Search results

Previous research on brand crisis has introduced the difference between a values-related crisis and a performance-related crisis. However, little remains known regarding consumers’ varying negative responses towards these two different types of brand misconduct. This paper aims to investigate and compare consumers’ affective and behavioural negative reactions (i.e. negative word of mouth and purchase intention) towards a faulty brand during a values-related crisis and a performance-related crisis by testing the mediation of negative emotions and introducing the moderating role of cultural belongingness (collectivistic vs individualistic).

The authors tested a model of moderated mediation in a cross-cultural investigation on a sample of 229 Italian and Asian consumers. The study is a 2 (cultures: collectivistic vs individualistic) × 2 (crisis: performance-related vs values-related) between-subjects experimental design. The moderated mediation model shows that consumers’ negative reactions (negative word of mouth and negative purchase intention) towards a faulty brand involved in different crisis typologies is explained by the mediating role of negative emotions, and that this mediation depends on a consumer’s cultural belongingness.

The results suggest that consumers belonging to a collectivistic culture (e.g. Asian culture) tend to react in a more severe and strict manner when faced with a values-related brand crisis event then when faced with a performance-related crisis. The arousal of negative emotion towards a brand represents the mediating variable in behavioural responses (i.e. negative word of mouth and purchase intention).

The present study extends current knowledge in the field of consumers’ negative response to brand irresponsibility behaviours while introducing the role of crisis typology and cultural belongingness. In particular, individualistic people are more sensitive to a values-related crisis in comparison with a performance-related one. The findings of this study have strong managerial implications for defining effective response strategies to negative events involving brands in different markets.

Although firm growth through the acquisition of independent players is at a record high, market reports reveal a parallel increase in independent firms that enjoy noticeable consumer support across industries and threaten MNC-owned brands in several countries. Despite this evident contrast, no research has investigated how independent firms stack up against their non-independent counterparts from a consumer perspective. This study examines this standoff and proposes that independent firms outperform their non-independent contenders in fostering perceptions of product craftmanship and warmth in specific product categories and cultures.

Three experimental studies were conducted across five countries (Study 1: N = 360; USA and China – Study 2: N = 487; UK and India – Study 3: N = 323; Italy). Data were analysed using experimental techniques (Analysis of Variance) and conditional process analyses (Moderated Mediation) using PROCESS.

The findings suggest that (1) firm independence fosters perceptions of product craftmanship and warmth in individualistic cultures, (2) consumers view products sold by independent firms as warmer and more authentic than products sold by non-independent firms in hedonic but not in utilitarian product categories, (3) the positive effects of firm independence on product craftmanship and warmth are neutralized for vertically collectivist cultures (India) and reversed in horizontally collectivist cultures (China), (4) loss of firm independence leads to higher drops in perceived craftmanship and product preference when it is caused by a takeover from a foreign multinational (compared to a domestic corporation).

This research provides a first account of how perceptions of firm independence drive assessments of product craftmanship and authenticity, elicit feelings of warmth and build product preference. The findings inform decisions of multinational corporations regarding (1) how to communicate the acquisition of independent firms in local markets, (2) how to balance an international brand portfolio in culturally diverging markets and different product industries, (3) how to optimize brand architecture through the relative exposure of the corporate brand image vis-à-vis the image of standalone brands owned by the corporation and (4) offer smaller independent players an alternative positioning strategy to differentiate from global competitors enjoying the resources or support of bigger corporations.

The purpose of this study is to examine the role of culture and future orientation in lenders’ prosocial microlending behaviors.

Three experiments examine how different cultural backgrounds, either individualistic or collectivistic, influenced microlenders’ prosocial behaviors, including the amount of microlending, the willingness to help and the length of commitment. Further, the moderating role of future orientation among individualists is investigated.

Results indicate that cultural differences influence prosocial microlending differently such that individualists give less to people in need compared to collectivists. Further, the author found that future orientation helps lenders in individualistic culture to improve prosocial microlending behaviors.

