To-date, conspicuous consumptions in both developed and developing countries remain on the rise. As a developing country, there is no exception for Malaysia. The luxury goods sector in Malaysia has been growing along with the rest of the world over the past thirteen years. Current research aimed to investigate conspicuous consumption through examining it from social media usage perspectives and the moderating role of self-esteem of consumers in the relationship between social media usage and conspicuous consumption. The framework of this study suggests that social media platform can cause social comparison among consumers, which the comparison domains are, wealth, status and attractiveness. These comparisons can lead to increasing motivation of acquisition of luxurious products and conspicuous consumption. The study also suggests that difference of high and low self-esteem is moderating the proposed relationship of social media usage and the propensity to consume conspicuously. A survey technique was conducted among 387 consumers using mall-intercept method at selected shopping malls to collect required data for analyses and the sample obtained consisted of Malaysian social media users aged above 18. Multiple regression and PROCESS analyses were conducted to test the correlation between social media usage and conspicuous consumption and moderation of self-esteem as proposed in the research framework. The result obtained indicates that social media usage has significantly influenced conspicuous consumption; and self-esteem was found significantly moderating the relationship between social media usage and conspicuous consumption. Overall, this study provides valuable insights on the understanding of conspicuous consumption and related variables that are influencing it such as social media usage and self-esteem. Consumers and authorities can benefit from these results to create awareness regarding the impact of these variables to ensure better purchase decision to be made by consumers.
Aaker, J. L. (1997). Dimensions of brand personality. Journal of Marketing Research, 34, 347-356.
Amaldoss, W., & Jain, S. (2008). Research note—Trading up: A strategic analysis of reference group effects. Marketing science, 27(5), 932-942.
Arda, Z. (2014). El viaje presuntuoso: Consumir y compartir en Facebook/Conspicuous travel: Consuming and sharing on Facebook. Historiay Comunicación Social, 19, 861.
Bagheri, M. (2014). Luxury consumer behavior in Malaysia: Loud brands vs. quiet brands. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 130, 316-324.
Bakker, A. B. (2005). Flow among music teachers and their students: The crossover of peak experiences. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 66(1), 26-44.
Blumer, H. (1969). Fashion: From class differentiation to collective selection. The Sociological Quarterly, 10(3), 275-291.
Bowman, N. D., Schultheiss, D., & Schumann, C. (2012). ‘‘I’m attached, and I’m a good guy/gal!’’: How character attachment influences pro- and anti-social motivations to play massively multiplayer online role-playing games. CyberPsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, 15(3), 169-174.
Boyd, D. & Ellison, N. (2008). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, 13(1), 210-230.
Brockner, J. (1989). Self-esteem at work: Research, theory, and practice. Lexington Mass: D.C. Heath.
Buffardi, L. E. & Campbell, W. K. (2008). Narcissism and social networking web sites. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34(10), 1303-1314.
Bush, V. D. & Gilbert, F. W. (2002). The web as a medium: an exploratory comparison of Internet users versus newspaper readers. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 10(1), 1-10.
Chaudhuri, H. R. & Majumdar, S. (2006). Of diamonds and desires: understanding conspicuous consumption from a contemporary marketing perspective. Academy of Marketing Science Review, 2006(1).
Christen, M. & Morgan, R. M. (2005). Keeping up with the Joneses: Analyzing the effect of income inequality on consumer borrowing. Quantitative Marketing and Economics, 3(2), 145-173.
Charoensukmongkol, P. (2014). Effects of support and job demands on social media use and work outcomes. Computers in Human Behavior, 36, 340-349.
Charoensukmongkol, P., Moqbel, M., & Gutierrez-Wirsching, S. (2017). Social media sites use intensity and job burnout among the US and Thai employees. International Journal of Cyber Behavior, Psychology and Learning, 7(1), 34-51.
Chu, S. C., Windels, K., & Kamal, S. (2016). The influence of self-construal and materialism on social media intensity: a study of China and the United States. International Journal of Advertising, 35(3), 569-588.
Chung, E. & Fischer, E. (2001). When conspicuous consumption becomes inconspicuous: the case of the migrant Hong Kong consumers. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 18(6), 474-487.
Cleveland, M. & Chang, W. (2009). Migration and materialism: The roles of ethnic identity, religiosity, and generation. Journal of Business Research, 62(10), 963-971.
D'Arpizio, C., Levato, F., Zito, D., Kamel, M., & de Montgolfier, J. (2016, December 27). Luxury goods worldwide market study, fall-winter 2016. Bain & Company. Retrieved from http://www.bain.com/publications/articles/luxury-goods-worldwide-market-study-fall-winter2016.aspx
Davis, M. (1992). Codes of ethics, professions, and conflict of interest: A case study of an emerging profession, clinical engineering. Professional Ethics, A Multidisciplinary Journal, 1(1/2), 179-195.
Dessart, L., Veloutsou, C., & Morgan-Thomas, A. (2015). Consumer engagement in online brand communities: a social media perspective. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 24(1), 28-42.
Dijkmans, C., Kerkhof, P., & Beukeboom, C. J. (2015). A stage to engage: Social media use and corporate reputation. Tourism Management, 47, 58-67.
Drèze, X. & Nunes,J. C. (2009). Feeling superior: The impact of loyalty program structures on consumer’s perceptions of status. Journal of Consumer Research,
In-Text Citation: (Wai & Osman, 2019)
To Cite this Article: Wai, L. K., & Osman, S. (2019). The Influence of Self-esteem in the Relationship of Social Media Usage and Conspicuous Consumption. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Socal Sciences, 9(2), 335–352.
Copyright: © 2019 The Author(s)
Published by Human Resource Management Academic Research Society (www.hrmars.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
