Just As Real As It Seems: Managing The Undesirable Consequences of Unethical Consumption Behaviour
Year: 2021
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: Although considerable research has been devoted to ethical consumption (Belk, Devinney, and Eckhardt 2006;Bray, Johns, and Kilburn 2011;Hiller 2019;McDonagh and Prothero 2014), rather less attention has been paid to what happens when consumers misbehave.Counterfeit goods are seen by many as a questionable consumption choice so people engaging in this practice must deal with the consequences of their behaviour, like physical hazards, financial losses, and social embarrassment to name a few.Hence this is a risky consumption practice whose products materiality can promptly denounce the consumer's misbehaviour.Therefore further investigation is needed in order to understand how materiality and risk converge shaping consumers' experiences around counterfeit goods.To address this gap this article draws on literature from the fields of risk and materiality to conduct an interpretive study that investigates how consumers avert the materialization of their risky behaviour to enjoy the consumption of counterfeits whilst protecting their integrity.In doing so, it contributes to a growing number of consumer studies (Crockett 2017; Luedicke 2015; Saatcioglu and Ozanne 2013; Veresiu and Giesler 2018) examining macrosocial contexts beyond celebratory self-actualization narratives (Askegaard and Linnet 2011).Literature.Early on, consumer behaviour studies framed the consumption of counterfeits as 'risky' behaviour (Bloch, Bush, and Campbell 1993).However risk judgements cannot be isolated from the context in which they arise (Lupton 1999b), especially in plentiful markets of counterfeits (Gentry et al. 2001) where the consumption of these products is somehow seen as socially acceptable across social classes (Kravets and Sandikci 2014; Kuever 2014; Pinheiro-Machado 2010).Thus, rather than simply measuring consumers' ethical attitude towards counterfeit goods (Latif, Yiğit, and Kirezli 2018; Staake, Thiesse, and Fleisch 2009) it is important to consider that risk works as a cultural strategy that is employed by social groups-like consumers of counterfeits-to make sense of the uncertainties in society (Douglas 1982;1992); such as actual hazards, the transgression of social norms (Tansey and O'Riordan 1999), issues of trust (Lupton 1999a) and judgements made with regard to objects and behaviours that are deemed improper, impure or just 'wrong' (Douglas 1966).Knowledge of materiality is also of great importance, especially when considering that clothing consumption is the largest and most visible of the counterfeiting businesses (Hardy 2014).However, apart from a few studies that discussed the consumption of counterfeits as vehicles for self-expression (Ahuvia et al. 2012;Hoe, Hogg, and Hart 2003;Perez, Castaño, and Quintanilla 2010;Strehlau 2005) previous studies have not fully addressed the importance of fashion in the consumption of counterfeits, thereby neglecting consumers who may see counterfeits as fashion products that are used in combination with many others.It is worth exploring then, the importance of material aspects of fashion products to consumers, including counterfeits, in creating their outfits (Barthes 1967).This will help to understand how consumers blend counterfeits and genuine goods (Kravets and Sandikci 2014), and without risking their social identity.Theoretical approaches to materiality investigate the ways in which objects are situated in people's lives (Tilley 2006) thus they are frequently understood through the lens of material embeddedness (Schatzki 2010;Woodward 2007) and can be studied as the process of
Language: English
Subfield: Marketing
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3210663154