This study aims to empirically investigate how corporate strategy mitigates consumer boycotts caused by animosity toward economic sanction. First, the study focuses on the cross-culture emotions (i.e., animosity and affinity) and explores the direct and indirect effect of animosity toward economic sanction on boycott attitude (via consumer affinity). Additionally, it focuses on the moderating effect of brand strength and corporate social contribution on boycott attitude. We conduct a longitudinal analysis of boycotts by South Koreans on the Japanese products, which started in South Korea in 2019; and additionally, we employ PROCESS macro to test the moderated mediation hypothesis, using the data collected from South Korea in 2020 and 2021. Our findings reveal that the data collected in 2020 and in 2021 have the same implications. The main findings are as follows. First, while animosity toward economic sanction directly increases boycott attitude, it also indirectly increases boycott attitude via consumer affinity. Second, the assumption that both brand strength and corporate social contribution weaken the positive and direct effects of animosity toward economic sanction on boycott attitude was not supported. Third, we find that corporate social contribution weakens the positive and indirect effect of animosity toward economic sanction on boycott attitude. However, unlike our prediction, brand strength strengthens the positive and indirect effects of animosity to economic sanction on boycott attitude. The three key theoretical implications are as follows. First, while many studies have examined the role of animosity as a cause of boycott, only a few studies have simultaneously addressed the conflicting emotions of affinity (Kim, Yan, Kim, Terasaki, & Furukawa, 2022). This study extends boycott research by exploring the relationship between animosity and boycott attitudes by considering the mediating effect of affinity. Second, to our best knowledge, only a few boycott studies have explored corporate strategies that adequately respond unanticipated country boycotts where the companies are not directly associated with the causes or motives of such boycotts (Kim & Kinoshita, 2023). This study extends boycott research by investigating brand strength and corporate social contribution as corporate strategies in the context of consumer boycotts. Third, although it is known that consumer boycotts change with time, only a few boycott studies are based on longitudinal analyses (Ettenson & Klein, 2005); hence, this study examines consumer boycotts longitudinally to improve the generalization of our findings. Our findings also present some managerial implications for global companies facing unexpected country boycotts by local consumers. When boycotts are caused by economic sanctions between countries, brand strength exerts a two-sided effect. Regarding consumer sentiment, the higher the brand strength, the higher the affinity for the country represented by the brand, and vice versa; however, consumers may also choose to boycott a brand with high strength. Consumers may feel angry and engage in boycotts when they feel betrayed by a brand with strong brand strength. However, corporate social contribution reinforces a sense of closeness in the country it presents and contributes toward mitigating the boycott attitude; this is because consumers consider their corporate social contribution as a beneficial activity for their country. Therefore, global companies that expand overseas should not only use their brand strength, but also engage in activities that are beneficial to the country and enhance the familiarity of the consumers of the country to develop a sense of cultural affinity. In addition, this study also has implications for policymakers. Economic sanctions against a specific country not only lower consumers’ affinity, but also leave a negative impact on the global companies with high brand strength. Therefore, policymakers must proceed with caution when they make an economic sanction for a certain country.

Nowadays, many innovative marketers can leverage the augmented reality (AR) technology to create special experiences, offer more interactive advertising, as well as provide new ways to online shopping, especially for mobile marketing. The beauty industry occupies a large proportion in the fashion market and has become its essential part. For the fashion and beauty industry, consumers are willing to have the same level of experience online as when they are shopping offline. Accordingly, many brands develop mobile applications with AR capabilities that provide mobile AR services offering special experience. This new approach to mobile shopping eliminates the risk of shopping when consumers choose products, while indirectly changing consumer purchase behavior and lifestyles. However, relevant evidence about the AR service provided by mobile applications in the fashion and beauty industry remains to be scarce. To fill this gap in the literature, the present study seeks to explore the impact of the mobile AR technology on the consumer perception of the beauty brands and the changes in consumer’s behavior. In terms of the methodology, a semi-structured interview approach is employed. The results of the present study demonstrate that the effect of using the mobile AR technology varies according to the differences in consumers’ cognition and attention to beauty products. The playfulness provided by the mobile AR technology is a key factor for consumers to better understand and experience the brand, and consumer ROI is an important factor for consumers to purchase using the mobile AR service. At the same time, the degree to which the AR technology is mature affects consumer experience of the product. Surprisingly, our results suggest that the use of the AR technology has a certain educational effect on consumers, especially on those who are not good at make-up or have a low level of understanding of beauty products.

