Tài liệu How face influences consumption doc

Li.qxp 16/02/2007 13:46 Page 237 International Journal of Market Research Vol 49 Issue How face influences consumption A comparative study of American and Chinese consumers Julie Juan Li Chenting Su City University of Hong Kong East Asia is fast becoming the world’s largest brand-name luxury goods market This study develops the concept of face and face consumption to explain why Asian consumers possess strong appetites for luxury products despite their relatively low income This paper distinguishes the concept of face from a closely related construct, prestige, and examines the influence of face on consumer behaviours in the United States and China Due to the heavy influence of face, Asian consumers believe they must purchase luxury products to enhance, maintain or save face Accordingly, face consumption has three unique characteristics: conformity, distinctiveness and other-orientation The results of a cross-cultural survey support the existence of these three subdimensions and show that Chinese consumers are more likely to be influenced by their reference groups than are American consumers Furthermore, they tend to relate product brands and price to face more heavily than their US counterparts In addition, Chinese consumers are more likely to consider the prestige of the products in other-oriented consumption than are their American counterparts With its substantial population and growing economy, East Asia is fast becoming the world’s largest brand-name luxury goods market (Wong & Ahuvia 1998; Jiang 2005) East Asians have been found to be avaricious luxury consumers – it is not unusual to see Malaysians spending huge sums of money on weddings to which the guests arrive in limousines, Chinese consumers wearing extremely expensive suits and watches, and Japanese consumers flooding Louis Vuitton showrooms As Ram (1994) notes, Asian consumers’ demand for luxury products extends beyond watches and cognac to include a wide range of high-price consumer items, even if they may not have secured adequate food, clothing and shelter Received (in revised form): 23 February 2006 © 2007 The Market Research Society 237 Li.qxp 16/02/2007 13:46 Page 238 How face influences consumption To explain this phenomenon, some researchers (e.g Brannen 1992) attempt to conceptualise it as globalised, western-style materialism However, materialism alone can hardly explain why Asian consumers desire luxury products even when they earn a relatively low income (Wong & Ahuvia 1998) Consumers in Asian and western societies may purchase the same products but for different reasons; that is, their behaviours may be heavily shaped by different cultural values More specifically, Zhou and Nakamoto (2000) and Zhou and Belk (2004) suggest that the concept of face, an important cultural value that influences human behaviours particularly in collectivist cultures (Ting-Toomey 1988), may be one factor that leads to Asian consumers’ strong appetites for luxury products Face is ‘the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact’ (Goffman 1967, p 5) In recent years, various studies have addressed face and face-related issues, such as complimenting, compliance gaining, embarrassment, negotiation, decision making and conflict management (e.g Brown & Levinson 1987; Kim 1994; Holtgraves 1997; Leung & Chan 2003) However, research on how face affects consumer behaviours is limited, with the few exceptions of Wong and Ahuvia (1998), Joy (2001), and Bao et al (2003) How face influences consumption remains unclear, and its conceptualisation requires further clarification and investigation This study extends our understanding of how face affects consumption from a cross-cultural perspective More specifically, we distinguish the concept of face through a comparison with prestige To capture the influence of face on consumption, we advance the construct of face consumption, operationalise it as a multi-dimensional concept, and test the difference in face consumption between American and Chinese consumers empirically We study these two countries specifically because American culture is characterised as highly individualist, whereas Chinese culture is one of the most collectivist (Triandis 1995) Conceptual development Culture and face Culture can be characterised as either individualist (e.g American and most western European cultures) or collectivist (e.g Chinese, Japanese and most Asian cultures) (Hofstede 1991; Triandis 1998) The basic difference between individualist and collectivist cultures is that an individualist 238 Li.qxp 16/02/2007 13:46 Page 239 International Journal of Market Research Vol 49 Issue culture emphasises ‘I-identity’ and personal self-esteem enhancement, whereas a collectivist one pays more attention to ‘we-identity’ and social group esteem maintenance (Hofstede 1991; Triandis 1998) More specifically, Chinese consumers take face into consideration differently than American consumers (Ho 1976; Ting-Toomey & Kurogi 1998) As we mentioned previously, face refers to a claimed sense of favourable social self-worth that a person wants others to have of her or him in a relational and network context (Goffman 1967), such that people’s need and concern for self-face, as well as for others’ face, influences their everyday lives (Gao 1998; Joy 2001) The concept of face is not confined to a specific culture; as social beings, most people have had face-related experiences such as blushing or feeling embarrassed, awkward, shameful or proud On the one hand, people try to maintain or enhance their face On the other, when their social poise is threatened or attacked, people try to save or defend their face Losing face, saving face and enhancing face are some of the key elements of face-related issues (Ting-Toomey & Kurogi 1998; Chan et al 2003) Whereas face is a universal phenomenon, how people shape its meaning differs from one culture to another For example, in China, nearly everyone confronts face-related issues every day, including greetings, shopping, invitations, and so forth In the United States, people seldom relate their social self-worth to face and may be unfamiliar with the concept Hu (1944, p 45) compares the concept of face in China with psychological constructs in the United States and finds that face ‘stands for the kind of prestige that is emphasized in [the United States]: a reputation achieved through getting on in life, through success and ostentation’ However, though face seems similar to prestige in some ways, its underlying psychological meaning in China differs considerably from that of prestige in several aspects Group self-face vs individual self-face In an individualist culture such as the United States, a person is an independent entity with free will, emotion and a unique personality (Markus & Kitayama 1991) Decision making is done, or encouraged to be done, by individuals, and individuals are responsible for their decisions (Reykowski 1994; Joy 2001) Thus, the individual person represents the unit of analysis for social behaviour, and prestige, in a face context, becomes individual self-face In contrast, in a collectivist culture such as China, the individual person is not a complete entity (Sun 1991) For example, a Chinese man views 239 Li.qxp 16/02/2007 13:46 Page 240 How face influences consumption himself as a son, a brother, a husband and a father but rarely as himself (Chu 1985) That is, the traditional Chinese self is viewed in the context of its relations with others Therefore, face in China not only stands for prestige for oneself but also for one’s family, relatives, friends and even colleagues (Joy 2001) In other words, face in China means social self-face for a broad group As indicated by Ting-Toomey (1988), face is fundamentally a ‘social self’ construct in China Obligation vs free will In China, under the pressure of the social relational network, a person tends to be sensitive to his or her position as above, below or equal to others (Gao 1998) As a result, Chinese people tend to care a lot about face For instance, Chinese parents will emphasise ‘Don’t make our family lose face’ to encourage their children to behave properly and succeed in their education (King & Bond 1985) Also, Chinese people are under strong pressure to meet the expectations of others to maintain their face, as well as to reciprocate a due regard for the face of others For example, in a survey of Chinese businessmen in Hong Kong, face consistently was noted as an important consideration in professional interactions, and the fear of losing face formed the basis for the informal system of contracts and agreements that is common in Chinese business (Redding & Ng 1982) Furthermore, in China, the social self is expected to engage in optimal role performance, no matter what the personal self may experience during an interaction (Markus & Kitayama 1991) As Yang (1981, p 161) indicates, a Chinese person tends to ‘act in accordance with external expectations or social norms, rather than with internal wishes or personal integrity, so that he would be able to protect his social self and function as an integral part of the social network’ Therefore, a Chinese must maintain or enhance his or her face because of the social aspect of that face Compared with Chinese culture, American culture is more concerned about ‘I-identity’ than ‘we-identity’, and American people tend to be more worried about self-prestige than social self-face (Triandis 1998) An individualistic culture like the United States emphasises personal self more than social self, individual rights over group rights and personal selfesteem over social self-esteem (Markus & Kitayama 1991) Thus, an American is more responsible for his or her own face and emphasises maintaining self-face, or individual prestige, according to his or her will 240 Li.qxp 16/02/2007 13:46 Page 241 International Journal of Market Research Vol 49 Issue