Attributions of blame following a product-harm crisis depend on consumers’ attachment styles

This research examines consumers’ attachment styles as a predictor of attributions of blame following a product-harm crisis. Though the interpersonal attachment literature suggests that consumers with the secure attachment style should attribute the least amount of blame to the brand, we introduce a novel and seemingly contradictory hypothesis. Because of the unique nature of brand relationships, we hypothesize that consumers with the fearful attachment style will attribute the least amount of blame to the brand. In an experiment, we find support for both hypotheses. Further, we find that these effects occur via different mechanisms. Whereas the secure attachment style decreases attributions of controllability, the fearful attachment style decreases attributions of stability. Though many relationship tendencies have been transferred from the interpersonal domain to the consumer domain, our findings remind researchers that brands are a distinct type of relationship partner.     

Identification and Aftermarket Personalization with Durable Goods

Blending elements of the heuristic–systematic model and social identity theory, the authors extend theory by exploring the role of intimacy as a key boundary condition for identification (ID). Specifically, this research illustrates how intimacy affects the relationship between brand characteristics (prestige and distinctiveness) and ID. Further, the authors explore the relationship between ID and aftermarket spending on accessories. In a consumer durables setting, the authors conducted a field study with 1,193 consumers and matched customer perceptions with their actual retail spending on aftermarket goods. The results suggest that an individual's intimacy with a brand may affect how prestige and distinctiveness shape their ID. In addition, results show that the relationship between ID and customer aftermarket spending is moderated by a customer's level of satisfaction. Managerial implications of the findings are also outlined.     

Political ideology and brand attachment

We introduce political conservatism as possibly associated with brand attachment. We propose that conservatism, in particular, might be related to stronger attachment bonds to brands due to greater feelings of uncertainty, encouraging consumers to seek security via forming brand attachment bonds. In five studies, we demonstrate a relationship between conservatism and brand attachment. Uncertainty is able to explain the relationship, as attachment bonds to brands can appease conservatives' uncertainty. We also observe downstream consequences for price sensitivity and purchase intentions. Finally, the relationship may arise primarily for a brand with a domestic (vs. foreign) country-of-origin. Accordingly, consumers' political ideology may play a role in brand attachment with implications for how brand managers can segment or target the market in order to predict consumer–brand relationships. We situate our work more generally on the relevance of consumers' political ideology for marketing activities.     

I love the product but will you? The role of interpersonal attachment styles in social projection

Individuals often have a need to predict the preferences of others (e.g., offering a recommendation, gift giving). In doing so, it is not uncommon that individuals project their attitudes and preferences onto others. Extant consumer research literature related to social projection focuses largely on particular situational variables that influence social projection. The current research adds to a smaller body of consumer research which focuses on specific characteristics of consumers’ selves that may drive an individual's tendency to project his/her attitudes onto others. Specifically, the present paper explores an individual‐level moderator of social projection, namely, interpersonal attachment style. Across five studies, interpersonal attachment style, and attachment anxiety, specifically, is shown to influence social projection. In addition, the mechanism underlying this relationship is demonstrated. The results show that high (vs. low) anxious attachment individuals tend to naturally consider more counter‐valence attributes of a product, that is., liked attributes of a disliked product and disliked attributes of a liked product, and this availability of counter‐valence attributes lowers social projection. Important theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

A psychological examination of attachment insecurity,loneliness, and fear of missing out as drivers of retail patronage among emerging adults

Recent consumer literature has shown that attachment insecurity (i.e., anxious, avoidant) enhances individual's motivations for retail shopping. We extend that literature using attachment theory to explain how attachment insecurity, loneliness (i.e., social, emotional), and fear of missing out (FoMO) affect retail patronage. We posit that these three negatively valenced psychosocial conditions generally incline emerging adult consumers toward retail patronage to resolve their relational deficits. Based on results from partial least squares-structural equation modeling (n = 509), we find support for most of our hypotheses. The study presents previously unavailable knowledge about antecedents of FoMO and multiple negative psychosocial drivers of retail patronage. We provide a foundation for future scholarship to examine more broadly how attachment, loneliness, and FoMO impact consumer behavior. Managerial and theoretical implications are also provided.     

