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Consumer animosity is often used to explain consumers' boycott of products from a foreign country in a dispute. However, these studies are mainly cross‐sectional. The purpose of this paper is to investigate temporal changes in two distinct consumer‐animosity dimensions – i.e. historical and contemporary – and their influences on judgment of and willingness‐to‐buy foreign products.

Sampling came from a mall‐intercept survey in Japan during the height of a recent Japan‐China dispute (n=139), followed by a similar survey six months later (n=157). Identical questionnaires tapped Japanese consumers' historical animosity (HA), contemporary animosity (CA) and ethnocentrism dispositions, and judgment of and willingness to buy Chinese products. The data were fitted using structural equation modelling.

The results indicate that both CA and HA lowered willingness to buy Chinese products during, but not after, the dispute. CA was consistently stronger than HA in influencing willingness to buy. By contrast, product judgment did not influence willingness to buy during the dispute. That is, animosity dispositions overshadowed objective product evaluation during the dispute. After the dispute, only product judgment directly influenced willingness to buy, and HA indirectly influenced willingness to buy via product judgment. CA weakened after the dispute, but HA remained stable over time. Product judgment was lower during the dispute. Consumer ethnocentrism interacted only with CA during but not after the dispute.

International dispute heightens the salience of present‐day issues such as unemployment rather than of historical conflicts. Although product judgment was affected, the downside to foreign firms is temporary. Domestic firms can only take short‐term advantage, but long‐term edge remains improving product judgment.

Despite extensive research into the influence of consumer animosity on consumer behaviour, surprisingly little research has attempted to investigate the temporal characteristics of the consumer animosity, let alone investigate its distinct dimensions. In this study, the authors attempt to show that unless one considers the potential temporal changes to individual consumer‐animosity dimensions, sweeping conclusions from single‐shot studies may yield an incomplete picture and even misguide managerial initiatives.

This study aims to explore the topic of perceived terrorism risk and animosity as interrelated within the context of countries suffering from armed struggles and terror. The research investigates how these constructs influence the visitation decisions of millennials.

The investigation focuses on three countries in the Mediterranean basin with varied degrees of risk but who include a conflict area, for comparison purposes. The data was collected through an online questionnaire aimed at young millennial students.

The study confirms that animosity, for the millennial generation, is derived from conflicts and past historical events, or from political and social issues in the target country. In addition, the results show that animosity not only influences the perceived attractiveness of the destination, and through it the intention to visit the place, but also increases the perceptions of terror risk at the destination.

The research corroborates the importance of investigating animosity and perceived risk together. It also empirically verifies the influence of animosity on visitation intentions via the mediating role of perceived attractiveness of the destination and perceived risk of terror.

The study investigates animosity in countries that suffer from armed political conflicts resulting in terror attacks, a context different from that of other already existing studies. The research also examines how animosity and perceived risk interact with each other to influence visitation decisions, a topic which is lacking in the literature.

The study aims to investigate the concept of animosity that is based on traditional enmity and that which originates from other grounds. The study examines whether animosity that is based on these different causes has differing effects on perceptions and purchase decisions of the tourist destination product.

The study is based on data collected via an online questionnaire concerning the perceptions, feelings and visitation intentions of Chinese individuals toward Japan, as the traditional enemy, or toward other countries without a history of enmity with China. A model of relationships is tested.

The findings determine that animosity is formed differently depending on the target country. In addition, the influence of animosity on intention to visit and perceived risk of visiting the destination vary when animosity is based on traditional enmity reasons and when it is grounded on other causes. The influence of animosity on risk perceptions is also verified.

The study provides information that can be used to manage a country's brand in the Chinese market and to segment Chinese consumers based on their feelings of animosity toward certain countries.

The study is original as it compares animosity and its influence when it is based on causes related to traditional enmity and when it is grounded on other reasons. It is also one of the few studies to address the relationship between animosity and perceived risk.