Others’-face orientation vs self-face orientation In China, people pay significant attention to others’ face because face has the same meaning for others A Chinese behavioural norm like, ‘If you honour me a linear foot, I should in return honour you ten feet’, clearly reveals the relationship between self-face and others’ face In the United States, however, people care more about personal prestige than others’ prestige For example, in a conflict resolution study, researchers find that US subjects tend to use more direct and face-threatening conflict styles, such as domination, whereas Taiwanese and mainland Chinese respondents are more likely to use indirect, mutually face-saving conflict styles, such as connoting either high mutual face or others’ face concern (Cocroft & Ting-Toomey 1994) From this discussion, we can recognise that face (a pervasive concept in collectivist cultures) differs significantly from prestige (a concept heavily studied in individualist cultures) In the next section, we investigate how this construct influences consumers’ behaviours, which we term ‘face consumption’ Face consumption As a tradition in Chinese culture, consumption is regarded more as a tool to serve higher-order social needs than an activity in its own right (Tse 1996) For example, drinking alone is viewed as improper; such a drinker would be labelled as in the ‘ponds of wine’ However, drinking is quite appropriate to welcome guests or when enjoyed together with friends In the latter case, even drinking for a whole night would be considered proper, and happens frequently in everyday Chinese life With the fast economic development in the Great China area, including mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, Chinese tend to pay more attention to their face through consumption As described by Ram (1989), Rado watches, which were priced US$270–2400 in mainland China, are owned not only by high officials but also, and mostly, by taxi drivers, farmers and successful young entrepreneurs (see also Jiang 2005) Currently, nearly all Chinese administrators and higher officials enjoy a salary supplement called ‘special expenses money’, which they use to meet the demands of face (Gabrenya & Hwang 1996) In a simple example, an administrator takes his or her subordinates to dinner, which offers the subordinates face, and gains face by paying the bill, which is actually paid by the special expenses money This phenomenon is very prevalent in 241 Li.qxp 16/02/2007 13:46 Page 242 How face influences consumption Chinese society, which reflects the importance of maintaining face in personal relationships Considering the prevalent and heavy influence of face on consumption in China, we name this specific consuming behaviour face consumption and define it as the motivational process by which individuals try to enhance, maintain or save self-face, as well as show respect to others’ face through the consumption of products Face consumption has three unique characteristics Obligation As we discussed previously, the Chinese must and have to maintain or save face because of its social meaning Therefore, when consumption becomes a tool to maintain or save face, a Chinese person will have no choice but to mimic the face consumption of his or her social group Otherwise, that person will lose his or her face among the group and make the group lose face to other groups Distinctiveness For face consumption, the products must be either name brands or more expensive than the products Chinese usually consume; otherwise, they cannot stand for face In other words, face products must be distinctive, whether through brand or high price Because face stands for group face and group interests are more important than personal interests (Ting-Toomey 1988), Chinese consumers are willing to pay more for face products than they would for the products they usually consume Other orientation Given the importance of face in China, people also must pay much attention to others’ face Therefore, for face consumption, the consumer must carefully judge the value of the products or services when purchasing or consuming with others to enable the others to feel full of face Gift giving and dinner parties are two typical ways to show respect to others’ face In the literature, a concept similar to face consumption – status and conspicuous consumption – was first addressed by Veblen (1934) in his economic theory of the leisure class He defined conspicuous consumption as expenditures made not for comfort or use but for purely honorific purposes to inflate the ego and that occurs primarily to offer an ostentatious display of wealth Researchers further have defined status consumption as the conspicuous consumption of luxury products that 242 Li.qxp 16/02/2007 13:46 Page 243 International Journal of Market Research Vol 49 Issue confer and symbolise status both for the consumer and surrounding significant others and that improve social standing (Eastman et al 1997) Status