Advanced International Business Management and Marketing How personality relates to evaluation of brand positioning strategies in advertising: The role of openness to experience

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University of Groningen

Newcastle University Business School

How personality relates to evaluation of

brand positioning strategies in advertising:

The role of openness to experience

Advanced International Business

Management and Marketing

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Abstract

This study investigates the role of openness to experience in consumer attitudes towards brands that reflect either global, foreign or local consumer culture positioning in advertisement. It examined two samples, one consisting of 102 Dutch, the other of 55 Chinese participants, and used an online survey. Openness was hypothesised but not found to have a direct positive impact on responsiveness to global and foreign positioning strategies. In contrast, partial support was found for a negative impact of openness on responsiveness to local positioning strategy. In addition to this direct effect, a possible mediation of this relationship by world-mindedness was examined, but not supported. Summarising, these absent and inconclusive findings of support advocate for a closer investigation of the previously found and argued link between openness and responsiveness, particularly taking the role of ethnocentrism into account. Besides, drawing managerial implications on these results was considered premature.

Furthermore, openness is found to relate positively to world-mindedness, confirming theoretical presumption. In addition, affinity to a specific foreign country is hypothesised to positively moderate the relationship between world-mindedness and responsiveness to brands that are advertised as being member of this specific foreign consumer culture. However, this was not confirmed by the data. Yet, partial support was found for a positive impact of both affinity and world-mindedness on responsiveness to Chinese positioning in the Dutch sample.

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Acknowledgements

I want any reader of this dissertation to know that, besides the University of Groningen and the Newcastle University Business School and its associates, this dissertation would have never been written without: my Honours College psychology research internship supervisors by sparking an interest in quantitative psychology research, the people I met in Mexico by making me change to international business anyway, my friends by being so inspiringly open to experience, my beloved sisters, Marij, the Doors, Pink Floyd, Dusty Kid and coffee.

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6 Appendix VI: Results of regression analyses for hypothesis 5, Dutch sample - affinity with a specific foreign country positively moderates the relationship between world-mindedness and responsiveness to FCCP. ... 91 Appendix VII: Results of regression analyses for hypothesis 7 - There is a difference between responsiveness to created ads and responsiveness to existing ads. ... 96 Appendix VIII: Results of regression analysis for hypothesis 1, Chinese sample - openness to experience relates positively to responsiveness to (a) FCCP and (b) GCCP, while negatively to responsiveness to (c) LCCP. ... 97 Appendix IX: Results of regression analyses for hypothesis 2, Chinese sample - Openness to experience relates positively to world-mindedness. ... 100 Appendix X: Results of regression analyses for hypothesis 3, Chinese sample -

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1. Introduction

For companies expanding abroad, a critical question is whether they should adapt to the local culture, stay focused on the culture of their country of origin, become globally oriented, or take any possible form in between. This applies to many aspects of a company, including its structure, human resource management, external relations management and marketing strategy. In regard to this last aspect, companies face the dilemma of presenting their brand and product in advertisement in a locally adapted style or in the style of the country of origin.

Globalisation seems to have led to emergence of a global consumer culture

(Alden, Steenkamp and Batra, 1999). A new, global consumer segment demands products and brands that reflect this culture. This results in a third, global, positioning strategy, in addition to the traditional local and foreign positioning strategies.

At the same time, however, there is contrasting evidence of a trend of demand for local brands and products, reflecting an “anti-globalisation”-movement, called localisation (e.g. Coca-Stefaniak, Parker and Rees, 2010; Meir, 2005). These trends make it difficult for internationalising firms to choose between advertising in the style of their home country or give in for globalisation or localisation forces. Furthermore, companies that are not expanding might face a similar dilemma in advertising decisions, as they too could adopt either style in advertising to their local audiences.

These issues play a particularly large role when a firm expands to a country that is culturally dissimilar to the home country. A vast amount of research has investigated the effects of local versus foreign versus global brand presentation in advertisement on customers' attitudes towards these advertisements (e.g. Stoebe, 2013; Chang, 2008; Batra, Ramaswamy, Alden, Steenkamp and Ramachander, 2000), with mixed results (Verlegh and Steenkamp, 1999). Most of these studies focus on variables relating to the brand, components of the marketing strategy used or the context.

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One personality trait that has been associated with positive attitudes to foreign and global ideas, brands and products (e.g. Hannerz, 1990; Albrecht, Dilchert, Deller and Paulus, 2014; Westjohn, Singh and Magnusson, 2012) while with low ethnocentrism and prejudice (e.g. Sibley and Duckitt, 2000) is openness to experience. Openness to

experience is one of the big five personality traits, defined by McCrae and John (1992) as having wide interests, unusual thoughts, unconventional judgements and showing original behaviour.

Applying this line of reasoning to brand positioning, presenting a brand as

belonging to a foreign or global culture in advertisement might hence even add value for people high on openness to experience. At the same time, consumers low on openness might prefer local products. This thesis therefore aims to answer the following main research question: what is the role of consumer openness to experience in the way in

which consumers evaluate a brand that is positioned as a foreign, local or global brand in advertisement?

Furthermore, a new trend in international business is companies from emerging market economies expanding to both other emerging and advanced markets (e.g. Seth, 2011), as opposed to the traditional model of companies from advanced markets expanding

globally. The marketing strategies of these emerging market companies are characterised as nationalistic, non-traditional and innovative, contrary to strategies of advanced market companies (Seth, 2011). However, the markets of such a company’s home and host country differ on many aspects such as culture, market preferences and economic and institutional conditions. Therefore, the issue of brand positioning in advertisement is particularly relevant for companies from emerging market economies expanding to advanced market economies and vice versa. A sub-question of this thesis is therefore:

how does level of development of the country of origin of a brand and of a consumer influence consumer evaluation of that brand, when positioned as a foreign brand?

It is furthermore likely that positive or negative feelings that a consumer has for a specific foreign country also plays a role in evaluation of a foreign brand (Oberecker and

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attitude that a consumer has to a specific country influences this relationship. This affinity with a specific country is constituted by past, unique experiences with that country. This thesis therefore also attempts to answer a second sub-question: how is

affinity to a specific foreign country related to consumer evaluation of a foreign brand?

This study might result in useful insights regarding the role of individual differences between consumers on attitudes to brand positioning strategies. These insights would subsequently increase our academic understanding of how some expansions abroad, and marketing strategies within these expansions are successful and why others are not.

Furthermore, these insights could guide in management decisions in international marketing activities. Individual characteristics of consumers within the target group of a brand might be an important factor to consider when designing advertisements. Vice versa, findings of this study could help companies to identify the target group to which they can convey their advertisement message best.

Lastly, this study includes the situation of brands from emerging market economies expanding to advanced market economies. This is in line with this current trend, as discussed above. It hence aims to contribute to academic understanding of and provide practical insights for marketing strategies of these companies.

