Face consciousness and conspicuous luxury consumption in China

Abstract

Purpose Luxury consumption in China is featured by clear conspicuous purposes. The purpose of this paper is to investigate this phenomenon from the indigenous perspective of face consciousness. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on Ho’s (1976) framework of gaining vs losing face process, the authors decomposed the construct of face consciousness into two dimensions, namely, desire to gain face and fear of losing face, and developed a multi-dimensional scale for face consciousness. Then, a survey that consisted of 338 participants was conducted to test the relationship between face consciousness and luxury consumption. Findings The face consciousness scale was shown to be reliable and valid. Furthermore, the authors found both desire to gain face and fear of losing face had a unique contribution in explaining why Chinese consumers purchase luxury products. Originality/value This paper fills the gap in the extant literature by developing a multi-dimensional face consciousness scale, providing convenience for empirical research in future. Moreover, this research shows that Chinese consumers’ luxury consumption behavior contains both promotion and prevention motivation.