Branded Products as a Passport to Global Citizenship: Perspectives from Developed and Developing Countries
Published 12/1/2008
Author: Yuliya Strizhakova, Robin A. Coulter, and Linda L. Price
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Executive Summary
The primary goal of this research is to explicate the construct of consumer belief in branded products as a passport to global citizenship (belief in global citizenship) and to assess its effects on the importance consumers assign to branded products in developing and developed markets. Strizhakova, Coulter, and Price consider two individual difference variables, cultural openness and consumer ethnocentrism (CET), as antecedents to this belief. Their work focuses on the global youth market in the developing countries of Romania (n = 287), Ukraine (n = 464), and Russia (n = 292) and the developed U.S. market (n = 218). They conducted in-depth interviews and surveys to validate their measures and to test their hypotheses. An overwhelming majority of study participants (approximately 86%) across all four countries expressed strong favoritism toward global brands and displayed relatively low levels of CET.
Strizhakova, Coulter, and Price use structural equation modeling to ensure applicability of the measures across countries and to assess the hypotheses in pan- and intracountry samples. Consistent with their predictions, belief in global citizenship had a significant positive effect on importance of branded products in consumers’ daily lives, and this effect was equally strong across all countries. Both CET and cultural openness had significant positive effects on belief in global citizenship, with stronger effects in the United States. There was a moderate negative correlation between CET and cultural openness in the United States, but not in the developing countries, in which these two constructs were unrelated. Because partial scalar invariance was achieved, the authors compared latent means. Participants in the United States indicated higher levels of belief in global citizenship, whereas young consumers in the developing markets were more ethnocentric and culturally open. There was no significant difference in importance of branded products across countries.
Strizhakova, Coulter, and Price draw two important conclusions for managers and researchers. First, they show that belongingness to the global world is not just a theory in strategists’ minds but a belief that young consumers share in varying degrees across developed and developing countries. Second, the findings speak to the value of “glocalized” strategies in appealing to young consumers worldwide. Although previous research has linked ethnocentrism to preferences for locally made products, the current research shows that ethnocentric youths welcome global belongingness and global brand discourse as a means for their cultures and companies to succeed in a global environment.
Biography
Yuliya Strizhakova is Assistant Professor of Marketing at the School of Business and Economics at Michigan Technological University. She received her PhD from the University of Connecticut and an MA from the University of Hartford. Her current research interests include global branding, cultural meanings of branded products, and consumer forgiveness. She has published in International Journal of Research in Marketing, Media Psychology, and Advances in Consumer Research.
Robin A. Coulter is Professor of Marketing and Ackerman Scholar at the School of Business at the University of Connecticut. She received her PhD from the University of Pittsburgh. Her research interests include cross-cultural consumer behavior, advertising, and branding. Her research has appeared Journal of Consumer Research, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of Consumer Psychology, and Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science.
Linda L. Price is Professor of Marketing and the Soldwedel Family Faculty Fellow at Eller College of Management, University of Arizona. She received her PhD from the University of Texas at Austin. Her research interests include the social context of marketplace behaviors and consumers’ emotions, imaginations, and creativity. Her research has appeared in leading business journals, including Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, International Journal of Research in Marketing, and Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science.
J International Marketing, Volume 16, Number 4, December 2008
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