The following chapter will consist of a review of the existing literature and its gaps, from which hypotheses will be drawn in the third chapter. The third chapter also discusses the theoretical perspectives underlying this dissertation. Next, the methodology chapter will describe the philosophical position of this study, its research design and research

methods. Fourth, the findings chapter discusses the results of the statistical analyses by which the hypotheses have been tested. This is followed by the discussion chapter, in which the findings are interpreted and future research recommendations and managerial implications are provided. Furthermore, ethical considerations and issues and limitations to this study are drawn. This chapter closes with a conclusion, coming back on the

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10 2. Literature review

2.1 A framework for brand positioning in advertising

Several studies have investigated the influence of global versus local versus foreign marketing strategies on consumer attitude towards the brand, product or company in a national setting (e.g. Özsomer, 2012; Dimofte, Johansson and Bagozzi, 2010; Steenkamp and de Jong, 2010). In these studies, a company adopts either a local, global or foreign marketing style. A framework for brand positioning strategies in advertisement has been introduced by Alden, Steenkamp and Batra (1999). According to them, a brand can be advertised in three forms: global consumer culture positioning (GCCP), local consumer culture positioning (LCCP) and foreign consumer culture positioning (FCCP). In these forms, a brand is positioned as belonging to a global, local or foreign consumer culture, respectively. Signs and symbols in the ad communicate this association to the consumer. FCCP and GCCP and LCCP are validated and suggested to be evaluated differently by consumers (Alden, Steenkamp and Batra, 1999; Nijssen and Douglas, 2011).

2.2 Openness to experience

Closely related to the main research question of this thesis, Westjohn, Singh and Magnusson (2012) investigated the relationship between consumer personality and responsiveness to global versus local advertising. For responsiveness they used the framework of Alden, Steenkamp and Batra (1999) discussed previously. The big five personality traits that this study took into account were openness to experience and agreeableness. Collective identity was hypothesised to mediate the relationship between openness and responsiveness to GCCP and LCCP.

As expected, openness indeed appeared to be positively related to global

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hypothesised model, in which global versus national identification serves as a mediator between openness to experience and attitude toward GCCP. However, they used two samples. The first contained questions of an unrelated research study, and was split into two online test moments. The second sample contained only questions of this study and consisted of one test moment.

Results were less conclusive for the second sample. There appeared to be an improved fit for a partial meditation model, and an even better fit for a direct effect model for this sample. This implies a possible direct effect of openness on responsiveness to GCCP. Westjohn, Singh and Magnusson (2012) conclude that additional research is required to confirm the actual type of mediation.

In addition to these inconclusive results, a remark on the conceptual model used by Westjohn, Singh and Magnusson (2012) can be made. First, the hypothesised relation between identification and attitude toward GCCP and LCCP might result from circular reasoning. According to the model, consumers classify themselves to a collective identity, in this case being national and global identities. In contrast to individual or relational identities, these collective identities “do not require interpersonal relationships and instead are depersonalized associations based on membership in a symbolic group” (Westjohn, Singh and Magnusson, 2012, p59). Membership is instead based on self-categorisation.

Next, they reason that consumers develop attitudes and behaviours that reinforce their identities in order to construct and maintain these identities, which is called verification (Swann, 1983). Hence, premise of a national or global identity is self-categorisation, constructed and maintained by self-verification, which consists of developing attitudes and behaviours that reinforce their identity, of which one is responsiveness to brand positioning. Furthermore, according to them , the outcome of this collective identity is also an attitude of responsiveness to global or local consumer culture positioning. Hence, remarkably, the result of national or global identity is the same self-verifying attitudes and behaviours that construct the identity in the first place.

Premise and conclusion of this argument might therefore be the same thing. This results in circular reasoning in which the mediator (collective identity), and the

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seemingly sophistic reasoning, which advocates for investigation of a possible direct effect of openness on responsiveness.

A closer examination of the concept of openness supports the alternative possibility of a direct positive effect of openness on responsiveness to brand positioning strategies. An introduction of openness to experience has been provided in the previous chapter. As briefly outlined, high levels of openness are associated with positive attitudes towards foreign (Albrecht, Dilchert, Deller and Paulus, 2014) and global (Hannerz, 1990) ideas and brands.

Openness to experience has recently been found to relate positively to accepting international job assignments and to subsequently adjusting to the foreign culture once abroad among employees (Albrecht, Dilchert, Deller and Paulus, 2014). These results could be explained by the findings that openness is negatively related to prejudice (Sibley and Duckitt, 2000), while positively to preference for variety (McCrae and John, 1992), intellectual curiosity and tolerance of diversity (Costa and McCrae, 1992). People who score high on openness are also associated with being early adopters, and are thought to have favourable attitudes toward change and an ability to cope with uncertainty (McCrae, 1996). The NEO Personality Inventory (Costa and McCrae, 1992) assesses openness on the domains of fantasy, aesthetics, feelings, actions, ideas and values of a person.

In addition, openness seems to be negatively related to ethnocentrism, (Sibley and Duckitt, 2000; Butler, 2000). Ethnocentrism, in turn, is associated with negative attitudes toward global brands (Nijssen and Douglas, 2011) while positive attitudes to local

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13 2.3 World-mindedness

As argued, the above described issues of the study of Westjohn, Singh and Magnusson (2012) call for further investigation of the relationship between openness and

responsiveness to global and local consumer culture positioning. In addition to a possible direct effect of openness on responsiveness to positioning strategies, an alternative relationship that has been studied in this respect is that of world-mindedness mediating the relationship between openness and responsiveness.

The concept world-mindedness has been introduced by Sampson and Smith (1957). They measured it as having a world-view on issues related to religion, immigration, government, economics, patriotism, race, education and war. They

differentiate it from international-mindedness, which entails merely being interested in international problems, but not approaching them in a world-minded view.

World-mindedness has subsequently been studied in relation to exposure to foreign countries and store image (Nijssen and Douglas, 2008), in which it was found to relate to openness to brands from foreign countries, and an interest in experimenting with products from these countries. Nijssen and Douglas (2011) thereafter investigated the role of world-mindedness in differing consumer responses to advertisements reflecting GCCP, FCCP and LCCP, while controlling for ethnocentrism. World-minded people appeared to evaluate both FCCP and GCCP advertisements more positively, while LCCP more negatively than people low on world-mindedness.

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14 2.4 Consumer affinity

Nijssen and Douglas (2011) furthermore included exposure to other cultures as positively moderating the relationship between consumer world-mindedness and attitudes toward FCCP advertisements. They argue that consumers scoring high on world-mindedness are more positively influenced by international travel than people scoring low, and

international exposure increases positive reactions to foreign positioned advertisements in that way. This does not apply to GCCP advertisements, because this positioning strategy reflects a global culture instead of a specific foreign culture. They measure this concept of international exposure with number of countries visited.

