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Handloom products often fail to infiltrate the global or mainland market, resulting in small localized markets, limited demand and profitability. Recent times have also witnessed a decline in the weaving population of India. Assam, accounting for a third of all households engaged in the handloom industry in India, has been widely hit by unemployment, migration and demotivation among weavers due to lack of profitability in the sector. This research aims to study the case of Assam as an exemplar to identify the barriers and cognitive biases impacting the sales of such ethnic apparel and propose nudges as interventions to address such concerns.

A conjoint-based experimental study was used to understand and compare the cognitive biases of two study groups: an ethnic group from Assam and a non-ethnic group from various Tier I and Tier II cities of India. The groups were exposed to a variety of ethnic Assamese and ethnic non-Assamese products to understand their value perception using conjoint analysis.

Results indicate a potential lack of cognitive fluency when dealing with Assamese ethnic garments, triggering System II thinking among the non-ethnic (national buyer) group. The underlying cause may be the inability to attribute substitution of the given product for a more familiar product. The results suggest that exposure may lead to priming, which in turn can increase cognitive fluency.

Within the limits of the literature reviewed, designing a conjoint-based experiment and proposing the use of nudge to popularize certain ethnic garments are novel contributions of this study.

This commentary and conceptual paper is aimed at investigating marketing perceptions of the country-of-origin (COO) perspectives, and emphasis is placed on the “Cool Japan” concept.

A review of research on COO and the concept of “Cool Japan” was conducted, including commentary of previous relevant theoretical frameworks.

The evidence has shown that the brand images of various COOs is dependent on their cultural exports. In the case of Japan, the “Cool Japan” initiative, which initiated the creation and dissemination of Japanese cultural contents such as anime, games and art, has led to tremendous and sustainable economic growth in Japan till date.

As previous studies on COO are wide-ranging, they are not exhaustively presented in this paper. However, the importance of considering not only animosity, which has traditionally been taken into account, but also the coolness aspect is suggested.

This paper shows that “coolness” is an important concept when nations or regions consider their branding strategies and an integrated approach is needed.

This paper extends previous COO research and adds coolness to the traditional animosity. It also considers these in comparison across countries and goes as far as the need to propose a new scale. Conceptual findings from this paper would therefore provide future directions for advancing COO research Cool Japan.

This study aims to examine the most influential drivers, both product-specific and consumer-specific, affecting Asian consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) for organic olive oil.

To individuate the most influential drivers of WTP for organic products and to assess their effect, in terms of configurational paths and consumer profiles, this study sequentially employs explorative factor analysis approach and a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis method. The survey is carried out in different areas of Asia (e.g. Pakistan, Vietnam and China).

The results suggest that Asian consumers' WTP for organic products is described by consumer-specific drivers (gender, occupation and household size) as well as product-specific drivers (product authenticity and sustainability, consumer ethnocentrism and food fraud risk perception).

The findings of the study permit the identification of different drivers that move consumers' WTP for organic olive oil. The study contributes to setting the ground for companies to propose and implement efficacious marketing strategies for organic olive oil in importing countries, such as Asia.

The effects of country-of-origin (COO) cues on product evaluations are well documented. However, research on the relative effects of COO compared to other geographical indicators, such as region-of-origin (ROO), on food purchases is still limited. This study investigates how geographical origin labels influence consumers' perceptions of product value and authenticity of foreign food, as well as subsequent purchase intention (PI) and willingness to pay premium prices (WTPPP). The moderating role of health consciousness on these relationships is also examined due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

This study uses a between-subjects experimental design conducted with 300 middle- and high-income Chinese consumers aged between 25 and 50 years. Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modelling.

Whilst under both COO and ROO cues, all five product values positively influenced consumers' WTPPP, only functional, economic and novelty values influenced PI. The ROO cue performed significantly better than the COO cue in eliciting functional, economic and novelty value perceptions, which triggered stronger PI and willingness to pay a premium price. These relationships were mediated by product authenticity (PA) and moderated by consumers' health consciousness (HC).

Because food labels provide salient product information that facilitates consumers' evaluation of products, marketers should assess which product value perceptions they wish to enhance and then choose the appropriate geographical indicators for their labelling strategies.

This study identifies the effects of COO and ROO cues on product values, authenticity, PI and WTPPP. It also provides valuable insights into the role of HC on consumers' purchase decisions, which also aids in understanding the impact of global crises on food purchases.

This study aims to investigate how the social identity theory and emotional attachment theory influence the willingness of consumers to buy foreign cosmetic products. Specifically, this study examines the relationship between consumer ethnocentrism, foreign product judgment and willingness to buy foreign products. Furthermore, the interaction effect of consumer affinity and patriotism are tested in the model.

An online survey of 208 millennial Muslim women consumers was used to collect the data. The structural equation modeling test was used to assess the six hypotheses. Moreover, the two-step estimation approach was used to test the interaction moderation of consumer affinity and patriotism.

The results indicate that consumer ethnocentrism has a positive and significant relationship with foreign product judgment. Foreign product judgment was also found to have a positive and significant relationship with willingness to buy. In addition, this study concludes that affinity was found to moderate the relationship between consumer ethnocentrism and foreign product judgment and strengthen the positive and significant effect of foreign product judgment on the willingness to buy. Finally, patriotism did not moderate the relationship between consumer ethnocentrism and foreign product judgment. However, patriotism moderated the relationship between foreign product judgment and willingness to buy.

