Publication Date
March 2025
Abstract
Consumer ethnocentrism and cosmopolitanism have been shown to be instrumental factors for the evaluation and purchase of foreign products. Many prior studies have provided evidence that ethnocentric consumers have lower willingness to buy for products that originated from foreign countries, while cosmopolitan consumers have higher willingness to buy. However, prior research has been conducted in the research setting where only one foreign country is pit against home country. Therefore, it is not clear whether their direct impacts on animosity, product judgement, and willingness to buy will be homogeneous, regardless of countries-of-origin. In other words, do consumers hold the same degree of favoritism or hostility toward products from all foreign countries with other factors held constant? To answer the question, we collected data from U.S. consumers on their attitudes toward products from four countries: China, Germany, Japan, and Mexico. Ethnocentric consumers hold slightly higher willingness to buy for German and Japanese products than those from China and Mexico. Cosmopolitans hold slightly lower degree of animosity toward Mexican products. The empirical findings suggest that consumers proceed beyond simple contrast between domestic and foreign. Hence, international managers need to segment consumers by more granular approach that incorporate attitudes toward specific countries-of-origin.
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