Hannerz (1990) differentiates between world travellers and world citizens, of which the first consists of mainly business travellers and tourists, who are locals at heart and do not absorb in nor adapt to the foreign culture. In contrast, world citizens, during travel, tend to want to actually participate in the foreign culture and embrace it. They feel comfortable in doing so. Related to that, as Nijssen and Douglas (2011, p. 123) note themselves: “Although frequent exposure might affect people’s attitudes positively (Kunst-Wilson and Zajonc 1980), Hannerz (1990) suggests that travel alone is not a good predictor for people’s affinity for foreign culture”. Hence, merely measuring the number of countries visited might not be a suitable method to measure affinity for a foreign culture.

In addition to that, they reason that GCCP appeals to global foreign culture, while FCCP to a specific foreign culture. This is furthermore supported by the initial introduction of these concepts by Alden, Steenkamp and Batra (1999). Number of countries visited might hence not be a suitable measure of affinity for a specific foreign country, which they aim to measure. Accordingly, Nijssen and Douglas (2011: 128) concluded: “Although the interaction between international travel and world-mindedness positively influenced attitude toward FCCP advertisements, as we expected, the limited level of significance warrants further discussion. It might suggest that travel is a less effective way of

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It might instead be more valid to measure affinity for a specific foreign country directly. A scale that has recently been developed by Nes, Yelkur and Silkoset (2013) aims to do so. Consumer affinity is described as “a feeling of liking, sympathy, and even attachment toward a specific foreign country that has become an in-group as a result of the consumer’s direct personal experience and/or normative exposure and that positively affects the consumer’s decision making associated with products and services originating from the affinity country” (Oberecker, Riefler and Diamantopoulos, 2008, p. 26, emphasis added by Oberecker and Diamantopoulos, 2011, p. 46).

Nesh, Yelkur and Silkoset (2013) argue that consumer affinity originates from evaluation of events regarding the culture and landscape, the people, the music and entertainment and the politics of a specific country. They found these components to account for 92% of the variance in general affinity for the country. Furthermore, affinity appeared to relate positively to buying intensions (Oberecker and Diamantopoulos, 2011; Nes, Yelkur and Silkoset, 2013). It is thought to do so by directly and indirectly increasing willingness to buy.

Relevant to this dissertation is furthermore that affinity is found to be unrelated to ethnocentrism (Shimp and Sharma, 1987; Oberecker and Diamantopoulos, 2011). It consequently seems to be an independent construct, lying outside the hypothesised relationship between openness, responsiveness and possibly world-mindedness, factors that are all previously shown to relate in some way to ethnocentrism. This adds to the idea that consumer affinity is a suitable candidate for substituting number of countries visited, moderating the relationship between world-mindedness and responsiveness to FCCP.

2.5 Emerging markets expanding to advanced markets and vice versa

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advertisement styles differently and what leads to these differences is consequently relevant to companies expanding between these sorts of markets.

Schlager and Maas (2013) discuss how contextual determinants, such as economic and institutional factors, result in a commonly ignored heterogeneity between, but also within emerging markets. This heterogeneity in emerging markets is, however, not identical to the heterogeneity in developed markets. They argue that the way of

segmenting developed markets can therefore not be applied to emerging markets. This is because this heterogeneity leads to different consumer behaviour patterns (in their study, channel behaviour), which should be taken into account in segmenting emerging markets, and should be further examined in academic research.

In addition to contextual determinants, individual determinants may also play a role, both in heterogeneity between developed and emerging markets, and within emerging markets. Cultural psychology and international business research has investigated differences between cultures extensively (e.g. Hofstede, 1983; Kogut and Singh, 1988) as well as personality differences between cultures in particular (e.g. McCrae, Terracciano and 78 members of the personality profiles of cultures project, 2005).

These cultural and personality characteristics of individual consumers might influence the way in which consumers from dissimilar cultures evaluate brand positioning strategies differently. Hence, responsiveness might be influenced by the country of origin of a consumer. Due to market heterogeneity, this might particularly apply to advanced versus emerging market countries.

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of countries that are culturally similar to Mexico. In contrast, countries that are culturally more distant and have a national competitive advantage in manufacturing (USA), are perceived more positively. In this sense, foreignness can be both a liability and a benefit, depending on the country of origin of both the buyer and the country of origin of the seller.

The same line of reasoning is found to apply to differences between appraisal of developed versus emerging country and product image by consumers from emerging countries. For example, a study by Wang, Li and Ahn (2012) found that level of development of country of origin influences cognitive country image, which in turn

relates to purchase intention in different ways among Chinese consumers. Hence, country of origin effects might be particularly relevant for consumers of emerging countries evaluating brands from developing countries and vice versa.

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18 2.6 Summary

A summary of the literature review is outlined in table 2.1. This table includes the articles that are most relevant to this dissertation, especially to the next chapter in which

hypotheses will be formed. The main findings and conclusions of these articles are summarised in the second column of the table. The table can be used as a guide by the reader in positioning the dissertation in the existing literature.

TABLE 2.1: Core articles and according summaries of relevant findings

Alden, D. L., Steenkamp, J. B. E. M., & Batra, R. (1999). Brand Positioning Through Advertising in Asia, North America, and Europe: The Role of Global Consumer Culture. Journal of Marketing, 63 (January): 75–87.

Introduced a framework for brand positioning strategies in advertisement. According to them, a brand can be

advertised in three forms: global consumer culture positioning (GCCP), local consumer culture positioning (LCCP) and foreign consumer culture positioning (FCCP). In these forms, a brand is positioned as belonging to a global, local or foreign consumer culture, respectively. Westjohn, S. A., Singh, N., & Magnusson,

P. (2012). Responsiveness to Global and Local Consumer Culture Positioning: A Personality and Collective Identity Perspective. Journal of International

Marketing, 20 (1): 58-73.

Investigated the relationship between consumer personality and responsiveness to GCCP versus LCCP, mediated by

collective identity.

Inconclusive results, implying a possible direct effect of openness on

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Nijssen, E. J., & Douglas, S. P. (2011). Consumer World-Mindedness and Attitudes Toward Product Positioning in Advertising: An Examination of Global versus Foreign versus Local Positioning.

Journal of International Marketing, 19 (3):

113–133.

Examined the relationship between world-mindedness and responsiveness to FCCP, GCCP and LCCP. People high on world-mindedness appeared to evaluate both FCCP and GCCP advertisements positively, while LCCP negatively and vice versa. Used number of countries visited as a measure of international exposure, moderating the relationship between world-mindedness and responsiveness to FCCP. Found limited level of significance of interaction, suggesting that number of countries visited is not a suitable measure. Nes, E. B., Yelkur, R. & Silkoset, R. (2014).

Consumer affinity for foreign countries: Construct development, buying behavior consequences and animosity contrasts .

International Business Review, 23 (4):

774-784.

Developed a scale that aims to measure consumer affinity to a specific foreign country.

