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Drawing on cue utilization theory and the theory of motivated reasoning, we investigate the impact of consumer xenocentrism on product preferences in a situation where domestic products objectively outperform their foreign counterparts.

We develop and test a model linking xenocentrism to consumers’ preference towards domestic vs. foreign products by (1) examining the mediating role of consumers’ ability to identify the superior product and (2) assessing the role of product involvement in potentially moderating this relationship. An experimental design was employed, whereby respondents (Thai consumers, N = 579) were asked to compare two products in the same product category, one foreign and one domestic. In one condition, the foreign product outperformed the domestic one on a range of relevant product attributes, whereas in a second condition, the opposite was the case.

Our findings provide clear evidence that xenocentric consumers often cannot recognize the superiority of domestic products and, even if they do, they still exhibit preferences toward (inferior) foreign products. Thus, for xenocentric consumers, it seems that the country of origin (COO) overrides other cues and often results in suboptimal product choices.

Our study adds to our theoretical understanding of the functioning of the consumer xenocentrism construct and has important implications for foreign companies targeting xenocentric consumers as well as for local firms seeking to counteract xenocentric tendencies.

This study aims to examine the influence of two significant product labelling strategies (geographical indication [GI] vs country-of-origin [COO]) on shaping customer product attitude and purchase likelihood, considering consumers’ ethnocentric and cosmopolitan tendencies. The authors also investigate the boundary conditions and intervening mechanisms to manage the adverse consumer product evaluations and present mitigating procedures which reinstate favourable product evaluations and purchase likelihood.

The collected data from these all these studies were analysed using ANOVA and mediation anlaysis. The study tests the proposed hypotheses using three follow-up experimental investigations.

The study found that GI (vs COO) labels have a more significant impact on customers’ product evaluation and likelihood of purchase and supported the dispositional effect of ethnocentric and cosmopolitan inclinations. Further, the results indicated that self-product congruence can efficiently regulate consumer dispositions. Also, the results confirmed the significant impact of product identification on influencing consumer attitudes.

The above-said insights add practical insights, particularly concerning product labelling. Also, the insights on product attitudes and purchase likelihood intricacies in the context of product labelling enable companies to comprehend better the significance of GI labels, COO labels and self-product congruence.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time a study has compared the role of two significant product labelling strategies (GI vs COO) in shaping customer product evaluations, confirmed its boundary conditions and shown how to transform them into helpful customer product outcomes.

Little is known about Indonesian consumers' acceptance of global brands despite their huge retail market potential. Drawing from Festinger’s (1957) cognitive dissonance theory and Schwartz’s (1992) value system, this study aims to examine the effect of Indonesian consumers' religiosity, cosmopolitanism and ethnocentrism on their preference for and purchase intention towards global brands.

Data were collected from 316 female consumers aged 20 years or older living in Indonesia via a professional online survey firm. The firm sent prospective participants an email invitation with a survey URL. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling were conducted using AMOS 24.0 to test hypotheses.

The analyses revealed that Indonesian consumers' religiosity increased their ethnocentrism but not cosmopolitanism. Further, ethnocentrism decreased global brand preference without affecting purchase intention towards Korean cosmetics, whereas cosmopolitanism increased both global brand preference and purchase intention towards Korean cosmetics.

The findings show that cosmopolitanism has a stronger influence on global brand preference than ethnocentrism, suggesting ethnocentrism’s diminishing relevance in predicting purchase intention for foreign products. Additionally, religiosity’s effect on ethnocentrism was confirmed.

The purpose of this study is to compare two different types of measures of social desirability bias (SDB), a short form of the Marlowe–Crowne measure, a popular direct measure, and an example of a projective technique where half of the respondents record the views of their “best friends”.

The data were collected using an online survey of members of a consumer panel. The context chosen to test the SDB measures was that of attitudes toward counterfeit products and xenocentrism in Colombia. Counterfeit proneness, attitude toward counterfeit products and consumer xenocentrism were selected as variables likely to be affected by SDB. Vertical and horizontal collectivism were included as variables likely to influence the first group of variables while not being themselves subject to SDB.

The projective technique consistently identified higher levels of SDB effects, as hypothesized. Marked differences emerged in the apparent strength of the relationships between the operational constructs depending upon which measure of SDB was used. At times, whether any such relationship might exist depended on the SDB measure used. Contrary to some prior work, no systematic gender effects were identified using either approach.

