Journal of Business Research

Journal of Business Research 130 (2021) 1–13 10 8.2. Theoretical implications Our current research is different from prior empiricism on counterfeit luxury fashion brands. For example, Wilcox et al. (2009) and Ngo et al. (2020) investigated how dissimilar attitude functions impact counterfeit product purchases. Schade et al.’s (2016) undertaking explored how attitude functions impact luxury consumption among different age groups. Unlike previous work that focused on the main effect of attitude functions, we examined the moderating role of attitude functions to explain how counterfeit dominance influences perceived quality and purchase intention for consumers with different cultural backgrounds (Anglo-American vs. Asian customers). This research contributes to the literature on luxury fashion brand consumption, cross-cultural psychology, and counterfeit consumption. Although work in the luxury fashion brand consumption literature has examined the motivation of buying counterfeit offerings (Bian, & Moutinho, 2009; Cordell et al., 1996; Poddar, Foreman, Banerjee, & Ellen, 2012) and the factors that influence consumers’ willingness to purchase them—such as consumer-brand connections (Randhawa et al., 2015) and consumer attachment (Kaufmann et al., 2016) —our efforts are the first to investigate the effect of counterfeit dominance on brand owners’ perceptions and purchase intention of their luxury fashion brands in a cross-cultural context. We uniquely defined counterfeit dominance and revealed that in the situation of counterfeit dominance, consumers’ perceptions and purchase intention of their own authentic brand varied depending on their culturally-rooted attitudes toward luxury fashion brand consumption. We also contribute to cross-cultural psychology literature by showing that luxury fashion brand consumers from different cultures tend to possess a strong (or weak) social-adjustive attitude toward luxury fashion brands. Prior research suggested that culture influences luxury consumption (Choi, et al., 2020; Shukla & Purani, 2012; Stathopoulou, & Balabanis, 2019; Zhan & He, 2012). Although marketing scholars have discussed luxury value perceptions in a cross-cultural context (e.g., Shukla & Purani, 2012), we are also the first to find that consumers’ social-adjustive attitudes moderate the effect of counterfeit dominance on purchase intention. Furthermore, although most crosscultural studies of counterfeit goods have mainly focused on understanding differences in consumers’ attitudes, perceived risks, ethical beliefs, and purchase intentions toward counterfeits (Harvey & Walls, 2003; Lee & Workman, 2011), our exploration uniquely examined the impact of counterfeit dominance on consumers’ reactions toward their authentic luxury fashion brands in different cultures. This research also adds to the counterfeit consumption literature. Prior counterfeit work primarily focused on how counterfeit items affect consumer perceptions of authentic luxury fashion brands (Commuri, 2009; Fournier, 1998; Hellofs and Jacobson, 1999). However, scant work has investigated how the percentage of counterfeit products, relative to authentic, luxury fashion brands, affects consumers’ purchase intention of authentic brands. Our findings suggest that, when counterfeit offerings comprise more than 50% of the market (counterfeit dominance), consumers’ purchase intention of authentic brands differs depending on their cultural background and underlying attitude functions. 8.3. Managerial implications Our research offers several implications for marketing practice. Although some luxury fashion brands (e.g., Louis Vuitton) are frequently counterfeited in certain countries, little is known regarding how consumers react to a luxury fashion brand when competitive counterfeit offerings dominate the market. This issue becomes increasingly complex when we consider consumers from dissimilar cultural backgrounds. Our research indicates that acknowledgment of counterfeit dominance is more adverse for Anglo-American, than Asian, fashion brand owners. As Fig. 8. Purchase intention as a function of culture and counterfeit dominance (study 4). Table 1 Summary of studies. Study Participants Samples Hypotheses Tested Results 1 Luxury Brand Owners Chinese in China (100% born in China) and Anglo-Americans in the U.S. H2a & H2b All Supported 2 College Students Chinese in China (assumed 100% born in China) and AngloAmericans in the U.S. H1a & H1b and H4a & H4b All Supported 3 Mturkers Asian-Americans in the U.S. (31.1% born in Asia) and AngloAmericans in the U.S. H3 Supported 4 College Students Chinese in China (assumed 100% born in China) and AngloAmericans in the U.S. H5a & H5b All Supported L. Song et al.

Journal of Business Research 130 (2021) 1–13 11 a result, luxury fashion brand manufacturers should collaborate with news and social media websites to reduce the amount of information related to counterfeiting of their luxury fashion brands and cooperate with government agencies to prevent counterfeit dominance in the Anglo-American culture. However, because Asian brand owners’ perceptions of luxury fashion brands are strongly affected by their peers, luxury fashion brand manufacturers should focus increasingly on strategies—such as word-of-mouth—to influence these consumers’ peers to augment the purchase of those brands. Thus, luxury fashion brand managers should segment their consumers by culture and develop different marketing strategies to remedy the loss of sales from counterfeit dominance. Also, study findings have implications for loyalty management strategies for luxury fashion brand manufacturers in different cultures. We found that for brand owners with an Anglo-American cultural background, counterfeit dominance reduces their purchase intention—or their loyalty toward that brand. Thus, luxury fashion brand managers should deploy strategies, such as VIP memberships, to maintain consumer loyalty, especially for brand owners with an AngloAmerican cultural identity. However, for brand owners with a Asian cultural background, providing a group discount may increase influence from these consumers’ peers to purchase luxury fashion brands. Our work also offers a stepping stone for exploring approaches that could potentially increase consumers’ purchase intention of authentic products relative to counterfeit goods. Counterfeit dominance negatively impacts purchase intention of authentic brands for consumers with weak social-adjustive attitudes. Therefore, by underscoring perceived quality in advertisements, marketers conceivably could augment consumers’ perceived quality of these brands. The denouement should be enhanced purchase intention of those brands. Thus, authentic luxury fashion brand manufacturers should create such kinds of advertisements in cultures with a weak social-adjustive attitude. Consumers from cultures with a robust social-adjustive attitude, though, are more likely to be affected by their peer groups. Accordingly, authentic brand manufacturers could adopt a group promotion approach to encourage peer group influence on buying behavior. 9. Limitations and future research Limitations of this study provide opportunities for future research. Although we measured and manipulated culture and recruited participants from our targeted cultures, we cannot rule out all alternative explanations. For example, luxury fashion brands have existed in the U.S. for over 100 years but are relatively new to Asian countries (e.g., China). Therefore, Asian consumers might believe that luxury fashion brands are desirable because of their novelty. As a result, their purchase intention might not be easily influenced by counterfeit dominance. This potential phenomenon thus merits empirical attention. Second, our work only examined Anglo-American versus Asian consumers’ reactions toward counterfeit dominance. To examine the generalizability of our results, further research is needed that compares responses from individuals in other countries/regions with similar cultural backgrounds as Anglo-Americans (e.g., Britain, Ireland, northern Germany) and those with Asian cultural values (e.g., South Korea, Japan). Future work investigating differences among consumers across other cultures, such as Europeans, can also enhance theory and practice. For example, because Europe is the birthplace and a significant market for numerous luxury fashion brands, investigating how European consumers react to their counterfeit dominant brands would be interesting. We believe that such empiricism regarding this issue could offer major advances in the counterfeit literature. Third, we focused solely on investigating the impact of socialadjustive attitudes. Because both social-adjustive and value-expressive attitudes could drive luxury fashion brand purchase intention, the effect we found may be only partially driven by a social-adjustive attitude. Future research may examine whether a value-expressive attitude could affect consumers’ purchase intentions of luxury fashion brands in different cultures in the context of counterfeit dominance. Given that both social-adjustive and value-expressive attitudes impact the purchase intention of counterfeit luxury fashion brands (Wilcox et al., 2009), researchers may also compare how social-adjustive and value-expressive attitudes affect consumers’ purchase intention in dissimilar cultures in response to counterfeit dominance. Such work will help authentic luxury fashion brand