A multinational examination of the symbolic–instrumental framework of consumer–brand identification

Journal of International Business Studies (2012) 43, 306–331 & 2012 Academy of International Business All rights reserved 0047-2506 www.jibs.net A multinational examination of the symbolic–instrumental framework of consumer–brand identification Son K Lam1, Michael Ahearne2 and Niels Schillewaert3 1 Terry College of Business, University of Georgia, Athens, USA; 2C T Bauer College of Business, University of Houston, Houston, USA; 3Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School, Gent, Belgium Correspondence: SK Lam, Assistant Professor of Marketing, Terry College of Business, University of Georgia, 117 Brooks Hall, Athens, GA 30602-6258, USA. Tel: þ 1 706 542 4531; Fax: þ 1 706 542 3738; Email: sonlam@uga.edu Received: 8 December 2010 Revised: 11 September 2011 Accepted: 20 October 2011 Online publication date: 15 December 2011 Abstract The authors propose a symbolic–instrumental interactive framework of consumer–brand identification (CBI) and explore its predictiveness across 15 countries. Using multinational data, they show that the negative impact of the misalignment between self–brand congruity and perceived quality on CBI is universal. The interaction among CBI, perceived quality, and uncertainty avoidance orientation in motivating consumers’ identity-sustaining behavior is weak. However, the synergy between CBI and perceived quality in motivating consumers’ identity-promoting behavior is stronger among collectivist consumers. The authors derive a typology of symbolic–instrumental misalignments to help international marketing managers motivate consumers to identify with and promote brands. Journal of International Business Studies (2012) 43, 306–331. doi:10.1057/jibs.2011.54 Keywords: branding and brand management; survey research; partial least squares; multicultural; consumer–brand identification; social identity theory INTRODUCTION The multifaceted relationships between consumers and their brands have been the focus of marketing research for decades (Belk, 1988; Chaudhuri & Holbrook, 2001; Fournier, 1998; Gardner & Levy, 1955; Keller, 1993). While research on customer satisfaction primarily emphasizes the instrumental drivers of consumer–brand relationships, the identity perspective on consumer–brand relationships underscores the symbolic drivers of these relationships (Belk, 1988; Bhattacharya & Sen, 2003; Escalas & Bettman, 2005; Fournier, 1998; Kleine, Kleine, & Allen, 1995; Solomon, 1983). The identity perspective on consumer–brand relationships, which is based on social identity (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) and identity (Stryker, 1968) theories, has become an important research stream in marketing literature at the corporate level (e.g., Bhattacharya & Sen, 2003), at brand level (Donavan, Janda, & Suh, 2006; Kuenzel & Halliday, 2008), or both (Brown & Dacin, 1997). This research stream suggests that “in addition to the array of typically utilitarian values y that accrue to consumers from their relationship with a company,” consumer–company identification, the extent to which consumers perceive themselves Consumer–brand identification Son K Lam et al 307 as sharing the same self-definitional attributes with the company, functions as “a higher-order and thus far unarticulated source of company-based value” (Bhattacharya & Sen, 2003: 77). Although previous research on consumer–brand relationships has provided important insights, there exist three limitations. First, there remains a need to integrate the satisfaction and identity perspectives by a simultaneous examination of symbolic and instrumental drivers of consumer–brand relationships (for a rare exception, see Brown & Dacin, 1997). This is because the functional approach to attitude suggests that both symbolic and instrumental (i.e., utilitarian) variables can drive the relationships between consumers and their brands (Katz, 1960). Many researchers concur that consumer–brand relationships can be a mixed exchange that is driven by both utilitarian and symbolic values (Bagozzi, 1975; Gardner & Levy, 1955; Sheth & Parvatiyar, 1995; Solomon, 1983), but there is a lack of a systematic examination of such phenomena, both conceptually and empirically. Second, empirical research using the social identity theory perspective on consumer–brand relationships has focused almost exclusively on the main effects of identification on consumer behavior, such as repurchase and positive word of mouth. It remains unclear whether symbolic and instrumental factors interact with each other to predict consumer behavior. If the symbolic and instrumental drivers of these relationships do not operate independently, an understanding of how consumers make trade-offs when these drivers are misaligned will have important theoretical and managerial implications. Third, scholars have theorized about the role of cultural orientations in consumer–brand relationships (e.g., Arnold & Bianchi, 2001), but empirical evidence has been limited. This gap raises questions about whether previous findings on customer–company identification, which are based primarily on US consumers, can generalize to other countries. Furthermore, little is known about the possible trade-off between symbolic and instrumental drivers of consumer–brand relationships among consumers with different cultural orientations. If consistent findings about consumer–brand relationship drivers and consequences across cultural orientations emerge, the proposed framework will be useful for identifying universal consumer behavior and brand strategy (e.g., Dawar & Parker, 1994). In light of this discussion, the current research has three purposes: (1) to provide a brief review of the concept of consumer–brand identification (CBI) in marketing research; (2) to propose and conduct an empirical test of a symbolic–instrumental framework of CBI antecedents and consequences; and (3) to explore whether the interaction between symbolic and instrumental drivers of CBI is further moderated by individual-level collectivism and uncertainty avoidance. We define CBI as a consumer’s psychological state of perceiving, feeling, and