Modeling the role of consumer xenocentrism in impacting preferences for domestic and foreign brands: A mediation analysis

Abstract

Building on the limited literature on consumer xenocentrism, this study investigates the route through which the construct impacts consumers' purchase intentions for (a) domestic, (b) foreign genuine, and (c) foreign counterfeit brands, while controlling for product category effects and the impact of consumer ethnocentrism and cosmopolitanism. Drawing on system justification theory and based on a sample of Russian consumers (N = 262), it is shown that a serial mediation model, with product-country image and brand attitudes as intervening variables, effectively describes the route through which consumer xenocentrism (a) positively influences intentions to buy genuine foreign brands, and (b) negatively influences purchase intentions for domestic brands. These effects of consumer xenocentrism are observed over and above the influences of ethnocentrism and cosmopolitanism and after controlling for brand familiarity, price sensitivity and product category involvement. The results also show that xenocentrism is not able to explain consumers' willingness to buy (foreign) counterfeit brands.