of intentions, identity‐based motivation and green consumption.     

The effect of activity identity fusion on negative consumer behavior

Negative consumer behavior is an important research topic as it explores consumer behaviors that threaten a brand's image and financial stability. However, prior research offers conflicting findings on whether a strong consumer‐brand relationship hurts or protects a brand after a market disruption or a brand transgression. To provide clarity on this issue, this work argues that disrupting the consumer‐activity relationship motivates consumers to reaffirm and protect their identity, thereby leading to negative consumer behavior. The data reveal that, after a brand‐initiated market disruption, consumers with high activity identity fusion are more likely to spread negative word‐of‐mouth, boycott the brand, and avoid repurchasing the brand in the future. Moreover, the data suggest that high brand identity fusion protects the brand during market disruptions; therefore, prior conflicting results may be due to the fact that the consumer‐activity relationship was not accounted for. Theoretically, this work establishes that consumers' relationship with their consumption activities has significant impacts on consumer behavior. Brand managers and marketers are urged to develop strategies that focus on strengthening the consumer‐brand relationship and not the consumer‐activity relationship.     

Language and identity in the shadow: A multi-case study of a Japanese multinational corporation

This paper explores how different organizational identities can be constructed by the use of multiple languages within a multinational corporation’s (MNC) subsidiaries. Scholars are increasingly interested in the importance of language in international business but little is currently known about how identities interact with language across an MNC’s subsidiaries. Applying language and social identity theory, this paper analyses the interactions between organizational identity and the use of multiple languages within the lines of communication in the Thai, Taiwanese and US subsidiaries of a Japanese MNC, focusing especially on communications with customers and headquarters. The findings reveal the range of uses of different languages in the lines of communication and the attendant sharing and shaping of social identities in each subsidiary, thus highlighting the importance of the contexts of subsidiaries. In addition, in a sharp contrast to the approach to linguistic identity assumed in the current literature, the findings reveal how national identity can be sustained independently of the use of language. Moreover, the findings also reveal that perceived identity is influenced not only by actors’ language abilities and ethnicity, but also by their post-colonial views on both parent and host countries, and how this underpins shadow organizational structures.     

How practices inform the materialization of cultural ideals in mundane consumption

This study examines how consumers enact cultural ideals in mundane consumption. The empirical context is a weekday dinner practice among Finnish households. The findings demonstrate how practices inform consumers how, where, when, and with whom to enact and compromise cultural ideals and identity projects. Thus the practices guide food consumption choices and the meanings that the consumers ascribe to food consumption objects. The consumers are pragmatic, flexible and fragmented as they enact identity projects and cultural ideals in mundane consumption in relation to practices. They compromise the identity projects and the cultural ideals in some practice(s) but not across practices. As the practices serve different ends for the consumers at different times, the meaning of the practices is constantly re-created by the consumers. The perceived value of mundane consumption is related to how well and how frequently the consumers can enact their identity projects and cultural ideals in practices.     

How Entrepreneurs' Knowledge and Network Ties Relate to the Number of Employees in New SMEs

Knowledge is central to entrepreneurship when explaining successful venturing. However, little is known about how a founder's knowledge and their network ties relate to the number of workers in early‐stage small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). This study draws on the knowledge‐based view and social network theory to examine 174 new SME founders. Findings suggest a positive relationship between the comprehensiveness of an entrepreneur's knowledge set and the number of workers. In addition, the number of network ties positively moderates the relationship between the entrepreneur's knowledge set and the number of employees. Network tie knowledge heterogeneity was not significantly related to the number of employees in new SMEs.     

The agentic body in immigrant maternal identity reconstruction: embodiment,consumption, acculturation

Drawing from Merleau-Ponty’s theory of the agentic body, this research uses phenomenological in-depth interviews and auto-ethnographic journaling to explore South Korean immigrant women’s experiences of body changes in consumption over the course of pregnancy, childbirth and early motherhood in the U.S. The findings trace women’s experiences of disembodiment as they defer and alter their consumption, detail multicultural embodiment favoring South Korean cultural knowledge and traditions, and elaborate how their self-sacrificial and compensatory consumption aids in re-embodiment. The paper contributes to theoretical understandings by elaborating the force and layered dynamics of the agentic body in opposing and supporting women’s maternal identity construction, and as a powerful, gendered agent that orients consumer acculturation processes.     