valuing his or her belongingness with a brand. In line with Ashforth and Mael’s (1989) work, we use the term “belongingness” to refer to the psychological oneness with a social entity (e.g., a firm, a brand) that stems from an actual membership (e.g., an employee) or a symbolic membership (e.g., a current or potential customer of a brand). In this study, we focus on self–brand incongruity (e.g., Sirgy, 1982; Sirgy, Johar, Samli, & Claiborne, 1991) as the key symbolic driver and perceived quality as the key instrumental driver, while controlling for the effect of brand image. On the consequence side, we examine two types of consumer behavior: identity promoting and identity sustaining. We define identity-sustaining behavior as consumer behavior aimed at maintaining the relationship with the brand, such as repurchase intention, and identity-promoting behavior as consumer behavior aimed at learning more about the focal brand identity and propagating the brand identity to others. Using data from 5919 consumers in 15 countries, we find that, in the aggregate, there is a negative interaction between self–brand incongruity and perceived quality in driving CBI. This negative effect holds true, regardless of individual-level collectivism and uncertainty avoidance. The interaction between CBI and perceived quality in predicting identity-promoting behavior is stronger among collectivist consumers. A weak three-way interaction also occurs among CBI, perceived quality, and uncertainty avoidance in predicting identity-sustaining behavior. This study contributes to the burgeoning literature on identity-based consumer–brand relationships by developing a theory about the symbolic–instrumental interaction. The framework provides an alternative perspective that Journal of International Business Studies Consumer–brand identification Son K Lam et al 308 complements and reconciles previous research on the multifaceted nature of consumer–brand relationships. We also demonstrate that the negative effect of the misalignment between self–brand incongruity and perceived quality on CBI formation is universal across countries. Furthermore, we show that although individual-level cultural orientations moderate the symbolic–instrumental synergistic effect in driving identity-sustaining and identity-promoting behavior, their roles are limited. Based on these findings, we propose a typology of symbolic–instrumental misalignments to help international marketing managers allocate their investment effectively on fostering consumer–brand relationships and encouraging consumers to promote their brands. We organize this paper as follows. First, we briefly review the background literature, describe our conceptualization of CBI, and introduce the symbolic– instrumental framework. Then, we delve deeper into the symbolic–instrumental framework of CBI antecedents and consequences, along with research hypotheses. We present an empirical test of the framework using data from 15 countries. We conclude with a general discussion of implications for theory and practice and further research avenues. CBI AND THE SYMBOLIC–INSTRUMENTAL FRAMEWORK Bhattacharya and Sen (2003) draw from social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) to propose that customers may develop customer–company identification. Recent research has extended this logic to the research domain of brands, that consumers can also identify with brands (e.g., Donavan et al., 2006; Kuenzel & Halliday, 2008). The concept of CBI is in line with the experiential view of consumption, which emphasizes brands as valued relationship partners (Fournier, 1998; Solomon, 1983). Social identity theory (Tajfel, 1982: 2) posits that three components typically constitute the stage of “identification”: a cognitive component (i.e., the sense of awareness of membership), an evaluative component (i.e., the sense that this awareness is related to some value connotations), and an emotional component (i.e., affective investment in the awareness and evaluations). Following this insight, we also conceptualize CBI as multidimensional, and define CBI as a customer’s psychological state of perceiving, feeling, and valuing his or her belongingness with a brand. Journal of International Business Studies CBI as a Formative Construct Prior research has conceptualized identification as purely cognitive, especially in early work in the organizational identification literature (for a review see Ashforth, Harrison, & Corley, 2008). However, self-related attitude is intimately associated with emotions (Epstein, 1980), and “emotion is a central aspect of many marketing relationships” (Bagozzi, 1995: 274). Multidimensional conceptualization of identification has recently gained acceptance in both applied psychology (Ashforth et al., 2008) and marketing (Bagozzi & Dholakia, 2006). This new development in the identification literature is in line with Zajonc and Markus’s (1982) work, which suggests that affect can function independently from cognition. Empirically, the organizational identification literature suggests that cognitive and affective aspects of identification have different behavioral consequences (Van Dick, Wagner, Stellmacher, & Christ, 2004). These findings suggest that the indicators of CBI dimensions define the constructs, that these items are not interchangeable, and that they have dissimilar nomological nets. Based on the criteria for conceptualizing constructs as formative (Jarvis, MacKenzie, & Podsakoff, 2003: 203), we conceptualize CBI as a second-order formative construct, with three reflective first-order dimensions. Antecedents to CBI People’s identification with a target is motivated primarily by self-continuity, self-distinctiveness, and self-enhancement (e.g., Dutton, Dukerich, & Harquail, 1994; Pratt, 1998; Tajfel & Turner, 1979). In the marketing domain, Bhattacharya and Sen’s (2003) conceptual framework suggests that identity similarity, identity distinctiveness, and identity prestige make the brand identity more attractive to consumers, which in turn induces them to identify with the brand. This is because: (1) identity similarity provides consumers with a stable and consistent sense of self; (2) identity