manufacturers tailor their marketing campaigns to improve attraction of customers with various attitude functions and to combat counterfeit offerings. Fourth, although we found that counterfeit dominance affected the perceived quality of luxury fashion brands differently for participants with high and low social-adjustive attitudes, whether this same effect would occur vis-a-vis ` familiarity, image, and brand loyalty remains unknown. Random assignment procedures control for individual differences that may be present among participants (Gilovich et al., 2006; Howell, 2002). Brand image, or brand associations, is “anything linked to the memory of a brand” (Aaker, 1991, p. 109). Brand loyalty is “the attachment that a customer has to a brand” (Aaker, 1991, p. 39). Conceivably, counterfeit offerings will impact brand image and loyalty and further affect consumers’ purchase intentions. These foci merit empirical attention in the context of our work. Although other components of customer-based brand equity (CBBE) are essential in predicting consumers’ luxury fashion brands’ purchase intentions, our research specifically focused on the role of perceived quality and culture (social-adjustive attitude). We proposed a moderated mediation model to acquire enhanced understanding of the role of counterfeit offerings on consumers’ perceptions of the quality of the luxury fashion brands in different cultural contexts. Concurrently, we controlled for the possible confounding impact of familiarity, image, and brand loyalty using experimental design. Examining the moderated mediation of all components of CBBE with social-adjustive attitude in one investigation would be too cumbersome and inefficient using experimental design. To explore the impact of counterfeit offerings on all four components of CBBE under different cultures, however, future research can employ a structural equation model to account for the effect of all dimensions. Finally, all studies were conducted in lab settings or online; this may limit our findings’ generalizability. Although field studies can increase validity and generalizability, conducting external studies of counterfeit dominance is difficult. Nevertheless, future research that analyzes secondary data from the luxury fashion industry could help enhance arguments and assist scholars and practitioners to improve understanding of cultural differences in counterfeit dominance. References Aaker, D. A. (1991). Managing brand equity: Capitalizing on the value of a brand name. New York, NY: Free Press. Andr´e, L. R., Thebault, M., & Roy, Y. (2019). Do product category and consumers’ motivations profiles matter regarding counterfeiting? 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Journal of Business Research 130 (2021) 1–13 13 Yoo, B., & Lee, S. (2012). Asymmetrical effects of past experiences with genuine fashion luxury fashion brands and their counterfeits on purchase intention of each. Journal of Business Research, 65(10), 1507–1515. Zeithaml, V. A. (1988). Consumer perceptions of price, quality, and value: A means-end model and synthesis of evidence. Journal of Marketing, 52(3), 2–22. Zhan, L., & He, Y. (2012). Understanding luxury consumption in China: Consumer perceptions of best-known brands. Journal of Business Research, 65(10), 1452–1460. Lei Song (Ph.D., Drexel University) is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Business Program of the Pennsylvania State University—Abington, Abington, PA, USA. His research focuses on providing business insights by exploring how cultural, individual, and social factors affect consumers’ purchasing behavior in both online and in-store retail contexts. His work has been published in Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Business Horizons, Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, Journal of Marketing Channels, and other venues. He can be reached at [email protected]. Yan Meng (Ph.D., Baruch College/City University of New York) is assistant professor in the marketing department at Grenoble Ecole de Management in France. Her research area involves how identity, linguistic, sensory, contextual cues, and cultural meanings influence consumer judgment and decision making. Her work has been published in academic journals such as Journal of Business Research and Psychology & Marketing. She can be reached at [email protected]. Hua Chang (Ph.D., Drexel University) is an Assistant Professor of Marketing in the Marketing Department at Towson University, Towson, MD, USA. His work has been published in Journal of Business Research, International Journal of Advertising, Journal of Product & Brand Management, and other outlets. He can be reached at [email protected]. Wenjing Li (Ph.D., University of Kentucky) is an Assistant Professor of Marketing in the Department of Management and Marketing at Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, TX, USA. Her work has been published in Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. She can be reached at [email protected]. Kang (Frank) Tan (Ph. D., University of British Columbia) is chairman of ACIP Technology Ltd. Co., China. His work has been published in Journal of Marketing Channels. He can be reached at [email protected]. L. Song et al.

Journal of Business Research 137 (2021) 244–254 Available online 25 August 2021 0148-2963/© 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. The effect of religious commitment and global identity on purchase intention of luxury fashion products: A cross-cultural study Jieqiong Ma a , JungHwa Hong b , Boonghee Yoo a , Jie Yang b,* a Department of Marketing and International Business, Hofstra University, United States b Department of Management and Marketing, University of Texas at Tyler, United States ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Social Identity Religious commitment Global identity Luxury purchase intention ABSTRACT Drawing insights from social identity theory, this research investigates the interactive effects among consumers’ perceived social value, religious commitment, and global identity on their purchase intention of luxury fashion products in a cross-cultural context. In a study of 307 American and 283 Thai participants, this research shows that consumers’ perceived social value is positively related to the purchase intention of luxury goods in both countries. It also finds that global identity enhances the positive relationship between perceived social value and luxury purchase intention in both countries. Interestingly, this research shows that consumers’ religious commitment escalates the positive relationship between perceived social value and purchase intention of luxury goods if religious commitment is low in Thailand but it is high in the U.S. The analysis result of this study provides ample theoretical and managerial implications. 1. Introduction Although there is a strong and rapidly growing demand for global luxury goods, the luxury industry has faced several changes over the past two decades. Especially, ongoing economic trends and evolving consumer culture have created new challenges for both luxury manufacturers and retailers. To better understand this burgeoning global luxury market, existing literature has investigated consumers’ purchase behavior on luxury goods from various perspectives. Some studies examined the impact of social media (Kudeshia & Kumar, 2017; Lee & Watkins, 2016), while others discussed the influence of brand consciousness and loyalty on luxury consumption (Liu et al., 2012; Zhang & Kim, 2013). Recently, many scholars have re-invoked the concept of social identity and perceived value of luxury goods to explain consumers’ purchase intention of luxury goods (Amaral & Loken, 2016; Kauppinen-Rais ¨ anen ¨ et al., 2018). However, the multi-dimensional nature of consumers’ social identity (Kang & Bodenhausen, 2015) and the significant social value of luxury goods (Hennigs et al., 2012) necessitates further investigation into the impact of consumers’ social identity on their purchase intentions. Religious identity is an important aspect of social identity and has a great impact on consumer behavior (Cos¸gel & Minkler, January 2). Religious identification offers a distinctive “sacred” worldview and “eternal” group membership, unmatched by identification with other social groups (Ysseldyk et al., 2010). Specifically, religion affects consumer psychology and behavior through four dimensions—beliefs, rituals, values, and community (Mathras et al., 2016). According to Mathras et al. (2016), religious beliefs about external control (e.g., belief in a controlling God) will mitigate the personal control on preference for luxury products. They also suggest the ability of religions to provide social support (such as affiliation and sense of belonging) to members, while at the same time increasing the level of interdependence among members. The social support received by members might mitigate their needs of luxury consumption. However, a high level of interdependence (vs. independence) might increase their preference for luxury products that help them stand out rather than fit into their social groups. Thus, we believe the impact of religion on luxury consumption is an important yet complex one and worth exploring. Similar to religious identity, global identity is also a widely shared social identity across the world (Katzarska-Miller et al., 2014). As the world is becoming more globalized and interconnected, we need to better understand its impacts on luxury consumption (Yang et al., 2018). To examine the associations between religion and global identity, Katzarska-Miller et al.(2014) found quest religious motivation (search the answers of the meaning of life) was positively related to openness and prosocial values such as global identity. It makes sense because * Corresponding author at: Soules School of Business Suite 350.34, The University of Texas at Tyler, Tyler, TX 75799, United States. E-mail address: [email protected] (J. Yang). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Business Research journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.08.040 Received 8 February 2021; Received in revised form 16 August 2021; Accepted 19 August 2021