Sharma, P. (2011). Country of origin effects in developed and emerging markets: Exploring the contrasting roles of materialism and value consciousness.

Journal of International Business Studies, 42(2), 285-306.

Found consumers in advanced markets to evaluate products from emerging markets more negatively than consumers in

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20 3. Hypotheses

This chapter provides an overview of the hypotheses that will be tested in this study. The chapter will start with an outline of the theoretical perspectives underlying this

dissertation in section 3.1. Next, the hypotheses are stated and discussed in section 3.2. These are derived from logical rationales, theoretical arguments and conclusions from the literature review in chapter 2. The chapter closes with a summary, in which the

conceptual models of this study are shown.

3.1 Theoretical foundation

In order to answer the research questions set in the introduction, this dissertation will combine theories of personality psychology and international marketing, and explore how these are interconnected. It most importantly bridges two theoretical perspectives; the Big Five theory of personality psychology (Costa & McCrae, 1992), and the brand positioning strategies framework of international marketing (Alden, Steenkamp and Batra, 1999).

The big five theory of personality is one of the most popular perspectives on personality in psychology. The five personality factors that this theory distinguishes are extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness to experience. These factors are assumed to be stable over time and influence a person in a wide array of domains, including behaviour and attitudes (McCrae and John, 1992). It therefore seems reasonable that factors of the big five personality theory can play a role in consumer attitudes toward brand positioning strategies. A review of openness to experience is provided in section 2.2 of the previous chapter.

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positioning, they communicate associations with a local, foreign or global consumer cultures.

In addition to these two theoretical perspectives, this study includes constructs rely on other theories. First, two social psychology theories, emotional attachment theory and social identity theory underlie consumer affinity (Oberecker and Diamantopoulos, 2011; Nesh, Yelkur and Silkoset, 2013). Emotional attachment theory assumes that the way in which a person attached to an object (e.g. person (Bowlby, 1979), country of origin of a product (Obermiller and Spangenberg, 1989)) induces emotions that in turn influence how a person interacts with that object.

Second, social identity theory (Tajfel, 1982), argues that people distinguish

between in-groups, to which they perceive to belong, and out-groups, which they refer to as ‘the other’. The social context in which people are at one moment in time determines which groups they perceive as in- or out-groups. People’s cognitions, emotions and behaviour toward a group in turn depend on whether or not that group is perceived as an in- or out-group. Furthermore, in- and out-group favouritism regarding countries is

assumed to depend on a persons’ direct and/or indirect experiences with a country (Oberecker and Diamantopoulos, 2011), which makes affinity with a country unique for every consumer.

Second, this process of in- and out-group favouritism that is described by social identity theory (Tajfel, 1982) might as well reasonably explain world-mindedness. The two facets that underlie world-mindedness are cultural openness and cultural adaptability. The first refers to “an interest in and willingness to accept ideas and products from other

cultures”, and the latter to “a willingness to adapt to local habits and customs when in another country and to try products from other cultures at home” (Nijssen and Douglas, 2011, p. 115). In order to do so, the foreign or global culture might first have to be

regarded as an in-group. In contrast, people low on world-mindedness, might tend to not regard other cultures as their in-group, and hence reject ideas, products and habits from these cultures. Emotional attachment theory does not reasonably underlie

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23 3.2 Hypotheses

3.2.1 Openness to experience

According to the Big 5 theory of personality psychology, people open to experience are thought to have wide interests, unusual thoughts, unconventional judgements and showing original behaviour (McCrae and John, 1992). They have a preference for variety and an ability to cope with uncertainty. Furthermore, they are thought to actively search for novelty and complexity.

Applying this line of reasoning to brand positioning, presenting a brand as

belonging to a foreign or global culture in advertisement might add value for people who score high on openness to experience. At the same time, consumers low on openness might prefer products that are positioned as belonging to the local culture, which is familiar and consequently less uncertain. Hence, combining the big five theory of

psychology with the brand positioning framework of Alden, Steenkamp and Batra (1999), it seems reasonable that openness to experience relates positively to responsiveness to FCCP and GCCP, while negatively to responsiveness to LCCP.

A positive relationship of openness with evaluation of foreign and global, while a negative relationship with evaluation of local ideas, products and brands, has been suggested by the existing literature on openness to experience, discussed in detail in the literature review of chapter 2. Subsequently applying this pattern of findings to the framework of Alden, Steenkamp and Batra (1999), people high on openness might evaluate

advertisements that reflect GCCP and FCCP positively, while LCCP negatively and vice versa for people low o openness.

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sophistic reasoning, which advocates for examination of a possible direct effect of openness on responsiveness. This will therefore be tested in this study by the first hypothesis.

What should be noted in advance, however, is that Westjohn, Singh and Magnusson (2012) leave responsiveness to FCCP out of there study. Their reasoning is that “Although Alden, Steenkamp, and Batra establish a third positioning strategy, foreign consumer culture positioning (FCCP), it was identified in only .5% of U.S. advertisements and less than 4% across seven countries. Thus, we limit the scope of this study to GCCP versus LCCP” (Westjohn, Singh and Magnusson, 2012, p. 58).

However, the relative infrequency of FCCP in marketing practice does not

necessarily imply that this positioning strategy is not a successful strategy. In other words, from the fact that it seems to be used less often than LCCP and GCCP, does not logically follow that it could not be an effective strategy to target certain consumers. In addition, only for the sake of completeness, all three strategies should be included in any research to brand positioning strategies. Lastly, Westjohn, Singh and Magnusson (2012)

investigated a sample of American consumers, while this dissertation will include Dutch and Chinese consumers. FCCP appeared to be more prevalent in the Netherlands (8.5%; Alden, Steenkamp, and Batra, 1999), whilst not studied in China.

Concluding, theory and findings from previous research seem to support a positive relationship between openness and responsiveness to advertisements reflecting FCCP and GCCP, and a negative relationship to LCCP. Therefore, the first hypothesis of this study relates closely to the main research question of this dissertation, and examines a direct impact of openness on responsiveness to brand positioning strategy in

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25 3.2.2 World-mindedness

As mentioned in the literature review, world-mindedness is a concept that reflects being open to, having interest in and adopting ideas and products from other countries and cultures (Nijssen and Douglas, 2011). It is related to a discussion of Hannerz (1990, p.239) who characterises cosmopolitan people as “having a willingness to engage with the other” and consequently “openness to divergent cultural experiences” and “a search for contrasts rather than uniformity”. Nijssen and Douglas (2008) furthermore suggest that Hannerz’s concept of cosmopolitanism, or as they name it, world-mindedness, relates to the Big Five personality trait openness to experience.

Hence, openness and world-mindedness seem to relate to each other on theoretical grounds. Furthermore, the literature review of world-mindedness in the previous section has illustrated a suggested link between these concepts. However, this link has, to my knowledge, not been studied empirically thus far, constituting a gap in the literature. This makes the second hypothesis of this study:

H2: Openness to experience relates positively to world-mindedness.