In recent years, maintaining transparency has become a trend among brands, and a better level of supply chain transparency has been demonstrated to positively affect consumer environmental concern and conscious behavior. Consumers may accept transparency efforts as a signal of the brand goodwill and perceive it as a visibly sustainable effort that can convert brand trust. In the information transparency trend, eco-certification plays an important role as a tool to inform consumers about sustainability. However, facing large amounts of information, consumers spend much time filtering information, so the accuracy of the obtained information can be compromised. The Higg index is a sustainable verification platform that reveals the entire activities of supply chains. However, most consumers are facing an overload of information that could confuse their processing of any information. In this context, the present study seeks to examine the effect of business transparency to conscious consumer behavior and purchase intention. Second, this study deals with the moderating effects of sustainable knowledge on the relationship between business transparency, environmental concern, and brand trust. Third, we explore the effects of high and low level of consume knowledge of sustainability on the relationship between business transparency and brand trust. In terms of the methodology used in the present study, an off-line survey of Korean consumers was conducted. SPSS 21.0 was used for data analysis aiming to test the proposed model and research hypothesis. The mains results of this study are as follows. First, business transparency has a positive effect on environmental concern, brand trust, and consumer willingness to conscious behavior. Second, consumer sustainable knowledge has a moderating effect on business transparency for environmental concern and brand trust. Taken together, the findings of the present study provide meaningful implications for marketers by highlighting the importance of transparency and introduction of a transparent eco-certification for communication with consumers. To successfully influence consumer willingness to assume conscious behavior, brands are advised to provide standardized transparency labels, rather than complicated information.

This paper examines the impact of thanks from the sellers on consumer satisfaction in the tourism industry. Study 1 shows that thanks from the sellers (vs. no thank from the sellers) will decrease consumer satisfaction. In this process, perceived fairness and perceived value play a serial mediation role. Study 2 shows that the pricing type (the fixed price vs. the flexible price) plays a moderate role on the impact of thanks from the sellers at the end of a transaction on consumer satisfaction. This paper introduces transaction utility theory and culture difference to explain the seemingly inconsistent phenomenon. Introduction The present studies focus on retailers expressing gratitude and, especially, how the communication of retailer expressing gratitude or not affects consumer satisfaction under the tourism purchase environment. Image that you encounter a seller is selling the souvenirs in the tourist spot you just visit, you would like to buy one of the souvenirs, such as a special cup with the souvenirs logo, you conclude a deal with the seller eventually, after that, the seller thanks for your purchasing and you leave. One question arises, will consumers feel less satisfaction when sellers say nothing than when they say “Thank you” at the end of a transaction? Theoretical Background Thanking is one of the speech acts or communicative acts frequently and abundantly utilized in human interactions, even though, most of these studies have focused on a western perspective, little is known about the experience of tourists from Asia. In western countries, people are accustomed to saying "thank you" after the benefit of others. Some behavioral responses may resemble the expression of gratitude (e.g., saying thank you to a waiter in a restaurant), but may instead be an automatic polite response not grounded in emotion (Buck 2004; Emmons and McCullough 2003; Fazalehasan et al 2017). However, in Somali and China culture, people are not used to expressing thanks, which makes many Americans or Australian feel rude or impolite (Chiu and Hong 2013; Robertson 2014). Here we test the prediction that gratitude from retailers may affect consumer satisfaction in a potentially counterintuitive manner. In other words, we hypothesize that gratitude from the retailer may lead to lower consumer satisfaction. This prediction draws from both the existing literature on gratitude as well as from research on culture difference and transaction utility theory from the response to gratitude. Research Design Two experiments have been conducted to test the hypotheses. Study 1 will provide support for the three central hypotheses regarding perceived fairness inference (hypothesis 1), perceived value inferences (hypothesis 2), and consumer satisfaction (hypothesis 3). Study 2 will test an important boundary condition. This study shows that the proposed negative effect of saying thank you (vs. saying nothing) holds only if the price of product is fixed. Result and Conclusion In the study 1, we found that sellers saying thank you after the transaction leads to less consumer satisfaction. Therefore, an important contribution of our work emerges from our melding of the literature on perceived fairness and value and demonstrating that gratitude from the sellers dictates which literature is more applicable in relationship marketing. Furthermore, we also examined the mechanism in study 2 and explore a boundary condition. We discovered that when the price of a souvenir is fixed, consumers feel more satisfaction when sellers say nothing than when they say “Thank you” at the end of a transaction. Conversely, when the price of a souvenir is not fixed, which is to say when consumers can bargain in the store, consumers feel less satisfaction when sellers say nothing than when they say “Thank you” after the transaction