Journal of Business Research 137 (2021) 244–254 245 religiosity is related to prosocial values such as caring for the poor, forgiveness, peace, social justice, human rights, and moral responsibility and religion has always been global (Juergensmeyer, 2009). Regions span across country borders and are embraced by followers of diverse nationalities. Members belong to the same religion devoted to the common spiritual beliefs and religious practices and share the sense of identity even they come from different countries. Despite the apparent association between religion and global identity, little empirical research has examined luxury consumption taking into consideration both. This study aims to extend the current understanding of how consumers’ various social identities and the self-verification process impact their purchase intention of luxury goods. Specifically, this study explores how consumers’ religious commitment and global identity affect their purchase motivations of luxury goods in a cross-country setting. Religious commitment and global identity are distinct social identities, and both constructs have been studied separately rather than simultaneously in consumer behavior literature. Religious commitment refers to the degree to which a person adheres to his or her religious values, beliefs, and practices, and uses them in daily living (Worthington et al., 2003). As a highly institutionalized form of spirituality, this commitment influences an individual’s ethical judgment and decision-making (Pace, 2013; Swimberghe et al., 2009). In the marketing area, many scholars have examined the impact of religious commitment on consumer behavior. Delener (1990) found that religious individuals tend to perceive higher risks in their purchase decisions. Furnham & Valgeirsson (2007) claimed that religiosity could affect consumers’ purchase intention towards counterfeit products. In addition, it has been demonstrated that consumers’ religious commitments influence their attitude towards materialism and life quality (Kassim & Zain, 2016; Pace, 2013). Taken together, as one of the most traditional and prevalent social identities in human society (Rehman & Shahbaz Shabbir, 2010), consumers’ religious commitment could influence their purchase decisions in numerous ways. Over the last two decades, the influence of religious commitment has been potentially complicated by the explosive growth of communication technology and global media, which has resulted in the development of a new identity, namely, global identity (Yang et al., 2018). Global identity refers to an individual’s interest in global culture and identification with people around the world (Gao et al., 2017). An increasing number of studies have focused on the impact of global identity on consumers’ purchase decisions (Ma et al., 2020). For example, Alden et al. (2006) found that consumers with strong global identities tend to expand their cultural horizons across national borders and embrace global fashion. Zhang and Khare (2009) suggested that consumers with high global identity prefer global products over local ones. Further, Westjohn et al. (2012) claimed that consumers with high global identity tend to purchase more global products to enhance their self-image and distinguish themselves from others. Generally, researchers agree that as a result of globalization, consumers’ global identity could affect their attitudes towards certain categories of products and services. However, most studies separately explore the impacts of consumers’ religious commitment and global identity on their purchase decision from various angles; very few integrate these two social identities to explain consumers’ purchase intention of luxury products. This study will try to make three major contributions to the literature. First, consumers’ purchase decisions are inevitably influenced by their own perceived social identities; specifically, religious commitment and global identity. Extensive research has shown that consumers’ values, attitudes, and behavior patterns are affected by their religious commitment. For example, religious commitment has been found to affect attitudes towards riskiness, materialism, social responsibility, and philanthropy (Pace, 2013; Ramasamy et al., 2010; Vitell, 2015). Additionally, the expansion of globalization has made researchers pay attention to global identity as another critical social identity that could affect consumers’ purchase decisions (Okazaki et al., 2019; Yang et al., 2018). By integrating both social identities, our study provides a more comprehensive understanding of how consumers’ social identity and self-verification process influence their purchase intention of luxury goods. Second, we examine our theoretical framework in a cross-country setting. We choose the U.S. and Thailand as our samples representing two ends in multiple aspects. The U.S. is widely considered one of the largest and most important luxury markets in the world (Chattalas & Shukla, 2015). Based on a recent report from Gallup, Christians represent 70.6% of the U.S. population (Pew Research Center, 2021). In contrast, Thailand is heavily Buddhist, with a burgeoning emerging economy and a fast-growing market for luxury goods (Tiwsakul & Hackley, 2012). By examining our theoretical framework in these two countries with significantly different cultural environments and economic development, we further strengthen the validity and credibility of this study. Third, our study findings provide important managerial implications to both luxury manufacturers and retailers. Emerging economies like Thailand with rapid domestic growth and rising middle classes play an increasingly important role in the global luxury goods market. Consumers in such countries are influenced by both long-lasting religious traditions and modern global culture. Luxury product marketers and retailers should be aware of how consumers’ religious commitment and global identity impact their purchase decisions. The rest of this article is organized as follows. First, we briefly review the literature about the impact of social identity on consumers’ purchase intention of luxury goods. Next, we develop a conceptual model with six hypotheses theorizing how perceived social value, religious commitment, and global identity influence consumers’ purchase intention of luxury goods in the U.S. and Thailand. Then, we report our data collection process, the analysis method applied in the study, and the test results. We conclude with a discussion, implications, and limitations. 2. Social identity theory and purchase intention of luxury goods Everyone belongs to a variety of social groups structured around signifiers such as occupation, cultural orientation, religious belief, and nationality. Social identity theory examines the relationship of the individual with the group and attempts to illustrate how people identify with and behave as part of a group (Zeugner-Roth et al., 2015). By definition, social identity refers to “an individual’s self-concept which derives from his knowledge of his membership of a social group (or groups) together with the emotional significance attached to that membership” (Tajfel, 1974). Social identity theory proposes that individuals tend to simplify the social world by classifying themselves and others into various social groups. This social categorization not only helps them cognitively segment and order the social environment but also provides them with a means to define themselves and others (Tajfel et al., 1979). In addition, social identity theory suggests that people strive to achieve or maintain a positive social identity which largely derives from favorable comparisons between their own and other groups (Hogg, 2006). While shopping, consumers often engage in identitycongruent behaviors and evaluate products more favorably when the product is tied with their perceived social identity, they are motivated to purchase that product to verify, confirm, and maintain their perceived self-image (White et al., 2012). Researchers have increasingly applied the social identity theory to understand consumer behavior from various perspectives. For example, by studying consumers’ product judgment in Austria and Slovenia, Zeugner-Roth et al. (2015) claim that consumers’ social identity critically impacts their ethnocentrism and cosmopolitanism which further influences their willingness to buy foreign and domestic products. (Lam et al., 2010) found that social identity theory is helpful to evaluate the relationship among new brand awareness, acceptance, and loyalty from their study in Spain. Furthermore, through research of consumers’ online shopping behavior in the U.S., Stanaland et al.(2011) propose that consumers’ social responsibility is also J. Ma et al.

