Influence of Religiosity-Driven Ethical Consumerism on Sustainable Luxury Purchase Intentions among Indian Middle-Class Consumers

Abstract

The Indian luxury consumer has become more of a value based and ethically aware consumer instead of a conspicuous consummer, especially the emerging aspirational middle classes. This paper will discuss how religiosity affects sustainable purchase intention of luxury based on ethical consumer orientation and sustainable luxury attitude. Based on the Theory of Planned Behavior and the Value-Belief-Norm theory, a survey was conducted on 302 urban Indian consumers who were aware of luxury brands in a survey form. According to the results of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), religiosity is an influential driver contributing to the higher orientation of ethics-state towards consumers, which, in turn, is a positive impact on the development of attitudes to sustainable luxury products. These opinions are good predictors of environmental sustainability luxury product intention. The outcome of the mediation results also confirms the claims that both ethical orientation and attitude towards sustainable luxury are important channels to which religiosity but not motivators of sustainable luxury consumption. The results illuminate the idea that sustainable luxury is an opportunity to offset the indulgent and value-congruent indulgence, within a culturally and spiritually well-grounded market such as India, whereby consumers need to balance aspirational ways of life, values such as ethicality and spirituality. This paper builds on the current scholarly research on ethical luxury consumption in the emerging markets and offers managerial advice to luxury brands that want to establish themselves as culturally aware and socially viable. The luxury companies can create a more profound emotional connection with the ethically and spiritually minded Indian customers who can purchase their products by underlining their transparency, craftsmanship, sustainability, and mindful prosperity.