Old Country Passions: An International Examination of Country Image, Animosity, and Affinity among Ethnic Consumers

Abstract

Ethnic consumers are an important market segment in both traditionally multicultural countries as well as newer recipients of growing immigration movements. Such consumers may carry with them views toward "old friends and foes" which may influence their attitudes toward the products of countries perceived as friendly or hostile in relation to their original home countries. This study examines together for the first time four place-related constructs, namely, country and people images, product images, affinity, and animosity, and their potential effects on purchase intentions, juxtaposing these measures against views toward countries that may be perceived as friendly or hostile from the perspective of the ethnic consumers' homeland, alongside a neutral "benchmark" country for comparison. The results show that country/people and product images, affinity, and animosity work differently depending on the target country, product and people evaluations are influenced by both affective and cognitive factors, and attitudes vary in their predictive ability on purchase intentions, sometimes in line with earlier findings and sometimes not. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Antecedents of corporate image: The case of Chinese multinational enterprises in the Netherlands

“…To what degree do the images represent the actual corporate governance, behaviors, or product quality? The measures in the literature are mainly based on respondents' subjective perceptions (e.g., Papadopoulos, Banna, & Murphy, 2017;Roth and Diamantopoulos, 2009), which is also this research's approach. To precisely answer these questions, researchers require data from other countries and genuine measures of the actual corporate products, governance and behaviors to compare with survey results such as ours.…”

Toward a Universal Account of Country-Induced Predispositions: Integrative Framework and Measurement of Country-of-Origin Images and Country Emotions

“…We draw on this initial contribution to develop a more encompassing affinity measure that is capable of capturing a broader range of distinct, yet related, positive emotions. By doing so, we address calls for advancing the relatively nascent research stream on affinity (Papadopoulos, El Banna, and Murphy 2017). Inspired by Thomson, MacInnes, and Park (2005), we develop a three-dimensional affinity measure, consisting of the dimensions of sympathy, admiration, and attachment.…”

“…Performance-unrelated CIPs are only rarely investigated. However, emotions that consumers experience toward countries themselves also influence consumers’ preferences beyond mere quality considerations (Maheswaran and Chen 2006; Maheswaran, Chen, and He 2013; Papadopoulos, El Banna, and Murphy 2017; Shankarmahesh 2006).…”

Consumers’ Emotional Bonds with Foreign Brands: Animosity, Affinity, and Ethnocentrism

“…Affinity affects product evaluation and consumer behavior (Maher et al, 2010;Papadopoulos et al 2017). Nes et al (2014) argue that if a consumer feels an affinity for a foreign country, s/he will attribute symbolic meaning to the purchase of a product from that country and will keep buying the products and brands of that country to maintain his/her emotional bonds with that country.…”