Would you forgive Kristen Stewart or Tiger Woods or maybe Lance Armstrong? Exploring consumers’ forgiveness of celebrities’ transgressions

Employing a qualitative approach, within the context of Generation Y consumers, this research investigates the internal justification processes used by consumers contemplating to forgive a celebrity who has transgressed society’s norms of acceptable behaviour. A thematic analysis of data from in-depth interviews identified nine emergent categories, grouped into four themes or core drivers: celebrity-related drivers, consumer-related drivers, context-related drivers and time-related drivers. The findings show that although there is generally no personal relationship between consumers and celebrities, consumers tend to bond with celebrities in para-social relationships. Many consumers see these relationships as similar to how they connect with friends thus leading them to show forgiveness tendencies towards a celebrity comparable to forgiving friends. The paper presents a conceptual framework highlighting the consumer’s forgiveness justification process.     

The Devil might wear Prada,but Narcissus wears counterfeit Gucci! How social adjustive functions influence counterfeit luxury purchases

People buy counterfeit luxury goods for a range of reasons, including status and belonging. Previous research has shown these stem from an individual's value-expressive or social-adjustive attitudes. However, there appears to be limited research identifying a clear causal relationship between these and intention to purchase counterfeit goods, or how these attitude functions might be used to inhibit purchase of counterfeit luxury products. Using a mixed (survey/experiment) design, in two studies this research demonstrates an individual's social adjustive function has a positive influence on purchase intent for counterfeit luxury goods. However, the use of value expressive ad appeals can limit this effect on consumer decision making. The findings also demonstrate the existence of contingent effects across different levels of product involvement and product knowledge. The contingent effects help better understand the inconsistent findings in the literature regarding the influence of value-expressive and social-adjustive functions on counterfeit purchase intention, and shed light on the interplay among these variables.     

CSR attributions and the moderating effect of perceived CSR fit on consumer trust,identification, and loyalty

Although many companies have engaged in corporate social responsibility (CSR) actions to elicit positive customer responses, the motivation behind CSR actions plays an important role in how effective they are, often leading to unexpected outcomes. While previous literature has placed a strong emphasis on value- and strategy-driven CSR actions, the changing consumer perceptions of and responses to these CSR actions remain less understood. Therefore, the current study investigates 1) how a company's CSR attribution affects consumer trust, identification, and loyalty and 2) how the perceived CSR fit moderates these relationships. The results indicate that value-driven, strategic, and stakeholder-driven attributions have positive effects on consumer trust, influencing consumer-company identification and loyalty positively. Further, we find that perceived CSR fit significantly moderates the relationship between strategic attribution and trust and between trust and loyalty. This study provides meaningful implications for both academia and industry, as it illustrates the changes in consumer views following the global pandemic relative to consumer views revealed in earlier studies.     

Entrepreneurial intentions: The influence of organizational and individual factors

An individual's intent to pursue an entrepreneurial career can result from the work environment and from personal factors. Drawing on the entrepreneurial intentions and the person-environment (P-E) fit literatures, and applying a multilevel perspective, we examine why individuals intend to leave their jobs to start business ventures. Findings, using a sample of 4192 IT professionals in Singapore, suggest that work environments with an unfavorable innovation climate and/or lack of technical excellence incentives influence entrepreneurial intentions, through low job satisfaction. Moderating effects suggest that an individual's innovation orientation strengthens the work-environment to job-satisfaction relationship; self-efficacy strengthens the job-satisfaction to entrepreneurial intentions relationship.     

Sex-Typed Service Images: An Empirical Investigation of Self-Service Variables

This article presents a study of sex-typed service images based on gender research in marketing and service encounter theory. The purpose is to address the issues of how and why services as distinct from products acquire a sex-typed image. Two streams of research provide the variables hypothesized to influence sex- image determination: gender research provides individual variables related to the consumer him/herself, and service encounter research provides variables related to the service itself. Consumer variables include an individual's biological and psychological sex image and personal use, while service variables deal with the sex image of the firm's characteristic provider and typical customer. A study conducted to test the hypotheses that both sets of variables influence a service's sex-typed image is presented. Marketing implications for development and promotion of new services and re-positioning of extant ones are discussed.     

