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ABSTRACT
Consumption patterns across different cultures are influenced by several factors, including personal and cultural ones. Collectivist cultures play a major role in the consumption decision-making process that an individual goes through, as culture typically affects consumers' taste orientation, specifically toward luxury goods. The main motivation behind this study is to investigate the influence of two major collectivist cultural values-namely, face saving and group orientation-on the perception and consumption of luxury goods across two Arab market regions (i.e., the Levant versus the Gulf). A survey was completed by 400 consumers sampled from different universities in the capitals of Lebanon, Jordan, Qatar, and Oman. The results indicate that not all luxury-related factors influence face saving in the Levant and Gulf regions. In addition, no such factors influence group orientation in either region. Beliefs such as the assumption that group orientation plays a significant role in consumers' decision making and that hedonism is not appreciated in Arab cultures are challenged, which indicate slow changes in the Arab cultures. These findings are useful to marketers who aim to promote luxury products in the Arab world as they provide a greater understanding of consumers' perceptions of such products.
Keywords: Luxury Consumption, Personal Values, Cultural Values, Conspicuous Consumption, Arab Consumers
INTRODUCTION
Culture, as a dynamic process, assumes that cultural differences instigate distinctions in consumer behavior within and across national borders (Miller, 1995). In light of the growth in the luxury market and the ease of accessibility to luxury products to a broader proportion of consumers, consumer behavior is no longer unexpectedly altered when national borders are crossed (Farley & Lehmann, 1994).
Collectivist cultures play a major role in an individual's life, consumption decision making and patterns, and taste orientation toward luxury goods. The world market for luxury goods has experienced a remarkable boom. Indeed, from being valued at $60 billion in 1990, it is expected to be worth over $240 billion by 2015 (Dubois & Duquesne, 1993); this growth could be explained by the fact that consumption has become "a means of self-realization and identification, as consumers no longer merely consume products; they consume the symbolic meaning of those products, the image" (Chaudhuri & Majumdar, 2006). Luxury consumption is a field of particular interest to the Arab world,...