consumption and face consumption are similar in the sense that (1) face products are also luxury products, which is characteristic of status products (Eastman et al 1997), and (2) status seekers want to show off and increase their distinctive social status through conspicuous consumption, and some face consumption also intends to show off the prestige of the group face However, face consumption also differs from status consumption in several ways: • • • Not all face consumption is intended to show off but instead may be to maintain or save face Status-seeking consumers are willing to purchase conspicuous or expensive products whereas face-saving consumers purchase not just because they are willing to but because they have to Face consumption can be other oriented – that is, designed to show respect to others’ face On the basis of the preceding discussion, we classify face consumption behaviours into the following three categories according to their characteristics: conformity face consumption; distinctive face consumption; other-oriented face consumption In next section, we compare these three types of face consumption for Chinese and American consumers Hypotheses Conformity face consumption Conformity face consumption refers to consuming behaviour that consumers must have because of social and group pressures In China, within the same social class or reference group, people must behave properly and consume appropriately or they will lose their self-face and cause their group to lose face (Sun 1991) Chinese also tend to reduce social distance within their own social class through similar consuming behaviours (Yang 1981) Conformity in consumption within groups therefore is quite obvious In turn, Chinese consumers are more likely to be influenced by their group members, who all tend to have similar consuming behaviours For example, according to a survey by Tse (1996), 86.1% of a sample of Hong Kong students agreed that their consumption choices (particularly for clothing) were influenced by their reference group, compared with 71.3% 243 Li.qxp 16/02/2007 13:46 Page 244 How face influences consumption of the American students in the sample Also, only 43.5% of Hong Kong students said that they would want to behave differently to stand out, versus 73.6% in the American sample Typical examples of conformity face consumption include dinner parties, weddings and funeral ceremonies Although many Chinese complain about the waste of time, money and energy involved in these behaviours, most engage in them and try to make them appropriate in comparison with the consumption performed by other members of their group (i.e not too simple, not too conspicuous) For everyday consumption, a typical example might be the purchase of electrical home appliances such as television and high-fidelity stereo equipment; sometimes Chinese people feel they have to buy a television because their relatives, friends or even neighbours have one As we discussed previously, due to the influence of the individualist culture, the degree of the conformity of American consumers, though it may exist, is not as high as that of Chinese consumers Therefore: H1: Chinese consumers are more likely to be influenced by their reference groups than are American consumers Distinctive face consumption According to H1, Chinese may appear likely to purchase the same style and colours of clothes, something like a uniform But this is far from the case Chinese society has long encompassed a very strict hierarchical structure, and Chinese people tend to be very sensitive to their hierarchical positions in these social structures (Gabrenya & Hwang 1996; Leung & Chan 2003) For example, the Chinese always greet one another with their official positions, such as ‘Head Li’ or ‘President Wang’ Thus, the Chinese behave in ways designed to display, enhance and protect both the face and the reality of their own and others’ positions With rapid economic growth in China, consumption has become one of the easiest ways to show distinctive face People try to purchase different products to distinguish one group or social class from another As a result, higher-priced and name brands function as symbols to demonstrate the social distance between different groups Therefore, and unsurprisingly, name brands (especially foreign name brands) demand a premium price in Chinese markets Typical examples for distinctive face consumption include ostentatious weddings, gold jewellery, luxury cars, and so forth This face-enhancing 244 Li.qxp 16/02/2007 13:46 Page 245 International Journal of Market Research Vol 49 Issue and face-distinguishing consumption may appear ostentatious and irrational to westerners, especially when, as Ram (1994) describes, Chinese consumers demand luxury products even before they have secured adequate food, clothing and shelter In the United States, consumers’ concerns about face are not as strong as those of Chinese consumers; furthermore, in American