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Valence is one of the key dimensions underlying actor engagement, yet there is limited research to provide a comprehensive understanding of the concept. The purpose of this paper is to conceptualise engagement valence in actor networks and develop an agenda for future research.

The exploration of the psychological foundations of the concept of valence and a systematic literature review from a multiple database search contribute to four sets of propositions defining the domain of the concept of actor engagement valence.

The propositions posit that valence resides in the engaging actor’s past, current and future psychological dispositions, which can shift between positive, negative and ambivalence. Actor engagement valence is triggered by the engagement objects and value propositions of other actors in the network. The antecedents of actor engagement valence comprise individual factors such as cognitive evaluations and hedonic feelings, as well as network-related factors such as social norms and shared beliefs, and the network structure. The net balance of actor engagement valence determines the actor’s engagement behaviours, and this relationship is moderated by individual and network factors.

This is the first study to conceptualise actor engagement valence, which contributes to the refinement of the actor engagement concept. This research defines the conceptual domain, deepens the understanding and provides an agenda for future research into the valence of engagement among actors in networks. The study recognises the institutional influences on actor engagement valence, and contributes to an understanding of the nature of actors’ psychological dispositions and how their valence determines the actors’ behavioural engagement manifestations.

Despite the increasing attention on consumers in emerging markets, there is limited research on the emerging market consumers’ evaluation of global brands. The purpose of this paper is to address this research gap by examining the role of consumer dispositions – cosmopolitanism, need for uniqueness and materialism in attitude and purchase intentions toward global brands from emerging vs developed markets.

A mall intercept method was used to collect responses from shoppers in four major cities in India. The intercept method produced a usable sample of 613 respondents. Each respondent was asked to mark his or her response concerning two global brands – one each from developed and emerging markets separately.

The findings show that cosmopolitanism and need for uniqueness determine emerging market consumers’ attitude toward global brands. Specifically, the authors find that while cosmopolitanism has a higher positive impact on global brands from the developed market, need for uniqueness has a negative impact on global brands from emerging market.

The study findings show that need for uniqueness negatively affects attitude toward global brands from emerging markets. This presents a significant challenge for global brands from emerging market when competing with the counterparts from developed markets.

The findings show that managers of global brands in emerging markets should develop unique brand positioning that differentiates from international brands. By carefully managing their marketing mix elements (e.g. price, design, distribution), they can induce counter-conformity among consumers for brands that originate in emerging markets.

While prior studies suggest that emerging market consumers prefer foreign brands than domestic brands, little attention was focused on the antecedents for such preference. This study considers consumer dispositions, which were not examined in prior research in addressing this research gap.

This study focuses on an inventory and typology of consumer dispositions towards “place” and relates it to the underlying theories, inputs and outcomes of place images and attitudes, aiming to unclutter a crowded research landscape by providing a holistic perspective of product/brand place associations.

The paper draws on extant literature to identify, analyze and discuss the consumer dispositions, theories and other elements related to place.

In total, 32 dispositions, 10 inputs to image formation, 28 permutations that complicate the understanding of place images, and 18 outcomes are discussed, providing a comprehensive perspective of the images of, and behaviours towards, various types of places from neighbourhoods to countries and beyond.

Of the large number of constructs and combinations among them that are discussed, some have been studied fairly extensively, but most comprise “the road(s) less travelled”. The paper identifies relevant research gaps and numerous opportunities for new research.

Managers are aware and act upon some of the inventoried dispositions but can benefit by considering the complete array of constructs and concepts that are discussed.

Individuals’ dispositions towards various places help to shape their self and social identities and are important in their daily life and consumption behaviour.

The study brings together for the first time a complete inventory of place-related dispositions alongside a wide range of related theories and concepts, thus advancing our knowledge of the nature and role of the country and other place-related images of products and brands.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which personal values, moral foundations and gender-role identities affect, in sequence, consumers' constructions of their ethnocentric and cosmopolitan orientations. Achieving a better understanding of the psychological makeup of consumer ethnocentrism and cosmopolitanism should help managers better design international market segmentation and brand positioning strategies.

The study's conceptual framework is anchored in attitude and values theories, and focuses on the social categorizations that consumers make and how these contribute to the formation of their ethnocentric and cosmopolitan orientations. Drawing data from consumers living in five European countries, we test our theoretical conjectures through structural equation modeling approaches, including multigroup analysis at the country level, as well as the identification and scrutiny of potential pan-European consumer segments.