The first study to provide evidence of the comparative effects of different types of measures of SDB in research into ethical issues. One of the few to demonstrate how apparent relationships between variables can be created by SDB.

Sectoral brands are umbrella brands created to represent all companies’ products belonging to a country’s economic industry abroad to enhance their export performance. This study aims to explore the development of a sectoral brand model through the optic of the social constructionist perspective. Besides, this study also proposes to apply the model to a sectoral brand case in the business-to-business market.

The authors have developed a systematic qualitative literature review to provide a theoretical basis for the attributes chosen to compose the social constructionist sectoral brand management (SCSBM) model. To apply the model, the authors have conducted a series of 17 in-depth semi-structured interviews with the association’s managers that constitute the sectoral brand development, the director of the branding consultancy firm and specialists on place branding.

The authors present the SCSBM model, highlighting that sectoral branding should be seen as a dynamic and continuous process with the integrated participation of all industry stakeholders. Moreover, the authors have applied the model to the Brazil Fashion System brand.

The main contribution to theory is the link between sectoral brand management and the social constructionist approach, being the first study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to propose this connection. SCSBM model extends previous work on sectoral brands by adopting a social constructionist view.

The SCSBM model might contribute to marketing professionals willing to develop sectoral brands across multiple economic sectors and geographies.

The study’s originality lies in developing the first model, which adopts a social constructionist approach to sectoral brands.

The purpose of this study is to, first, analyze the past years of research on international branding and, second, building on an early literature review, to analyze patterns in the field and suggest future research.

The analyzed papers were compiled using the Web of Science and Scopus databases. The author searched papers published between 2007 and 2023 that used terms related to international branding in their title, abstract and keywords.

This paper structures and identifies key institutions, papers, regions and authors in the field. It provides an overview of the past years of research in the area. The study identifies important gaps in the literature and suggests further research dealing with, for example, the B2B sector and emerging markets.

Despite the increase in international branding studies, few literature reviews have been published since 2007. This review fills this research gap. It identifies future research areas dealing with branding in the B2B sector, branding in emerging markets, branding process and implementation studies using longitudinal methods and more practical research.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze to what extent and in what ways signaling theory has been explored within the field of international marketing. This paper systematically reviews the use of signaling theory in the field of international marketing. Communication is a core aspect of the international marketing process. Research in this field has explored effective and unique ways of improving the communication flow to reduce the asymmetry of information between international consumers and the firm. This notion is adopted, enhanced and strengthened by signaling theory. Signaling theory has recently received the attention of international marketing scholars.

The systematic review methodology was applied for the purpose of identifying the relevant studies. We extracted academic articles over the last 23 years from the domain of international marketing that directly contribute to signaling theory based on 57 journal articles extracted through the systematic review process.

Based on systematic research the results reveal that the topic has grown and continues to expand within the broader international marketing field. We offer a theoretical conceptual framework to better understand signaling theory in the context of international marketing.

The authors map and critically evaluate the use of signaling theory in international marketing. Relevance of signaling theory in international marketing is growing and authors present an integrative framework that organizes the existing literature, and provides scholars to further expand on emerging themes of the domain. The paper offers some useful future research directions.

Due to changing consumer thinking patterns and market dynamics, the quick service restaurant (QSR) industry has changed dramatically in the past few years. Considering this, this study aims to examine the influence of perceived brand globalness and perceived brand localness on consumer word of mouth through brand attitude by considering consumer ethnocentrism and perceived brand origin as moderators.

This study obtained 750 responses from Turkish consumers through a survey and analyzed the data using the maximum-likelihood estimation technique with structural equation modeling.

This study discovered that perceived brand globalness and perceived brand localness are critical components that drive brand attitude, influencing consumers' WOM toward global and local QSR brands. Similarly, perceived brand globalness and perceived brand localness are important brand attributes influencing consumer WOM. Importantly, this study found the significant effects of perceived brand origin on brand attitude mainly toward perceived local brands compared to global QSR brands. Although this study did not uncover the influence of consumer ethnocentrism as expected. However, these insights may assist global and local managers to rethink their strategies toward Turkish consumer settings.

