The Effect of National Identity, Individualism and Ethnocentrism on Brand Evaluation: An empirical test in China

Abstract

With continuous development of globalization and economy in China, competition between local and foreign corporations become more and more intense. While Chinese new generation with well-educated level and global mind have much more accesses to various brands than last generation, local firms often use item like “new China made” in advertising. However, is this really an effective marketing strategy? Given such background, this empirical test, aimed to examine how the three antecedent factors, national identity and individualism-collectivism influence consumer ethnocentrism and the links between consumer ethnocentrism, individualism-collectivism and brand evaluation (perceived quality, attitude, purchase intention), were conducted on Chinese younger generation (20-40 years old) in Shanghai with two categories of products (sneaker and smartphone). The results of the test indicated that national identity and collectivism are positively related with consumer ethnocentrism, while individualism is negatively related it. On the one hand, consumer ethnocentrism is proved to positively affect local brand evaluation, whereas it is rejected that it has a negative effect on foreign brand evaluation. On the other hand, empirical support is provided merely for both the negative impact of individualism and positive impact of collectivism on perceived quality of local brands, while other relationships are not proved. Moreover, the higher level of consumer’s individualism is, the better his/her evaluation of foreign brand will be except perceived quality. Simultaneously, collectivism is proved to influence consumers’ purchase intention of foreign brand negatively, while the negative effect on perceived quality and attitude is unsupported. Keyword: national identity, ethnocentrism, individualism-collectivism, brand evaluation