This study only focused on one category (i.e. low involvement product), and the authors recommend future studies to examine a high involvement product. Other individual orientation constructs, such as xenocentrism, need to be examined in future studies. Moreover, only intentional measures were investigated. Thus, further research could correlate intentional measures with product ownership. Finally, future research could examine how consumers behave differently across nations. Thus, the present model would require cross-cultural research.

Marketers focusing on global branding and international marketing can benefit from the findings of this paper by understanding the antecedents of consumers’ willingness to buy in the foreign cosmetic products setting. Additionally, foreign cosmetic marketers could focus on consumer affinity to strengthen the communication with and arouse the affinity of Muslim millennials women consumers in Indonesia. Finally, marketers can incorporate messages and signals of patriotism in their marketing communications to increase Muslim millennial women consumers’ love and pride.

The growing obsession with beauty among women has led to the immense growth of the cosmetics industry. This phenomenon has spawned an abundance of cosmetic products on the market. The advancement of information technology has further increased competition for cosmetic products as more products can be quickly brought to market. Muslim millennials consumers must be aware and careful about raw materials, impacts on long-term health, impacts on the national economy, environmental impacts and halal certification when using various kinds of cosmetics.

This study contributes to the literature on international marketing research by incorporating the interactive effect of consumer affinity and patriotism in the acceptance of foreign cosmetic products.

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 research on consumerism has been dramatically rising in recent decades. However, in the food industry, little research has been empirically conducted in the beverage industry. This research empirically tests the consequences of consumer perceptions: perceived price (PPR), perceived quality (PQ), perceived packaging (PPG) and perceived taste (PT) on repurchase intention (RI) particularly; it unveils the consumer attributes, e.g. gender, age and ethnicity between consumer perceptions and RI of the consumers.

The data were collected from 403 consumers of the beverage industry (e.g. Nestle, Mitchell's Fruit Farms, Murree Brewery and OMORE) in Pakistan. The researchers used online survey questionnaires followed by a cross-sectional approach because data collection physically was not possible due to COVID-19.

Data were analyzed by Smart partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) 3.3.3, and the results supported the significant influence of consumer perceptions separately, e.g. PPR, PQ, PPG and PT on RI. Additionally, gender, age and ethnicity were found to have a moderating role between consumer perceptions and RI, so, the truth of having consumer attributes has been revealed.

The managers of beverage industries should provide ethical and operational strategies to tackle consumer's problems based on cultural norms. Furthermore, they should make sensible measures for the quality branding of the beverage products. In this way, the consumers will have a better experience of quality, price, taste and packaging, in turn, to RI.

This research targeted the beverage industry that needs facts and figures based on consumer attributes, e.g. age, gender and ethnicity. This research also disclosed the behaviors of consumers according to their gender, age and area of residence.

This paper aims to explore the effectiveness of ethnically targeted ads in developing consumer–brand relationships through an application of social identification theory and elaboration likelihood model among African American consumers in the service sector.

Study 1 used a 2 (service type: hedonic vs utilitarian) × 2 (strength of ethnic identification: high vs low) between-subjects experimental design. Study 2 used the same experimental design, procedure and ads as Study 1.

Taken together, the findings from these two studies demonstrate how ethnically targeted advertising, in conjunction with service type, can influence consumer–brand relationships. The results showed that those with high strength of ethnic identification had more brand love, as well as higher intentions to spread positive word-of-mouth, purchase intention and brand loyalty for hedonic services, but that this effect was not significant for utilitarian services.

The environments in which advertisements appear (e.g. in an in-store display or a magazine advertisement) is important, and consumers’ reactions to targeted ads in various environments should be considered in future research. Future studies should also examine the role of individuals’ personality traits and level of acculturation in determining their relationships with brands.

Across two studies, the authors demonstrated that ethnic ads are more effective for African American individuals with high level of ethnic identification especially for hedonic services.

Drawing on the social identity theory, this paper explores the impact of rider–driver ethnicity match on the driver’s expected ride satisfaction and willingness to perform, and rider’s trust on the driver.

The study relies on scenario-based online experiments with 291 ride-hailing drivers and 282 riders in the USA.

The findings indicate that ethnicity match between ride-hailing drivers and riders positively impact driver’s ride satisfaction and willingness to perform, and rider’s trust in the driver. The study also revealed a significant positive moderation effect of ethnic identity on the relationship of ethnicity match and those constructs.

While it may be challenging to influence an individual’s level of ethnic identity, managers can take steps to educate and train their employees regarding the impact of ethnic identity and discrimination, with a particular focus on those individuals who possess a strong sense of ethnic identity.

The findings of this research provide theoretical contributions to the existing literature on ride-hailing services and adds to the limited stream of logistics research that examines the impact of ethnicity on ride-hailing operations.

The objective of this chapter is to help unpack the performance-enhancing role of certain capabilities that influence the decision of female immigrant entrepreneurs to rapidly internationalise. It employs a capabilities perspective of the broader resource-based theory and contributes to existing research involving capabilities that facilitate or inhibit rapid internationalisation. One strand of earlier literature highlights a potential ‘double disadvantage’ among particular female immigrant entrepreneurs associated with gender and ethnicity. An alternative strand of prior research identifies certain gender and ethnic resources/capabilities like cultural knowledge that can provide potential advantages. Findings from interviews with 11 female immigrant entrepreneurs that migrated to the UK, and selected secondary data, form an instrumental case study. New insights emerge regarding the potential role of appropriate stakeholders in transforming operational capabilities to those of a threshold or potentially dynamic nature. The findings suggest that generalisation should not occur regarding earlier literature investigating practices in other sectors.