본 연구에서는 타인의 창의적 소비에 대해 사람들이 보이는 반응의 차이를 설명하는 개인차 변인으로 창의적 소비효능감에 주목하였고, 창의적 소비효능감이 창의적 소비의도를 높이는지 보고자 하였다. 창의적 소비는 소비와 관련된 문제를 제품의 원래 용도나 방식과는 다르게 새로우면서 유용하게 해결하는 소비 방식으로, Ikea 제품을 원래의 방식대로 조립해서 사용하지 않고 자신만의 방식으로 조립해서 사용하는 Ikea hack은 창의적 소비의 좋은 예이다. 본 연구의 자극물로 Ikea의 원 제품의 사용 방식과 창의적으로 소비된 방식(Ikea hack)을 함께 보여주고, 창의적 소비 제품에 대한 가치 지각이 창의적 소비효능감이 창의적 소비의도에 미치는 영향을 매개하는지, 그리고 자신의 손재주에 대해 지각된 효능감이 그 과정을 조절하는지를 검증하였다. 창의성 정도가 다른 4개의 자극물을 가지고 연구한 결과, 소비자의 창의적 소비효능감 정도에 따라 타인의 창의적 소비를 보여주는 자극물에 대해 기능적, 심미적 가치를 보다 높게 지각하고 이것이 창의적 소비행동 의도를 높임을 볼 수 있었다. 또한 창의적 소비효능감이 가치 지각에 미치는 영향을 손재주 효능감이 조절함을 볼 수 있었다. 이러한 결과는 전체 데이터에서 검증되었고, 개별 자극물의 경우 매개효과는 3개, 조절된 매개효과는 4개의 자극물에서 반복적으로 검증되었다. 마지막으로 본 연구 결과가 창의적 소비문화 확산에 갖는 시사점, 향후 연구와 한계점에 대해 논의하였다.

Lately, people often upload and share photos and videos portraying their daily consumption experiences on social media such as YouTube and Instagram. Some of videos show creative consumption solving a consumption problem in a new and useful way by using a product differently from the suggested or original use or usage. Ikea hack is such a good example and actively consumed in social media. The current study aims to examine how people would respond to this kind of creative consumption by others. On YouTube, many how-to videos are listed and many people learn new things by watching and following the videos. People may respond to creative consumption experience by others in various ways. Some people are astonished at their creativity but do nothing. They just enjoy such pictures or videos. Others participate in creative consumption by themselves either following exactly the same way or adapting the idea in their own way. Like this, people show different reactions. Then, where do the differences in reactions come from? As suggested in prior studies, we focus on creative consumption efficacy as an individual difference factor explaining differences in reactions to others’ creative consumption. The current study used Ikea hack as an example of creative consumption and examined if high creative consumption efficacy led to higher creative consumption intention and if value perception of creative consumption stimuli mediated the effect of creative consumption efficacy on creative consumption intention and the moderating effect of dexterity efficacy as well. For the main study, four original Ikea products and creatively consumed stimuli (Ikea hacks) were used. The four stimuli were chosen from a pretest using thirty four stimuli with sixty nine participants. They were asked to evaluate how creative and useful Ikea hacks were and how difficult it was to follow them. The purpose of the pretest was to find stimuli that were different in creativity (high vs. low) but similar in usefulness and difficulty. In the main study, one hundred twenty nine adults participated. They were randomly divided into two groups and shown two stimuli set which were similar in creativity to avoid unintended negative ratings of less creative stimuli in comparison and fatigue from rating four stimuli repetitively. An original Ikea product and creatively consumed stimulus were presented side by side. Then, the participants were asked to rate their creative consumption intention, functional and aesthetic value of the stimuli, perceived dexterity efficacy, creative consumption efficacy, and creativity of the stimuli. The five point Likert scales were used except of the creativity (7-point scales). In the last, gender and age were asked. The pretest and the main experiment were all conducted online. The results using the four stimuli with different degrees of creativity showed that the creative consumption efficacy led people to perceive functional and aesthetic values from the creative consumption stimuli and this in turn affected the creative consumption intention. In addition, the dexterity efficacy moderated the effect of the creative consumption efficacy on value perception. The whole data corroborated these results and the three stimuli verified the mediation effects and the four, the moderated mediation effects, respectively. The results suggest that individual difference such as creative consumption efficacy affects behavioral intention to consume creatively in reaction to pictures or videos of creative consumption in social media. Depending on the level of creative consumption efficacy people have, they perceive functional and aesthetic values of the same stimulus differently, and the greater the value, the more intentional they are to consume in the same way as others do. So far, research on creative consumption efficacy has proposed the concept and developed and validated the measurement scale. Then, it has shown that the creative consumption efficacy mediated people to be involved in more creative consumption in the creatively displayed shopping environment. The purpose of this study was to examine the more direct effect of creative consumption efficacy, and as a result, it was found that the creative consumption efficiency increased the creative consumption intention by leading people to perceive the stimulus showing creative consumption more functionally and aesthetically valuable. These findings also show that the creative consumption culture can be spread by raising the value perception of creative consumption. Creative consumption efficacy is an individual difference and there is a limit to directly affecting it. However, the up-loading and sharing creative consumption contents through social media will enhance the social value of creative consumption, which could contribute to the cultural spread of creative consumption. Finally, future directions and limitations were discussed.