culture, equality is believed to be innate Therefore, though American consumers also engage in conspicuous consumption, their connection of products to face and the use of name brands to emphasise their face may not be as strong as it is for Chinese consumers Therefore: H2: Chinese consumers are more likely to relate product brands to their face than are American consumers Other-oriented face consumption The Chinese also emphasise the need to show respect to others because of the importance of face for everybody Thus, the Chinese will carefully consider face consumption as it relates to others in situations such as gift giving and dinner parties (Joy 2001) In China, gift giving is a way to start, maintain and reinforce social relationships, and gifts are often presented to family members, relatives and friends These gifts should be expensive enough to match the income of the givers; generally, the price of the gift is higher than that of any products the giver consumes With this ceremony, those who receive the gifts also receive face from the giver The receivers then are expected to reciprocate with gifts of equal or even higher value, which in turn allows the original gift givers to feel full of face (Chan et al 2003) A dinner party is a more subtle face-giving and face-maintaining occasion, in which the host gives face to the guests through the quality of the food, the proper degree of ostentation and the boisterous atmosphere, and simultaneously maintains or gains face through the presence of important guests and the number of guests (Chen 1990) In contrast, in an individualist culture, consumers probably not relate the prestige of a gift or the food at a dinner party to their social status as much as the Chinese Therefore, we propose: H3: In other-oriented consumption, Chinese consumers are more likely to consider the prestige of the products than are American consumers 245 Li.qxp 16/02/2007 13:46 Page 246 How face influences consumption Methods Survey design To collect data in both the United States and China, we conducted a survey that included measures of conformity, distinctive and other-oriented face consumption, as well as demographic information such as age, education, gender and comparative economic level among peers We designed the measures of face consumption specifically for this study We developed an initial pool of measurement items based on the literature review In-depth interviews were conducted with six American and six Chinese to help obtain insights into the face consumption concept A few questionnaire items were subsequently revised to enhance their clarity We then conducted a pre-test among 20 students in China and 20 students in the US to test the measures After we deleted some items on the basis of this pre-test, the final scales exhibited satisfactory reliability and validity To measure theoretical constructs cross-nationally, translation equivalence must be considered (Mullen 1995) Following Mullen’s suggestion, we designed the original survey in English, then had it translated into Chinese by a bilingual native speaker The Chinese version of the questionnaire was then translated back into English by another bilingual speaker Discrepancies in the translation were carefully inspected and corrected to ensure the translation equivalence of the questionnaire Self-administered questionnaires were served as data collection vehicles in both samples Sampling Two samples of students were utilised for the following reasons First, the purpose of this study is to examine the influence of face on consumer behaviours in two cultures Face is a culturally embedded concept and face consumption is a culturally rooted behaviour As a body of learned behaviours common to a given human society, culture acts as a template that shapes behaviour and consciousness within a human society (Hofstede 1991) Because students are members of one culture sharing a system of beliefs, values, customs, behaviours and artefacts, they may serve as surrogates for other groups in the study of culturally-related concept Indeed, student samples are widely used in consumer research as surrogates (cf Peterson 2001) Empirical evidence also shows that students may serve as surrogates for adult groups in some consumer research (e.g Beltramini 1983) 246 Li.qxp 16/02/2007 13:46 Page 247 International Journal of Market Research Vol 49 Issue Second, we focus specifically on younger consumers because they represent a specialised global market segment for a variety of goods and services (Moschis & Moore 1979) Furthermore, in China, compared with older consumers younger people have greater appetites for and consumption experience of western products and therefore share similar consumption patterns with their American counterparts (Anderson & He 1998) Because students represent an important component of this target segment, this sample provides direct managerial implications for foreign companies seeking opportunities in China We