City Research Online

Abstract

Home is typically understood as a singular place that provides a sense of groundedness, belonging, and well‐being. Yet, this singular notion of home is challenged in global mobility, where consumers live and travel across borders and relocate internationally frequently. We expect globally mobile consumers to experience multiple and multilayered notions of home with significant psychological consequences for their sense of well‐being, ownership, and identity. In a qualitative study of 40 globally mobile consumers, we examine what it means to have multiple homes and how consumers cope with it. We identified four types of home that coexist in global mobility: emotional home, home away from home, base of operation, and home on the road. These types are characterized by different degrees of permanence and serve different psychological benefits that are at times in opposition or complementary (respectively, belonging and ontological security, functioning and psychological ownership, productivity, and flexibility). We also explored how this home portfolio provokes emotional, social, and cognitive consequences with which globally mobile consumers cope through strategic use of marketplace resources.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2024 The Author(s). Journal of Consumer Psychology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Consumer Psychology. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Publisher Keywords:	consumer well-being, coping strategies, global mobility, home
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) J Political Science > JV Colonies and colonization. Emigration and immigration. International migration
Departments:	Bayes Business School Bayes Business School > Management
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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