Exploring expatriate adjustment through identity perspective

This study reveals multifaceted identities experienced by corporate expatriates and how these identities are related to expatriate host country work and non-work adjustment. Specifically, we take a symbolic interactionism-based identity theory perspective and examine qualitative data from 73 corporate expatriates in China and Japan, revealing an expatriate identity (i.e., identification with being a manager and a foreigner), and a cultural identity (i.e., identification with home and host country cultures) which through identity stability/change are related to the mode and degree of expatriate work and non-work adjustment. Our findings suggest that these identities explain how corporate expatriates shape their new environment to their preferences, instead of adjusting to it.     

Message on a bottle: packaging the Great Russian past

This paper employs a visual research method to examine how companies in post-socialist Russia use packaging to construct their brand identity. We analyse the packaging of two product categories in particular, namely chocolate and vodka, and show how packaging is exploited to generate certain types of myths, both about the brand itself and – crucially – about Russia and Russianness. As we show, a large number of brands in Russia build their identity around images associated in one way or another with the country's past. They do so primarily via packaging design. The paper's main contribution lies in the fact that it extends the pioneering work on packaging by Kniazeva and Belk into historical, visual and non-Western areas. In the light of our findings, greater attention needs to be paid both to the role packaging plays in branding and to the socio-historical context in which that branding is itself conducted.     

Further insights into perceived value and consumer loyalty: A “Green” perspective

“Green consumption” is an increasingly important topic in today's society. The effect of the ecological value provided by traditionally non‐green products, such as automobiles, on their consumer's post‐purchase behavior, such as brand or model loyalty, requires further clarification. The present study provides qualitative and quantitative insights from car users on how the ecological aspect of consumption integrates into the link between perceived value and consumer loyalty intentions (value–loyalty link). In general, car usage is accompanied by perceived functional, economic, emotional, and social value. Perceived ecological value is shown to have a significant impact on these four value dimensions. The relevance of “green to have quality,” “green to save money,” “green to feel good,” and “green to be seen” in relation to loyalty intention is discussed. Results of a structural equation model and multigroup analysis provide the opportunity to derive both theoretical and applied implications. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Accessing and affording sustainability: the experience of fashion consumption within young families

Despite the ever increasing levels of fashion consumption, neither retailers nor consumers have as yet implemented sustainability principles to a significant degree. This is despite the fact that sustainability principles are increasingly understood and will be applied by consumers, as long as affordable alternatives in mainstream fashions are available. In a highly competitive fashion retail sector, there exists an opportunity for UK high street fashion retailers to differentiate their brand image through aligning products with consumers' moral frameworks. Using phenomenological interviews, this research explores the fashion consumption experiences of professional women with young children and living in or near Edinburgh, with particular focus on their expression of their own sustainability concerns in their day‐to‐day practices. The findings reveal that in the absence of suitable products, information and labelling, consumers apply heuristics to their choices, especially price. They refer to the more familiar ethical food market which serves as a metaphor for fashion‐related practices. They talk about trustworthy retailers and about how they deal with and rationalize their own practices where they reveal an obvious attitude‐behaviour gap. The women's role of providing for the family adds further complexity in a sector which provides affordable alternative options.     

Covert distinction: how hipsters practice food-based resistance strategies in the production of identity

This paper reveals the processes by which food is used to express resistance to the mainstream and perform identity work within the hipster community of consumption. Based on the findings of a qualitative investigation, several resistance strategies involving food emerged: Vegetarian choices; Brand choices and avoidances; and Decommodification practices. We discuss how these strategies are framed by hipsters' discursive distaste for the commercial food marketing system but are, in practice, operationalised as subtle ways to achieve proper representation of their collective identity within the marketplace. Mundane consumption emerges as motor-force in allowing these consumers to surreptitiously maintain distinction and to protect their within-group identity from mainstream co-optation. We conclude by suggesting that the inconspicuous nature of mundane consumables such as food and alcohol products allows for idiosyncratic shared community performances that are covert and difficult for broader social currents to detect and co-opt.     