employed a convenience sampling approach and recruited respondents from a large state university in the United States and a major state university in China This type of sampling procedure has been used in previous cross-cultural studies because a cross-national study requires a matched sample of respondents (e.g Dawar & Parker 1994; Aaker 2000) In both universities, students from marketing courses were invited to participate on a voluntary basis The incentive was a small portion of extra credit points Participants were told that the focus of the study was to learn about the influence of face on consumer behaviours They were informed that their responses would be kept strictly confidential and only be used for academic purposes A total of 106 American and 114 Chinese full-time undergraduate students took part in the study Data in both countries were collected during the same academic semester to ensure the time comparability The demographic characteristics of the sample were similar for the two data sets For example, all the Chinese subjects were undergraduate students, 49.1% were juniors, and all were aged between 18 and 25 years, with a mean of 20.4 years The American subjects were also undergraduate students, aged from 19 to 27 years with a mean of 21.1 years, and 72.9% were juniors Measures Face consumption is the focal variable in this study More specifically, we consider the three subdimensions of face consumption: conformity face consumption, distinctive face consumption, and other-oriented face consumption Conformity face consumption We operationalise conformity face consumption as a person’s susceptibility to group members’ opinions during a purchase decision Subjects indicated their agreement on three 7-point (1 = strongly agree; = strongly disagree) Likert-scale 247 Li.qxp 16/02/2007 13:46 Page 248 How face influences consumption items: (1) it is important that others like the products and brands I buy; (2) it doesn’t matter what friends think of different brands or products before I purchase a product (reversed item); and (3) sometimes I buy a product because my friends so Distinctive face consumption We operationalise distinctive face consumption as a person’s tendency to purchase name brands to distinguish his or her status from that of others For this construct, we use three 7-point (1 = strongly agree; = strongly disagree) Likertscale items: (1) name brand purchase is a good way to distinguish people from others; (2) what I consume should be consistent with my social status; and (3) name products and brands purchases can bring me a sense of prestige Other-oriented face consumption Finally, we operationalise otheroriented face consumption as the subject’s consideration of others’ face in his or her consuming behaviours, especially gift giving and dinner parties We again measure this construct with three 7-point (1 = strongly agree; = strongly disagree) Likert-scale items: (1) it is important to have a dinner party in a good restaurant even though I will pay a lot of money; (2) when buying a gift for others, I always consider the prestige of the gift; and (3) if I buy a cheap gift for my friend, both my friend and I will feel we have lost face We display the results of the factor and reliability analyses in Table For both data sets, the principal component factor analysis resulted in a three-factor solution, in support of our structure The Cronbach’s reliability coefficient alphas for the US sample fall between 0.711 and 0.800; those for the Chinese sample are between 0.610 and 0.679, lower than that of the US sample The lower reliability suggests the difficulty of scale development in cross-cultural studies Additional measurement refinement is needed for further research in this area However, given the exploratory nature of this study, the reliability is adequate and acceptable Covariate The focus of this study is to examine the differences in face consumption between American and Chinese consumers However, in a cross-cultural study, economic factors must be controlled to test for the effects of cultural factors (Dawar & Parker 1994) Therefore, we include financial concern, a key economic variable, as a covariate in this study Because we conducted 248 Li.qxp 16/02/2007 13:46 Page 249 International Journal of Market Research Vol 49 Issue Table Measurement reliability in two countries United States Construct Conformity face consumption OBLI1 OBLI2 OBLI3 Distinctive face consumption DIST1 DIST2 DIST3 Other-oriented face consumption OTHER1 OTHER2 OTHER3 Factor loading Cronbach’s coefficient China Factor loading 0.777 0.800 0.743 0.852 0.679 0.723 0.767 0.809 0.800 0.842 0.733 0.857 0.669 0.725 0.777 0.694 0.711 0.770 0.757 0.795 Cronbach’s coefficient 0.610 0.728 0.761 0.660 our study in cross-national contexts, a measure that indicates subjective financial concerns is more appropriate than a measure of objective financial status We developed three 7-point Likert-scale (1 = strongly