Social power, product conspicuousness, and the demand for luxury brand counterfeit products

The aim of this article is two-fold: 1) to achieve a better understanding of the psychological determinants of the demand for luxury brand counterfeit products (LBCP) through exploring the effects of social power; 2) to extend power literature by identifying boundary conditions of the relationship between social power and compensatory consumption identified by Rucker and Galinsky (2008, 2009). Findings from three experiments demonstrate that social power holds key insights into understanding consumers’ purchase propensity for LBCP; product conspicuousness moderates the effects of social power on purchase propensity for status products; these moderation effects are only observed when the status products are LBCP but not genuine products. This article, therefore, contributes to the literature regarding the demand for counterfeits as well as the social power and compensatory consumption literature.