Cultural Authenticity and Consumer Engagement in Heritage Craft Brands: A Conceptual Framework for Artisan SMEs in Emerging Markets

This paper develops a conceptual framework for understanding how cultural authenticity shapes consumer engagement with heritage craft brands operated by artisan small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in emerging market contexts. Drawing on the converging theoretical traditions of brand authenticity, brand heritage, cultural branding, and consumer engagement, the study integrates four streams of scholarship that have remained largely separate in the marketing literature. Building on a structured review of forty-three peer-reviewed sources indexed in Web of Science and Scopus, the analysis identifies four interrelated dimensions of cultural authenticity—craft genuineness, place embeddedness, narrative continuity, and ethical sourcing—that together mediate the relationship between heritage-craft brand identity and consumer engagement outcomes. The framework distinguishes between objective, constructed, and existential modes of authenticity perception, and clarifies how each mode is mobilized in the digital and physical retail environments characteristic of contemporary heritage-craft markets. The framework is illustrated through an empirical vignette drawn from Silk Road craft traditions in Central Asia, where centuries-old artisan practices coexist with rapidly evolving global consumer markets. The findings carry implications for the strategic management of heritage-craft SMEs, for the broader literature on emerging-market consumer behavior, and for the design of cultural-policy instruments that support the sustainable development of artisanal sectors. Several directions for future empirical research are identified.