Journal of Business Research 137 (2021) 244–254 246 influenced by their perceived social value and identity. Taken together, social identity theory has been explored in various areas and contexts to understand consumers’ buying decisions. We believe social identity theory is also valuable to understand consumers’ purchase intention of luxury goods for the following reason: Consumers use possessions of certain goods to communicate their social identities to others (Escalas et al., 2013). Thus, they always search for products that are consistent with their sense of self and avoid products that threaten their perceived social identities. Luxury goods are normally unaffordable for ordinary consumers, and their consumption is often associated with wealth and success. Therefore, obtaining luxury goods can satisfy a consumer’s self-verification needs and motives such as the desire to identify as a specific social class, while serving as visible proof that the consumer can afford higher-priced products (Nwankwo et al., 2014). In addition, compared with ordinary brands, luxury goods can better foster consumers’ self-verification and self-enhancement motives. Consumers might be strongly attached to luxury goods if those products align with their actual or ideal self-concept (Japutra et al., 2019). Hence, they might use luxury goods to integrate their symbolic meanings into their perceived self-image (Vigneron & Johnson, 2004) or use those luxury goods to communicate the desired selfimage and provide self-concept reinforcement. 2.1. Perceived social value and purchase intention of luxury products Because values guide the evaluation or selection of desirable behaviors or end states (Wiedmann et al., 2007), it is critical to understand consumers’ luxury purchase intention from the perspectives of their value perceptions. Previous researchers have created many different frameworks to analyze the perceived values of luxury goods. For example, Vigneron and Johnson (2004) created a dual-dimensional framework, that is, personal perceptions (perceived extended self and perceived hedonic value) and non-personal perceptions (perceived conspicuousness, perceived uniqueness, and perceived quality) to illustrate the role of perceived value for luxury goods. Later, Wiedmann et al. (2007) extended Vigneron and Johnson (2004)’s framework with a four-dimension framework which includes the functional value (i.e., usability value, quality value, and uniqueness value), individual value (i. e., self-identity value, hedonic value, and materialistic value), financial value (price value), and social value (i.e., conspicuous value and prestige value). More recently, Roux et al. (2017) further suggested that luxury brands have three distinct values: material value (objective), individual value (subjective), and social value (collective). Taken together, although different frameworks put an emphasis on different values and use distinct terms, they commonly agree that social value is one of the most important perceived values of luxury goods. Perceived social value refers to the status or social impression of luxury goods recognized within the social groups (Hennigs et al., 2012). This is based on the fundamental understanding that people conform to the majority opinion of their reference groups to gain association and acceptance (Festinger, 1954). Many marketing and psychology scholars have found that consumers are inevitably influenced by their reference social groups when they make purchase decisions because humans have a fundamental need to belong to others, and threats to belongingness can trigger a coping behavior aimed at restoring self-esteem (Bearden et al., 1989; Leary & Baumeister, 2000). This self-verification process can also be explained by the ‘bandwagon effect’ (Nwankwo et al., 2014). Such an effect is significantly more evident for luxury goods than ordinary products (Childers & Rao, 1992) because those products can assist consumers to better express the desired group connotation and social class. Based on social identity theory, consumers tend to purchase certain products which are congruent with the consumption pattern of their perceived social group and avoid products that threaten that social identity. Thus, consumers with the strong perceived social value of luxury goods will strive to achieve or maintain a specific social identity through comparisons within their group members and tend to have higher motives to purchase luxury goods. Therefore, we hypothesize that: H1. The perceived social value of luxury goods is positively related to the purchase intention of luxury goods in both U.S. and Thailand. 2.2. The moderating effect of consumers’ religious commitment Religion plays a critical role in human society and is very valuable for cross-cultural comparison (Bochner, 1994; Saroglou & Cohen, 2011; Tarakeshwar et al., 2003). According to recent research, more than 62% of people worldwide and over 72% of Americans say that their religious commitment affects their daily behavior (Tamir et al., 2020). By definition, religious commitment indicates the degree to which a person adheres to his or her religious values, beliefs, and practices, and uses them in daily living (Worthington et al., 2003). Religion can shape an individual’s views of happiness, satisfaction, accomplishment, and meaning of life. It could also change peoples’ values regarding selfrespect, security, and sense of belonging. Because consumers’ behaviors, especially the decision-making process, are inevitably affected by their views of the world and values, their religious commitments will certainly influence their feelings and attitude towards certain products. It has been demonstrated that religious commitment could provide both cognitive and normative guidance to followers about what is desirable to consume, how much to consume, and when to consume it (Mathras et al., 2016). By studying wealthy Catholic and Jewish families in the U.S., Delener (1990) found that religious consumers tend to avoid certain risks during their decisionmaking process. Similarly, Furnham and Valgeirsson (2007) suggest that religiosity could mitigate consumers’ purchase intention towards counterfeit products among middle-class consumers in Britain. In addition, studies in Muslim countries found that consumers’ religious commitment will influence their attitudes towards life satisfaction (Alserhan et al., 2014; Kassim & Zain, 2016). In brief, as one of the most traditional and prevailing social identities in the world, consumers’ religious commitment could influence their purchase decision in various ways. We believe consumers’ religious commitment to Buddhism and Christianity will influence their purchase intention of luxury goods differently. First, researches showed that consumers’ luxury purchase intention is highly related to their attitudes towards materialism (Hennigs et al., 2012; Mainolfi, 2020; Pace, 2013). However, the pursuit of material pleasure is often at odds with the core values of most major religions (Nwankwo et al., 2014). For example, Buddhism believes that desires are the source of suffering and suggests followers detach from the lures of the material world (Pace, 2013). For highly committed Buddhists, religious values and beliefs are an intricate part of “who they are.” Because those values and beliefs are very important and are salient components of their perceived social identity, consumers with a strong religious commitment to Buddhism may prefer reconciling religious values with simple living rather than obtaining luxury goods. Second, many social and human values are shared across religions and are consistent with a broad definition of consumer social responsibilities (CSR). Past empirical research has demonstrated that more religious consumers tend to put more emphasis on social responsibilities rather than material success. For example, religious commitment could develop consumers’ attitudes towards economic savviness, self-control, impulsive consumption, reciprocity, and altruism (Graham & Haidt, 2010; McCullough & Willoughby, 2009). Additionally, individuals with strong religious commitment are more likely to purchase goods for their local community or make donations to charity organizations (Smith et al., 2008). Although both religions encourage followers to take more social responsibilities, Buddhists and Christians differ when it comes to luxury consumption. This is because Buddhism and Christianity divert in their definitions and interpretations of what creates the ideal life and states. For example, Buddhism teaches that materialistic craving and J. Ma et al.

Journal of Business Research 137 (2021) 244–254 247 desires cause suffering; thus, to escape from suffering and be happy, the person should minimize the quantity and quality of materialistic possessions (Parboteeah et al., 2009). Therefore, Buddhists are likely to avoid extrinsic material gains or their own ego’s desires for luxury goods. In contrast, Christianity views economic success and capitalistic profit as an outcome of diligence, hard work, punctuality, and careful observation of the Christian work ethic (Ibrahim et al., 1991). So, Christians are rather likely to boast extrinsic luxury products, which can illustrate how hard they worked, following their religious teachings. Also, they tend to value material success. According to Protestant ethics, personal financial success is a divine blessing and is not problematic at all as long as members tithe appropriately (Weber, 1992). Third, cultural factors further explain the different impacts of Buddhism and Christianity on luxury purchase intention. For example, following their affect valuation theory that cultural factors shape ideal affect or feelings, Tsai et al.(2007) find that Christians value high arousal positive states (e.g., extravagant, excited, enthusiastic, elated, euphoric, glorious) as the ideal affect, whereas Buddhists value low arousal positive states (e.g., calm, peaceful, serene, relaxed, dispassionate, harmonious). Similarly, Chen and Huang (2019) find that Christians express their emotions in social and positive words, whereas Buddhists do so in cognitive and negative words. This pattern is consistent with the Christian and Buddhist sacred texts, which witnesses that people’s actual life mirrors the teachings of their religions. As illustrated by Mathras et al. (2016), religion is a form of culture and varies across cultures along a self-construal dimension. Followers from individualist countries such as the United States tend to see themselves as unique and separate from others, whereas followers from collectivist countries such as Thailand tend to see themselves as interconnected with others (Hofstede, 2011). In this sense, for Buddhism followers in Thailand, participating in a religious community means a sense of belonging and social support. However, for Christianity followers in the U.S., it means they may need to stand out from their social groups. So Buddhism followers in Thailand are less likely to use consumption choices to restore a sense of belonging since they already get it from the religious community. But Christianity followers in the U.S. have an increasing preference for luxury products because they can help them stand out rather than fit into their social groups. Therefore, we hypothesize differently for Buddhism and Christianity. H2. H2: Consumers’ religious commitment moderates the positive relationship between the perceived social value of luxury goods and their purchase intention of luxury goods. Specifically, H2a. In the U.S., the relationship between the perceived social value of luxury goods and their purchase intention of luxury goods is more positive when the religious commitment is higher than when it is lower. H2b. In Thailand, the relationship between the perceived social value of luxury and their purchase intention of luxury goods is more positive when the religious commitment is lower than when it is higher. 