distinctiveness satisfies consumers’ need to distinguish themselves from others; and (3) identity prestige enables consumers to view themselves in the reflected glory of the brand, thus enhancing their sense of self-worth (Bhattacharya & Sen, 2003: 80). In the branding literature, Keller (1993: 3) defines brand image as “perceptions about a brand as reflected by the brand associations held in consumer Consumer–brand identification Son K Lam et al 309 memory. Brand associations are the other informational nodes linked to the brand node in memory and contain the meaning of the brand for consumers.” Brand associations can fall into three major categories: attributes, benefits, and attitudes. From Keller’s conceptualization, these types of brand associations can be instrumental (e.g., product related) and/or symbolic (e.g., self-expressiveness). Furthermore, brand image includes both the prestige of the brand name and brand uniqueness. Many conceptual frameworks in marketing literature suggest that the influence of brand image on consumer behavior is mediated through perceived quality (e.g., Zeithaml, 1988). Perceived quality refers to the consumer’s judgment about the superiority or excellence of a product. For example, consumers can infer that a product is of high quality from the brand name (Dodds, Monroe, & Grewal, 1991). Brand name can be an extrinsic attribute that is product related but not part of the product itself (Zeithaml, 1988). We expect that brand image directly influences CBI in a positive way and indirectly influences CBI through perceived quality. Perceived quality reflects an instrumental driver of CBI. Self–brand congruity corresponds to the notion of person–organization fit in the organizational identification literature. While the majority of research on self–brand congruity focuses on brand personality, other research has suggested that corporate social responsibility can also play an important role in driving CBI (Brown & Dacin, 1997; Sen & Bhattacharya, 2001). Corporate social responsibility is a marketing action performed by the brand that provides consumers with additional evaluative cues about brand traits (e.g., Fournier, 1998). Thus we propose that self–brand congruity includes two subdimensions: self–brand personality congruity and social responsibility congruity. Social responsibility congruity reflects whether the company follows a desirable corporate social responsibility program that consumers care about and pay attention to. Self–brand congruity captures the symbolic driver of CBI. CBI and Self–brand Congruity CBI and self-brand congruity are distinct constructs. First, from a nomological validity perspective, Bhattacharya and Sen’s (2003) conceptual framework suggests that self–brand congruity is an antecedent of CBI. Furthermore, because self–brand congruity captures only a symbolic driver of CBI, it is a necessary but not sufficient condition for developing CBI. As we allude to earlier, instrumental drivers also play an important role in CBI formation. Second, self–brand congruity reflects the notion of similarity along concrete attributes between the self and the brand. Such similarity corresponds to the concept of person–organization fit in the marketing and industrial organization psychology literatures, which posit that people are attracted to organizations that share similar values (Donavan, Brown, & Mowen, 2004; Schneider, 1987). The concept of CBI, as defined here, is more gestalt than concepts akin to person–organization fit such as self–brand congruity. As a psychological state that goes beyond just the cognitive overlap between the brand and self, CBI also includes the affective and evaluative facets of psychological oneness with the brand. Thus CBI is at a higher level of abstraction than the less abstract concept of self–brand congruity. In this study, we focus on the lack of self–brand congruity, or self–brand incongruity, as an antecedent to CBI, because we want to explore the misalignment between the symbolic and the instrumental drivers of CBI. Consequences of CBI Social identification induces people to engage in identity-congruent behavior, defined as activities that are congruent with salient aspects of the social identity (Ashforth & Mael, 1989). In the consumer context, Bhattacharya and Sen (2003) classify these identity-congruent behaviors into a continuum from low levels such as loyalty to high levels such as promotion. While loyalty behavior stems from a sustained identification-based commitment to the social identity, promotion behavior is the result of consumers’ vested interest in the success of the social identity as their own, and the need to ensure that their affiliation to the identity is perceived by and communicated to others in the most positive light possible (Bhattacharya & Sen, 2003). Based on this classification, and to remain consistent with the theme of social identity, we categorize consumer identity-congruent behavior into two major groups: identity-sustaining behavior, which we define as consumer individual behavior to support and maintain the identity, and identitypromoting behavior, which refers to consumer social behavior to deepen consumer understanding about what others think about the identity, and to advance the identity to acquaintances (e.g., Arnett, German, & Hunt, 2003). In this vein, prior research Journal of International Business Studies Consumer–brand identification Son K Lam et al 310 distinguishes between I-intention, defined as a personal intention to perform an individual or group act by oneself, and We-intention, defined as a commitment of an individual to participate in joint action, and which involves an implicit or explicit agreement between participants to engage in that joint action (Bagozzi, 2000; Bagozzi & Lee, 2002; Tuomela, 1995). Here, identity-sustaining behavior is the I-intention to perform an individual act, whereas identity-promoting behavior is the I-intention to perform a group act. Empirical research based on the conceptual framework of customer–company identification (Bhattacharya & Sen, 2003) reports preliminary support that customer–company identification can lead to both customer identity-sustaining