Hakan Cengiz

Purpose: The main purpose of this study is to investigate the mediating role of fashion clothing involvement in the relationship between body appreciation and maladaptive consumption, namely fashion-oriented impulse and compulsive buying. The second purpose of this study is to investigate if this mediation varies based on gender.Design/methodology/approach: A quantitative approach was adopted in this study, and data were collected via Amazon Mechanical Turk from 255 consumers located in the U.S. aged 18 and above. The collected data were analyzed using the least partial square and multi-group analysis of the structural equation model.Findings: The results revealed that the relationship between body appreciation and maladaptive consumption is established through fashion clothing involvement. Results also showed that the mediating role of fashion clothing involvement in this relationship does not significantly differ across gender.Originality/value: This study reports the fully mediating role of fashion clothing involvement in the relationship between body appreciation and maladaptive consumption, highlighting the importance of studying positive body image in the context of fashion and consumption. While previous research findings indicate the negative consequences of negative body image, this research reveals that positive body image can also lead to negative outcomes through possible mediators. Furthermore, this study finds fashion clothing involvement does not differ in mediating the relationship between body appreciation and maladaptive consumption behavior based on gender.

Individuals employ various coping mechanisms to deal with the fear of death. While materialism and status consumption are commonly recognized in the literature as such strategies, no study has yet empirically tested this premise. Accordingly, this study examined the mediating role of death avoidance in the link between the fear of death and death-related status consumption (DRSC). Data obtained from 346 participants were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results showed that fear of death significantly and positively influences DRSC and that death avoidance partially and positively mediates this relationship. Results also revealed that materialism strengthens the relationship between fear of death and DRSC, while it does not significantly moderate the relationship between death avoidance and DRSC. These results support the conclusion that death-related status consumption may play a critical role as an avoidance mechanism in coping with the fear of death. This study, being among the few that investigate death-related consumer behaviors, enriches both terror management theory and the literature on consumer behavior in crises.

Purpose: This study investigates the relationships between perceived scarcity, fear of missing out (FOMO) and impulse-buying tendencies (IBT) in the fast fashion context in both scarcity and non-scarcity conditions. Additionally, this study examines whether these relationships vary depending on the type of scarcity messages: limited-quantity scarcity (LQS) and limited-time scarcity (LTS).Design/methodology/approach: We used written scenarios, and each participant was assigned to one of the experimental or control groups for LQS and LTS conditions. Using a structural modeling approach, we tested the conceptual model and analyzed the data through SmartPLS version 4. We conducted mediating and multigroup (MGA) analysis.Findings: We found that perceived scarcity directly increases IBT and that FOMO partially mediates this relationship across all samples. The MGA findings also revealed that hypothesized relationships were not significantly different across LQS and LTS groups, suggesting that the effect of scarcity messages may be context specific.Originality/value: Previous studies have yielded mixed results on the effects of different scarcity messages on consumer behavior. This study contributes to the literature by providing evidence of the direct relationship between perceived scarcity, FOMO and impulse buying in the fast fashion context. The study supports the idea that the effect of different types of scarcity messages is context specific, suggesting that the relationship between scarcity perceptions and consumer behavior may vary depending on the product category and cultural context.

Although it has been widely discussed in the literature, no scale has yet been developed to measure the consumption aspect of death. This study aims to develop a domain-specific death-related status consumption (DRSC) scale to bridge this gap in the field. Results reveal the following three dimensions of the scale: conspicuousness, planning, and showing respect. In four studies, which collate the views of 1,302 participants, both students and adults, the DRSC demonstrates internal consistency and validity across cultures (Turkey, the U.S., and culturally diverse sample). The importance of such a scale for the field is discussed.

This study aims to compare the demographics and behavioural characteristics of consumers who adopt voluntary simplicity as a daily lifestyle process, focusing on one developed country and one developing country. Data were accordingly collected from 589 US and Turkish consumers who define themselves as voluntary simplifiers. Although other studies found that voluntary simplifiers have same demographic characteristics, our results indicate that Turkish and US simplifiers do not vary statistically in terms of demographic variables such as income class, marital status, number of children and gender but do vary statistically in terms of education, age and working hours. They also vary in terms of the deliberate shortening of working hours. The results reveal that several behavioural and demographic characteristics of consumers who adopt the same lifestyle philosophy may vary based on their culture and the conditions of their country. Findings in the discussion section are aligned with previous studies in the literature and with socioeconomic and demographic indicators of the two countries.

Consumer researchers specifically interested in popularity have generally focused on either product popularity or brand popularity but have been largely silent on the subject of the need for popularity. Although a large number of studies have examined reference group influence on consumer behaviors, no research has yet evaluated the need for popularity in the consumption context. With this aim, the main purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the need for popularity on purchase decisions and impulse-buying behavior concerning fashion clothing. Accordingly, this study explores the relationships between fashion clothing purchase decision involvement, need for popularity and fashion-oriented impulse buying. Using a sample of Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) participants (n = 333), this study finds that (1) the need for popularity positively influences purchase decision involvement and impulse-buying behavior concerning fashion clothing and (2) the involvement in purchase decisions concerning fashion clothing positively influences fashion-oriented impulse buying. This research advances the understanding of the need for popularity in the context of fashion consumption. Implications and limitations for future research are discussed and consumer researchers are called to pay attention to this promising research area.

Despite the availability of several domain-specific instruments and its obvious drawbacks, it is interesting that the SERVQUAL scale is still used in health care settings. For this reason, the main aim of this study was to compare two different service quality scales in a health care setting. We compared the fit of the SERVQUAL model with a domain-specific model through confirmatory factor analysis using AMOS. The results showed that the domain-specific scale was superior to SERVQUAL within the context of a health care environment. We believe that using/modifying a generalized scale is not a good approach when we have domain-specific alternatives available.