The Behavioural Effects of Consumer Ethnocentrism: The moderating role of product category, brand and country of origin

Purpose – Despite the well-established impact of consumer ethnocentrism (CET) on purchase intentions, extant literature offers limited evidence on actual purchase behaviour. This study addresses this gap by investigating the factors underlying variations in consumer ethnocentric behaviour using reported brand purchases. Product category, product cost and visibility, brand and country of origin of purchased products are investigated for their impact on the differences in the behavioural effects of CET. Design/methodology/approach – This study uses survey data collected in the United States from a sample of 468 consumers. Self-reported brand purchases are used and involve 10 product categories, 432 brands, and 22 countries of origin. Logistic regressions for repeated measures are used to test the hypotheses formulated. Findings – The results confirm that product category is an important determinant of the behavioural effects of CET. CET also has a significant impact on purchases of the most expensive product categories rather than frequently purchased convenient items. Contrary to existing empirical evidence, cultural similarity does not mitigate the negative effects of CET and product visibility does not strengthen the behavioural effect of CET. Practical implications – The study results should enhance managers’ understanding of the determinants of ethnocentric behaviour. The results caution managers about the value of self-reported measures and indicate that product features other than country of origin may be more effective in mitigating the negative effects of CET. Originality/value – This study contributes to extant literature on CET and country of origin by investigating, for the first time, the problem of inconsistent predictions of purchase behaviour in the context of foreign versus domestic brands. For this purpose, the study adopted a novel methodological approach to investigate actual brand purchases

Favoritism Toward Foreign and Domestic Brands: A Comparison of Different Theoretical Explanations

Five theoretical approaches can predict favoritism toward domestic and foreign brands. This article applies a contrastive perspective to examine social identity, personal identity, cultural identity, system justification, and categorical cognition theories and their attendant constructs. The authors propose a set of main-effects hypotheses as well as hypotheses related to both product and country moderation effects on attitudes toward and loyalty to domestic and foreign brands. They test the hypotheses on a sample of Chinese consumers with respect to salient brands from 12 product categories. The results indicate that three of the theoretical approaches examined can explain only one side of favoritism—most commonly favoritism toward domestic brands—but not favoritism toward both domestic and foreign brands. Consumer xenocentrism, a concept rooted in system justification theory, seems to provide more consistent predictions for both domestic- and foreign-brand bias

The effects of loyalty programs on customer satisfaction, trust, and loyalty toward high- and low-end fashion retailers

This study examines the differential effects of the benefits customers receive from a loyalty program (LP) on satisfaction with the LP, trust in the LP, and store loyalty for high- and low-end fashion retailers. With survey data from U.S. LP subscribers, the study tests the relationships using multiple regressions and analysis of covariance. The results show that symbolic benefits are more important for high-end fashion store consumers' satisfaction with the LP; conversely, utilitarian benefits increase consumers' satisfaction with the LP more in low-end fashion retailing, whereas hedonic benefits increase consumers' satisfaction with the LP in both types of retailers. All benefits in both types of retailers affect trust in the LP. Finally, satisfaction with and trust in the LP are important drivers of loyalty to the retailer. The findings have important implications on how managers of high- and low-end fashion retailing can effectively design their LP rewards to maximize loyalty

Brand origin identification by consumers: A classification perspective

The authors apply a classification perspective to (1) examine the extent to which consumers can identify the correct country of origin (COO) of different brands of consumer durables, (2) investigate the factors facilitating/hindering correct COO identification, and (3) trace the implications of correct/incorrect COO identification on brand evaluation. The results from a U.K. sample indicate that consumers' ability to classify brands correctly according to their origin is limited and also reveal substantial differences in the classification of different brands to their COO. Moreover, the key antecedent of correct COO identification is consumer ethnocentrism, with sociodemographics (e.g., age, gender) also playing a role. Finally, the authors find that though there are differences in brand evaluations depending on whether the correct COO was identified, such differences are not observed for all brands investigated

Measuring Unethical Consumer Behavior Across Four Countries

The huge amounts spent on store security and crime prevention worldwide, not only costs international businesses, but also amounts to a hidden tax on those law-binding consumers who bear higher prices. Most previous research has focused on shoplifting and ignored many other ways in which consumers cheat businesses. Using a hybrid of both qualitative research and survey approaches in four countries, an index of 37 activities was developed to examine consumers’ unethical activities across UK, US, France, and Austria. The findings indicate that around three quarters of consumers in all four countries can be classified as heavy offenders for these minor cheats. The paper argues that government agencies, marketers, and retailers should adopt more pro-active preventative approaches, rather than reactive loss limitation measures to combat unethical behavior

Factors Affecting Export Intermediaries' Service Offerings: The British Example

This study attempts to determine and explain the service-offering behavior of British export intermediaries (EIs). It was empirically confirmed that EIs offer two categories of services: transaction-creating and physical-fulfillment services. It was postulated that the extent to which an EI offers these types of services is influenced by a set of factors that are internally-, product-, market-, supplier-, and buyer-related. Empirical tests on a sample of 135 British EIs established that an EI's exporting role, number of employees, amount of undifferentiated products carried, number of suppliers, and number of countries served all have a direct impact on an EI's service-offering behavior.© 2000 JIBS. Journal of International Business Studies (2000) 31, 83–99