Furthermore, in the study by Nijssen and Douglas (2011), world-mindedness has a positive relationship with responsiveness to FCCP and GCCP and a negative one with LCCP. Furthermore, Nijssen and Douglas (2008) found world-mindedness to relate to openness to brands from foreign countries, and an interest in experimenting with products from these countries. Besides, arguing in section 3.1 that social identity theory underlies the concept, world-mindedness could reflect a tendency to consider foreign and global cultures as in-groups more often than as out-groups. Replicating Nijssen and

Douglas (2011), a test of a relationship between world-mindedness and openness will be included in this study. The third hypothesis is therefore:

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Logically following from H2 and H3, a possible mediation of world-mindedness between openness and responsiveness emerges. It furthermore seems reasonable on theoretical grounds that high levels of openness, as a stable personality factor influencing people in many domains, result in a general tendency to regard other, foreign or global, cultures as in-group more often than as out-groups, compared to people with low levels of openness. This general tendency would be world-mindedness. Therefore, in addition to the possible direct effect of openness on responsiveness, this mediation model will be investigated.

Furthermore, as discussed, Westjohn, Singh and Magnusson (2012) advocated for closer investigation of the relationship between openness and responsiveness, due to their finding of support for differing models, as discussed in section 2.2. Mediation of world-mindedness could hence be an alternative. This makes the fourth hypothesis:

H4: World-mindedness serves as a mediator between openness to experience and responsiveness to brand positioning strategy.

3.2.3 Consumer affinity

As discussed in more detail in the previous chapter, Nijssen and Douglas (2011) found only weak support for moderation of exposure to other countries to attitudes toward FCCP. This might be because they merely measured the number of countries visited, while they actually aimed to measure the affinity for a foreign culture that resulted from

exposure. Consequently, the concept of consumer affinity can substitute number of countries visited, measuring affinity directly.

Furthermore, affinity for a country is found to relate positively to intentions to buy products from that country (Oberecker and Diamantopoulos, 2011; Nes, Yelkur and Silkoset, 2013). Hence, world-minded consumers are possibly more positively influenced by affinity for a specific foreign country in responsiveness to brands originating from that country, than people scoring low, resulting in a positive moderation of affinity. In

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This line of reasoning advocates for a positive moderation of affinity for a specific foreign country of the relationship between world-mindedness and responsiveness to FCCP. Affinity furthermore seems to be an independent construct, lying outside the hypothesised relationship between openness, responsiveness and possibly world-mindedness, as discussed in the literature review. This makes a possible moderator. Consequently, the fifth hypothesis will be:

H5: Affinity with a specific foreign country positively moderates the relationship between world-mindedness and responsiveness to FCCP (->high affinity associated with increased levels of responsiveness to FCCP).

3.2.4 Emerging markets expanding to advanced markets and vice versa

The previous chapter reviewed the existing literature on the brand positioning in light of the trend of emerging market firms expanding to advanced markets and vice versa. Summarising the findings from previous studies, both country of origin of the brand and of the consumer might influence the way in which a consumer evaluates a foreign positioned brand. This is supported by the theory of country-of-origin effect, which assumes that associations with the particular country of origin of a brand influence evaluations of a brand.

This dissertation applies this line of reasoning to the framework of brand positioning strategies from Alden, Steenkamp and Batra (1999). By doing so, higher responsiveness to FCCP, in which the foreign country is an advanced country, of consumers from emerging markets, than responsiveness to FCCP, in which the foreign country is an emerging country, of consumers from advanced markets, is expected.

Another argument for including an emerging country in the study comes from

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emerging instead of developed market culture can investigate generalizability of previous results.

This study will use an online survey, meaning that people from anywhere in the world can therefore participate. However, in order to compare people from an advanced and

emerging country while controlling for other country related influences, it will include a Dutch and a Chinese sample. The foreign country for the Dutch sample will be China, which results in FCCP advertisements in which a brand is presented as originating from China. Vice versa, the FCCP advertisements for the Chinese sample are presented as originating from the Netherlands.

Two studies will hence be conducted, one containing a sample with participants from an emerging country, the other with participants from an advanced country. A sixth

hypothesis therefore aims to investigate whether level of development of both the consumer and the foreign country influence responsiveness to FCCP. This is formulated as:

H6: Chinese consumers are more responsive to FCCP than Dutch consumers.

3.2.5 Existing versus created ads

In addition to these six hypotheses, this study will investigate whether two different sources of ads, namely existing ones found on the internet, and created ones, are evaluated in a different way. This is because it in advertising, either a new brand can be introduced, or an existing brand can be presented. It seems reasonable that there is a difference between introducing a new brand and advertising a brand that is likely to be already known to the consumer. Regarding the latter one, the consumer might already have an attitude toward the brand, while an entirely new attitude has to be formed for an unfamiliar brand. Hence, responsiveness might be different for created ads, containing fictitious brands, than for existing ads, containing known brands.

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(2011) created a fictitious brand. Furthermore, Westjohn, Singh and Magnusson (2012) use existing ads for their first sample, while fictitious ads (but known brands) in the second sample. This was done in order to have more control over the irrelevant characteristics of the ad (such as size and colour), and keep them constant across positioning strategies. As discussed in section 2.2, findings were different for these samples. Stimuli source might have played a role in this.

In their line of reasoning, a third argument to include both existing and created ads is that the latter allows for more control over irrelevant characteristics of the ad, such as product characteristics, brand name and ad design. These might influence attitude toward the brand, and hence confound the hypothesised relationships.

Therefore, both an existing and a created set of advertisements will be used for the Dutch sample. This is not done for the Chinese sample, due to difficulties with finding enough participants for a sample large enough to include two subsets. A possible

difference in responsiveness to existing versus created ads will hence be examined in the Dutch sample by the last hypothesis:

H7: There is a difference between responsiveness to created ads and responsiveness to existing ads.

3.3 Summary and conceptual models

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30 Figure 3.1: Conceptual model 1

Alternatively, openness might have a direct positive impact on responsiveness to FCCP and GCCP, while a negative impact on responsiveness to LCCP. This possibility is depicted in conceptual model b in figure 3.2.

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32 4. Methodology

4.1 Philosophical Position 4.1.1 Ontology

Ontology is concerned with the nature of reality. On the one extreme, reality can be considered as existing externally to social actors and cognitions, which is ontological objectivism (Bryman and Bell, 2003). On the other extreme, reality can be regarded as inseparable from cognition and consciousness of social actors, and having no

independent existence. This is called ontological subjectivism.

The dominant ontological position of this study is objectivism. This means that reality is considered as existing externally to social actors and cognitions (Bryman and Bell, 2003). This becomes clear from considering the concepts that this study investigates, such as personality, world-mindedness and affinity. These are regarded as externally existing, measurable constructs, as is consumer responsiveness. Social phenomena are hence generally treated as facts in this study.

