Consumers engage in self-production when they play an active role in the creation of end products, such as preparing a meal or assembling a piece of furniture. In three experimental studies of self-production involving a branded input product, the authors show that consumers' active engagement in the value creation process (preparing a meal) positively biases their evaluations of an outcome (a dish) and an input product (a dinner kit). A positive evaluation bias for the input product occurs despite increased self-attribution due to self-production. In support of an associative self-anchoring explanation and the notion of self-generated validity, self-producing consumers bias their sensory perceptions (e.g., perceived level of saltiness and spiciness) so that they match a positive evaluation of the outcome. Mediation analyses show that perceived self-integration (perceived link between self and outcome) partly mediates the positive effect of self-production on outcome evaluation. The authors conclude that branded input products may benefit from the evaluation bias caused by self-production.

No abstract

In recent years, there has been a great deal of research exploring the concept of consumer ethnocentrism, although little has been done in Eastern Bloc countries. In these countries, foreign brands are often clearly superior to domestic alternatives. This study applied the CETSCALE in a survey of 218 Polish consumers with respect to attitudes and beliefs for one domestic and two foreign gas station brands. The findings suggest that, in a situation where foreign brands are superior to domestic ones, consumer ethnocentrism is displayed in more positive perceptions of the domestic brand, with little or no effect on perceptions of foreign brands. Moreover, the effect of consumer ethnocentrism on evaluations of different types of product qualities (search vs. experience) is explored. The results support the prediction that consumer ethnocentrism has greater impact on evaluations of experience qualities than on search qualities. Managerial implications and future research directions are suggested. ᭧ 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.In the 1970s and 1980s, several studies persistently demonstrated that in most Western countries domestic products generally enjoy a more favorable evaluation than foreign-made products (e.g., Bannister & Saunders, 1978;Cattin, Jolibert, & Lohnes, 1982; Darling & Kraft, 908 SUPPHELLEN AND RITTENBURG 1977;Lillis & Narayana, 1974). One central construct that has emerged from this literature is that of consumer ethnocentrism (Shimp & Sharma, 1987), defined as "the beliefs held by (American) consumers about the appropriateness, indeed morality of purchasing foreign made products" (p. 280). Consumer ethnocentrism implies that buying imports is wrong because it is unpatriotic and detrimental to the domestic economy and employment. A number of studies have demonstrated the consumer tendency to evaluate domestic products unreasonably favorably compared to imported products, as reviewed in Sharma, Shimp, and Shin (1995). Shimp and Sharma (1987) developed the CETSCALE to measure the construct of consumer ethnocentrism; and in a study of American consumers, they showed that ethnocentric tendencies are significantly negatively correlated with attitudes toward foreign products and significantly positively correlated with attitudes toward domestic products. Netemeyer, Durvasula, and Lichtenstein (1991) have replicated these findings on a cross-national sample of Western European and Japanese consumers. Moreover, the impact of consumer ethnocentrism has recently been documented also in studies of Eastern European post-socialist countries such as Poland and Russia (Durvasula, Andrews, & Netemeyer, 1992;Good & Huddleston, 1995;Marcoux, Filiatrault, & Chéron, 1997). However, these findings of ethnocentric tendencies in Eastern European countries conflict with other studies showing that consumers in this area tend to prefer Western products because of their superior quality. For example, Papadopoulos, Heslop, and Beracs (1990) found that Hungarians generally evaluated Western products more positively...

No main effects of the applications were observed. However, significant effects of Internet applications were found when Internet experience was included as a moderating variable. Specifically, it was found that personalized web-sites developed stronger consumer-brand relationships for respondents with extensive Internet experience than for respondents with limited Internet experience. Conversely, it was found that customer communities developed stronger relationships among respondents with limited Internet experience than among respondents with extensive Internet experience. Implications for marketing management and future research in this area are discussed.2

Based on a survey of Western brands in Russia, three contributions are offered to the literature on international brand-building. First, the Aaker brand personality scale (Aaker 1997) was tested in a Russian context. Important similarities and differences between Western and Russian brand personality perceptions were identified. Second, the results show that brand personalities of Western brands also have an impact on brand attitudes among Russian consumers. Third, and most importantly, it is demonstrated that the effect of Western brand personalities is heavily moderated by consumer ethnocentrism. Specifically, only low-ethnocentric consumers are influenced by foreign brand personalities.