Global Brand Purchase Likelihood: A Critical Synthesis and an Integrated Conceptual Framework

Abstract

The authors build a model of global brand attitude and purchase likelihood with a nomological net comprised of constructs derived from three theoretical streams in consumer behavior: consumer culture theory, signaling theory, and the associative network memory model. By integrating these diverse theories, the authors provide a conceptual framework, explaining the processes leading to consumers’ attitudes toward and likelihood of purchasing global brands. Global brand authenticity, cultural capital, and perceived brand globalness are constructs based mainly on consumer culture theory, and global brand credibility is borrowed from signaling theory. Global brand quality, social responsibility, prestige, and relative price are included as brand associations, deriving mainly from the associative network memory model. These constructs have direct and indirect effects on global brand attitude and global brand purchase likelihood, reflecting the three-dimensional belief–attitude–behavior model in consumer behavior. The authors also introduce self-construal and cosmopolitanism as two pertinent moderators of some of the model paths.