agree; = strongly disagree) items to measure this construct: (1) I keep myself on a strict budget; (2) my financial situation is a big concern to me right now; and (3) at this point in my life, it seems every penny is important Results Correlation analysis In Table 2, we summarise the means, standard deviations and Pearson correlations of the four constructs for both samples To make the comparison more intuitive, the construct means are averaged and reverse coded Consistent with our discussion of the face concept, the results of both samples show some support for the validity of its subdimensionality First, the correlations among conformity, distinctive and other-oriented face consumption are positive and significant for both samples, which suggests they are closely related subdimensions of face consumption Second, financial concern is not significantly related to any type of face consumption, which indicates that the cultural factors (i.e face consumption) probably are not influenced by economic factors (e.g financial concern) 249 Li.qxp 16/02/2007 13:46 Page 250 How face influences consumption Table Means, standard deviations, and correlation matrices in two countries United States 1 Conformity face consumption Distinctive face consumption Other-oriented face consumption Financial concern Mean Standard deviation 1.000 0.419** 0.365** –0.112 1.000 0.393** –0.006 1.000 0.024 1.000 3.148 1.168 3.859 1.304 4.547 1.156 4.469 1.315 1.000 0.320** 0.111 1.000 0.153 1.000 5.243 0.947 5.544 1.105 4.415 1.044 China 1 Conformity face consumption Distinctive face consumption Other-oriented face consumption Financial concern Mean Standard deviation 1.000 0.189* 0.232** –0.075 5.345 0.943 *Significant at the 0.05 level **Significant at the 0.01 level Hypothesis testing Because we compare the means of multiple dependent variables across different cultural groups, a MANCOVA is appropriate for the analysis Before testing H1–H3 we compared financial concern between American and Chinese samples Both samples are composed of college students, so we expect no significant differences in their perceptions of financial situations; the results of the one-way ANOVA corroborate this prediction (F (1, 218) = 0.118, p = 0.731) We next ran a one-way MANCOVA, with financial concern as a covariate, to test H1–H3 The results show that the covariate effect is not significant (Wilks’ lambda = 0.970, F (3, 215) = 2.224, p = 0.115), but the differences between the two consumer groups are significant (Wilks’ lambda = 0.460, F (3, 215) = 84.025, p = 0.000.); hence, financial concern is not the factor that leads to differences in face consumption between these two countries We report the results of the test in Table In H1, we argue that Chinese consumers are more likely to be influenced by their reference groups than are American consumers On the conformity face consumption scale, Chinese subjects scored 5.345, whereas 250 Li.qxp 16/02/2007 13:46 Page 251 International Journal of Market Research Vol 49 Issue Table Results of hypotheses testing Construct Conformity face consumption Distinctive face consumption Other-oriented face consumption United States (n = 106) China (n = 114) F (1,217) p value 3.148 3.859 4.547 5.345 5.243 5.544 237.115 82.540 43.172 0.000 0.000 0.000 MANCOVA: Wilks’ lambda = 0.460, F (3, 215) = 84.025, p = 0.000 American subjects scored 3.148 – a highly significant difference (p < 0.001) Therefore, H1 is supported H2 deals with the extent of distinctive face consumption by American and Chinese consumers The significance of the F-test (p < 0.001) indicates that Chinese consumers (mean = 5.243) are more likely to relate product brands to their face than are American consumers (mean = 3.859), in support of H2 With H3, we hypothesise that Chinese consumers are more likely to consider the prestige of the products than are American consumers during other-oriented face consumption, such as gift giving or dinner parties The results show that the difference in this construct is highly significant (p < 0.001) between the Chinese (mean = 5.544) and American (mean = 4.547) samples, so H3 is supported Discussion We distinguish the concept of face from a closely related construct, prestige, and examine the influence of face on consumer behaviours in the United States and China As a social-self construct rooted solidly in collectivistic cultures, face differs from prestige and influences consumer behaviours In addition, face consumption has three unique characteristics: conformity, distinctiveness and other-orientation On the basis of a crosscultural survey, we find that Chinese consumers are more likely to be influenced by their reference groups, relate product brands and prices to their face, and consider the prestige of the products in other-oriented consumption than are American consumers Our findings offer some explanation for the seemingly irrational phenomenon discussed at the outset of this paper – namely, that Asian consumers