Multiple Consumer Identities and the Crossover Effect of the EU Identity in Predicting Domestic and Foreign Product Preferences

Autor(en)

Milena Micevski, Georgios Halkias, Marc Herz

Abstrakt

In an increasingly globalized society, consumers become affiliated to multiple sociocultural entities and simultaneously hold multiple different identities. The European Union (EU) represents one such entity that, particularly in today's shifting environment, is expected to exert a strong influence on how people make purchase decisions. Unfortunately, no empirical evidence exists about the role the EU identity plays in consumer behavior. Drawing on social identity theory, this paper simultaneously considers multiple community-based
identities, disentangling the role of the EU identity in predicting product preferences. In an empirical study (N=1053 consumers) we demonstrate that the EU identity has a unique, crossover function driving preferences
for both domestic and foreign products. The positive effect of EU identity on foreign products is invariant of consumers' ethnocentric tendencies, while it is eliminated for domestic products and highly ethnocentric segments.
The findings are discussed in light of the existing literature and routes for future research are identified.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Rechnungswesen, Innovation und Strategie

Externe Organisation(en)

kleinundpläcking

Journal

Journal of Business Research

Band

104

Seiten

622-631

Anzahl der Seiten

10

ISSN

0148-2963

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.11.026

Publikationsdatum

11-2018

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

502052 Betriebswirtschaftslehre, 502019 Marketing

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Marketing

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 12 – Nachhaltige/r Konsum und Produktion

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/c7b45563-fd4c-4d26-bcf1-a8dd14959b5a