2.3. The moderating effect of consumers’ global identity Influenced by the emergence of new transportation technology, the explosive growth of international trade, and the prolific diffusion of the internet, globalization has led to a worldwide homogenization of consumer behaviors and attitudes (Yang et al., 2018). Such effects have fostered a new segment of global consumers who share a common social identity (Alden et al., 2006; Cavusgil et al., 2005; Randrianasolo et al., 2020). By definition, global identity refers to consumers’ interest in global culture and identification with people around the world (Gao et al., 2017). Global identity captures the degree of psychological and emotional investment one has for the global community and arises as consumers expand their cultural horizons beyond national borders, value commonalities overshadowing differences, and increase their interest in a global culture characterized by globally shared information, symbols, practices, and meanings (Alden et al., 2006). The literature further suggests that consumers with high global identity are interested in global events, information, symbols, practices, and seek to identify with the global community (Cannon & Yaprak, 2002). Although luxury products and global products are not the same, they do share some common features and characteristics. First, many luxury products are gaining more global exposure due to luxury companies’ implementation of a global brand positioning strategy, which identifies their brands with language, aesthetics, and themes that reflect the global culture (Yang et al., 2018). Consumers with global identities could easily “buy-in” luxury brands’ ideology of embracing global culture. Second, both terms “luxury” and “global” sometimes (except fast food brands such as McDonald’s and KFC) have been associated with impressions such as high quality, expensive, exclusive, prestigious, and superior by consumers (Hennigs et al., 2012; Steenkamp et al., 2003). Such a halo effect will foster the popularity and acceptance of luxury products among consumers around the globe. Third, an increasing number of luxury products are endorsed by globally recognized celebrities. Gone were the days where only Hollywood celebrities and supermodels were appointed as brand ambassadors of global fashion brands. For example, Louis Vuitton recently named BTS, a South Korean pop group as the brand’s new global ambassador (Deeny, 2021). With the help of the explosive growth of social media, cross-country marketing events, and international online shopping stores, consumers tend to associate global products with those globally recognized celebrities. This is a process called meaning transfer, which could funnel the desired characteristics attached to those celebrities to their sponsoring global products, and then to consumers themselves (Bian & Forsythe, 2012; Yang et al., 2018). Hence, consumers with a global identity will resonate well with the luxury brands behind these globally recognized celebrities. Based on the above reasoning, we believe global identity can fortify the positive relationship between perceived social value and luxury purchase intention. We hypothesize that: H3. Consumers’ global identity enhances the positive relationship between the perceived social value of luxury and their purchase intention of luxury goods in both U.S. and Thailand. All hypotheses are depicted in Fig. 1. 3. Methodology A survey was designed to explore the proposed hypotheses in an intercultural context using samples from the U.S. and Thailand, which have substantially different religions and cultures. The U.S. is one of the world’s most important markets for luxury goods (Chattalas & Shukla, 2015), and its religious culture is dominated by Christianity. A global survey report shows that Christians comprise over 70.6% of the U.S. population (Pew Research Center, 2021). In contrast, Thailand is an emerging economy with dramatic growth in luxury consumption, while whose culture has been rooted in Buddhism for thousands of years. 94.6% of Thai affiliate with Buddhism (Central Intelligence Agency, 2021). As for luxury goods consumption, the U.S. and Thailand are projected to generate $71,199 million US dollars and $1524million US dollars in 2021, respectively (Statista, 2021). That means the average luxury goods revenue per person will be US$216.27 in the U.S. and US $21.78 in Thailand. These substantial differences in religious culture and luxury goods consumption suggest the U.S. and Thailand could provide a solid research context for our hypotheses. The survey for Thai respondents was initially developed in English and then translated into Thai and back-translated into English independently. The translated version was compared with the original English version and checked for content equivalency. After modifying all potential inconsistencies between the translated version and the original English version, we launched a pre-test and surveyed 30 nonstudent adult consumers from Thailand. Respondents were asked to designate any ambiguities or awkwardness in question-wording. Based on the J. Ma et al.

Journal of Business Research 137 (2021) 244–254 248 pretest results, several items were refined due to ambiguities of cultural incompatibility. 3.1. Sample The questionnaire was administered online using nonstudent adult samples by a marketing research company. Panelists registered with the company were provided with an invitation to the survey. They were informed in the invitation beforehand of the compensation they would receive as well as the estimated time it would take to fill out the survey. After entering the survey, the individuals were first presented with screening questions and a few demographic questions. Those who did not fit the criteria in the screening and demographic questions were not allowed to continue the survey and were informed that they did not meet the qualifications to participate. One very important criterion was religion. While we acknowledge that individuals of each country have freedom of choice regarding religion and that an individual in the U.S. might be a follower of Buddhism and an individual in Thailand might be a follower of Christianity, we wanted to focus on the major religion in each country. So our final sample only contains Buddhists in Thailand and Christians in the U.S. From this sense, our study was to compare Buddhism and Christianity lived out by Thais and Americans, respectively. This approach, unlike comparing two religions in one country or two countries for one religion, was to capture the pure effect of the dominant religion of each country as a pivotal source of people’s culture and value systems. Upon our acceptance of the completed data, the compensation for participation was paid to the panelists. A total of 315 responses from the U.S. and 289 responses from Thailand were received. Out of them, 307 and 283 responses were usable for analysis. The high usability rate resulted from the force response setup in the questionnaire where respondents could not proceed with the survey unless they completed the previous session. The average age of American participants was 39.01, ranging from 18 years old to 60 years old. The average age of Thai participants was 35.81, ranging from 19 years old to 55 years old. Gender distribution was balanced for both samples, with 57.3% female respondents for the American sample and 53% for the Thai sample. 3.2. Measures In this study, each of the constructs was measured by established measurements on a seven-point Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7). The perceived social value of luxury goods was adopted from Hennigs et al.(2012)’s measurement. We applied Swimberghe et al. (2009)’s measure to examine consumers’ religious commitment. Consumers’ global identity was measured by Westjohn et al. (2012)’s scale. Purchase intention of luxury goods was measured by Shukla and Purani (2012)’s scale. We also controlled several commonly used demographic variables in the survey based on existing luxury goods consumer research. The control variables included age, gender, luxury goods knowledge, and social status. We ask respondents to report their age and gender, where 1 represents males and 2 represents females. Social status was measured by four questions adapted from Thomas and Millar (2013)’s scale. Luxury goods knowledge was measured by three questions from Kleiser and Mantel (1994)’s scale. 3.3. Reliability and validity We examined the validity and reliability of all study constructs by AMOS 25. Each factor loading is statistically significant and standardized values are above the recommended threshold of 0.70 for all but a few items, which were retained for construct validity (Bagozzi & Yi, 1988). Further, the average variance extracted (AVE) for each construct is above 0.50 (Fornell & Larcker, 1981) and the composite reliability (CR) of each construct is greater than the suggested cutoff value of 0.70 (Bollen, 1990), which provides evidence of satisfactory reliability and convergent validity. We follow the Fornell-Larcker criterion (Fornell & Larcker, 1981) to compare the square root of AVE with the correlation of latent constructs. The square root of each construct’s AVE has a greater value than the correlations with other latent constructs, suggesting support for discriminant validity. All items and their loadings and reliability are reported in Table 1 and construct correlations, means, standard deviations, and square roots of AVEs are presented in Table 2. 3.4. Common method bias To minimize the threat of common methods bias (CMB), we paid close attention to the design of the questionnaire. Particularly, we sequenced the dependent variables first and then presented the moderators and independent variables afterward in randomized order (Podsakoff et al., 2003). In addition to the procedural remedy, we also controlled the effect of an unmeasured latent factor (Podsakoff et al., 2003). We then compared the significance levels of the factor loadings with and without the unmeasured latent factor. We found no differences in the significance levels in both country samples. Thus, it was concluded that the common method bias could not distort the results in either the American or Thai sample. 3.5. Measurement invariance A multi-group confirmatory factor analysis was employed to assess configural and metric invariance of the study constructs in the American group and Thai group. The test results show that our proposed model fits the data reasonably well (χ2/df = 1.84, CFI = 0.92, TLI = 0.97, and RMSEA = 0.04). Therefore, configural invariance got supported. We Fig. 1. Conceptual Model. J. Ma et al.

