Date of Graduation

5-2019

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science in Human Environmental Sciences

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Apparel Merchandising and Product Development

Advisor/Mentor

Cho, Eunjoo

Committee Member/Reader

Kopp, Steven

Committee Member/Second Reader

Smith, Kathleen

Abstract

The global luxury market continued to grow to $313-318 billion in 2018 and the market is estimated to reach about $442 billion in sales by 2025 (Arienti, Levato, Kamel, & Montgolfier, 2018). Despite the rapid growth of the luxury market, factors influencing consumers’ perceptions and purchase intentions toward luxury brands remain under investigated. Researchers found consumers rely on extrinsic attributes such as country of origin (CoO) when purchasing luxury products. The mixed results of CoO effect in prior studies yield a need for further research. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the effects of CoO and the attitudinal functions on purchase intentions towards luxury fashion brands across three countries. This study extends the “Functional Theories of Attitudes” by adding materialistic function to social-adjustive, value-expressive, hedonic, and utilitarian functions. A total of 970 online survey responses (US: 418, Chinese: 400, German: 152) were used to test proposed hypotheses. Results identified that the utilitarian function was not a reliable construct in the US and German groups, but it was a reliable variable in the Chinese group. In the US sample, results found that CoO significantly influenced social-adjustive and hedonic functions. In German and Chinese groups, CoO had positive impact on all functions. Hedonic function had the strongest impact on purchase intentions in the three groups. Value-expressive function significantly influenced purchase intentions in the Chinese and German groups. Additional analysis revealed that CoO had much stronger impact than the effect of hedonic function on purchase intentions across cultures. These findings provide theoretical and managerial implications.

Keywords

luxury fashion goods; attitude; purchase intention; cross-cultural; country of origin

Download

Share

COinS