Antecedents of consumer animosity and the role of product involvement on purchase intentions

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to further our understanding of the sources of consumer animosity and the moderating role of product involvement on purchase intentions. Design/methodology/approach - Animosity is examined in the context of South Korean consumers’ purchase intentions toward Japanese products. A structural equation model was estimated in Lisrel 8.80 to assess the proposed model. Findings - The results offer evidence that consumer ethnocentrism and susceptibility to normative influence have a positive relationship with animosity while cosmopolitanism has a negative relationship with animosity. Furthermore, animosity negatively influences intentions to purchase for high-involvement products, but not for low-involvement products. Practical implications - International marketing managers can better identify the risk that consumer animosity poses to their products and services based on level of product involvement and characteristics of the market segment. Originality/value - This study offers clarity to the understanding of animosity by examining additional antecedents of animosity that reflect different world views. It also provides an exception to the previous findings that in general animosity has a negative impact on consumers’ willingness to buy products of countries for which consumers have animosity. In other words, the effect of animosity on purchase intention of products from a disliked country depends on the degree of involvement.