behavior, such as higher product utilization (Ahearne, Bhattacharya, & Gruen, 2005), and identity-promoting behavior, such as positive word of mouth, collection of company-related collectibles, and symbol passing (Ahearne et al., 2005; Arnett et al., 2003; Bagozzi & Dholakia, 2006; Brown, Barry, Dacin, & Gunst, 2005; Donavan et al., 2006). With the rare exception of Brown et al. (2005), who demonstrate that both satisfaction with service quality and consumer identification drive word-ofmouth behavior, the synergy between CBI and perceived quality in driving identity-sustaining and identity-promoting behavior has not received much research attention. The Symbolic–instrumental Framework The symbolic value of brands is the focus of various streams of marketing research that are based on social identity theory, identity theory, and self theories. Conversely, research on customer satisfaction generally emphasizes the functional benefits of a product. However, several consumer-related theories have long posited the multifaceted nature of consumer–brand relationships. In Appendix A, we provide a technical review of those theories in economics and consumer psychology. Our symbolic–instrumental framework of CBI is based on Katz (1960), who posits that an attitude can serve various functions. Two important functions that have received the most attention in marketing research are the symbolic and instrumental functions. However, instead of treating the symbolic and instrumental drivers independently, we predict an interaction between self–brand incongruity and perceived quality in predicting CBI. As we allude to later, it is not immediately clear whether Journal of International Business Studies this interaction is positive (a complementary effect) or negative (a substitute effect), nor whether its direction is universal across consumers with different cultural orientations. RESEARCH HYPOTHESES In the conceptual framework depicted in Figure 1, we conceptualize the interaction between self– brand incongruity and perceived quality in predicting CBI as the trade-off between symbolic utility and instrumental (or utilitarian) utility. We view the interaction between CBI and perceived quality in predicting consumers’ brand identity behavior as the complementary effect between identification-based trust and calculative trust. To control for the direct positive effect of brand image on CBI while maintaining the focus on the symbolic– instrumental trade-off and its generalizability across countries, we include brand image as a covariate in the framework. Interactions between Self–brand Incongruity and Perceived Quality in CBI Formation Existing theories inform two opposite predictions. On the one hand, need-satisfaction theories (see Appendix A) suggest that high perceived quality is instrumental to satisfying consumers’ functional need. However, a high level of self–brand incongruity will not allow consumers to maintain the fundamental need for self-consistency, as social identity theory suggests. It follows that when consumers perceive the brand as having low quality or high self–brand incongruity, they will not identify strongly with the brand. Because a brand with a low level of self–brand incongruity and high quality not only satisfies consumers’ self-expressive needs but also reduces their uncertainty about enjoying the functional benefits, the marginal value of having higher quality on a brand with low self–brand incongruity will be much higher than the marginal value of having higher quality on a brand with high self–brand incongruity. On the other hand, research has shown that identity-based judgment can create a top-down thinking process that is biased (Bolton & Reed, 2004). Prior research refers to this process as motivated reasoning (e.g., Kunda, 1990) that defies the rationality underlying the bottom-up thinking in functional utility maximization process. Therefore customers who perceive a low level of personality incongruity with a brand are more likely to tolerate Consumer–brand identification Son K Lam et al 311 Brand Image Product Attributes Instrumental Driver Perceived Quality Consequences Self-Brand Symbolic Driver H2a, b H1 • Misalignment of Self-Brand Incongruity Consumer-Brand Identification (CBI) symbolic– instrumental satisfactions • Reinforcement of identification-based and calculative trusts • Reduced • Utility trade–off • Ambiguity H3 Brand Identity– promoting behavior uncertainty H4 H5 H6 Brand Identity– sustaining behavior Cultural Orientations Control • Brand Image→ CBI • Category→ CBI • Age, Gender→ CBI v Collectivism Uncertainty Avoidance Figure 1 A symbolic–instrumental framework of CBI. Note: This study focuses on the interactions that are drawn with dotted arrows. The black boxes, which summarize the underlying processes, are not included in the model estimation. The direct effect of brand image on CBI is not shown, to avoid clusters. a lower level of perceived quality and still identify with the brand than customers who perceive a high level of personality incongruity. To test these contrasting predictions empirically, we hypothesize the following directional hypothesis: Hypothesis 1: Perceived quality exacerbates the negative relationship between self–brand incongruity and CBI. Interactions between CBI and Perceived Quality in Motivating Identity-sustaining and Identitypromoting Behavior On the one hand, marketing research suggests that perceived quality is positively related to brand trust and credibility (e.g., Agustin & Singh, 2005; Erdem, Swait, & Valenzuela, 2006). The nature of this brand trust is calculative, because it is based on consumers’ knowledge about whether the brand can deliver what they want. All else being equal, in general, perceived quality leads to higher repurchase intention because of this brand trust (e.g., Chaudhuri & Holbrook, 2001). On the other hand, organizational research has discussed the notion of “identification-based trust,” defined as trust that is automatically motivated through people’s identification with the social entity, rather than through past interactions or experienced benefits (Kramer, Brewer, & Hanna, 1996). Social identity theory suggests that identification-based