Expatriate Consumers’ Adaptations and Food Brand Choices: A Compensatory Control Perspective

The number of expatriates has been steadily growing during the last two decades. For these reasons, academia has exhibited a growing research interest in expatriates’ food consumption choices. Although interest is there, the extant literature is inconclusive about conditions under which expatriate consumers make trade-offs between host-country (local) and global food products and brands. The present study presents mechanisms that explain expatriate consumers’ compensatory coping behaviors and choices between local versus global food brands. By drawing on compensatory control theory and the person–environment fit framework, the authors test the influence of adaptation efforts and retail system properties on expatriate consumers’ food brand choices. Survey findings from 232 expatriates who currently live in five Middle Eastern countries reveal that a higher engagement in adaptation efforts (acculturation and general adjustment) leads to a dominant preference for local (vs. global) food brands. Moreover, this study illuminates the importance of retail system properties by showing that a host country’s retail system development positively moderates the relationship between adaptation efforts and local food brand choices, whereas retail similarity has a negative impact.

Country of Origin and Consumer Perceptions

Different products and brands come from different countries. Consumer perceptions and country images are developed because of country of origin. Country of origin affects global brands. Consumer perceptions about global brands are related to stereotyping, ethnocentrism, industrialization, technological developments, and fads. Consumer perceptions create influences on brand choices and acceptance of brands. Consumer perceptions about country of origin should be improved. Companies adopt a number of strategies and initiatives to overcome and improve country-of-origin perceptions. A proper understanding of consumer perceptions about country of origin is required for managers to realize consumer preferences about global brands and the connections between consumer perceptions and country of origin. All these will allow companies to establish their products and brands in foreign markets, sell their brands, and achieve business excellence.

Empirical Study on Bikesharing Brand Selection in China in the Post-Sharing Era

With the rapid popularization of mobile Internet technology and smart terminal equipment in recent years, the volume and usage of dockless bikesharing (hereafter referred to as bikesharing), which is green, environmentally friendly and convenient, have grown rapidly, making it one of the China’s “new four major inventions.” The development of the bikesharing in China consists of a pre-sharing era and a post-sharing era. In the pre-sharing era, capital-driven vicious market competition and lack of precise control have led to the abuse of urban space. Since the post-sharing era, the industry structure has returned to rationality, and many participants have been forced out of the market. The bikesharing has formed an oligopoly market consisting of head players such as Hellobike, Mobike, and Ofo. Therefore, how to improve the level of refined operations, promote sustainable development, improve cyclist satisfaction, and contribute to China’s strength in transportation have become urgent problems for bikesharing companies and traffic management departments. From the perspective of the cyclist experience, the brand choice of the bikesharing is taken as the research object. An online revealed preference survey is used to collect data on cyclists’ socio-economic attributes and subjective evaluations on the bikesharing. The conditional Logit model is used to explore the important factors that influence cyclists on the choice of bikesharing brands. Research results include: (1) age, occupation type, after-tax monthly income of the faculty group, riding comfort, rent, picking up/returning convenience, word of mouth, and volume have a significant impact on cyclists’ bikesharing brand choices; (2) gender, educational background, monthly living expenses of the student group, appearance, deposit, deposit returning speed, rate of broken bikes, ease of use of software, and rent discount have no significant impact on cyclists’ bikesharing brand choices. The research results are of great significance for improving the service quality of bikesharing companies and promoting the healthy development of the shared economy in China. Based on the results of the study, policy recommendations are made on the improvement for riding comfort, human-centered design, and word of mouth, and the construction of shared facilities.

Recommercing Luxury Goods

The aim of the work is to show that, in the luxury segment, retail operators are called to greater challenges imposed by the expansion of new competitive pressures especially driven by the dynamics of the demand trends increasingly oriented towards sustainability. The work provides a picture of the omnichannel strategies and of the practices adopted by the most important re-commerce players worldwide currently influencing the luxury brand choices in reassessing the opportunity offered by the re-commerce of the so-called ‘gently-used' personal goods. The ultimate goal is to underline the need for new collaborative strategies for luxury brands in order to better organize the retailing activities in an omnichannel perspective, especially considering the opportunities opened by the theme of sustainability.

“Should have I Bought the other One?” Experiencing Regret in Global versus Local Brand Purchase Decisions

This research addresses the unexplored postpurchase dynamics of global/local brand choices by investigating the experience of regret in global versus local brand purchases. Drawing on regret theory, the authors demonstrate in four complementary studies that the global/local availability of both chosen and forgone brands influences consumer responses to regrettable purchases and that the direction and magnitude of this influence depend on the consumers’ product category schema and global identity. Study 1 shows that regrettable decisions to forgo global for local brands elicit stronger regret, lower satisfaction, and higher brand switching than regrettable purchases of global (vs. local) brands for consumers with a global brand superiority schema for the category; the inverse holds for consumers with a local brand superiority schema. Studies 2 and 3 replicate the effect and show that it is mediated by perceived decision justifiability and moderated by global identity. Study 4 further validates the observed effect using a real brand choice task in a category with a local brand–dominated schema. The findings reveal the postpurchase consequences of global/local brand choices and provide concrete advice for global/local branding strategies.