This paper emphasizes the role of cultural background and future orientation in promoting lenders’ prosocial giving in the context of microlending. The results assist social marketers to understand how to motivate giving behaviors via microlending among lenders in different cultures depending on future orientation.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of brand gender on brand equity across countries and cultures in various product domains.

Consumers from ten countries on four continents rated 20 global brands, leading to a total of 16,934 cross-clustered observations. Linear mixed effect models examined a series of nested models, testing three novel brand gender effects with respect to the impact of androgynous brands on brand equity and the moderating role of consumers’ biological sex as well as individualistic and collectivistic cultures. Additional robustness tests provide support on form, metric, and scalar invariance of the measurements and the robustness of the observed effects across countries and cultures.

The current research reveals that androgynous brands generate higher brand equity relative to exclusively masculine, exclusively feminine, and undifferentiated brands. The authors also show a brand gender congruence effect such that male consumers value masculine brands higher than females while female consumers value more feminine brands higher than males. Finally, highly masculine brands generate higher brand equity in more individualistic countries whereas highly feminine brands generate higher brand equity in more collectivistic countries.

This is the first research examining and demonstrating the positive influence of androgynous brand gender perceptions on brand equity. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is also the first paper examining brand gender effects across countries and cultures.

Increased global air travel and competition in the airline industry entail better service delivery and failure management. This study examines how airline type, failure criticality and the traveller's culture influence travellers' airline evaluations of service failure.

The study uses a large data set of customers' online reviews and incorporates quantitative and qualitative feedback from 20 major airlines across the world. Semantic tagging, sentiment and multivariate analyses have been used to analyse the data.

Failure criticality and travellers' cultural backgrounds significantly affect airline evaluations after service failures. Moreover, failure criticality influences evaluations of travellers from individualistic cultures more severely. Contrary to expectations, full-service airlines were evaluated positively after less critical service failures.

The findings support that customers undergo different emotional states when they experience service failure. Understanding these internal emotional sensitivities and how services would be judged by travellers across cultures can help airlines to better manage their service recovery efforts and to strategise prioritisation of scarce resources.

Though airline service failure has been well researched, this study examines the role of culture in service failure evaluations. The study uses a novel method to analyse a large data set of both quantitative and qualitative traveller feedback useful in service recovery management.

This paper investigates why and when messages regarding unsustainable luxury products lead to negative word-of-mouth (NWOM) through a focus on the role of guilt, need to warn others and consumers' cultural orientation.

Three experiments test whether messages describing unsustainable versus sustainable luxury manufacturing processes elicit guilt and a need to warn others and whether and how the need to warn others affects consumers' NWOM depending on their cultural orientation.

Consumers experience guilt in response to messages emphasizing the unsustainable (vs sustainable) nature of luxury products. In turn, guilt triggers a need to warn other consumers, which leads to NWOM about the luxury company. Furthermore, the results suggest that two dimensions of Hofstede's model of national culture – namely individualism/collectivism and masculinity/femininity – moderate the effect of the need to warn others on NWOM.

Luxury managers should design appropriate strategies to cope with consumers' different reactions to information regarding luxury brands' unsustainability. Managers should be aware that the risk of NWOM diffusion may be higher in countries characterized by a collectivistic and feminine orientation rather than an individualistic and masculine orientation.

Consumer reaction to unsustainable luxury, especially across different cultural groups, is a neglected area of investigation. This work contributes to this novel area of research by investigating NWOM stemming from unsustainable luxury manufacturing practices in different cultural contexts.

Prior literature on online customer reviews (OCRs) suggests that individuals are socially influenced by information shared by others. Given that the online environment brings together users from different cultures, understanding how users differ in their processing and generation of OCRs across cultures is imperative. Specifically, this paper explores how cross-cultural differences influence OCR generation when there are inconsistencies between recent and overall review ratings.

The authors employ an empirical study and an experimental approach to test the predictions. For the empirical study (Study 1), the authors collected and analyzed actual review data from an online hotel review platform, Booking.com. This was followed by an experimental study (Study 2) in which the authors manipulated the thinking style represented by each cultural orientation to further explain how and why cross-cultural differences exist.

