A product’s association with a foreign origin
may not always be positive due to the ethnocentrism
of local consumers and the animosity
toward a specific country. Shimp and Sharma
(1987) found that higher ethnocentrism among
consumers were predictably related to both a
preference for domestic goods and an aversion
toward imports. Klein et al. (1998) tested an animosity
model of consumer perception of foreign
products in China. They find that that animosity
toward a foreign nation will affect negatively the
purchase of products from that country independently
of judgments of product quality. Some
scholars have found that social milieu concerning
the consumption of brands is in a state of
flux and that rapid social changes, a common
occurrence in many developing markets such as
China, may bring some surprises to the evaluation
of a brand by consumers (Eckhardt &
Houston, 2002). Cultural values such as nationalism
and trust often interact with each other
to affect brand perceptions in emerging markets.
In addition, as Francis et al. (2002) have
found, Chinese brand names have more positive