Global Consumer Culture

Introduction

The Evolving Nature of Global and Local Consumption, Special issue of International Marketing Review; Deadline 31 Mar 2018

Special issue call for papers – International Marketing Review

Global Consumer Culture: The Evolving Nature of Global and Local Consumption

Paper Submission Deadline: 31 March 2018

Guest Editors: Fabian Bartsch, Mark Cleveland, Eunju Ko, John Cadogan

Without a doubt, globalization, defined as the process of worldwide market and cultural integration, is changing the way businesses operate (Steenkamp & de Jong, 2010). However, beyond its effect on business activities, globalization continues to have a profound impact on the consumer landscape (Özsomer, Batra, Chattopadhyay, & ter Hofstede, 2012). Today’s consumers are relentlessly exposed to external cultural forces, without having to leave their native countries – they no longer necessary live their lives in accordance with the values, norms and behavioral expectations of their local culture.

Research largely overlooks the societal transformations being experienced among mainstream populations (focusing primarily on minorities). Due to globalization these alterations are now perceptible; however, the emerging literature intimates that these changes are proceeding unevenly and intricately, within and across borders, consumer groups and consumption contexts.

Consumers use shared sets of consumption-related symbols across borders, and foreign products are readily available in many domestic markets. As a consequence, companies are adapting their marketing strategies to target evolving global consumer segments that are favorably disposed to foreign and/or global market offerings (Papadopoulos & Martín Martín, 2011). In an effort to capture these changes in consumer behavior, as a result of globalization, international marketing research seeks to conceptualize consumers’ positive and negative dispositions toward foreign countries and globalization (Bartsch, Riefler, & Diamantopoulos, 2016). Among others, literature describes consumers as being ethnocentric (Shankarmahesh, 2006; Sharma, 2015; Siamagka & Balabanis, 2015), cosmopolitan (Cleveland, Papadopoulos, & Laroche, 2011), xenocentric (Balabanis & Diamantopoulos, 2016), global citizens (Strizhakova, Coulter, & Price, 2008), and/or having a global identity (Tu, Khare, & Zhang, 2012). These various consumer groups offer theoretically well-suited segments which are distinguishable based on their consumption behavior (Riefler, 2012; Strizhakova, Coulter, & Price, 2012), reflected in their susceptibility toward global, foreign, and local brands. Consequently, the global, foreign, and local nature of brands offers an important distinguishing criteria that companies may leverage to attract said consumer groups (Cleveland, Laroche, & Papadopoulos, 2015; Guo, 2013; Özsomer & Altaras, 2008). Indeed, firms manipulate signals, including associations toward or away from particular cultures, in order to position products and to persuade consumers (Prince, Davies, Cleveland & Palihawadana, 2016).

Thus, the globalization of markets provides international companies with a paradigm that promotes global brand portfolios over local ones. However, the literature also is observing emerging trends in which large consumer segments are tending to favor local brands, either generally or for specific contexts (Steenkamp & de Jong, 2010; Zeugner-Roth, ?abkar, & Diamantopoulos, 2015). The later trend is forcing companies to reconsider their strategies and find ways of responding to the changing nature of global and local branding. Identifying the role consumer dispositions play in this paradigm shift is a first step in accommodating the evolving nature of global and local consumption.

Thus, despite the growing body of research that seeks to investigate the various ways consumer dispositions impact marketing decision (e.g., Bartsch, Diamantopoulos, Paparoidamis, & Chumpitaz, 2016; Cleveland, Rojas-Méndez, Laroche, & Papadopoulos, 2016), the current state of the literature remains fragmented and requires further attention.

In particular, there is a dearth of research that seeks to better understand the differences among conceptualizations of consumer dispositions (and their resulting brand preferences), their antecedents (e.g., how do personality dimensions shape the adaptation of dispositions), how multiple identities interact and shape consumer behavior (e.g., the combination of multiple possibly contradicting identities), the interaction and trade-off among global and local consumer cultures, the appropriation of global consumer culture elements and their indigenization by local societies, and finally, the prospective development of several global consumer cultures across emerging markets (e.g., to what extent is there an overlap among Western and Eastern “global consumer cultures”).

The purpose of this special issue is to provide scholars with a platform to share important, potentially controversial, intuitions which push the boundaries of our understanding of global and local consumer cultures and their joint influence on many consumer behaviors. As such, we welcome submissions that seek to offer novel insights into the evolving nature of global and local consumer cultures, their effects on consumers’ underlying decision making processes, as well as on how these developments are precipitating a paradigm change in global and local branding approaches.

The guest editors will welcome rigorous contributions which address the above-mentioned aims or respond to proximate issues pertaining to consumers’ varied local, global and foreign dispositions. Suitable topics include but are not limited to:

• Multiple cultural identities.

-Does global consumer culture foster the development of multiple, possibly conflicting, cultural identities? If so, how? What are the mechanisms? If not, not why? What form do the identities take? Are there patterns or rules?

– Is there a link between multiple/conflicting cultural identities and acculturative stress (e.g., identity confusion)? What kinds of stress coping mechanisms are available within the consumption context?

• Dispositions and identities.

– Are consumer cultural dispositions and identities differentially activated according to the context?

– What are the behavioral ramifications (for example, pro social behavior)?

– What are the broader consideration of the roles played by these consumer cultural identities and dispositions (e.g., beyond consumption, including prosocial behaviors).

