مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

The worldwide personal luxury goods market has experienced strong and steady growth over the past two decades, from €۷۷ billion in 1995 to €۲۵۳ billion in 2015.1 Interestingly, Bain and Company (2012) reports that the growth of men’s personal consumption of luxury goods (+14%) now outperforms the growth of women’s consumption (+8%). Thus, although women’s luxury consumption is still higher (60% of the worldwide luxury market value), the traditional gender gap is now decreasing. This trend questions the origins and motives of gender differences in luxury consumption. Indeed, there is a large body of literature on the various effects of demographics on luxury consumption, such as social class (e.g. Han, Nunes, & Drèze, 2010) or age (e.g. Schade, Hegner, Hortsmann & Brinkmann, 2016), yet little is known about the effects of gender. Recently, Meyers-Levy and Loken (2015) point out that, in spite of the overwhelming public interest in gender differences in consumer behavior, much research is needed to grasp the impact of gender. This need becomes more apparent in the case of luxury consumption (Stokburger-Sauer & Teichmann, 2013). We focus on whether men and women differ or are similar in the values they associate with luxury brand consumption. What are the meaningful gender differences in luxury values associated with luxury consumption? To what extent do luxury consumption drivers vary across gender? What are the reasons for this?

To shed light on such issues, we first present the social structural theory (SST) of gender (Eagly & Wood, 1999) and review the literature on luxury brand values. On this basis, we introduce a set of hypotheses about: (i) the influence of gender on interpersonal luxury values, i.e. elitism, exclusivity, and refinement, and (ii) the moderating effects of gender on three drivers of luxury consumption: conspicuous and status consumption, consumers’ need for uniqueness, and personal selfconsciousness. Next, we present three studies carried out on samples of Western luxury brand buyers. Study 1 identifies values that consumers associate with luxury consumption. Study 2 reveals the influence of gender on such values. Study 3 shows the moderating effects of gender on luxury value drivers. We then discuss theoretical and managerial implications.