Common and Contradictory Motivations in Buying Intentions for Green and Luxury Automobiles

Abstract

Luxury is often blamed for creating social inequality and hampering sustainability, especially in the social and environmental realms. For instance, luxury goods entice people to conspicuous consumption that may result in showing off. However, study results show that luxury and environmental sustainability have common features. Notably, previous research mainly examined motivations for green purchases in general without relating to the specific product categories such as durables. Therefore, this study examines the relationship between these two—green and luxury automobile buying intentions—by analyzing the survey results of 1601 respondents relating to more than 60 nationalities. In contrast to a substantial effect on luxury buying intentions, perceived conspicuousness has no significant positive effect on green auto purchase intentions, and that price value has a limited influence compared with the effect on luxury automobile purchase intentions. Furthermore, hedonism has a less positive impact on green auto purchase intentions compared to its impact on luxury automobile buying intentions. The ‘extended self’ and the perception of high quality have been found to be drivers of luxury and green automobile purchase intentions, while unique value appears to have no impact on purchase intentions for green and conventional luxury automobiles. The present study contributes to the extant research by investigating common and contradictory motivations for luxury and green buying intentions of automobiles. Furthermore, it suggests a reconsideration of the traditional view that luxury and environmental consumption are inconsistent and contradictory concepts. The complementary managerial implications of this study guide practitioners in positioning the situatable variants of their automobiles as ethical luxury.

Impact of the awareness of brand-related CSR activities on purchase intention for luxury brands

“…Recently, the negative impact of sustainability information on the perceived quality of luxury products was indicated, but this result varied depending upon the consumers’ country of origin (Dekhili et al , 2019). A positive connection between luxury products and environmental sustainability was claimed by Aliyev et al (2019) who investigated common and contradictory motivations for luxury and green buying intentions of automobiles and suggested reconsideration of the traditional view that luxury and environmental consumption are contradictory, thus they positioned green cars as “ethical luxury”. Amatulli et al (2018) investigated whether and under what conditions consumers react positively to different kinds of CSR initiatives among luxury companies, and they concluded that luxury companies’ external (e.g.…”

Conspicuous Consumption in Emerging Markets: The Case of Starbucks in Colombia as a Global and Sustainable Brand

“…For Aliyev et al ( 2019 ), luxury companies can successfully adopt sustainability when they manage to improve communication and marketing processes. In this way, it seeks to know both the motivations that consumers have, to buy luxury products, as well as the motivations that they also have to buy sustainable products.…”

“…This is because there is a need to impress others through the consumption of certain products and brands, which symbolize economic progress (Huang and Wang, 2018 ). Due to the increased penetration of global brands in emerging markets, it is still necessary to carry out more studies to understand consumer behavior in these countries (He and Wang, 2017 ; Huang and Wang, 2018 ), and especially its relationship with conspicuous consumption due to the limited literature on these relationships (Aliyev et al, 2019 ; Anwar and El-Bassiouny, 2020 ; Jung et al, 2020 ).…”

“…However, the values of conspicuous consumption could be a barrier to sustainable consumption due to the eagerness to achieve ostentatious consumption at all costs. In this way, it is often pointed out that conspicuous consumption leads to social inequality and hinders sustainability, as this type of consumption attracts people who seek a clear social exposure through purchasing, the use and demonstration of products and services that allow them to excel socially; for this reason, one might think that global brands that generate a social status could promote these social inequities on a large scale, as they have presence in several countries of the world (Aliyev et al, 2019). Jung et al (2020) showed that the conspicuous consumer often associates sustainable products with products without design, little aesthetics, very outdated, and uninteresting; that is, with values that do not allow them to achieve a social distinction.…”

Challenging the linearity assumption of intra-brand image confusion

“…The country was chosen as representants for Western people. Individuals from Western countries tend to be more individualistic, whereas people from South Asian countries tend to be more collectivistic (Aliyev et al 2019).…”