In their recent article titled Pluralism or Cosmopolitanism? Reflections on Petersmann’s International Economic Law Constitutionalism in the Context of China, Tao Li and Zuoli Jiang have criticized the alleged ‘paradox’ that my publications “stress ‘legal pluralism’ on the one hand, while calling for a cosmopolitan conception of IEL on the other hand.” This short comment aims not only at clarifying conceptual misunderstandings due to our different “constitutional law perspectives,” but also explaining why China should embrace a ‘dialogical’ rather than “exclusive legal perspectivism” by continuing to implement its international legal obligations (e.g., under the UN/WTO law) in good faith and assuming more leadership for the global public good of the rules-based world trading system, with due respect for its underlying ‘legal pluralism’ and often indeterminate ‘basic principles.’ My Chinese critics’ emphasis on the reality of authoritarian Chinese “top-down conceptions” of law and governance neglects China’s obligations under international law and China’s compliance with the WTO, investment and commercial adjudication.

Research into country-of-origin effects has been conducted since the 1960s, and the research focus has gradually shifted from country-of-origin to ideological effects, such as consumer ethnocentrism, animosity, and more recently, consumer cosmopolitanism. From the postwar period to the 1980s, globalization brought a negative consumer attitude toward foreign products, but a positive one among an increasing number of consumers after the mid-1990s, partly due to the prevalence of the internet (Terasaki, 2016a). Even though the exact number is still unknown, cosmopolitan consumers are increasing faster than ever before (Riefler & Diamantopoulos, 2009; Cleveland et al., 2011; Grinstein &Wathieu, 2012). The concept “consumer cosmopolitanism” was first introduced by in Cannon et al. (1994), and since then a number of empirical studies have been conducted using the Cannon, Yoon, McGowan & Yaprak’s Cosmopolitanism (CYMYC) scale. Although consumer cosmopolitanism has become a popular theme in international marketing (Terasaki, 2016b), little research has been conducted examining the antecedents for cosmopolitan consumers (Riefler & Diamantopoulos, 2009). Our study fills this important gap in the emerging literature, using sequential mixed methods. This is important because we specify where prospective cosmopolitan consumers are, and what elements of products and services, and in some cases advertisements, potentially attract them.

This study empirically investigates how four individual-level characteristics impact the effect of the four self-congruity types on brand attitude. A widely used practice among marketers focuses on communicating that using their brands will bring consumers closer to how they would like to see themselves, their ideal self-concept (e.g. being a slim person like the models in the ads), instead of how they actually see themselves, their actual self-concept. However, recent research shows that there is no “universality” of a superior self-congruity effect. Specifically, individual-level characteristics (e.g. self-esteem levels, product involvement levels) determine if actual or ideal self-congruity impact brand perceptions more strongly (Malär, Krohmer, Hoyer & Nyffenegger, 2011). This study extends that research by (a) considering all four self-congruity types (actual, ideal, social, and ideal social) and (b) four additional individual-level characteristics, which are valuable for segmenting consumer markets within and across countries. The four individual-level characteristics are a dominant independent self-construal, interdependent self-construal, cosmopolitan orientation and local orientation. Considering these individual-level characteristics offers marketers insights on which of the four self-concept types they should try to match with their brand communications when targeting these specific consumer groups. Survey data from a non-student sample was collected in the US. After performing data cleaning procedures, 800+ usable responses were analysed with the use of PLS-SEM (Lohmöller, 1989). The measurement models demonstrate satisfactory reliability, convergent and discriminant validity. Furthermore, the results suggest that the data is not compromised by non-response bias and common method variance. The structural models display satisfactory predictive capabilities of the four self-congruity types on brand attitude. The findings show that as expected an individual’s dominant independent self-construal, interdependent self-construal, cosmopolitan and local orientation impact which of the four self-congruity types has the strongest effect on brand attitude. For individuals with a dominant local orientation or interdependent self-construal, actual self-congruity has the strongest effect on brand attitude. For individuals with a dominant cosmopolitan orientation or independent self-construal, ideal self-congruity has the strongest effect on brand attitude. The findings of this study extend self-congruity theory by considering the effect of these four individual-level characteristics. Managerial implications are also presented.