The acculturation impact on luxury consumption motivations: a case of Chinese young consumers living in the UK

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonLuxury products represent substantial worldwide sales; major markets of luxury products are no longer limited to Western countries, but have also expanded to Eastern “young generation” markets (Zhan and He, 2012). With a rapidly growing economy and globalisation, Chinese young consumers have become an important target for producers of luxury products. According to Wiedmann, Hennings, and Siebels (2009), consumption motivations are derived from values that are connected to cultural background. Nowadays, because Chinese consumers are more engaged with foreign societies, Western culture also produces significant influence on their preferences, motivation and behaviour (Zhan and He, 2012). Although there is extant research which focuses on comparing cross-cultural influences on luxury consumption motivation of Western consumers and Eastern consumers, literature on luxury purchase motivation is only limited to a single country and scholars have ignored the influence of a foreign culture and acculturation on consumers (Beverland, 2004). This cultural study investigates (a) cultural orientation of Chinese young consumers living in the UK; (b) their current luxury consumption motivation; (c) a relationship between cultural orientation and luxury consumption motivation; and (d) if acculturation moderates the relationship. An online questionnaire was used to collect data. This study chose two groups of Chinese young consumers living in London; group one focuses on consumers who have lived in London for less than one year; and group two concentrates on consumers who have been in London for more than five years. In total 488 valid respondents were collected on an official Facebook group named London Chinese Community. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was adapted in this study; findings provide a deeper insight of the acculturation influence on luxury consumption motivations of Chinese young consumers and provide significant implications for both theory and practice