However, this study does acknowledge a level of subjectivity when it comes to brand positioning. It namely assumes that the actual country of origin of a brand is irrelevant to the process of forming perceptions of the country of origin, but the way in which the brand is presented counts. Consequently, for instance, a foreign brand can be advertised and subsequently perceived as global, local or foreign. Social reality of consumers is derived from their own cognitions, in the form of their perceptions of the brand origin. These are in turn attempted to induce by manipulating the style in which a brand is presented in advertisement. Hence, this study partly acknowledges that social reality has no independence from cognition, and is thus not completely ontologically objectivistic.

4.1.2 Epistemology

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base for this study is objectivism. The according philosophical tradition is positivism. It regards social phenomena as facts that can be assessed by empirical research, and organises the world in universal rules of cause and effect. More concretely, this study assumes that consumer attitudes toward a brand can be explained and predicted by measurable individual characteristics of the consumer. Hence, it presumes that universal rules determine consumer attitudes.

4.1.3 Methodology

Methodology deals with the rationale for choosing certain methods for identification, collection and analysis of data. This study will use a quantitative approach. It relies on primary, observational data (gathered by questionnaires). Furthermore, this study is deductive and infers universal relationships by testing hypotheses on a sample. Conclusions are consequently assumed to be generalizable to the whole population (generalizability is limited however, as discussed in the chapter 6).

4.2 Research Design

4.2.1 Data sources and sample frame

As discussed in chapter 3, this study includes two samples: one with Dutch participants and the other with Chinese participants. They were recruited in the personal networks of the researcher, and consequently largely consisted of students from the University of Groningen. Other participants were friends, family members and acquaintances of the researcher. Hence, the sample frame used is convenience sampling.

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asked, but as this was not filled in by many participants, especially in the Chinese sample, this has not been used in analyses.

4.2.2 Sample size

According to a discussion of Thomas (2004, p. 107) on sample size, a sample of 200 participants would be sufficiently large. Furthermore, the study of Nijssen and Douglas (2011) contained 90 and 100 participants. Hence, in dealing with time and funding constraints, including 100 participants for the Dutch sample and 50 for the Chinese seemed reasonable.

4.3 Research Methods 4.3.1 Questionnaires

The online surveys consisted of several questionnaires, and were in English. The questions that these questionnaires contained are shown in appendix XIII. First, ads were shown and attitude toward these was assessed. This was done by a validated scale of Spears and Singh (2004), measuring attitude toward the brand and purchase intentions. The ads were shown in random order, in order to eliminate potential bias from specific sequence of advertisements.

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35 4.3.4 Stimuli

The advertisements that are shown to the participants were derived from two sources. The first collection consists of existing ads found on the internet. These were obtained mostly from Facebook search, where brands share advertisements on their personal Facebook pages. Other ads were found at company websites or Google Images.

For the each collection of GCCP, FCCP and LCCP ads, there was one ad that contained a food or beverage brand, one with a car brand and one with an airlines ad. This resulted in a selection of nine ads. The rationale for including two product and one service categories is that this increases generalizability of the study.

This collection of existing ads was only used in the first study and thus only shown to Dutch participants. The foreign countries in the ads could thus vary freely, as a country had to be foreign from a Dutch perspective only. Examples of the existing ads for each category are shown in appendix I.

The second set of ads was created. Each contained a picture of a female model, a background picture, a product picture and a text with the brand and product category. The pictures that were used in the ads were found via Google images, Flickr or royalty-free stockphoto websites. A total of nine ads were created, of which are three for each positioning strategy. As this set of ads was used in both the first and the second study, they were shown to both Dutch and Chinese participants. Therefore, the set contains Dutch ads, that are local to Dutch, respectively foreign to Chinese participants, and Chinese ads that are foreign to Dutch, respectively local to Chinese participants.

The ads varied on their consumer culture positioning strategy by varying the ethnical appearance of the model (Dutch-like blond, Chinese and unidentifiable brunette), the location of the background (all a cities by night; Amsterdam, Shanghai and New York City, respectively), the language of the text and by stating the country of origin in the question (except for the global ads). The text contained the brand name and the product category, in which for all the nine ads the brand name was “Bush”, translated to Dutch (“Struik”) and Chinese (“灌木, Guànmù”) respectively. This word was chosen because it is

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Lastly, the ads varied on product or service category, with one cookie brand, one car brand and one airlines brand for each positioning strategy (thus again, 3x3 ads for this collection). The same pictures of products (a cookie, a car and an airplane) were used in the ads, while the brand name contained the product or service category in English (e.g. “Bush cars”), because the survey was in English. Examples of the created ads for each category are shown in appendix I.

Summarising, each set consisted of nine ads, of which three reflecting a global consumer culture positioning, three reflecting a foreign consumer culture positioning and three reflecting a local consumer culture positioning strategy. The validity of the categorising of the ads to these strategies was checked for in a pre-test. Nine Dutch participants

evaluated each ad on its globalness, foreignness and localness. The results of these pre-tests are shown in appendix II. Two ads of the existing set were found to be perceived insignificantly distinguishable on globalness and foreignness. These were in the airlines category (p=0.4145 and p=0.0775). These ads were replaced by two other ads that were subsequently shown to the same pre-test participants, and distinguished as global respectively foreign.

Of the created subset, all three ads that were meant to be local, were found to be insignificantly distinguishable on localness versus foreignness (p=0.1025, p=0.141,

p=0.1655), and one ad that was meant to be global (0.125). For the last one, this might be because there was a picture of New York in the background. This was done in order to keep the background, a city, consistent with the local and foreign ads. As global consumer culture is often associated with American consumer culture (Alden, Steenkamp and Batra, 1999), choosing for an American city seems justifiable.

This was, however, not stated in the definition of global consumer culture positioning in the instruction of the pre-test. Participants might hence have concluded that this is a foreign positioning strategy. By asking two participants afterwards, they indeed appeared to doubt positioning strategy because of the background picture.

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5. Findings

5.1 Introduction

Before analysing the results, incomplete responses of which more than 5 percent of the questions were unanswered were deleted, which resulted in a total of 157 included responses. These consisted of 102 responses to the survey for participants with a Dutch nationality (of whom 48 were shown created ads and 54 existing ads) and 55 responses to the survey for participants with a Chinese nationality.

Missing values of incomplete responses of which less than 5 percent of questions were unanswered were filled in with the average score of the other items of a measure. Next, the scores on each item of a construct measure were averaged. Furthermore, all the analyses have been carried out in SPSS. For regression analyses, age and gender were added to the models in a stepwise manner, in order to examine these as control variables.