The results show that compared with the review ratings of users from collectivist cultures, those of users from individualistic cultures are more likely to follow recent review ratings. Based on the experimental study, the authors further find that such cross-cultural differences in OCR generation are driven by differences in thinking style.

This research extends the literature by demonstrating the cross-cultural differences in individuals' herding tendencies in OCR generation. The authors also add to the literature by showing in which direction OCR herding occurs when there is a discrepancy between overall and recent review ratings. From a managerial perspective, the findings provide guidelines for online platforms serving the global market on predicting customers' OCR generation and constructing appropriate response strategies.

Although the use of online authentication systems in banking services is expanding globally, little is known about cultural differences in forming consumers' responses to these services. This paper examines how the usability of an online security service and culture impact consumers' behaviour.

The authors conduct a 2 (usability: high vs low) × 2 (culture: US vs Korea) between-subjects, full factorial design.

The results indicate a differential influence of the usability of a security system by culture. In particular, US consumers exhibit greater behavioural intention in a high (vs low) usability condition, whereas Korean consumers showed more favourable responses in a low-usability condition. Moreover, perceived effort is confirmed as a crucial mediator that explains the psychological mechanism of the proposed effect.

This research contributes to the literature on online banking where security is an important determinant of success. Especially for managers involved in international banking services, the findings of cultural differences offer insights about the importance of local understanding and differentiation of bank services for specific target markets which can enhance consumers' response towards an online security service.

The current study is one of a very few attempts to examine the role of usability of an online security system in forming consumers' behavioural intention. More importantly, this study integrates the concept of culture to explain how usability influences positive or negative behavioural intention in an international market.

This study examines the effect of both objective knowledge (i.e., what arts audience members actually know about art) and subjective knowledge (i.e., what arts audiences members think they know about art) on their propensity for experience-sharing (i.e., the tendency to share art-related experiences with other individuals). In addition, the study examines the role of culture (i.e., whether arts audiences belong to an individualistic or collectivistic culture) on the above-mentioned relationship.

Data were gathered through a field survey at a large contemporary art museum in Italy, conducted via a structured questionnaire and analyzed using multiple regression analysis.

Results indicate that both subjective and objective knowledge positively affect arts audiences’ propensity for experience-sharing, such as talking to others about a visit to an art gallery. Moreover, such effects appear to vary depending on culture: objective knowledge seems to positively influence experience-sharing when audiences belong to collectivistic cultures, whereas subjective knowledge seems to positively influence experience-sharing when they belong to individualistic cultures.

The study’s findings could motivate arts managers to emphasize the implementation of international communication strategies aimed at reinforcing arts audiences’ subjective and objective knowledge since these variables are positively associated with their propensity for experience-sharing with others.

This is the first study to assess the effects of objective and subjective knowledge, alongside the cultural dimensions of individualism and collectivism, on arts audiences’ propensity for experience-sharing.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of store atmosphere on consumers’ positive emotional responses and impulsive purchase behaviour. In addition, it analyses the moderating role of culture characteristics and situational variables on this influence.

The study carried out a quantitative face-to-face on-site survey of a retail fashion brand in two countries, Brazil and Germany. This paper extended the original model of Jung Chang et al. (2014) based on environment, design and social features (staff) by adding store atmosphere factors such as layout, music and lighting (Mohan et al., 2013), thereby defining store atmosphere as the way customers perceive and experience the combination of all those factors.

Data analysis from 313 consumers by structural equation modelling (PLS–SEM) showed that most factors influence consumers’ positive emotional responses, but no significant difference between countries. However, the effect of emotions on impulse purchase behaviour is stronger among collectivist consumers (Brazil) than among individualists (Germany).

This study sheds light on the links between store atmosphere and retail market in Brazil and Germany, framing its conclusions in the context of a comparison between cultures. The paper extends the growing research in the area by exploring the moderating role of the individualism–collectivism dimension of national culture in consumer buying behaviour by comparing the strength of various relationships across shoppers from individualistic vs collectivistic cultures.