Demystifying deliberate counterfeit purchase behaviour: towards a unified conceptual framework

Abstract

Demystifying deliberate counterfeit purchase behavior: Towards a unified conceptual framework Purpose-This paper introduces a unified conceptual framework for deliberate counterfeit purchase behavior by combining its diverse economic, ethical and socio-psychological perspectives using cognitive dissonance theory. Specific hypotheses are put forth about the interrelationships among counterfeit proneness, ethical judgments, subjective norms, counterfeit product evaluation and purchase intentions. Design/methodology/approach-A field-survey with 380 shoppers (who had ever purchased a counterfeit product) in Hong Kong across four frequently counterfeited product categories (backpack, luxury watch, software and movie DVD) with varying levels of involvement, usage context and purchase motivation. Findings-As hypothesized, counterfeit proneness positively influences ethical judgments and subjective norms about buying a counterfeit product, which in turn positively affect the counterfeit product evaluation and purchase intentions. All these effects are fairly stable across the four product categories, which suggests robustness of the proposed unified model. Research limitations/implications-Using Hong Kong as the research setting and a relatively younger sample of ethnic Chinese consumers helps ensure high internal validity but it may also restrict the generalizability of the findings. Future research with a more diverse sample of consumers would help replicate the results reported in this paper. The conceptual framework may also be extended by including variables such as consumer innovativeness, risk-taking and change-seeking as antecedents of counterfeit purchase behavior and usage. Practical implications-Findings show that consumers are influenced by a combination of individual and sociological factors when they decide whether to buy and use counterfeit products. Hence, marketers and authorities need a multi-pronged strategy to curb the growing demand and usage of counterfeit products, especially among ethnic Chinese consumers. These results may also help identify consumer segments more prone to counterfeit purchase behavior and to develop special communication to target them more effectively. Originality/value-Past studies mostly explore the 'direct' and 'independent' effects of consumer attitudes, ethical judgments and subjective norms on their counterfeit purchase behavior, ignoring their impact on each other and the roles of 'counterfeit proneness' and 'product evaluation'. This paper addresses all these gaps with a unified conceptual framework that incorporates all these constructs using cognitive dissonance theory and provides useful insights about their direct and indirect effects on each other.

Exploring the Role of Attitudinal Functions in Counterfeit Purchase Behavior via an Extended Conceptual Framework

“…The results of this study also show that CPEs partially mediate the direct and indirect effects of all the five attitudinal functions and all the control variables, including the three product characteristics. This is an important finding because prior research on counterfeit purchase behavior has generally ignored the role of biased evaluations of counterfeit products (Sharma & Chan, ). We show that consumer attitudes toward a product category and the functions served by these attitudes may only influence their evaluations of counterfeit products in those categories and not their purchase intentions, which may depend on other factors such as product quality, price, packaging, and even perceived similarity between the counterfeit product and its genuine version.…”

“…Counterfeiting continues to be a growing problem around the world, estimated at about 5–7% of the total world trade and even up to 20% of domestic trade in countries such as China (Cesareo, ; Chaudhry, Cesareo, & Stumpf, ). Interestingly, some consumers knowingly buy counterfeit products, despite the economic, performance, and social risks attached with these (Amaral & Loken, ; Bian et al., ; Rosenbaum, Cheng, & Wong, ; Sharma & Chan, ; Stöttinger & Penz, ). Prior research uses diverse theoretical perspectives to explore the factors driving deliberate counterfeit purchase behavior, including economic, ethical, and sociopsychological perspectives (see Sharma & Chan, , for a comprehensive review).…”

“…As pointed by Sharma and Chan (), early research explored the direct effects of consumer attitudes on counterfeit purchase behavior, but ignored their interactions with each other and their combined influence, resulting in many mixed and inconclusive findings. For example, some studies found a positive effect of attitude toward counterfeiting on counterfeit purchase intentions (e.g., Maldonado & Hume, ; Teah, Phau, & Huang, ; Wee, Tan, & Cheok, ) and actual purchase behavior (e.g., Penz & Stöttinger, ).…”

Factors affecting consumers’ purchase intention for counterfeit luxury goods in Bangladesh

“…Product attribute respect to quality, durability, price, availability, attractive packaging is important for the customers of Bangladesh. Since the 2000s, many scholars have reported a positive relationship between product attribute and counterfeit luxury purchase intention (Sharma & Chan, 2016). The study on purchasing counterfeit luxury items from the perspective of Bangladesh is very handful.…”

Antecedent Of Purchase Intention For Pirated Software On Personal Computer Among University Students In Samarinda City

“…The causality relationship of exogenous and endogenous variables refers to the opinions of previous researchers. According to [5] subjective norms, have a significant effect on attitude, while the purchase intention is also significant [3] & [19]. But this is not the case according to [2] which states that the relationship of these variables is not significant.…”