Nationalism vs globalism: Customer citizenship behaviour and foreign product purchase intention

Abstract

This paper examines the interplay between socio-psychological variables linked to nationalism and globalism (namely animosity, ethnocentrism and cosmopolitanism), customer citizenship behaviour (CCB) and foreign product purchase intention in the context of global marketing strategy. The paper focuses most closely on the concept of CCB, which has received little attention in international marketing research, while considering nationalistic outbursts and globalist tendencies. CCB and purchase intention models were developed and tested using multilevel mixed-effects linear regression. Results indicate that both consumer animosity and ethnocentrism are negatively associated with CCB toward foreign firms. However, consumer cosmopolitanism has a positive impact on CCB toward foreign firms. The findings also confirm that consumers with CCB toward foreign firms are more likely to buy foreign products. Finally, the results reveal that consumers exposed to trustworthy consumers with CCB toward foreign firms are more likely to purchase foreign products. The setting selected to test models is Chinese and South Korean consumers’ attitudes toward Japan. A total of 160 Chinese and 163 South Korean consumers were sampled.