• Iconicity.

– Iconicity in the context of global and local consumption behaviour.

– Differential consumer response to iconicity.

– Forms of iconicity in the global consumer setting.

• Brand globalness / localness.

– For instance, strategies for optimizing and communicating brand globalness and localness positioning.

– Consumer cultural dispositions and local branding (e.g., consumer xenocentrism and brand attitudes)

• Consumer orientations

– Identification of hybrid segments (i.e., combining positive and negative dispositions), and moving beyond the limiting / false dichotomy of global vs. local consumer orientations.

– The appropriation (selective borrowing or ‘bricolage’) and indigenization (creolization) of the “global” by the “local” (i.e., the absorption and transmutation of global products, lifestyles, ideas, etc. to fit into local realities and sensibilities) and vice-versa.

– Global consumer subcultures, arising from the juxtaposition of demographics, social forces, and consumption constellations.

Submission Deadline: 31 March 2018

Authors should submit full papers to the Guest Editors of this IMR Special Issue through the ‘ScholarOne Manuscript portal

(https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/imrev),

to be reviewed for publication in the special issue.

References

Balabanis, G., & Diamantopoulos, A. (2016). Consumer Xenocentrism as Determinant of Foreign Product Preference: A System Justification Perspective. Journal of International Marketing, 24(3), 58–77.

Bartsch, F., Diamantopoulos, A., Paparoidamis, N. G., & Chumpitaz, R. (2016). Global Brand Ownership: The Mediating Roles of Consumer Attitudes and Brand Identification. Journal of Business Research, 69(9), 3629–3635. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2016.03.023

Bartsch, F., Riefler, P., & Diamantopoulos, A. (2016). A Taxonomy and Review of Positive Consumer Dispositions Toward Foreign Countries and Globalization. Journal of International Marketing, 24(1), 82–110.

Cleveland, M., Laroche, M., & Papadopoulos, N. (2015). You Are What You Speak? Globalization, Multilingualism, Consumer Dispositions and Consumption. Journal of Business Research, 68(3), 542–552.

Cleveland, M., Papadopoulos, N., & Laroche, M. (2011). Identity, Demographics, and Consumer Behaviors: International Market Segmentation Across Product Categories. International Marketing Review, 28(3), 244–266.

Cleveland, M., Rojas-Méndez, J. I., Laroche, M., & Papadopoulos, N. (2016). Identity, Culture, Dispositions And Behavior: A Cross-National Examination Of Globalization and Culture Change. Journal of Business Research, 69(3), 1090–1102.

Guo, X. (2013). Living in a Global World: Influence of Consumer Global Orientation on Attitudes Toward Global Brands From Developed Versus Emerging Countries. Journal of International Marketing, 21(1), 1–22.

Özsomer, A., & Altaras, S. (2008). Global Brand Purchase Likelihood: A Critical Synthesis and an Integrated Conceptual Framework. Journal of International Marketing, 16(4), 1–28.

Özsomer, A., Batra, R., Chattopadhyay, A., & ter Hofstede, F. (2012). A Global Brand Management Roadmap. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 29(1), 1–4.

Papadopoulos, N., & Martín Martín, O. (2011). International Market Selection And Segmentation: Perspectives and Challenges. International Marketing Review, 28(2), 132–149.

Prince, Melvin; Davies, Mark; Cleveland, Mark; & Palihawadana, Dayananda (2016), Here, There, and Everywhere: A Study of Consumer Centrism. International Marketing Review, 33 (5), 715-754.

Riefler, P. (2012). Why Consumers Do (Not) Like Global Brands: The Role Of Globalization Attitude, GCO and Global Brand Origin. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 29(1), 25–34.

Shankarmahesh, M. N. (2006). Consumer Ethnocentrism: An Integrative Review of its Antecedents and Consequences. International Marketing Review, 23(2), 146–172.

Sharma, P. (2015). Consumer Ethnocentrism: Reconceptualization and Cross-Cultural Validation. Journal of International Business Studies, 46(3), 381–389.

Siamagka, N.-T., & Balabanis, G. (2015). Revisiting Consumer Ethnocentrism: Review, Reconceptualization, and Empirical Testing. Journal of International Marketing, 23(3), 66–86.

Steenkamp, J.-B. E. M., & de Jong, M. G. (2010). A Global Investigation into the Constellation of Consumer Attitudes Toward Global and Local Products. Journal of Marketing, 74(6), 18–40.

Strizhakova, Y., Coulter, R. A., & Price, L. L. (2008). Branded Products as a Passport to Global Citizenship: Perspectives From Developed and Developing Countries. Journal of International Marketing, 16(4), 57–85.

Strizhakova, Y., Coulter, R. A., & Price, L. L. (2012). The Young Adult Cohort in Emerging Markets: Assessing their Glocal Cultural Identity in a Global Marketplace. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 29(1), 43–54.

Tu, L., Khare, A., & Zhang, Y. (2012). A Short 8-Item Scale For Measuring Consumers’ Local–Global Identity. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 29(1), 35–42.

Zeugner-Roth, K. P., ?abkar, V., & Diamantopoulos, A. (2015). Consumer Ethnocentrism, National Identity, and Consumer Cosmopolitanism as Drivers of Consumer Behavior: A Social Identity Theory Perspective. Journal of International Marketing, 23(2), 25–54.