Findings show that personal values, moral foundations and gender-role identities do exert direct and indirect (partially mediated) effects on the formation of consumers' ethnocentric and cosmopolitan orientations. These provide numerous insights for managers in terms of how they can segment domestic and international markets, as well as how to position products and communicate brand strategies.

The study focused on consumers' personal and role identities and offers implications based on data gathered from a sample of five European countries. Future work should broaden this perspective by including other identity facets, such as religious and ethnic identities, as well as product-category and brand-specific outcomes, in order to help develop a more comprehensive picture of the psychology underpinning consumers' identity-related orientations, and their effects on consumer behavior. Future research should also study these issues in a broader geographical context, by including national markets that have culturally diverse populations as well as places with dissimilar cultural and economic profiles.

The study shows that individuals' personal values, moral foundations and gender roles have a strong effect on the formation of consumer ethnocentrism and consumer cosmopolitanism orientations. Consideration of how these antecedent constructs operate in concert to shape consumers' in- versus out-group orientations has been overlooked in the international marketing literature. Beyond the ramifications for theory, the study offers numerous substantive managerial implications in terms of how consumers are likely to respond to local and global/foreign products/brands based on these orientations.

The aim of this study was to develop a theoretical model of email advertising effectiveness and to investigate differences between permission‐based email and spamming. By examining different types of email (i.e. permission‐based email and spamming), the present study empirically tested the theoretical linkage between email advertising values, perceived instrusiveness, and the attitudinal‐behavioural dispositions towards email advertising.

A survey was conducted using 221 respondents from Taiwan. Two scenarios were designed for the present study. The questionnaires were equally divided into two sets, with the first half containing a scenario depicting permission‐based email, and the other half containing a scenario describing a spamming email. Each respondent only received one set of the survey.

Results from a survey of 221 Internet users in Taiwan indicate that values and attitudes toward, and the perceived intrusiveness of, email advertising significantly affect consumers’ behavioral dispositions toward email advertising. The results suggest that permission‐based email is more effective as compared to spam email advertising. For solicited email, consumers perceived less intrusiveness if the email advertisement offered them financial incentives.

The authors acknowledge four limitations in this study. These limitations however provide further direction for future studies in the discipline. The discussion of these limitations is provided.

Importantly, this study yields significant theoretical and managerial implications. Concerned with the context of email advertising, the authors’ work provides theoretical support for both constructs of advertising values and perceived intrusiveness as important. Concerned with the advertisers, this study renders important implications for better planning of marketing mix strategy using email.

This study provides new theoretical insights into factors influencing consumers’ acceptance of email advertising by incorporating perceived intrusiveness as a mediator in the relationship between advertising values and attitudinal‐behavioral dispositions. By empirically comparing the different types of email advertisements of permission‐based email and spamming, the present study also offers better understanding and extending of the current literature on email advertising research.

The current study builds on social identity theory and realistic conflict theory aims to identify the relationships amongst consumers' ethnocentrism, animosity, discomfort with differences – a factor of universal-diverse orientation (UDO) – and reluctance to purchase German (RELG) and French automobiles (RELF) in the Turkish automobile market which is dominated by foreign brands.

Empirical data were collected via face-to-face surveys from 400 respondents in the emerging market Turkey. Structural equation modelling was employed to examine the direct and indirect effects between the variables.

The main predictors of the RELG are consumer ethnocentrism, discomfort with differences and economic animosity towards Germany, respectively. Furthermore, RELF in the Turkish market is positively affected by consumer ethnocentrism, war animosity towards France and discomfort with differences, respectively. Discomfort with differences mediates the relationship between consumer ethnocentrism and RELG and RELF.

International collaborations with local manufacturers have huge strategic impacts when establishing reliable relationships with Turkish consumers. Foreign companies can initiate socially responsible projects that will relay the message of similarities between cultures to decrease perceived cultural differences. Highlighting the similarities of Turkish consumers with a foreign company in promotional campaigns will be much beneficial.

Despite there are many studies regarding antecedents and consequences of consumer ethnocentrism, extant research overlooks the effect of animosity on this concept. Additionally, studies examining UDO in the marketing literature are scarce. This paper integrates UDO, consumer ethnocentrism, animosity and reluctance to purchase foreign products in one study.