trust motivates consumers to engage in behavior to sustain and promote the brand identity, which is part of their self-identity. Furthermore, unlike calculative trust, which is more objective, identification-based trust can be subjectively biased in favor of the identified social identity (e.g., Brewer, 1979). When there is mutual reinforcement of identification-based trust Journal of International Business Studies Consumer–brand identification Son K Lam et al 312 and calculative trust, consumers are more committed to the brand, which in turn creates an even stronger motivation for them to not only sustain but also promote the brand identity (Brown et al., 2005). More formally, we hypothesize the following: Hypothesis 2: Perceived quality elevates the positive relationship between CBI and consumers’ (a) identity-sustaining behavior and (b) identity-promoting behavior. The Role of Individual-level Cultural Orientations Thus far, we have hypothesized the interaction between self–brand incongruity and perceived quality in predicting CBI as a utility trade-off in the process of utility maximization. Such trade-off can be highly important among individuals with a certain cultural orientation. Among the various conceptualizations of cultural orientations, Hofstede’s (2001) five cultural dimensions remain the most widely accepted (Steenkamp, Hofstede, & Wedel, 1999). These dimensions are individualism/ collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, power distance, masculinity/femininity, and long-term orientation. Most relevant to the context of the current research are individualism and uncertainty avoidance. We focus on these two cultural dimensions at the individual level, because they are relevant to the context of CBI: consumers’ orientation toward relationships and their comfort level with ambiguity in consumption (e.g., Arnold & Bianchi, 2001). These two cultural dimensions are also the most-often studied dimensions in cross-cultural marketing research. Drawing from Hofstede (2001), we define individualism as the propensity of individuals to look after themselves or remain integrated into groups, and uncertainty avoidance as the extent to which individuals feel threatened in unstructured or unknown situations. Individualism/collectivism Prior research has suggested that east Asian societies, which are predominantly collectivistic (Markus & Kitayama, 1991), are characterized by holistic thinking (Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001). Holistic thinking involves an orientation to go beyond the specific attributes to pay attention to thematic interdependence at a higher level of abstraction. It can be inferred that, in forming their CBI, collectivist consumers will be more likely than individualist consumers to process symbolic and instrumental attributes as interdependent, and Journal of International Business Studies consciously consider the trade-off between the two drivers. According to Hofstede (2001), collectivist cultures are characterized by a strong tendency to impression management; face and prestige are essential, and shame is undesirable. In collectivist cultures, “face describes the proper relationship with one’s social environment, which is essential to a person (and that person’s family) as the front part of his or her head. The importance of face is the consequence of living in a society that is very conscious of social contexts” (Hofstede, 2001: 230). One way in which collectivist consumers achieve the most desirable social impression is to relate to brands that are not only congruent with the self, to maintain self-consistency, but also of high perceived quality, to express high status. In other words, compared with individualist consumers, collectivist consumers handle the utility trade-off in such a way that they value highly the synergy of low self–brand incongruity and high perceived quality. In contrast, Western societies, which are predominantly individualistic (Markus & Kitayama, 1991), are characterized by analytic thinking, which involves a focus on specific attributes of the object (Nisbett et al., 2001). It can be inferred that, in forming their CBI, individualist consumers do not fully consider the synergy between symbolic and instrumental drivers. In addition, one of the societal norms in individualist cultures is that identity is based on the individual rather than the social system. Individualist cultures emphasize the “I” instead of the “we” (Hofstede, 2001). According to Roth (1995), individualist cultures are also characterized by a strong tendency to place more emphasis on variety seeking (vs belongingness) and hedonism (vs instrumental to survival). Thus we can infer that individualist consumers handle the utility trade-off in a way that emphasizes the symbolic value of low self–brand incongruity and downplays the role of high perceived quality in their information processing. Therefore, we hypothesize the following: Hypothesis 3: The negative interaction between self–brand incongruity and perceived quality in predicting CBI is stronger for collectivist consumers than for individualist consumers. On the consequence side, the reinforced trust stemming from the synergy of high perceived quality and a high level of CBI constitutes a necessary but not sufficient condition for consumers to engage in identity-promoting behavior. Consumer–brand identification Son K Lam et al 313 We predict that identity-promoting behavior, an outcome that reflect the I-intention to perform a group act, is partially contingent on how much consumers are willing to engage in other-directed behavior. According to Hofstede (2001: 225), “individualism stands for a society in which the ties between individuals are loose. y Collectivism stands for a society in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive in-groups, which throughout people’s lifetime continue to protect them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty.” The social cohesion in which collectivist consumers are embedded creates a context that facilitates identity-promoting behavior. Furthermore, collectivist people are more likely than their individualist counterparts to engage in other-oriented behavior (Hofstede, 2001). Empirical evidence suggests that collectivist people are more likely to engage in pro-social behavior, such as interpersonal helping (e.g., Moorman & Blakely, 1995). Because identity-promoting behavior is a pro-social behavior that goes beyond the transactional relationship between consumers and their brands, we propose the following: Hypothesis 4: The positive interaction between CBI and perceived quality in predicting identitypromoting behavior is stronger for collectivist consumers than for individualist consumers. Uncertainty avoidance Uncertainty avoidance is a national cultural dimension that is synonymous with a strong resistance to change and a high need for clarity (Hofstede, 2001). Countries characterized by high uncertainty avoidance program their members to prefer stability in consumption. Consumers in high-uncertaintyavoidance countries should value the importance of their relationships with established brands, because these brands have known risks and lower information costs than new brands (Erdem et al., 2006). Previous research has also suggested that consumers in high-uncertainty-avoidance countries are more likely to be cautious and thorough in making their brand choice, and less likely to experiment with other brands (Broderick, 2007; Donthu & Yoo, 1998). These perspectives suggest a two-way interaction between perceived quality (an antecedent of satisfaction, and thus brand trust) and uncertainty avoidance in predicting CBI. This twoway interaction, however, assumes away the role of the symbolic driver. When there exists a misalignment between self–brand incongruity and perceived quality, an uncertain situation arises. Because high-uncertainty-avoidance consumers evade uncertainty and ambiguity, they do not treat the misalignment between self–brand incongruity and perceived quality lightly, and therefore their motivation to identify with the brand will be much lower. We therefore hypothesize: Hypothesis 5: The interaction between self–brand incongruity and perceived quality in predicting CBI is stronger for high-uncertainty-avoidance consumers than for low-uncertainty-avoidance consumers. On the consequence side, the synergy between CBI and perceived quality is that of reinforced trust. When there are two types of trust, such as calculative trust created by perceived quality and identification-based trust, uncertainty is much reduced. However, because high-uncertaintyavoidance consumers engage in more expansive information search in their purchase (e.g., Moore & Lehmann, 1980), it is possible that the information overload these consumers experience actually heightens their level of information processing and their need for verification, thus discounting the value of reinforced trust. In contrast, lowuncertainty-avoidance consumers may value the reinforced trust without further verification. This argument suggests the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 6: The positive interaction between CBI and perceived quality in predicting identity-sustaining behavior is weaker for highuncertainty-avoidance consumers than for lowuncertainty-avoidance consumers. METHOD We developed a preliminary questionnaire and conducted a pretest using a convenience sample of students at a major university in the United States. After refining the items, we conducted another pretest in the United Kingdom with online panel members, and further refined the wording of the items. The scales we used in the large-scale survey were written in English. A professional translation service translated all the scales into 11 languages (Dutch, French, German, Spanish, Polish, Slovakian, Romanian, Danish, Swedish, Italian, and Turkish). The scales then were backtranslated to ensure that all items were appropriately worded. We asked native speakers of the languages to take the survey, and to comment on Journal of International Business Studies Consumer–brand identification Son K Lam et al 314 its wording and length. We finalized the final version of the survey and sent it with links to a large online panel. Sample A large international online research firm agreed to provide access to its proprietary online panel. The 15 countries we surveyed were Belgium, Holland, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Slovakia, Turkey, Romania, Poland, and the United States. For each country, we set a minimum quota of 200 complete responses to ensure that there were enough observations and variation within each country. The survey was active until the quota was achieved in each country or for, at most, 1 month. The unique feature of the data is that they span across Scandinavian, western European, and eastern European countries, which have been underresearched. These countries also have considerable variation in terms of national culture. We asked participants about their relationships with 10 brands in five product categories: beer, sportswear, cell phones, fast-food chains, and e-commerce sites.1 To ensure that participants had enough time to develop their preferences for and identification with the brands, we chose the ten brands that were well established, rather than newly introduced. To ensure that the same brands were present across several countries, and to control for category effects, we focused on corporate brands only (i.e., for which the name of the company is also the brand). At the beginning of the survey, we screened out consumers who did not know the categories well or who did not know the top two brands in the categories well enough (below 3 on a seven-point Likert scale). We randomized the remaining consumers to one brand among the brands they reported to know well. We sent online survey links to 26,500 active panel members and received responses from 10,137 panelists (response rate: 38.25%). We removed participants who were not aware of any brands in the survey, and those who dropped out during the survey. There were 5919 complete responses, for a response rate of 22.3%. Overall, 46% of the respondents were women, and the average age was 39 years (s.d.