Luxury with Social Responsibility in Pakistan: The Effect of Brand Commitment on Perceived Quality and Consumers' Attitudes Toward Luxury Products with the Mediatory Role of Luxury-CSR Fit, complemented by Luxury Product Characteristics.

Abstract

The notion of ‘‘responsible luxury’’ has received considerable attention in recent years. Growing concerns center, particularly on the ethics of actors in the luxury goods sector, hence may appear as a contradiction in terms. This article investigates the influence of two defining characteristics of luxury products—scarcity and ephemerality—on consumers’ perception of the fit between luxury and corporate social responsibility (CSR), as well as how this perceived fit affects Perceived Quality and consumers’ attitudes toward luxury products. We also explored the effect of brand commitment on the two luxury product characteristics. For this, we proposed a theoretical framework, modifying the Janssen et. al. (2014) model to include Brand Commitment and Perceived Quality as antecedent and outcome, respectively. We argue that consumers' Brand Commitment strengthens the Perceived fit between luxury and CSR, furthermore, Brand Commitment also increases Scarcity and ephemerality, and these two complements each other to affect perceived fit. Meaning, when luxury products are enduring (e.g. jewelry) a scarce product perceived as more responsible as ephemeral products are for the short term (e.g. trend, fashion). The higher fit would in turn increases the Perception of Quality and Consumers' Attitudes Towards that brand. Empirical validity was established by conducting a survey using a close-ended questionnaire. Data was collected from 300 luxury brands consumers and analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and structured equation modeling. The results suggested that commitment has a significant positive effect on perceived Fit, similarly, perceived fit also seems to affect both attitude and Quality positively. Hence, the perceived fit seems to positively mediate the effect of commitment on both quality and attitude. Moreover, Commitment seems to positively affect both Scarcity and ephemerality, and both, in turn, have a positive impact on Perceived fit. Both also complement each other in their impact of perceived fit. This means perceived Fit positively mediate the effect of Ephemerality, and scarcity, on both attitude and quality. In a more general sense, the effect of commitment on attitude and quality is mediated by Ephemerality, and scarcity in the first order, then further mediated by perceived fit. Ephemerality also seems to increase the perception of quality; however, scarcity seems to have a negative effect on attitude.