Consumption compromises: Negotiation and unification within contemporary families

When cultures interact within the family, consumption decisions take on meaning beyond simply who is the decision maker. The usual compromises all spouses face are amplified when one spouse is displaced from another country. Interviews and observation are used to examine the lived-world of bi-national (where spouses are from different countries of origin) and mono-national families. Key themes emphasize how members of families insert their cultures in navigating consumption decisions and reconciling preferences. Using food consumption as context, findings reveal the extent to which individual partners relinquish part of their personal cultural identities to gain a synergistic collective identity at the family level. In discussing strategies of acknowledgment, negotiation, accommodation and unification, implications are drawn for family decision-making, family identity and consumer–brand relationship theory.     

Financial Identity‐Processing Styles Among Young Adults: A Longitudinal Study of Socialization Factors and Consequences for Financial Capabilities

Using identity theory as a basis for conceptualizing and clustering the financial identity‐processing styles of young adults, this study examines antecedent socialization factors and consequent financial capabilities associated with those clusters. Using two‐timed longitudinal surveys (N = 1,511) of college students, we proposed and confirmed three financial identity‐processing styles, resembling Berzonsky's three identity‐processing styles (i.e., informational, normative, and diffused‐avoidant). Labeled Pathfinders, Followers and Drifters: these three clusters were profiled with respect to their socialization factors and financial capabilities. We concluded that identity theory can be applied to the financial domain, financial identity‐processing styles are influenced by socialization factors (e.g., parents, learning), and these styles have consequences for individuals' financial capabilities (financial knowledge, self‐efficacy, attitudes, and behaviors). Insights from this study may inform the design and implementation of effective financial parenting, financial education and intervention programs, and identify those young adults who may benefit from education and intervention efforts .     

The role of health consciousness,food safety concern and ethical identity on attitudes and intentions towards organic food

The paper examines the roles of health consciousness, food safety concern and ethical self‐identity in predicting attitude and purchase intention within the context of organic produce. A conceptual model is derived and tested via structural equation modelling. Findings indicate food safety as the most important predictor of attitude while health consciousness appears to be the least important motive in contrast to findings from some previous research. In addition, ethical self‐identity is found to predict both attitudes and intention to purchase organic produce, emphasizing that respondents' identification with ethical issues affects their attitude and subsequent consumption choices.     

Becoming respectable: low-income young mothers,consumption and the pursuit of value

Teenage mothers find themselves caught between two discourses: the irresponsibility of youth and the responsibility of motherhood. We unravel some of the complexities surrounding the performance of socially approved ‘good mothering’, from a social position of restricted resources. We demonstrate the relevance of Skeggs’ notion of respectability in order to forge a deeper understanding of how young, low-income new mothers seek to secure social value and legitimacy via the marketplace. We identify a number of consumption strategies centred around identification and dis-identification, yet we recognise that young mothers’ careful marshalling of resources, in relation to consumption, risks being misread and could leave young women open to further scrutiny and negative evaluation, ultimately limiting their opportunity to secure a legitimate maternal identity.     

Learning “who we are” by doing: Processes of co-constructing prosocial identities in community-based enterprises

This study investigates how members in community-based enterprises (CBEs) engage in processes of co-constructing their collective prosocial identities. Based on an inductive analysis of 27 organizations that were formed explicitly as communities and sought to build alternative forms of production and consumption through innovative ways to pool and recombine resources, we found that all of the CBEs engaged in distributed experimentation that lead to epiphany sense-making. These two approaches triggered and enacted collective processes of shifts in identity or identity persistence. We advance a processual model that identifies approaches for how members of CBEs either embrace epiphanies in identity shifts or limit and react to epiphanies in identity persistence.