This study examines the impact of situational and stable animosities on quality evaluation and purchase intention while also testing the moderating effects of within- and cross-country cultural distance. It focuses on the case of the US THAAD missile defense system deployment in South Korea (hereafter, Korea) and investigates how the resulting Chinese consumers' animosity affects their quality evaluation of, and purchase intention toward, Korean cosmetics.

This study utilizes a quantitative approach based on a survey and structural equation modeling. The sample comprises 376 Chinese consumers from 19 Chinese regions.

The results indicate that both stable and situational animosities are negatively associated with purchase intention toward Korean cosmetics. However, their effects on quality evaluation are different. While stable animosity is negatively related to product quality evaluation, situational animosity has no such negative association. Finally, the cultural distance between Chinese regions and Korea strengthens the negative relationship between stable and situational animosities and purchase intention.

The study contributes by better unraveling the effects of stable and situational animosities on perceived product quality. The empirical context is unique because it allows the authors to investigate the relationship between Chinese antagonism toward the THAAD deployment in Korea and Chinese consumers' stable and situational animosities in terms of their quality evaluation of, and purchase intention toward, imported Korean cosmetics. Hence, this study contributes to the literature on consumer animosity by empirically testing the moderating effect of within- and cross-country cultural distance on the relationship between stable and situational animosities and purchase intention.

The study has relevant practical implications, notably for Korean exporters' marketing management and within- and cross-cultural management. The results suggest that countermeasures are needed because Chinese consumers' stable and situational animosities are negatively related to their purchase intention toward Korean cosmetics. Moreover, the findings provide the insight that when foreign firms export culture-sensitive products to a large, multicultural country, their managers should pay attention to within- and cross-cultural differences simultaneously.

Previous studies have shown that the effects of animosity on product evaluation and purchase intention differ depending on the animosity dimension, product type, country and the situation causing animosity, among others. However, the existing literature on animosity has neglected the reality that within-cultural differences in a single large emerging market are relevant to explaining the concept of animosity and its effect on the purchase intention toward culture-sensitive products. Furthermore, none of the animosity studies have touched on the important moderating role of within- and cross-cultural differences between a large and multicultural importing country and a brand's home country in this manner. Therefore, the study fills this gap by empirically examining whether different moderating effects of stable and situational animosities exist for a specific conflict situation caused by a military issue and investigates the causes of these different effects.

Respondents from five Asian countries were surveyed in terms of their consumer ethnocentrism, animosity, and attribution towards the USA and Japan in the context of the Asian economic crisis. The results indicated that the more severely hit a country was, the more ethnocentric respondents were. In general, animosity towards the USA was higher than towards Japan with regard to the Asian crisis. Koreans held the greatest stable animosity towards the Japanese because of the atrocities experienced during the Second World War. Respondents attributed the blame of the Asian crisis more to themselves. They also felt that they and the Japanese could have controlled the turn of events during the crisis. Implications arising from the findings are discussed.

This study aimed to investigate the influence of brand-targeted animosity on consumers' boycott intentions for target fashion products via their cognitive and affective evaluations, in the context of the “Xinjiang cotton ban” incident. The moderating role of xenocentrism was also examined.

Data were collected through an online survey in China using convenience sampling, and 411 valid responses were obtained. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS 26.0 for the descriptive statistics, frequency analysis and reliability analysis. AMOS 24.0 was employed for the confirmatory factor and structural equation modeling analyses. Bootstrapping analysis using PROCESS Macro was employed to analyze the moderating effects.

This study found that consumers' brand animosity directly and positively affected boycott intentions and that this influence was sequentially mediated through cognitive-affective evaluations. However, cognitive product judgment did not directly affect boycott intentions. The results showed that xenocentrism had a moderating effect on the relationship between animosity and cognitive judgment. The higher the xenocentrism of consumers, the weaker the negative effect of animosity was on cognitive judgment.

This study bridges the gap in the literature on animosity and xenocentrism in a fashion-related context through examining the consequences of brand animosity.

This study is designed to address how rising individualism in emerging Asia changes consumer values and subsequent consumer behavior toward foreign brands. For this, we investigate consumer animosity (CA) and consumer cosmopolitanism (COS) in China and their impacts on consumer dispositions toward Japanese brands.