Journal of Business Research 137 (2021) 244–254 249 then constrained the factor loadings in the two groups to be equal and compared this model with the previous model in which factor loadings were free to be estimated across groups. The results indicate that the two country samples are invariant and that the constraint model is not statistically different from the unconstrained model (Δχ2 (18) = 25, p > 0.05). Thus, the two country samples achieve metric invariance (Steenkamp et al., 2003; Steenkamp & Baumgartner, 1998). 3.6. Results Table 3 shows the regression analysis results on purchase intention of luxury goods for both samples. Note that the R2 of each model is highly impressive, exceeding 0.51 (p < 0.001). Specifically, Model 1 regresses purchase intention of luxury goods on social value and demographic variables. Model 2 regresses purchase intention of luxury goods on social value, religious commitment, their interaction term, and demographic variables. Model 3 regresses purchase intention of luxury goods on social value, global identity, their interaction term, and demographic variables. The interaction terms are all significant at a 5% or lower level for both countries. Model 1 supports H1 for the positive relationship between social value and purchase intention of luxury goods with β = 0.50 (p < 0.001) for the U.S. and β = 0.62 (p < 0.001) for Thailand. Model 2 shows the positive moderating effect of religious commitment to Christianity: β = 0.11 (p < 0.01) in the U.S. as predicted in H2a. It also indicates the negative moderating effect of religious commitment to Buddhism: β = -0.16 (p < 0.01) in Thailand, which supports H2b. Such moderating effects are further illustrated in Fig. 2. Fig. 2 shows that the slope for the effect of social value on purchase intention of luxury goods is steeper for American respondents with a strong commitment to Christianity, while it shows the opposite for Thai respondents: a weaker commitment to Buddhism will accelerate the positive relationship between social value and purchase intention for luxury goods. We further conducted slope tests to distinguish the high and low levels of religious commitment in both samples. Our results show significant differences exist between high and low levels of commitment to Christianity (t(108) = 2.37, p < 0.05) and between high and low levels of commitment to Buddhism (t(83) = 3.68, p < 0.001). Model 3 supports H3 for the positive moderating effect of global identity between social value and purchase intention of luxury goods with β = 0.22 (p < 0.001) for the U.S. and β = 0.07 (p < 0.05) for Thailand. The plotted interaction charts shown in Fig. 3 confirm such findings. Slope test indicates significant differences exist between high and low levels of global identity in American sample (t(137) = 4.28, p < 0.001) and in Thai sample (t(101) = 8.68, p < 0.001). Model 4 provides a robust test to previous models and verifies the moderating effects of two moderators in one model. Specifically, the interaction terms between global identity and social value are significant in both countries, with β = 0.21 (p < 0.001) for the U.S. and β = 0.08 (p < 0.05) for Thailand. Similarly, the interaction terms between religious commitment and social value are significant in both countries, with β = 0.13 (p < 0.05) for the U.S. and β = -0.12 (p < 0.01) for Thailand, reinforcing H2a and H2b about the contradictory effect of religious commitment to Christianity and Buddhism. 4. Discussions and implications Our research, confirming the hypotheses, shows three major findings. First, consumers’ perceived social value is positively related to luxury purchase intention. When consumers observe the act of consuming a luxury good impress other people, especially their reference social groups, and get approval from them, they would willingly purchase luxury goods. Second, consumers’ global identity enhances the above relationship because luxury goods, which fit global culture and recognition, satisfy consumers’ desire to belong to global communities. Specifically, the effect of social value on luxury purchase intention is higher if consumers possess a high global identity rather than a low global identity. This is found in two culturally and economically opposite country samples (i.e., the U.S. and Thailand), increasing its external generalizability. Third, religious commitment significantly influences the effect of social value on luxury purchase intention. But the direction of its influence depends on the dominant religious teachings recognized in the society. Regarding the impact of religious commitment, our result suggests that consumers’ religious commitment to Buddhism will diminish the positive relationship between their perceived social value Table 1 Items, Reliability, and Factor Loadings of the Measures. Construct (Items) Loadings U.S. Thailand Global Identity (Westjohn et al., 2012), CR = 0.89/0.85, AVE = 0.61/0.54 • I feel like I’m living in a global village. 0.83 0.69 • I feel what I do could touch someone all around the world. 0.82 0.71 • I feel like I am ‘next door neighbors’ with people living in other parts of the world. 0.85 0.82 • I feel that I am related to everyone in the world as if they were my family. 0.78 0.78 • I feel that people around the world are more similar than dissimilar. 0.62 0.65 Religious Commitment (Swimberghe et al., 2009), CR = 0.94/ 0.91, AVE = 0.71/0.64 • Religious beliefs are especially important to me because they answer many questions about the meaning of life. 0.92 0.82 • It is important to me to spend periods in private religious thought or prayer. 0.88 0.87 • My religious beliefs lie behind my whole approach to life. 0.84 0.83 • Religious beliefs influence all my dealings in life. 0.75 0.71 • I spent time trying to grow in understanding of my religious beliefs. 0.74 0.81 Social Value (Hennigs et al., 2012), CR = 0.86/0.91, AVE = 0.48/0.58 • I like to know what luxury products make good impressions on others. 0.66 0.79 • To me, my friends’ perceptions of different luxury products are important. 0.64 0.82 • I pay attention to what types of people buy certain luxury products. 0.71 0.68 • It is important to know what others think of people who use certain luxury products. 0.74 0.82 • I am interested in determining what luxury products I should buy to make good impressions on others. 0.73 0.84 • It is important that others have a high opinion of how I dress and look. 0.64 0.71 • If I were to buy something expensive, I would worry about what others would think of me. 0.70 0.66 Luxury Goods Knowledge (Kleiser & Mantel, 1994; Zhan & He, 2012), CR = 0.93/0.89, AVE = 0.81/0.73 • I consider myself knowledgeable on brands of luxury goods. 0.91 0.88 • I enjoy learning about brands of luxury goods. 0.90 0.85 • I can recognize almost all brand names of luxury goods 0.90 0.84 Social Status (Thomas & Millar, 2013), CR = 0.86/0.83, AVE = 0.61/0.55 • Please indicate your wealth: 1 (lowest wealth) and 7 (highest wealth). 0.77 0.81 • Please indicate your housing status: 1 the (lowest status) and 7 (highest status) 0.82 0.79 • Please indicate your educational attainment: 1 (no school) to 7 (completed graduate degree) 0.75 0.57 • Please indicate your income level: 1 (lowest level) to 7 (highest level) 0.78 0.77 Purchase Intention of Luxury Goods (Shukla & Purani, 2012), CR = 0.90/0.90, AVE = 0.63/0.65 • I purchase luxury accessories to show who I am. 0.76 0.84 • I would buy a luxury accessory just because it has status. 0.84 0.86 • Owning luxury accessories indicate a symbol of wealth. 0.69 0.59 • I would pay more for a luxury accessory if it has status. 0.86 0.87 • Luxury accessories are important to me because they make me feel more acceptable in my work circle. 0.82 0.84 Notes: All items measured on 7-point scales. CR = composite reliability, AVE = average variance extracted. U.S. is presented before the “/ and Thailand is presented after the “/”. J. Ma et al.