Consumer affinity may be a key factor in overcoming ethnocentric barriers and promoting a favourable attitude towards specific foreign countries and their products. However, progress in knowledge of this concept in international marketing literature has suffered from a lack of integration and analysis. The purpose of this study was to shed new light on the concept of consumer affinity based on a comprehensive systematic review of the literature, provide a critical analysis of previous research in terms of conceptual, methodological and substantive issues and problems and offer avenues for future research.

This structured systematic review of consumer affinity included articles published in international peer-reviewed journals from 2008 to 2021, examining key conceptual, operational and substantive aspects.

This systematic review of articles on consumer affinity published over the past 14 years revealed that this line of research is a growing vibrant domain in the context of international marketing. It also showed that current knowledge of consumer affinity is characterized by theoretical inconsistencies, contradictory empirical results and scant international marketing research in the affinity domain.

This article provides an overview of the extant literature on consumer affinity and yields a consolidated image of its current status, as well as a research agenda that raises new questions for the academic community.

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 examine how brand gender (masculine/feminine brand personality [FBP] traits) stimulates brand engagement (cognitive processing, affection and activation) inside online brand communities (OBCs). The authors also explore the mediation of this effect through brand identification and brand personality appeal (BPA). The moderating role of consumers’ biological sex is also investigated.

The theoretical model has been tested with the data collected from OBC members through the structural equation modelling technique. Bootstrapping is used for mediation analysis and multiple group analysis for testing the moderating effects.

Results show that masculine brand personality (MBP) influences brand engagement directly, as well as through brand identification and BPA. However, FBP elicits brand engagement only through the mediation of brand identification and BPA. Consumers’ biological sex moderates the effect of FBP on brand engagement, but no moderation was traced for the effect of MBP on brand engagement.

The context of the research poses a limitation on the broader replication of study findings. Other limitations include the absence of community-based variables and the focused use of gender centric brands in this study. This research will help researchers to understand the nuances in the underlying relationship between brand gender and brand engagement inside OBCs.

The managers can emphasize MBP but should not downplay the importance of FBP inside OBCs. To achieve brand engagement, the marketers should curate FBP in a way to affecting consumers’ brand identification and brand appeal. To achieve consumer brand engagement, MBP can be targeted at both male and female consumers, whereas FBP holds more importance among female consumers. Therefore, classifying members as per their biological sex is recommended for better brand engagement from brand gender inside OBCs.

This study explores finer mechanisms in the relationship between brand gender and brand engagement inside OBCs by charting out the powerful mediating role played by brand identification and BPA. The moderating role of consumers’ biological sex is an important dimension to these relationships, not explored hitherto.

While researchers have argued that multicultural marketplaces are conceptually different from other types of marketplaces, the marketing literature has only recently begun to develop multicultural perspective studies, and very little research has been done to examine intergroup complexities in consumption contexts (Demangeot et al., 2015). The purpose of this study is to fill this research gap by developing and empirically testing a research model to examine the effects of socio-political constructs and intergroup-based emotional variables on consumer decisions to consume cross-ethnic products.

A questionnaire designed to assess the effects of socio-political constructs and intergroup-based emotional variables on consumer decisions to consume cross-ethnic products was developed and administered to 294 students at a Midwestern US university. The data were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) techniques.

Results indicate that all path coefficients are significant. Social dominance, intergroup anxiety and intergroup experience were found to be important predictors of intergroup tolerance and, importantly, intergroup tolerance was found to significantly affect consumer attitude toward cross-ethnic products.

In terms of limitations and future research implications, this research suffers from inherent limitations associated with self-reported survey research in a limited geographic region. Accordingly, study respondents may not be representative of consumers across the nation or the world, the respondents may not have understood the questions in the intended manner, and reported intentions may not reflect actual behaviour. This study was conducted among college students, but other target segments may have different intergroup experiences and perceptions of ethnic products.

Findings from this research suggest that firms offering ethnic products can increase crossover consumption appeal by implementing marketing communication programmes that integrate cultural forums and event tactics to promote positive intergroup experiences and tolerance among their multicultural customers.

Regarding policy implications, public policymakers and social thinkers may use the findings of this study as a prism to better explicate intercultural dealings among multicultural consumers. The contention of this study about public policy implications is supported by Neal et al.’s (2013) perspectives on how consumption situations can serve as a lens for explicating intergroup emotions in multicultural marketplaces.

This is one of only a few studies in marketing to assess the effects of socio-political constructs in a consumption context. This is the first known study to underscore the importance of intranational ethnic differences and assess the effects of socio-political and intergroup-based emotional variables on attitude to consume ethnic products, specifically.