have strong demands for luxury products despite their relatively lower income level (Ram 1989, 1994; Jiang 2005) Due to the heavy influence of face, Asian consumers must purchase luxury products 251 Li.qxp 16/02/2007 13:46 Page 252 How face influences consumption to enhance, maintain or save their face Therefore, the conceptualisation of face and face consumption provides a useful way to understand why Asian consumers, on the one hand, are very thrifty in their everyday life and consumption but, on the other hand, spend – and sometimes waste – a large amount of money on luxury consumption Our findings also provide some preliminary implications for businesses that seek to expand to China A better understanding of the concept of face in Chinese society can help companies understand what products Chinese consumers prefer and why they favour them This study also provides some implications for product positioning strategies For example, companies may want to position their offerings as products that can give Chinese consumers a sense of face Furthermore, the brands and products offered by western companies – whether high-technology (e.g personal computers) or low-technology (e.g cosmetics) – are usually perceived as name brands by Chinese consumers (Anderson & He 1998) Because our findings suggest that Chinese consumers tend to relate name brands to face and thus are willing to pay a higher price for a name-brand product, western companies might consider adopting a premium pricing strategy for China In addition, when devising their advertising or promotional messages, these companies should take the face concept into consideration and emphasise the high quality and distinguished social status of their products Finally, the results show that Chinese consumers are more likely to be influenced by their group members in terms of their face consumption Therefore, communication strategies such as word of mouth could be used to attract consumers more effectively Our study also offers some implications for market research practitioners Because our findings show the heavy influence of face on Chinese consumers’ consumption, market research practitioners should take face consumption into consideration when they conduct research to better understand Chinese consumers For example, market researchers can identify what type of consumer is likely to demonstrate conformity, distinctive or other-oriented face consumption Relating consumer demographic and psychological profiles to their face consumption patterns would help classify Chinese consumers into different categories More importantly, market researchers can further investigate the specific purchase behaviour associated with different dimensions of face consumption Such an effort would generate fresh insights for us to better understand Chinese consumers and predict their purchase behaviours Similar to most research, this study contains several limitations First, our study is limited by the use of student samples, which may raise 252 Li.qxp 16/02/2007 13:46 Page 253 International Journal of Market Research Vol 49 Issue questions about the generalisability of our findings Although students share many culturally embedded beliefs and behaviours with other groups in a society, they also possess some idiosyncrasies and may be not nationally representative Further research should replicate our study with non-student subjects to test the generalisability of the findings Second, this research provided some evidence that the face consumption construct is unique from other constructs, though the conceptualisation and operationalisation of face consumption is quite exploratory We acknowledge that more rigorous scale development and refinement is needed for additional research in this area For example, further research is encouraged to employ statistical techniques such as confirmatory factor analysis and discriminant analysis to fully validate the face consumption construct Future research is also welcome to use a broader sample and follow the more rigorous scale development process to develop a better measurement of face consumption Third, we compare face consumption only between American and Chinese consumers Because face plays an important role in collectivist cultures (Ting-Toomey & Kurogi 1998), and given that more than two-thirds of the world’s population lives in collectivist cultures (Triandis 1995), it would be worthwhile to study face and face consumption using a worldwide context Such an effort will definitely enhance our understanding in this area Acknowledgement This study is supported by the CityU Start-Up Grant (7200065) from the City University of Hong Kong References Aaker, J.L (2000) Accessibility or diagnosticity? 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Measures Face consumption is the focal variable in this study More specifically, we consider the three subdimensions of face consumption: conformity face consumption, distinctive face consumption,