This chapter starts with a presentation of the results of the Dutch survey version in section 5.2, spit up to the created and existing ads subset. For each of these sets of

results, a correlation matrix will first be examined, followed by a discussion of the hypotheses and according analyses. Next, the Chinese survey is discussed in section 5.3. These samples are subsequently compared in section 5.4, referring to hypothesis 7. Lastly, this chapter closes with a summary of the findings in chapter 5.5.

5.2 Study 1 – Dutch sample 5.2.1 Dutch sample, created ads

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correlate with affinity for China. Furthermore, contrary to expectations, neither openness to experience, nor world-mindedness correlate significantly with responsiveness to GCCP, FCCP or LCCP. All three responsiveness measures do, however, correlate strongly and positively with each other.

TABLE 5.1: Correlation Matrix (Dutch survey; created ads)

Openness to experience World-mindedness Affinity for China Responsiveness to GCCP Responsiveness to FCCP Responsiveness to LCCP Openness to experience Correlation 1 0.357** 0.149 0.139 0.063 0.116 Sig. (1-tailed) 0.006 0.156 0.173 0.336 0.216 World-mindedness Correlation 0.357** 1 0.341** 0.060 0.164 0.144 Sig. (1-tailed) 0.006 0.009 0.342 0.133 0.165 Affinity for China Correlation 0.149 0.341** 1 0.071 0.197 0.139 Sig. (1-tailed) 0.156 0.009 0.316 0.090 0.173 Responsiveness to GCCP Correlation 0.139 0.060 0.071 1 0.747** 0.813** Sig. (1-tailed) 0.173 0.342 0.316 0.000 0.000 Responsiveness to FCCP Correlation 0.063 0.213 0.197 0.747** 1 0.767** Sig. (1-tailed) 0.336 0.073 0.090 0.000 0.000 Responsiveness to LCCP Correlation 0.116 0.144 0.139 0.813** 0.767** 1 Sig. (1-tailed) 0.216 0.165 0.173 0.000 0.000

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40 5.2.2 Dutch sample, existing ads

The correlation matrix for the data from the Dutch participants that were shown the existing ads is depicted in table 5.2. As was the case for the previous subset, world-mindedness correlates with both openness to experience and affinity for China. In addition, openness to experience correlates with affinity for China.

Furthermore, responsiveness to GCCP does not correlate with responsiveness to FCCP, while the other responsiveness combinations correlate positively with each other. The correlations between these are, however, much weaker than the intercorrelations of all three responsiveness measures in the created subset.

TABLE 5.2: Correlation Matrix (Dutch survey; existing ads)

Openness to experience World-mindedness Affinity for China Responsiveness to GCCP Responsiveness to FCCP Responsiveness to LCCP Openness to Experience Correlation 1 0.479** 0.330** -0.078 0.118 -0.364** Sig. (1-tailed) 0.000 0.007 0.287 0.198 0.003 World-mindedness Correlation 0.479** 1 0.245* 0.103 0.275* -0.144 Sig. (1-tailed) 0.000 0.037 0.230 0.022 0.149 Affinity for China Correlation 0.330** 0.245* 1 -0.091 0.384** -0.012 Sig. (1-tailed) ,007 ,037 ,257 ,002 ,465 Responsiveness to GCCP Correlation -0.078 0.103 -0.091 1 0.097 0.264* Sig. (1-tailed) 0.287 0.230 0.257 0.243 0.027 Responsiveness to FCCP Correlation 0.118 0.275* 0.384** 0.097 1 0.281* Sig. (1-tailed) ,198 ,022 ,002 ,243 ,020 Responsiveness to LCCP Correlation -0.364** -0.144 -0.012 0.264* 0.281* 1 Sig. (1-tailed) 0.003 0.149 0.465 0.027 0.020

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41 5.1.3 Testing of hypotheses for Dutch survey

The following results apply to the complete set of responses of Dutch participants (n=102) unless otherwise stated. The first hypothesis states that openness to experience relates positively to responsiveness to (a) FCCP and (b) GCCP, while negatively to responsiveness to (c) LCCP. Looking first at the correlation matrices in table 5.1 and 5.2, no significant correlations between openness and all three responsiveness variables were found, except for the combination with responsiveness to LCCP of the existing ads. These correlate moderately negative (r=-0.364, p=0.003), which is in line with hypothesis 1.

In order to take a closer look at the relationships and include control variables, regression analyses were performed. In these analyses, openness to experience was the independent variable, responsiveness the dependent, and gender and age were included stepwise as control variables. The SPSS results of two-tailed tests are presented in appendix III. Furthermore, the results are summarised in table 5.3.

TABLE 5.3: Results of regression analyses of openness to experience on responsiveness to brand positioning strategy, controlling for age and gender.

Responsiveness to GCCP Responsiveness to FCCP Responsiveness to LCCP Created ads (N = 48) 0.019; 0.173; excluded all control variables. 0.135; 0.232; included age. 0.013; 0.061; excluded all control

variables. Existing ads (N = 54) 0.201; 0.102; included age. 0.215; 0.096; included gender. 0.133; 0.0035; excluded all control

variables.

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applies to this hypothesis. Only for the case of responsiveness to LCCP of the existing ads openness was found to contribute significantly in explaining responsiveness, however, as was already revealed by the correlation matrix. In line with expectations, this relationship is negative (β=-0.370). No control variables significantly contributed for this combination, however.

Hence, openness to experience does not relate to responsiveness to brand positioning strategy for the Dutch survey, except for responsiveness to LCCP of the existing ads. For this combination, people high on openness tend to evaluate locally positioned ads negatively, while people low on openness positively. Based on these results, hypothesis 1a and 1b have to be rejected, while 1c is partially supported.

The second hypothesis investigates whether openness relates positively to world-mindedness. As can be seen in the correlation matrices in table 5.1 and 5.2, these correlate significantly for both the created (r=0.357; p<0.05) and existing (r=0.479; p<0.05) ads subsets.

This relationship was further examined in a regression analysis in order to control for age and gender, but these did not significantly contribute to the model. Results are provided in appendix IV. The regression analysis used combined scores from the created and existing subsets for openness and world-mindedness, (R²=0.168; βopenness=0.410, p<0.05).

Hence, openness does regress positively on world-mindedness, in which age and gender do not play a role. The data of the Dutch sample consequently provide full support for hypothesis 2, suggesting that openness has a positive impact on world mindedness.

Hypothesis 3 states that world-mindedness relates positively to responsiveness to (a) FCCP and (b) GCCP, while negatively to responsiveness to (c) LCCP. As for the previous hypotheses, this was investigated by looking to the correlations and results of regression analyses. The correlation matrices in table 5.1 and 5.1 reveal no significant correlations on a 5% significance level between these, except for the combination of

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The regression analyses, of which the results are presented in appendix V, lead to similar conclusions. World-mindedness does regress positively on responsiveness to FCCP for the existing subset (βworld-mindedness=0.279; p=0.024, which makes p=0.012 for one-tailed; R²=0.266; see appendix V). Gender is included in the model with a negative coefficient (β=0.436; p=0.001). Hypothesis 3a is thus supported by the data for the existing subset, implying that world-minded people respond positively to foreign positioned advertisements.