¼12.2). The sample size in each country ranged from 202 to 727. Appendix B provides country-specific sample details. Measures We measured CBI using a six-item scale that captures three dimensions of identification. The Journal of International Business Studies cognitive dimension consists of two items we adapted from Bergami and Bagozzi (2000). The first item in this scale is a Venn diagram that shows the gestalt overlap between the consumer’s identity and the brand’s identity. This Venn diagram item originates from the interpersonal relationship literature (Levinger, 1979). The second item is a verbal item that describes the identity overlap in words rather than visually cross-validating the Venn diagram item. We measured consumers’ affective identification with the brand using two items that are part of the well-cited organizational identification scale (Mael & Ashforth, 1992). We used two items to evaluate whether the consumer thinks the psychological oneness with the brand is valuable to him or her individually and socially. We adapted these items from Bagozzi and Dholakia (2006). We measured perceived quality with three items adapted from Netemeyer and colleagues (2004). These items focused on the functional utility of the brand. The final measurement scales of individual-level collectivism and uncertainty avoidance include three items each. We adapted these scales from Erdem et al. (2006) and Patterson, Cowley, and Prasongsukarn (2006). Finally, we operationalized self–brand personality incongruity as the Euclidean distance between brand personality and consumer personality (Sirgy et al., 1991). To avoid survey fatigue, we measured these brand and consumer personality traits using a brief version of Aaker’s (1997) brand personality scale. Mathematically, this score was calculated as follows: Self  brand personality incongruity vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi u 5 uX ðBP  SP Þ2 ¼t i i i¼1 where BP¼brand personality, SP¼self-personality, and i¼1–5. We measured self–brand social responsibility incongruity by asking consumers the extent to which they, as well as the brand, were concerned about four major social responsibility issues, which we adapted from Marin and Ruiz (2007). We then calculated a score for self–brand social responsibility incongruity using the Euclidean distance formula. In social identity theory, one of the objectives of identification is to maintain self continuity (Bhattacharya & Sen, 2003). Repurchase intention is one of the ways in which consumers can maintain and sustain their identity. Social identity theory also suggests that identification will induce Consumer–brand identification Son K Lam et al 315 people to be mindful of what others think about the brand they identify with, and to be active in promoting the identity for self-enhancement purposes. Thus we operationalized identity-sustaining behavior as repurchase intention, and measured it with three items that asked consumers whether they would repurchase the same brand. We measured identity-promoting behavior using a nineitem scale that asked respondents whether they proactively sought more information about the focal brand and engaged in electronic word-ofmouth behavior. Finally, we included sociodemographic variables (e.g., age, gender) and category (five product categories, using four dummies) as control variables. It should be noted that the zeroorder correlation between perceived quality and CBI was only moderate (r¼0.32), further suggesting that CBI and perceived quality are distinct from each other. Appendix C reports the final sets of items for all constructs and covariates. Analytical Procedure Because the data came from consumers across multiple countries, we conducted a series of exploratory factor analyses, measurement invariance tests, and confirmatory factor analyses to ensure that the consumers understood the scales in a consistent manner. These results appear in Appendix D. For the reflective constructs, we evaluated measure reliability and validity by examining the loadings of items on their intended latent constructs, Cronbach’s alphas, average variance extracted (AVE), and interconstruct correlations. Most of the construct items were well behaved across the countries in the dataset. We conceptualize CBI as a formative second-order construct that consists of three reflective first-order dimensions. We used partial least squares (PLS) to evaluate the measurement model of this construct. Because measures of internal consistency and reliability are inappropriate for assessing the psychometric properties of formative constructs ( Jarvis et al., 2003), we evaluated the measurement scales of CBI by examining the path weights of each of the three dimensions. We adopted the method of repeated indicators for molar models to assess path weights of each first-order factor on the second-order construct (Wold, 1982). The results show that all path weights were significant, suggesting that the measurement model was sound. The factor loadings and path weights of the focal constructs are given in Appendix E. For the focal construct CBI, the correlation between the affective and evaluative dimensions appears to be fairly high. This high correlation is consistent with an extensive review by Tesser (2003), who points out that the distinction between affect and evaluation is not clear when the object of judgment is the self. Because the value connotation of a social identity associated with a brand provides its identifiers with self-esteem, either private or collective, it follows that the evaluative CBI facet might be laden with emotions. However, to remain consistent with prior research on social identification and the theoretical foundation of the construct, we specified the measurement model of CBI as being formed by three dimensions. Because the calculation of AVE is meaningful only for reflective constructs, it is not possible to assess discriminant validity by comparing the square root of the AVE with the pairwise correlations between reflective (perceived value) and formative (CBI) constructs. Instead, we concluded that the measures met the criteria for discriminant validity because: (1) none of the measures cross-loaded more heavily on their unintended constructs than on their own, and (2) all the unattenuated construct intercorrelations were significantly less