The effect of power distance beliefs on the inconspicuous versus conspicuous consumption of luxury accessories in China and the USA

Abstract

Inconspicuous luxury consumption is increasing compared with traditional conspicuous luxury consumption. Thus, properly conceptualising and empirically operationalising inconspicuousness are important. Extant literature has not yet reached a consensus on the antecedents of consumers’ purchase intentions between inconspicuous and conspicuous brands. Building on an overarching framework that integrates both the power distance belief (PDB) literature and the social attitude functions theory, this research proposes that low- (vs. high-) PDB consumers tend to hold a value-expressive (vs. social-adjustive) attitude towards luxury consumption, which in turn leads them to prefer inconspicuous over conspicuous luxury brands. Both a field survey in China and an experiment in the United States showed convergent support for the hypotheses. This research not only contributes to the PDB and social attitude functions literature streams but also offers important insights for luxury marketers.