Outstanding Paper Award

Citation

(2008), "Outstanding Paper Award", International Marketing Review, Vol. 25 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/imr.2008.03625faa.003

Outstanding Paper Award

Article Type: Awards for Excellence From: International Marketing Review, Volume 25, Issue 6

"Consumer animosity: a literature review and a reconsideration of its measurement"

Petra Riefler and Adamantios DiamantopoulosDepartment of International Marketing, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

Purpose – Consumer animosity has gained considerable attention in international marketing literature as a determinant of foreign product purchase behaviour. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, a state-of-the-art review of consumer animosity research is presented and specific issues for future research on consumer animosity are raised. Second, potential problems associated with the measurement of consumer animosity are highlighted and an alternative perspective for operationalizing the construct is proposed.Design/methodology/approach – First, a critical literature review on empirical consumer animosity studies is undertaken. Second, exploratory empirical results are presented, based on unprompted questioning, to identify both targets of animosity by Austrian consumers and underlying reasons for such animosity. Third, a MIMIC model overcoming the shortcomings of the current operationalizations of the consumer animosity construct is proposed.Findings – The exploratory study on Austrian consumers demonstrates that animosity targets of consumers cannot be considered as being given, i.e. consumers differ in their animosity targets, and there may be a number of (different) reasons causing animosity feelings such as economic, political, religious or personal.Originality/value – This paper reveals a set of problematic issues in current consumer animosity research and offers concrete approaches to overcome the latter. In particular, a formative measurement approach consistent with the conceptual definition of the construct is suggested and described.

Keywords: Consumer behaviour, International business, Market research

www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/02651330710727204

This article originally appeared in Volume 24 Number 1, 2007, pp. 87-119 of International Marketing Review, Editors: Robert E. Morgan and Jeryl M. Whitelock