As the global cosmetics market becomes more competitive, cosmetics firms need to be more market-oriented. Consumers purchase cosmetics products not only based on product-related attributes (e.g., function) but also for non-product-related reasons such as novelty and a pursuit of variety. They are exposed and have access to a variety of choices imported from other countries, which further complicates decision-making. Globalization offers great opportunities for marketers as it may help expand the horizon of the market beyond the domestic boundary. Given that the market is becoming more competitive, it is imperative to understand what influences purchase decisions of global consumers. This study considers and examines extended susceptibility to global consumer culture (Extended SGCC) and its effect on affective commitment, which in turn influences behavioral commitment and loyalty. We consider four elements of extended SGCC: conformity to consumer trend, social prestige, quality perception, and corporate social responsibility. In addition to examining the structural relationships among the variables, we test whether country of origin (COO) moderates the proposed relationships. In order to test the model, we collected data from the purchasers of botanical cosmetics products that came from several different countries. A total of 798 users participated in the survey (425 users of domestic brands and 373 users of foreign brands). We performed several analyses related to the measurement model such as reliability analysis (Cronbach’s alphas), confirmatory factor analysis, and correlations analysis. Using SPSS 21.0 and AMOS 21.0, we estimated the structural model. The overall model fit indices include: χ2=1118.934 with df=239, p=0.000; GFI=0.884; AGFI=0.855; NFI=0.924; CFI=0.934; RMSEA=0.068; RMR=0.069. The study finds that all elements of SGCC, with the exception of social prestige, have a significant influence on affective commitment. Specifically, conformity to consumer trend is found to have a significant effect on affective commitment. This means that consumers who conform to the global trend tend to have a higher level of commitment. One implication is that cosmetics firms may want to communicate to the consumers that their products fit the lifestyle corresponding to the global trend. Contrary to our expectation, social prestige is not found significantly related to affective commitment. It seems that social prestige is not an important factor in choosing botanical cosmetics products. This is understandable because, unlike some prestige products that consumers wear or use to be associated with their image or perceived quality (e.g., car, handbag), consumers may not purchase botanical cosmetics products to upgrade their social status. As expected, quality perception has a significant positive effect on affective commitment. The study shows that quality perception has the most significant impact on affective commitment. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is also found to have a significant impact on affective commitment. The finding suggests that companies should be or remain active in taking initiatives that advance social welfare. Our study shows that both affective and behavioral commitments are positively related to customer loyalty. Behavioral commitment, which consists of items representing purchase tendency, has a greater influence on loyalty than affective commitment. We anticipated that country of origin (COO) would moderate the proposed relationships. We find no significant moderating effect of COO. This can be interpreted that the structural relationships are upheld regardless of COO. It seems that global consumers evaluate foreign brands in the same manner as they do domestic brands. This suggests that cosmetics firms may want to be careful in differentiating their strategies based on countries as the return on investment may not be as handsome as they thought and global consumers may have more similarities than differences with respect to how they evaluate and purchase cosmetics products.

