| Summary: | Consumer behaviour research on role transition has so far been limited to the negative life changes and the changes-specific consequences towards the consumption pattern. Moreover, although young adult customers have recently been the new target customer for many luxury brands, no research has been conducted concerning the impacts of role transition during the transition into first-time employment and the role of luxury products in dealing with those effects. Liminal transition is also a new area worth investigating because it shows the harmful effects and instability in an individual's self-concept. Also, it is widely acknowledged that the more insecure liminal consumers are, the more likely they will rely on symbolic consumption to reinforce a perception of adequate role performance.
Therefore, this research will fill in the gaps by bringing together the notion of liminal transition, from the work of Solomon (1983)'s products as compensatory mechanisms with Vigneron and Johnson (1999)'s values of luxury products in order to identify how luxury products play a role as a coping mechanism during the liminal transition into
first-time employment. The findings of an exploratory qualitative study are used to develop a conceptual model to demonstrate the perceived values liminal customers seek from luxury products to reconstruct their new self-concept and to cope with liminal effects during the transition into first-time employment. This is in order to
provide both theoretical contributions and implications for marketing practitioners.
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