Journal of Business Research 137 (2021) 244–254 250 and purchase intention of luxury goods as shown in the Thai sample. In contrast, however, we find the opposite moderating impact in the U.S. sample, whose commitment to Christianity escalates the positive relationship between social value and purchase intention of luxury goods. We attribute such opposite results of religious commitment to the unique perspectives on materialism between the two religions. Our study makes a significant theoretical contribution to the marketing literature. First, the primary theoretical contribution of this study lies in our proposed model. Although there is growing literature showing that both religious commitment and global identity could affect consumers’ purchase decisions of luxury goods, very few studies integrate those two identities and explore their impact on consumers’ purchase intention of luxury goods. Based on insights gained from social identity theory, our study confirms that consumers are motivated to verify, confirm, and maintain their perceived social identity through their luxury purchase decisions. Thus, an individual’s luxury purchase intention is inevitably impacted by their multiple social identities. By comparing two potentially contradictory social identities (i.e., global identity and religious commitment), our study provides a more comprehensive understanding of how consumers’ social identity and self-verification process influence purchasing luxury goods. Specifically, when consumers want to impress their desired reference groups or identify with people in the global communities, they are attracted to luxury brands rather than ordinary brands as they can be a more effective means for consumers to maintain or achieve their ideal self-image. As our study finds, compared to those of lower global identity, consumers of higher global identity realize that the social value of luxury goods can be more successfully satisfying their global culture and identification goals. This phenomenon is found in both U.S. and Thai samples. In addition, religious commitment, depending on the teachings of a specific religion, operates as a positive or negative moderator between social value and luxury purchase intention. The U.S. and Thai samples in our study showed the opposite effect of their religious commitment, as taught by their religious teachings and traditions. But it should be noted that both samples equally followed their religion. The effect of religious commitment remains significant in both samples. Second, we examined our theoretical framework in a cross-country setting. We chose the U.S. and Thailand as our samples because of their highly different level of economic development and religious culture. The U.S. is a heavily Christian nation and is already established as the world’s largest dominant luxury market. In contrast, Thailand is primarily a Buddhist country with an emerging economy and fastgrowing luxury goods demand (Tiwsakul & Hackley, 2012). By conducting our study in two countries with dramatically different economic and cultural backgrounds, we further strengthen the validity and credibility of our conceptualization and findings. Of course, underdeveloped markets with strong religious commitment may deserve research attention in future research. From a theoretical perspective, this approach can be also expanded to other broader or narrower realms. For example, the culture of a society, a concept larger than religion, can be adopted as a significant moderator. Specifically, consumer culture theory embraces philosophical, historical, and anthropological differences among countries in terms of “rituals of possession, exchange, grooming, or divestment” of luxury brands (Gurzki & Woisetschlager, ¨ 2017; McCracken, 1986). Related to this, culture can be examined not only at the level of the country but also at the level of the individual under the fact that not every citizen is immersed into the known national culture to the same degree, which rejects stereotyping all citizens by the uniform national culture (Yoo et al., 2011). In addition, our study can be applied to the investigation of two other important kinds of moderators: the individual consumer level and the managerial strategic level. For example, luxury brands can be treated as a moderator based on their unique images established in consumers’ mind. They can be divided into two types of brands: high and low, for example, in brand authenticity and brand equity (Nunes et al., 2021; Yoo et al., 2000). Depending on different characteristics of brands combined with their social value, consumers will show different intentions and actions towards luxury goods. The findings of this study provide several important managerial implications. Perceived social value can be considered one of the most critical motives of consumers’ purchase intention of luxury goods. In addition, knowledge about a consumer’s religious commitment and global identity provides valuable insight into their luxury shopping behavior. Based on our robust model, we suggest the following recommendations for both luxury goods manufacturers and retailers. First, we find religious commitment moderates consumers’ luxury purchase intention in the direction to be consistent with the teachings of religion on materials. This finding is important because, for example, Buddhism teaching material abstinence to escape from sufferings while living on earth is the world’s fourth-largest religion with over 500 million followers. Most Buddhists live in Asian countries (especially, the majority of the populations of Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, Bhutan, and Sri Lanka and a strong minority in China, Japan, Laos, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, and Vietnam) which are considered the fastestgrowing markets for global luxury products. Understanding the influence of Buddhism on consumers’ attitudes towards materialism and indulgent consumption will remind luxury retailers and manufacturers to be more cautious in their production, promotion, and distribution process. To illustrate, luxury manufacturers should avoid connecting symbols or designs related to Buddhism to their products not to remind them of its teachings. Also, luxury retailers might consider playing a more low-key role among Buddhists by stopping the promotion of products during their religious events or holidays. For example, not materialistic aspects (i.e., wealth, social status, aesthetics, symbolism, and success) of luxury goods but non-materialistic aspects (i.e., durability, quality, functionality, value to price, and a proper gift to family members or significant others) should be emphasized. In contrast, in Christianity-dominant countries, the high-status image of luxury goods should be loudly promoted as Christianity embraces material success as God’s blessing for their diligence, obedience, and loyalty. Second, our analysis result suggests that consumers’ global identity enhances the positive relationship between the perceived social value of luxury and purchase intention in both the U.S. and Thailand. This finding can help luxury manufacturers and retailers better develop Table 2 Descriptive Statistics and Correlations of the Measures. Constructs M S.D. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1. Purchase Intention of Luxury Goods 2.50/2.71 0.78/0.88 0.80 0.68** − 0.52** 0.24** − 0.03 − 0.05 0.43** 0.38** 2. Social Value 2.99/2.99 0.64/0.82 0.58** 0.69 0.53** 0.14* − 0.06 − 0.09 0.35** 0.27** 3. Religious Commitment 2.97/3.15 0.82/0.87 0.57** − 0.37** 0.84 0.11 0.03 0.16** 0.53** 0.37** 4. Global Identity 4.68/3.98 0.95/1.15 0.09 0.00 − 0.12* 0.78 − 0.07 − 0.10 0.19** 0.22** 5. Age 39.01/35.81 12.84/10.54 0.06 − 0.04 − 0.06 − 0.05 – − 0.02 0.02 − 0.06 6. Gendera 1.57/1.53 0.50/0.50 − 0.08 − 0.11* − 0.04 0.04 0.04 – 0.08 0.02 7. Luxury Goods Knowledge 2.72/3.25 0.94/0.91 0.53** 0.37** − 0.65** 0.13* 0.07 0.08 0.90 0.39** 8. Social Status 4.94/4.96 1.30/1.30 0.43** 0.21** − 0.52** 0.19** − 0.01 0.11* 0.36** 0.78 Notes: *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001. The square root of the average variance extracted (AVE) are reported on the diagonal in italics. U.S. is presented below the diagonal and before the “/”. Thailand is presented above the diagonal and after the “/”; a 1 = male, 2 = female. J. Ma et al.

Journal of Business Research 137 (2021) 244–254 251 marketing strategies. Consumers with high global identity are individuals who tend to look beyond their local community, view the world market holistically, and want to feel in tune with global culture (Alden et al., 2006). Since consumers with high global identity tend to purchase globally recognizable products to enhance their cosmopolitan, sophisticated, and modern self-image, luxury manufacturers and retailers should implement marketing strategies to emphasize the role of luxury goods in supporting consumers’ global identity. These companies could identify their brands as a symbol of a given global culture or utilize appeals and symbols to denote global consumption. They could also refer to globally referenced groups, such as world-famous celebrities to generate feelings of familiarity and motivate association with their Table 3 Regression Results on Purchase Intention of Luxury Goods. Variables Coefficient S.E. T-Value p-value R2 Model 1 0.51/ 0.52*** Age 0.01/0.01 0.00/ 0.00 1.41/ 0.32 0.16/ 0.75 Gendera − 0.14/ − 0.19 0.07/ 0.07 − 2.08/ − 0.26 */0.79 Luxury goods knowledge 0.25/0.17 0.04/ 0.05 6.38/ 3.70 ***/*** Social status 0.15/0.10 0.03/ 0.03 5.60/ 3.35 ***/*** Social value 0.50/0.62 0.05/ 0.05 9.27/ 12.69 ***/*** Model 2 0.55/ 0.54*** Age 0.01/0.01 0.00/ 0.00 1.35/ 0.19 0.18/ 0.85 Gendera − 0.14/ − 0.05 0.06/ 0.07 − 2.25/ − 0.64 */0.52 Luxury goods knowledge 0.17/0.14 0.04/ 0.05 3.76/ 2.95 ***/*** Social status 0.11/0.09 0.03/ 0.03 3.86/ 2.88 ***/*** Social value 0.96/0.92 0.17/ 0.15 5.53/ 6.02 ***/*** Religious commitment 0.28/0.44 0.17/ 0.14 1.63/ 3.26 0.11/*** Religious commitment * Social value 0.11/− 0.16 0.05/ 0.05 2.19/ − 2.96 **/** Model 3 0.54/ 0.54*** Age 0.01/0.01 0.00/ 0.00 1.67/ 0.22 0.10/ 0.83 Gendera − 0.13/0.01 0.06/ 0.07 − 2.14/ 0.02 */0.98 Luxury goods knowledge 0.26/0.16 0.04/ 0.05 6.81/ 3.56 ***/*** Social status 0.14/0.09 0.03/ 0.03 5.52/ 2.73 ***/*** Social value − 0.60/0.27 0.24/ 0.15 − 2.46/ 1.77 */0.08 Global identity − 0.59/ − 0.18 0.14/ 0.09 − 4.39/ − 1.88 ***/0.06 Global identity * Social value 0.22/0.07 0.05/ 0.03 4.63/ 2.40 ***/* Model 4 0.56***/ 0.57*** Age 0.01/0.01 0.00/ 0.00 1.74/ 0.32 0.08/ 0.75 Gendera − 0.11/ − 0.03 0.06/ 0.07 − 1.84− / 0.34 0.07/ 0.73 Luxury goods knowledge 0.18/0.13 0.04/ 0.05 4.04/ 2.71 ***/** Social status 0.02/0.09 0.03/ 0.03 0.76/ 2.64 0.45/** Social value 0.39/0.55 0.06/ 0.05 6.91/ 10.53 ***/*** Global identity 0.06/0.09 0.03/ 0.03 1.68/ 2.69 0.09/** Global identity * Social value 0.21/0.08 0.05/ 0.03 4.49/ 2.35 ***/* Religious commitment 0.27/0.11 0.05/ 0.06 5.21/ 1.94 ***/0.05 Religious commitment * Social value 0.13/− 0.12 0.06/ 0.04 2.31/ − 2.70 */** Notes: *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001. The U.S. is presented before the “/” and Thailand is presented after the “/”; a 1 = male, 2 = female. 2.0 2.2 2.4 2.6 2.8 3.0 3.2 3.4 Low Medium High Purchase Intention Social Value Christianity (USA) Low Religious Commitment Medium Religious Commitment High Religious Commitment 2.0 2.2 2.4 2.6 2.8 3.0 3.2 3.4 Low Medium High Purchase Intention Social Value Buddhism (Thailand) Low Religious Commitment Medium Religious Commitment High Religious Commitment Fig. 2. Moderating Effect of Religious Commitment. 2.0 2.2 2.4 2.6 2.8 3.0 3.2 3.4 Low Medium High Purchase Intention Social Value USA Low Global Identity Medium Global Identity High Global Identity 2.0 2.2 2.4 2.6 2.8 3.0 3.2 3.4 Low Medium High Purchase Intention Social Value Thailand Low Global Identity Medium Global Identity High Global Identity Fig. 3. Moderating Effect of Global Identity. J. Ma et al.