The study hypothesizes that CA and COS mediate the effects of consumer individualism and age on brand attitudes and purchase intentions. Online surveys were conducted with 421 consumers in China.

The results indicate that consumers with individualistic values show favorable dispositions toward Japanese brands because of weak CA and strong COS values. In addition, the study found that younger consumers also harbor weak CA and do not avoid Japanese brands because of it. However, younger consumers were not found to be more cosmopolitan than their older counterparts.

Our findings suggest that the modernization and individualization of a society can have impacts on consumer values in emerging Asia and that changes in consumer values among young and individualistic consumers can lead to increased preferences for foreign brands, especially brands from a country with historical animosity.

This study aims to investigate the role of interpersonal influence on consumer purchase decisions regarding foreign products, specifically by exploring consumers’ social reaction styles (acquisitive and protective) when confronted with normative pressures and their subsequent impact on consumers’ purchase behavior in the context of situational animosity.

Three studies were conducted in China to empirically examine the proposed research model. The US–China Chip War of 2022 was used as the research context for situational animosity, while the Japan–China relationship representing a stable animosity condition was used for contrast.

This study establishes the mediating role of perceived normative pressure in linking animosity attitudes to purchase avoidance in situational animosity. It also validates that consumers’ social reaction styles (acquisitive and protective) help predict distinct behavioral outcomes, holding significant implications for advancing research in the field of product and brand consumption.

This research provides a novel perspective by exploring consumers’ social reaction styles when dealing with normative pressure in situational animosity. The distinction between acquisitive and protective reaction styles adds depth and originality to the study. Moreover, this study examines consumer behavior in two distinct consumption contexts: switching intentions to local products and purchase intentions for products from offending countries in hidden consumption situations. This dual perspective offers a comprehensive exploration of consumers’ purchase behavior under normative pressure, contributing to the novelty of this research.

The purpose of this paper is to further our understanding of the sources of consumer animosity and the moderating role of product involvement on purchase intentions.

Animosity is examined in the context of South Korean consumers’ purchase intentions toward Japanese products. A structural equation model was estimated in Lisrel 8.80 to assess the proposed model.

The results offer evidence that consumer ethnocentrism and susceptibility to normative influence have a positive relationship with animosity while cosmopolitanism has a negative relationship with animosity. Furthermore, animosity negatively influences intentions to purchase for high-involvement products, but not for low-involvement products.

International marketing managers can better identify the risk that consumer animosity poses to their products and services based on level of product involvement and characteristics of the market segment.

This study offers clarity to the understanding of animosity by examining additional antecedents of animosity that reflect different world views. It also provides an exception to the previous findings that in general animosity has a negative impact on consumers’ willingness to buy products of countries for which consumers have animosity. In other words, the effect of animosity on purchase intention of products from a disliked country depends on the degree of involvement.

This study aims to examine animosity's role in determining consumers' product choices. Considerable research attention has been devoted to studying the relationship between animosity and consumers' willingness to buy foreign products. Few studies, however, have considered that individual consumers may harbor varying degrees of animosity toward different countries, thus, differentially affecting their willingness to buy products from these countries. The within‐subject comparison of the present study seeks to provide a clearer and cleaner approach to examining the impact of animosity on consumers' preferences for foreign products. Extending this line of inquiry, it also aims to explore the link between consumers' choice of products from high versus low animosity countries at different price levels.

Two studies were conducted to examine the impact of consumer animosity on product choice. Study 1 contains a survey study, and Study 2 is a full factorial conjoint analysis.

It is discovered that animosity plays a stronger role in determining consumers' willingness to buy foreign products from high‐level animosity countries than from low‐level animosity countries. Through conjoint analysis, the paper demonstrates that consumers are willing to make trade‐offs between price and animosity.

This study fills a void in the literature by exploring what role animosity plays in determining a consumer's choice of products, particularly when different degrees of animosity are held toward different countries. The within‐subject design of this research provides considerable insight on this front. In addition, this study represents an initial attempt to explore the dynamics between animosity and price via a conjoint analysis.