An Integrative Model of Consumers’ Reluctance to Buy Foreign Products

Abstract

This paper delves into the role of social and environmental country images—along with other relevant product-country influencing factors—in consumers’ reluctance to buy foreign products. Two integrative research models are proposed and tested on Spanish consumers’ reluctance to buy Chinese apparel products. In doing so, the authors draw on and seek to advance theory and knowledge on country-of-origin (COO) effects and anti-consumption. The findings reveal the importance of social and environmental, as well as political-economic issues, in measuring (China’s) foreign country image. Yet, a disaggregated analysis discovered differential effects of the three country image factors examined, that is, as factors indirectly influencing reluctance to buy. The findings are also supportive of the importance of three additional COO influence mechanisms—cognitive (foreign product judgments), affective (country animosity) and normative influences (consumer ethnocentrism)—for consumers’ reluctance to buy foreign products. Implications of the study for research, policy, and practice are discussed.

What we know about anticonsumption: An attempt to nail jelly to the wall

“…Figure shows the largest clusters of theoretical and empirical interest that scholars subsume under the umbrella of anticonsumption. The most prominent cluster focuses on consumer resistance (i.e., Amine & Gicquel, ; Chalamon, ; Izberk‐Bilgin, ; Nepomuceno & Laroche, ), followed by green/sustainable consumption (e.g., Black, ; Black & Cherrier, ; Garcia‐de‐Frutos & Ortega‐Egea, ), boycotts/consumer activism (e.g., Makarem & Jae, ), voluntary simplicity (i.e., Craig‐Lees & Hill, ; Shaw & Newholm, ), brand/product/product category avoidance (e.g., Cherrier & Hill, ; Lee et al, 2009), ethical/moral consumption (e.g., Eckhardt et al, ; Sudbury‐Riley & Kohlbacher, ; Thompson, ), alternative consumption (e.g., Anderson, Hamilton, & Tonner, ; Ozanne & Ballantine, ), and symbolic consumption (e.g., Hogg, Banister, & Stephenson, ).…”

“…First and foremost, a clear conceptualization of the construct is still lacking. Anticonsumption is treated as behavior (e.g., García‐de‐Frutos et al, ), attitude (e.g., Galvagno, ), lifestyle (e.g., Cherrier & Murray, ), set of motivations (e.g., Cherrier, Black, & Lee, ; Iyer & Muncy, ; Lee et al, ; Sandikci & Ekici, ), or set of practices (e.g., Cherrier, ); but it remains unclear what anticonsumption actually is and what it entails. This makes it difficult to develop reliable measures that adequately represent this construct, which impedes theoretical development.…”

Consumer ethnocentrism and purchasing behavior: moderating effect of demographics

“…The literature has extensively used the CETSCALE to measure consumer ethnocentrism (Javalgi et al , 2005; Šmaižiene and Vaitkiene, 2014; Seitz and Roosen, 2015; Garcia-de-Frutos and Ortega-Egea, 2015; Luthy, 2015; Cheah and Shimul, 2018), which Shimp and Sharma (1987) developed in the context of US consumers. The CETSCALE consists of 17 items that are collected under a single dimension and measured on a Likert scale.…”

The effects of consumer ethnocentrism and consumer animosity on perceived betrayal and negative word-of-mouth

“…Previous research focused on how the antecedents (such as economic, political or country image) affect consumer ethnocentrism and animosity or how ethnocentrism and animosity affect the consumers' product perception and purchase intention for foreign and domestic products (Garcia-de-Frutos and Ortega-Egea, 2014; Huang et al , 2010; Klein et al , 1998). However, few studies have explored the reaction to a domestic brand's marketing strategies that are viewed as unfair and hurting the domestic consumers' expectations.…”

“…A number of studies have surveyed how consumer animosity and ethnocentrism affect consumers' purchase intention (e.g. García-de-Frutos and Ortega-Egea, 2014), and several of them have surveyed how animosity affects ethnocentrism (e.g. Niscco et al , 2016).…”