Explaining inconsistencies in implicit and explicit attitudes towards domestic and foreign products

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the inconsistency of explicit and implicit domestic country bias (DCB) across different types of products and in the context of two countries.

Design/methodology/approach

Two studies in two countries are conducted to examine the inconsistencies in implicit and explicit DCB. The first study collected data through mall intercept survey method in Taiwan and identified 189 valid respondents. The second study applied a mixed (within and between subjects) factorial experiment in China using 200 subjects.

Findings

Results show that explicit and implicit attitudes are moderately related to each other. The results also confirm that ethnic product typicality can explain inconsistencies in both explicit and implicit DCB. For ethnically typical products, DCB is more pronounced in consumers’ explicit attitudes than in consumers’ implicit attitudes. On the contrary, for ethnically atypical goods, DCB makes itself present in both explicit and implicit attitudes.

Originality/value

The results shed new light on DCB and confirm that the bias could divaricate between explicit and implicit attitudes in the case of ethnically typical products.

Citation

Tseng, T.-H., Balabanis, G. and Liu, M.T. (2018), "Explaining inconsistencies in implicit and explicit attitudes towards domestic and foreign products", International Marketing Review, Vol. 35 No. 1, pp. 72-92. https://doi.org/10.1108/IMR-05-2013-0092