Materialism and life satisfaction: The moderating roles of alexithymia and product retention tendency

This research examines how alexithymia and product retention tendency affect the relationship between materialism and life satisfaction. Extant research has established that materialism has a negative effect on personal well‐being and that consumer culture and marketing facilitates this effect by encouraging consumers to focus on material pursuits to satisfy extrinsic goals. However, previous research has not explored how emotional personality traits and lifestyle values influence this “dark side” of materialism. Alexithymia is an emotional personality trait that inhibits an individual's ability to identify, describe and regulate emotions. Results from survey data show that alexithymia moderates the effect of materialism on life satisfaction, such that the effect is negative for individuals without alexithymia, but positive for individuals with alexithymia. Moreover, product retention tendency attenuates the negative effect of materialism for individuals without alexithymia, but strengthens the positive effect of materialism for individuals with alexithymia. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Attachment orientations in business‐to‐business relationships

Attachment theory has produced an impressive body of evidence for explaining individual differences in personal relationship behavior. The current study examines whether attachment theory can be fruitfully extended to business‐to‐business relationships. Hypotheses about the impact of personal attachment orientations on key relationship constructs are developed and empirically tested in two business‐to‐business relationships. Customers who are securely attached in their personal relationships with their romantic partners experience higher levels of satisfaction, trust, and repurchase intent in their business‐to‐business relationships. In addition, an attachment scale that is specifically tailored for a business‐to‐business context is developed. Two dimensions of business attachment are empirically derived: secure business attachment measures the ability and willingness to rely on the business partner, and close business attachment measures the desire to develop personal bonds with a business partner or its employees. The two business attachment dimensions can be used to segment customers with respect to their intrinsic retainability and their preference for personal bonding with their business partners. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

A Sustainable Pathway to Consumer Wellbeing. The Role of Anticonsumption and Consumer Empowerment

This study investigates the effect of different anticonsumption constructs on consumer wellbeing. The study assumes that people will only lower their level of consumption if doing so does not also lower personal wellbeing. More precisely, this research investigates how specific subtypes of sustainable anticonsumption (e.g., voluntary simplicity, collaborative consumption, and debt-free living) relate to different states of consumer's wellbeing (e.g., financial, psychosocial, and subjective wellbeing). This work also examines whether consumer empowerment can improve personal wellbeing and strengthen the anticonsumption wellbeing relationship. The results show that voluntarily foregoing consumption does not reduce wellbeing and consumer empowerment plays a significant role in supporting sustainable pathways to consumer wellbeing. This study reasons that empowerment improves consumer sovereignty, but may be detrimental for consumers heavily concerned about debt-free living. The present investigation concludes by proposing implications for public and consumer policymakers wishing to promote appropriate sustainable (anticonsumption) pathways to consumer wellbeing.     

It's about our values: How founder's stories influence brand authenticity

Companies increasingly share the stories behind their brand's founding to engage consumers. The current studies explore how the motives that underlie business formation in founder's stories influence consumer brand perceptions. Specifically, stories that highlight self‐transcendence (vs. self‐enhancement) founder values enhance the perceived authenticity of the focal brand. We examine narrative co fidelity as a mechanism of narrative persuasion through which the audience judges whether the motives underlying character actions represent “good reasons” for action. Across three studies, we show that the values underlying a founder's motivation to start a business influence the perceived authenticity of the associated brand, and this relationship is mediated by narrative fidelity. Further, reader's personal values moderate the influence of founder's values on narrative fidelity judgments, and the relationship between narrative fidelity and brand authenticity is attenuated by a merger between the original company and another company, demonstrating a boundary condition of the observed relationships.     

Results May Vary: Overcoming Variability in Consumer Response to Advertising Music

Although listening to music seems effortless, it actually involves many separate psychological mechanisms. This article describes and extends the multimechanism framework proposed by Juslin and colleagues, highlighting how the operation of psychological mechanisms leads to two general types of variability in consumer response to advertising music. First, the risk of between‐consumer variability (individual differences) in musical response is moderate or high for most mechanisms, and it often depends on each individual's particular history of exposure to music (listening biography). Second, within‐consumer variability occurs when different mechanisms have contrasting effects, so that an individual consumer's musical response is often mixed (e.g., guilty pleasures, bittersweet feelings, pleasurable sadness). Both types of variability can negatively impact advertising objectives (message reception, recall, acceptance, brand attitudes, etc.). The article offers preliminary suggestions for how marketers can use a multimechanism approach to successfully incorporate music in commercials and reduce the risk of unanticipated consumer responses. It ends with proposals for further research.     