For the other combinations of the existing ads subset, and for no combinations of the created subset, world-mindedness is not found to significantly explain variance in responsiveness to brand positioning strategies. This holds when controlling for age and gender in the regression models (see appendix V). Although controlling for age does show an improved fit for the combination with FCCP of the created subset (R²=0.144), this does not result in a significant beta of world-mindedness. Hence, hypothesis 3b and 3c have to be rejected, while partial support is found for 3a.

Hypothesis 4 investigates mediation of world-mindedness in the hypothesised

relationship between openness to experience and responsiveness to brand positioning strategy. In order for mediation to be possible, a significant main effect of openness on responsiveness has to exist. This was tested by hypothesis 1, and appeared to be hold only for the combination with responsiveness to LCCP of the existing ads. However, because world-mindedness did not appear to significantly regress on responsiveness to LCCP, world-mindedness cannot serve as a mediator between openness to experience and responsiveness to LCCP. Consequently, hypothesis 4 has to be fully rejected.

Hypothesis 5 claims that affinity with a specific foreign country positively moderates the relationship between world-mindedness and responsiveness to FCCP. This means that high levels of affinity are associated with increased levels of responsiveness to FCCP, while low levels of affinity lead to deceased levels of FCCP.

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stepwise. The results of regression analyses for the created subset can be seen in appendix VI.

The interaction term does not contribute significantly to the model with the best fit and most control variables for both subsets (β=-0.006; p=0.963 for the existing ads, β=0.174; p=0.242 for the created ads). Hypothesis 6 can thus be rejected for the Dutch sample. Affinity for China itself does, however, contribute to explaining variance in responsiveness to FCCP for the existing subset, with a positive beta

(βmindedness=0.201, p=0. 102, divided by two for one-tailed=p=0.0055), as does world-mindedness (βaffinity=0.313, p=0.011, divided by two for one-tailed=p=0.051). This is in line with the correlation matrix of 5.2, in which both world-mindedness (r=0. 275, p=0. 022) and affinity for China (r=0.384, p=0.002) correlate with responsiveness to FCCP for the existing ads subset. Furthermore, gender appeared to contribute negatively and significantly (βgender=- 0.419, p<0.005) to the regression model, implying that males have lower responsiveness to FCCP than females in this model.

Concluding, hypothesis 5 has to be rejected for the Dutch sample, implying that affinity to China does not moderate the relationship between world-mindedness and responsiveness to FCCP. However, for the existing subset, world-mindedness and affinity for China were both found to have a positive impact on responsiveness to FCCP.

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45 5.3 Study 2 – Chinese sample

The correlation matrix of the results of the survey for Chinese participants is shown in table 5.10 below. As was the case for the correlation matrix of the Dutch version with created ads results, openness to experience and world-mindedness correlate slightly. In contrast to the previous matrices and expectations, however, affinity for the Netherlands does not correlate with neither openness to experience, nor world-mindedness.

Furthermore remarkable is that world-mindedness correlates negatively to

responsiveness to FCCP, which is in contrast with expectations. Lastly, responsiveness to GCCP, FCCP and LCCP all correlate strongly with each other

TABLE 5.4: Correlation Matrix (Chinese survey)

Openness to experience World-mindedness Affinity for the Netherlands Responsiveness to GCCP Responsiveness to FCCP Responsiveness to LCCP Openness to experience Correlation 1 ,286* ,125 -,162 -,167 -,243* Sig. (1-tailed) ,017 ,181 ,119 ,111 ,037 World-mindedness Correlation ,286* 1 ,108 ,146 -,234* ,014 Sig. (1-tailed) ,017 ,216 ,143 ,043 ,459

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46 * Significant at level p < .05 (1-tailed).

** Significant at level p < .01 (1-tailed). N = 55

5.2.1 Testing of hypotheses for Chinese survey

The correlation matrix of table 5.4 shows support only for hypothesis 1c, as openness and responsiveness to LCCP correlate negatively and significantly (r=-0.243, p=0.037).

Openness correlates even negatively to responsiveness to FCCP and GCCP, which is contrary to expectations from the literature. However, these correlations are not significant.

Regression analyses were again performed in order to control for age and gender. The results of these are shown in appendix VIII. However, because these were not found to contribute significantly to any model, the conclusions previously drawn from the correlation matrix apply.

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As was the case for the Dutch sample, openness to experience does correlate significantly with world-mindedness (r=0. 286, p=0.017), supporting hypothesis 2. In addition, a

regression analysis was performed to test the second hypothesis. Openness to experience does indeed have a positive impact on world-mindedness (see appendix IX). However, explained variance of this model is very low (R²=0.082). Age and gender were excluded from the model due to insignificance. Consequently, in line with hypothesis 2 and the results of the Dutch sample, openness to experience has a positive impact on world-mindedness for the Chinese sample. Age and gender do not play a role in this.

The third hypothesis investigates the relationship between world-mindedness and responsiveness to GCCP and FCCP. As can be seen in the correlation matrix of table 5.10. world-mindedness does not correlate significantly with responsiveness to GCCP and LCCP. Strikingly, it correlates negatively to responsiveness to FCCP (r=-0.234, p=0.043).

Results of regression analyses, as shown in appendix X, do not find age and gender to contribute significantly. Hence, the conclusions drawn from the correlation matrices apply when taking age and gender into account. Hypothesis 3 can consequently be rejected for the Chinese set, with a special remark on the unexpected negative relation between world-mindedness and responsiveness to FCCP.

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The moderating role of affinity for the Netherlands on the relationship between world-mindedness and responsiveness to FCCP, as described in hypothesis 5, is investigated in the same way as in the Dutch set. Results of the regression analysis are shown in

appendix XI. Again, however, the interaction term appears to be insignificant (β=-1,279; p=0.207, see table 5.12). Hypothesis 6 thus has to be rejected for the Chinese sample, as was also the case for the Dutch sample. Affinity seems to not play a moderating role in the relationship between world-mindedness and responsiveness to FCCP.

5.4 Comparison of Dutch to Chinese sample

Hypothesis 7 aims to investigate the possibility of Dutch and Chinese consumers differing in their responsiveness to FCCP. In order to do so, an independent two-sample t-test was carried out. For the Dutch set, only created ads were used in order to keep the stimuli source equal. The results of this test are shown in appendix XII.

As can be seen, the difference is not significant (p=0.217) when tested two-tailed. As the hypothesis requires a one-tailed test, the probability of obtaining these results when there would be no difference is 0.217/2=0.1085. Although this is a low value, it is not significant. Consequently, hypothesis 7 can be rejected. The data do not suggest a difference between Dutch and Chinese participants in evaluation of foreign positioned brands in advertisements.

5.5 Summary