Journal of Business Research 137 (2021) 244–254 252 luxury goods. Third, the control variables of this study, although their effects are not hypothesized as they are the focal issue, shed insights into why consumers buy luxury goods. Especially, luxury goods knowledge (i.e., a combination of subjective knowledge, interest, and recognition of luxury brands) and social status (i.e., a combination of wealth, real estate, education, and income) are found to produce significantly positive purchase intention of luxury goods at 0.0001 level in both American and Thai samples. This result suggests that luxury brands need to target consumers of high luxury goods knowledge and social status to maximize efficiency. At the same time, it suggests that luxury manufacturers and retailers educate consumers about luxury goods. Commercials, newsletters, social media, special sales, public relations, and event sponsorships would be effective. In addition, the promotional efforts need to target consumers of not only current high social status but also future high expectations of social status. Interestingly enough, two other control variables show little or no impact on luxury purchase intention. Specifically, the effect of age was insignificant in both samples. It should be noted that the average age was 39.01 and 35.81 for the U.S. and Thailand samples, respectively, which was, in fact, similar to the national average age and did not represent too young or old ages only. Also, gender was weakly significant at 0.05 or 0.10 level in the U.S. sample, but not significant in the Thailand sample. In the U.S. sample, female consumers showed higher luxury purchase intention than male consumers. Overall, the result suggests luxury goods should not target a certain age range or gender type because all ages and both gender types are equally interested in luxury goods. 4.1. Limitations and conclusion We must acknowledge four limitations to our study and overcoming them can be the agenda of future research. First, we did not differentiate different sub-groups in a religion. Although, for example, both Catholics and Protestants share many common Christian values and beliefs, they tend to hold somewhat different practices and attitudes towards materialism. Protestants tend to value material success. In contrast, materialism is generally considered incompatible with Catholic principles (Tobacyk et al., 2011). Future studies should further categorize consumers’ religious affiliations and examine the differences among various religious denominations. Additionally, future research should sample different religions such as Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, Daoism, no religion, and atheism to further increase the generalizability of the role of religion. Second, this study only provides findings from the U.S. and Thailand. For this reason, the results may reflect factors specific to the context of the study. As in other literature, the country of origin of luxury brands should be taken into consideration when assessing global identity’s impact on luxury purchase intention. For example, it is possible for a European consumer to purchase a luxury product due to ethnocentrism instead of a global identity, because s/he regards the luxury brand as a national brand rather than a global brand. Similarly, consumer animosity toward the country of origin is worth investigating. For example, consumers who hate a country out of economic and/or military rivalry would hesitate to give a high mark on the luxury goods from the country. Third, due to the complexity of our research question, it is possible that other characteristics, such as profession, nationality, and materialism, might also impact consumers’ purchase intention of luxury goods. For example, materialism positively influences bandwagon luxury consumption behavior due to an obsession for material comfort and physical safety (Mainolfi, 2020). The effect of materialism on luxury purchase intention could potentially weaken the effect of religious commitment in our study. Future research may further explore the effect of material value on luxury consumption or include it as a control. Fourth, this study used the same religiosity measurement regardless of the participant’s religion. However, a religion-specific religiosity scale might be more effective to capture the level of religiosity more true to an individual religion. For example, one religion might emphasize ritual activities or actions towards the society whereas another might focus on dogmatic understanding or intimacy to a god. Such a religionspecific scale is also needed for luxury research because the religiosity of one religion could show very different worldviews on the material lifestyle from other religions. Fifth, this research examined genuine luxury goods, but the phenomenon of buying counterfeit luxury goods is also highly important to luxury manufacturers and retailers not to lose their revenues. Like studies where both genuine and fake luxury goods are simultaneously researched (e.g., Yoo and Lee (2012)), it is demanded future research to investigate how the social identities moderate the relationship between social value and purchase intention for counterfeit luxury goods. In conclusion, despite the limitations listed above, our study makes a significant contribution to the luxury literature. 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Journal of Business Research 137 (2021) 244–254 254 Ysseldyk, R., Matheson, K., & Anisman, H. (2010). Religiosity as identity: Toward an understanding of religion from a social identity perspective. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14(1), 60–71. Zeugner-Roth, K. P., Zabkar, ˇ V., & Diamantopoulos, A. (2015). Consumer ethnocentrism, national identity, and consumer cosmopolitanism as drivers of consumer behavior: A social identity theory perspective. Journal of International Marketing, 23(2), 25–54. Zhan, L., & He, Y. (2012). Understanding luxury consumption in China: Consumer perceptions of best-known brands. Journal of Business Research, 65(10), 1452–1460. Zhang, B., & Kim, J.-H. (2013). Luxury fashion consumption in China: Factors affecting attitude and purchase intent. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 20(1), 68–79. Zhang, Y., & Khare, A. (2009). The impact of accessible identities on the evaluation of global versus local products. Journal of Consumer Research, 36(3), 524–537. Jieqiong Ma is an Assistant Professor of Marketing and International Business in Frank G. Zarb School of Business, Hofstra University. Her research interests include multinationals’ entry mode strategy, internationalization process of firms, institutional environment in emerging economies, corporate social responsibility, and country of origin effect. JungHwa (Jenny) Hong is an Assistant Professor of Marketing in the Soules College of Business, the University of Texas at Tyler. She completed her Ph.D. in the State University of New York at Binghamton, and she received her Master’s degree from the University of Arizona. Her current research interests focus on consumer psychology, consumer wellbeing related to time, money, social responsibility, and innovative product design. Boonghee Yoo is the RMI Distinguished Professor in Business and Professor of Marketing and International Business in Frank G. Zarb School of Business, Hofstra University. His research interests include brand equity, online retailing quality, luxury branding, offshore services, marketing scale development, cross-cultural consumer behavior, and retail productivity. His research has been published in journals including Journal of Academy of the Marketing Science, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Advertising Research, Psychology & Marketing, Journal of Marketing Education, and Quarterly Journal of Electronic Commerce. Jie Yang is an Assistant Professor of Management and International Business in the Soules College of Business, the University of Texas at Tyler. His major research interests focus on international marketing, entrepreneurship, and family business areas. He has presented his research in a number of management and marketing conferences, and has published in conference proceedings as well as refereed journals such as the Management International Review, Management Decision, and Small Business Economics. J. Ma et al.