This paper aims to contribute to the existing literature about social influence on products purchase intention. Specifically, it focuses on social influence among young adults’ purchase intention for luxury products, through investigation about Macau young adults consumption culture. Three types of social influence (informational influence, utilitarian influence, and value-expressive influence) are examined in this study. In terms of product conspicuousness, two types of luxury products can be identified based on the degree to which products usage is performed in public versus private. Hypotheses include that informational influence, utilitarian influence, and value-expressive influence will be significantly and positively related to consumer purchase intention for luxury products, both publicly and privately consumed. A convenient sample of 120 Macau young adults aged 18 to 24 participated in this study. The result of Regression and Analysis of Variance indicated that consumers have been affected by different types of social influence when they purchase different types of luxury products. Value-expressive influence is significantly and positively related to purchase intention for public products. Moreover, both informational influence and value-expressive influence are significantly and positively related to purchase intention for private luxury products. However, the effects of utilitarian influence are insignificant to both public and private luxury products, which are contrary to the hypotheses specified in this study and surprising findings about contemporary Chinese culture. Additionally, female has higher intention to buy luxury products. Based on the results of this study, marketing implications and managerial insights in the luxury retail market are recommended accordingly. Future research can provide a more comprehensive perspective of social influence than the exploratory one offered in the present study.

Marketing green products can be challenging and identifying the preferences of consumers can help marketers overcome these challenges by developing focused marketing solutions. This research was conducted to examine the affects of cultural differences on the perception of green buildings thus the associated preferences of the occupants. This study found that South Koreans perceive indoor environmental quality as the most important green building attribute while Americans feel the same way for the materials and resources used to build. Interdisciplinary approaches such as the ones developed in this study can help develop targeted marketing strategies to ultimately benefit multiple industries by offering sustainable solutions to the growing global and regional environmental, economic, and social problems.

The purpose of this study is to identify the determinants of the susceptibility of global consumer culture. As determinants, materialism and self monitoring as psychological variables and fashion clothing product knowledge as clothing-related variable were included. It was hypothesized that both psychological variables and clothing-related variable influence susceptibility of global consumer culture. Data were gathered by surveying university students in Seoul metropolitan area, using convenience sampling, and 311 questionnaires were used in the statistical analysis. In analyzing data, exploratory factor analysis using SPSS and confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis using AMOS were conducted. Factor analysis of susceptibility of global consumer culture revealed four dimensions, 'social prestige' factor, 'quality perception' factor, 'conformity to others' factor, and 'conformity to consumption trend' factor. In addition, factor analysis of self monitoring revealed three dimensions, 'center-oriented attention' factor, 'situation-appropriate self-presentation' factor, and 'strategic displays of self-presentation' factor. The results showed that all the fit indices for the variable measures were quite acceptable. In addition, the overall fit of the model suggests that the model fits the data well. Tests of the hypothesized path show that all variables except for the one factor of self monitoring, 'center-oriented attention', and materialism influence all the factors of susceptibility of global consumer culture. The implications of these findings and suggestions for future study are also discussed.

시장의 글로벌화는 시장환경을 급격히 변화시키고 있다. 따라서 본 연구는 이에 부응하여 디자인을 통해 글로벌경쟁우위를 차지하려 노력하는 글로벌 기업들을 위해 글로벌 디자인 프로세스를 제안하고자 한다. 본 연구는 글로벌 소비자문화의 의미구조와 이동의 관점에서 글로벌 세분시장을 구성하는 글로벌 소비자문화, 글로벌 디자인 및 글로벌 세분시장을 구성하는 소비자간의 순환적 인과구조를 규명하여 글로벌 디자인을 위한 새로운 연구의 틀을 창조한다. 그리고 이를 바탕으로 소비자들이 선호하는 디자인을 위해서 글로벌 소비자문화-기반 글로벌 디자인 프로세스를 제안하는 데 목적이 있다. 연구목적을 위해 먼저 글로벌 세분시장과 글로벌 소비자, 글로벌 소비자문화 및 글로벌 디자인을 고찰한다. 그 다음 이들 간의 인과구조를 규명하기 위해 이론적 고찰로서 McCraken의 제품의 문화적 의미구조와 이동에 관한 이론을 적용하여 그것을 바탕으로 연구의 틀을 구성한다. 그리고 글로벌 소비자문화 중 10대 청소년의 글로벌 문화에 대한 2차 자료를 바탕으로 사례연구를 진행한다 마지막으로 연구의 결과로서 글로벌 소비자문화-기반 글로벌 디자인 전략을 제안하고 미래 연구를 위한 방향을 논의한다.