Integrating brand perception, culture dimension and social influence in predicting purchase intention in luxury brand market

Abstract

Although few in numbers and mostly based on cases from advanced nations, previous studies on luxury consumption have shed light on the field of branding and suggested the pivotal role of social and intercultural dimensions in influencing consumers engagement and ultimately, their purchase intention. However, luxury branding conception are still not sufficiently explored in emerging economies to lend a satisfactory guideline for branding stakeholders to maneuver their policies and brand development programs. After all, there is a saying “what cannot be measured cannot be managed”. In particular, there is no statistically validated measure on the role of brand perception (BP), culture dimension (CD) and social influence (SI) in predicting purchase Intention (PI). The study is crucial for brand leaders and policy makers to partially access their readiness to embrace strategic intercultural considerations to be more competitive global brand performers. This study intends to propose an appropriate technique to empirically examine the inter relationships of latent BP; CD, SI and PI through a new propose theory-based luxury brand purchase intention model. It is basically a literature reviews on the related constructs and how the relationships assessment of those constructs should be carried out. It suggests and justifies the need for adopting a sequential explanatory mixed methods (EMM) research with the application of structural equation modeling (SEM) procedures for quantitative explanation and content analysis for the follow-up in-depth qualitative interviews. This proposal will provide insights and fill in the literature gaps on appropriate methodology to get statistically validated representation of intercultural elements of branding for luxury brand developments in Malaysia that may implicate other similar research in other emerging economies with similar situations.