Response to social media influencers: Consumer dispositions as drivers

Brand managers use social media influencers (SMIs) to influence consumers' attitudes and intentions. However, there is still ambiguity about the mechanisms by which SMIs influence their followers, as well as the metrics by which their performance can be evaluated. The existing literature has restricted itself to consumers' purchase intentions in order to evaluate SMIs influence and is silent on the role of the consumers' individual characteristics in SMIs influence mechanisms. Based on these research gaps and to provide a clearer picture of the SMI influence mechanism to practitioners, the present study assesses the role of consumer characteristics such as their social media attachment (SMA), parasocial relationships with social media influencer (PSR-SMIs), and susceptibility to SMIs influence (SSMII) in driving consumer response to SMIs influence through SMI compliance intentions. Study 1 found the sequential mediational role of PSR-SMIs and SSMII in the SMA-SMI compliance intentions relationship. Study 2 found the same sequential mediation and demonstrated how SMI skepticism negatively moderates the relationship between PSR-SMIs and SMI compliance intentions. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first time that this skepticism variable is being explored in the SMI literature.     

THE IMPACT OF ORDER FULFILLMENT SERVICE ON RETAILER MERCHANDISING DECISIONS IN THE CONSUMER DURABLES INDUSTRY

Historically, manufacturers held the upper hand in consumer goods supply chain relationships. There has been a pervasive shift of power to retailers over the past 20 years, however, ushering in an era of waning consumer loyalty to manufacturers' brands and increasing loyalty to retailers. While there is extensive research focusing on the manufacturer‐consumer relationship, retailers' increased ability to influence consumer purchases suggests that manufacturers should understand not only consumer perceptions of delivery service, but also retailer perceptions. We incorporate social network theory to examine the manufacturer‐retailer‐consumer linkages in the consumer durables industry, with the emphasis on the retailer in the role of the “broker” (Burt 1992). Specifically, we examine whether retailer perceptions of a manufacturer's order fulfillment service (OFS) positively impacts retailer perceptions of the manufacturer's brand, the importance of the product, and the likelihood of the retailers' salespeople to recommend the product to consumers. The research bridges OFS and retailer purchase behavior in a consumer durables industry characterized by high levels of consumer involvement, brand presence, and personal selling.     

The individual dual needs for assimilation and distinctiveness as a segmentation mechanism: developing the concept among students

The present study proposes that the individual's needs for assimilation and distinctiveness serve as a valuable mechanism for consumer segmentation and suggests that augmenting the List of Values with these dual needs enriches the understanding of consumer responses to marketing strategies. Results of a study using a sample of 536 students in an Israeli university identified five segments with significantly different needs for assimilation and differentiation. These segments showed different preferences for marketing communications and distribution channels in their purchasing decision of a cell phone. Mass media and website usage influenced segments marked by high assimilation, while word of mouth influenced segments characterized by high distinctiveness. Augmenting the List of Values with dual needs based segmentation moderated students’ tendencies to favour/dislike marketing communications and distribution channels.     

Trust,Commitment, and Older Women: Exploring Brand Attachment Differences in the Elderly Segment

Understanding older adults’ product consumption behavior is of high importance to consumer and marketing research. Prior studies have mainly focused on older adults’ cognitive decline and compared their behavior to that of younger consumers. A neglected area of research has been older consumers’ brand attachment that is associated with potential differences between consumers in their fifties and in their seventies. In this article, the authors provide insights into the under‐researched field of elderly women's brand attachment. Drawing on socioemotional selectivity theory, a shift toward emotional aspects in brand relationships is proposed. A model involving trust and commitment processes is developed and empirically tested in a survey among 341 older women. Moderator analyses reveal significant differences between the “younger elderly” and the “older elderly” in relationships among self‐concept connection, partner quality, trust, and commitment. For the younger elderly, how a brand is (based on trust judgments) seems to be more important. For the older elderly, what a brand does in its role as relationship partner becomes more relevant.