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Consumer authenticity seeking: conceptualization, measurement, and contingent effects

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Abstract

The concept of authenticity is gaining interest in research and managerial practice. While the focus has been on the supply side, investigating factors that make brands authentic, the demand side, or consumers’ search for authentic market offerings, has been neglected. Informed by the literature, this article develops a psychometrically sound and cross-nationally and temporally stable scale to measure consumer authenticity seeking (CAS) as a set of three dimensions: personal, true, and iconic authenticity seeking. Using a comprehensive theory-based nomological network, this research introduces CAS as an important moderator between brand authenticity and outcomes. It also examines consumers’ intrinsic and extrinsic motives that drive these effects. Finally, this research reveals different consumer profiles managers can use for targeting and segmentation purposes.

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Notes

  1. Web Appendix B discusses alternative specifications of CAS as either a second-order reflective model or a first-order reflective and second-order formative model.

  2. A robustness test including the dropped item indicates no substantial change in path estimates.

  3. We used a moderated mediation index based on 5000 bootstrapped samples using Hayes’s (2017) PROCESS macro on a reduced model. We included antecedents of CAS as covariates to allow the model’s estimation in this additional analysis.

  4. Self-alienation is a subjective feeling related to psychopathology. We include self-alienation for completeness purposes; it is part of Wood et al.’s (2008) conceptualization of authenticity as a personality trait.

  5. We acknowledge an anonymous reviewer for making this suggestion.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Adamantios Diamantopoulos, Barry Babin, Mario Pandelaere, the Editor, the Area Editor, the anonymous reviewers, as well as members of the AMA Global Marketing SIG for their valuable feedback on previous versions of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Marketing, Sales and Communication Department, Montpellier Business School, Montpellier, France

    Fabian Bartsch

  2. IESEG School of Management, Univ. Lille, CNRS, UMR 9221 - LEM - Lille Economie Management, F-59000, Lille, France

    Katharina Petra Zeugner-Roth

  3. Leeds University Business School, Maurice Keyworth Building, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK

    Constantine S. Katsikeas

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Appendices

Appendix A

Table 8 Research on the conceptualization of authenticity in marketing
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Appendix B

Table 9 Measurements
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Bartsch, F., Zeugner-Roth, K.P. & Katsikeas, C.S. Consumer authenticity seeking: conceptualization, measurement, and contingent effects. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. 50, 296–323 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-021-00813-y

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