This study was conducted exclusively in Turkey. However, additional studies in other countries, such as the comparative Asian versus European consumers' perspectives, may be considered to generalize the findings.

This study provides recommendations to global and local managers to support them in designing and executing several brand positioning strategies in the QSR industry.

This novel study contributes to the accessibility diagnostic theory and signaling theory by examining consumers' perceptions of local and global brands.

The current study investigates the role of consumer ethnocentrism (CE) in the context of locally produced organic food. This research work further extends the extended theory of planned behavior (TPB) model by examining the mediating effect of extended TPB variables (ATT, SN, PBC, PV) between CE and PI for locally produced organic food.

Data were obtained from the visitors of two shopping malls situated in a large, heavily populated city of India using survey method. Further, two-step approach was applied to analyze the hypothesized model.

Findings indicate that CE is a substantial determinant of PI for locally produced organic food. Moreover, extended TPB mediates the relation between CE and PI for locally produced organic food.

Post Covid-19, market size of organic food is rapidly growing in India. In this regard, this study presents useful implications for the marketers of organic food for gaining better consumer insights to further develop appropriate marketing strategies.

CE has been found to be a useful predictor of their food attitudes. However, studies, investigating the role of CE in the context of sustainable food consumption, are scant. Moreover, studies exploring the mediating effect of extended TPB variables are also very limited.

The purpose of this paper was identification and empirical assessment of the differentiation of consumers' attitudes in Ukraine and Poland to Russian brands and other brands offered on the Russian market after Russia’s aggression against Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

The main research methods include a systematic literature review and the authors' own surveys conducted in November 2022. The research sample comprised 950 consumers – 67% of them were Poles, 30% – Ukrainians and 3% from other countries.

A respondents' country (Poland and Ukraine) does not impact attitudes to brands offered on the Russian market after Russia's invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Moreover, it does not affect and differentiate emotional engagement in the conflict and assistance to war victims. Cluster analysis resulted in identifying two groups on the basis of consumers' declared emotional reactions to the war. The first group was smaller (N = 353, 37.2%), referred to as “indifferent consumers”, and was characterized by a greater inclination to purchase brands offered in Russia. The other cluster, referred to as “sensitive consumers” (N = 597, 62.8%), comprises those engaged in offering assistance to war victims, showing strong emotions in connection with the aggression and military activities and characterized by a clearly negative attitude to Russian and other offered brands and an inclination to boycott these brands.

A short time horizon, the study confined to two countries, difficulties in reaching Ukrainian respondents due to power failures in Ukraine in the period of conducting the survey (November 2022), a non-representative research sample – overrepresentation of people aged 18–25 years.

The research study contributes to the knowledge about consumer brand attitudes and preferences under unique social, economic and market conditions. These conditions were created by Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, as well as the international and global character of the war in Ukraine. The significant implications of the study refer to brand communication policies and companies' CSR-related declarations. A number of consumers' errors were recorded, resulting from wrong brand retrieval, which were rectified at a later stage as a result of international restrictions imposed on Russia, harsh media criticism and social international embargoes imposed on brands offered in Russia. The marketing communication of contemporary global brands should give consideration to the informative function of CSR activities, and the communication process should be continuous. Critical attitudes and an inclination to boycott brands point to the possible consequences faced by inconsistent and ethically doubtful brand policies. This implication is clearly confirmed by the results of the study.

The authors also wish to highlight the implications for practice and society. As mentioned earlier, Polish consumers involved in providing aid to victims of the war also expressed their opposition to the war by boycotting Russian products and international brands remaining in Russia. Popularization of the research results obtained by the authors can be a form of sensitizing the public to the need for long-term relief, awakening global awareness of the essence and importance of sanctions imposed on Russia, as well as the possibility of expressing opposition through individual purchasing decisions and boycotting brands still present in Russia.

The study allowed for identifying consumers' differentiated brand attitudes in two countries: a country inflicted by war (Ukraine) and a front-line country, strongly supporting Ukraine (Poland). The research contributes to consumer behavior theories and studies of consumer attitudes and preferences from the perspective of international corporations' CSR activities under the unique conditions of war. Also, it contributes to the knowledge of the mechanism of forming attitudes to Russian and international brands offered in Russia among CEE consumers.