than 1.00. In addition, we estimated two models in which we assumed CBI to be a second-order reflective construct. We first freely estimated the correlation between this CBI construct and perceived value, and then constrained that correlation to be equal to 1. All the constrained models for the countryspecific data and the pooled data had significantly worse fit. This proxy calculation provides further evidence for the discriminant validity between CBI and perceived quality. Following Chin’s (1998) and Hair, Ringle, and Sarstedt’s (2011) rules of thumb about choosing between covariance-based SEM and PLS SEM, we rely primarily on PLS to estimate the structural models, because our research goal is to extend an existing structural theory, and our emphasis is on prediction. Furthermore, the complex structural models include two formative constructs (i.e., CBI and self–brand incongruity). In addition, PLS does not require the strict assumption of multivariate normality, which is normally violated when testing multiple interactions among predictors (Chin, 1998). After verifying that the measurement model Journal of International Business Studies Consumer–brand identification Son K Lam et al 316 Table 1 Means, s.d., and intercorrelation matrix Cognitive CBI Affective CBI Evaluative CBI CBIa Self-brand personality incongruityb Social responsibility incongruityb Self-brand incongruitya Perceived quality Collectivism Uncertainty avoidance Identity-sustaining behavior Identity-promoting behavior Grand mean s.d. Cronbach’s alpha 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 0.53 0.408 0.368 0.817 0.354 0.291 0.375 0.522 0.187 0.161 0.599 0.352 2.70 1.57 0.73 0.60 0.836 0.767 0.269 0.272 0.279 0.452 0.184 0.205 0.495 0.587 2.49 1.63 0.88 0.60 0.697 0.232 0.247 0.238 0.391 0.153 0.175 0.430 0.595 2.36 1.62 0.88 — 0.358 0.307 0.413 0.547 0.169 0.151 0.622 0.489 0.00 1.00 — — 0.389 0.869 0.376 0.084 0.089 0.369 0.210 4.14 2.33 — — 0.731 0.266 0.014* 0.080 0.261 0.227 4.10 2.71 — — 0.358 0.038 0.050 0.358 0.215 0.00 1.00 — 0.83 0.203 0.245 0.739 0.352 4.25 1.56 0.93 0.46 0.385 0.195 0.207 4.50 1.29 0.71 0.47 0.208 0.141 5.06 1.25 0.72 0.75 0.404 3.70 1.82 0.88 0.78 1.83 1.29 0.96 a Latent score of formative construct. Euclidean distance scores. *Not significant. All other correlations are significant at po0.01 (two-tailed). N¼5919, pooled data from 15 countries. Notes: AVE appears on the diagonal (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). b was satisfactory, we estimated simple-effects-only models (e.g., main effects only) for each of the 15 countries to extract latent scores of the focal constructs using PLS. This step also produced the latent scores that were mean-centered within each country. We then used these latent scorers to create interaction terms to estimate the structural models. The pooled dataset is hierarchical in nature, with Level 1 consumers nested within the 15 countries at Level 2. However, with 15 countries at Level 2, there is not sufficient statistical power to estimate a Level 2 model with cross-level interactions. When we decomposed the variations by running an intercept-only Level 2 model, we found that as much as 90% of the total variance resides within country. Because the focus of our study is on explaining and comparing the within-country relationships, and because we operationalized the cultural orientations at the individual level, we conducted the analysis for each country separately. The country-specific results allow us to test the predictive validity of the proposed framework in 15 different countries. We also estimated the same structural model for all the countries using the data pooled from all countries after we extracted the country-specific latent scores of the focal constructs. The estimation result from the pooled data indicated the fixed effects of the structural relationships, while the country-specific coefficients varied about these fixed effects. Journal of International Business Studies Table 1 reports the correlation matrix and the key statistics from the pooled data.2 RESULTS The results of the simple-effects-only models are consistent with previous findings. More specifically, for the pooled data, the relationship between self–brand incongruity and CBI is negative, while that between perceived quality and CBI is positive. The main effects of individual-level collectivism and uncertainty avoidance on CBI are positive and significant. Finally, the relationships among CBI, perceived quality, and identity-sustaining and identity-promoting behavior are also positive. Thus we proceeded to test the symbolic–instrumental interaction effects. Symbolic–Instrumental Interaction Effects We first report the results from the model without individual-level cultural orientations for the pooled data. Consistent with Hypothesis 1, we found that the interaction between perceived quality and self–brand incongruity in predicting CBI is negative (b¼0.11, po0.001). On the consequence side, the interaction between CBI and perceived quality in predicting identity-sustaining behavior is not significant (b¼0.007, not significant [n.s.]). Therefore, Hypothesis 2a is not supported. However, in line with Hypothesis 2b, the interaction between CBI and perceived quality in predicting identitypromoting behavior is positive and significant Consumer–brand identification Son K Lam et al 317 3.5 Low Perceived Quality High Perceived Quality CBI 3 2.5 2 1.5 Low Self-Brand Incongruity High Self-Brand Incongruity Figure 2 Two-way interaction between self–brand incongruity and perceived quality. (b¼0.08, po0.001). We plot the interaction between self–brand incongruity and perceived quality in Figure 2, which shows that when perceived quality is low, self–brand incongruity or a lack thereof does not affect the level of CBI. When self–brand incongruity is high, there is no significant difference in CBI at high vs low perceived quality. There is a complementary effect of high perceived quality on the level of CBI: when self– brand incongruity decreases from high (high mismatch) to low (high match), the marginal value of having high perceived quality on the level of CBI becomes more pronounced. Cultural Orientations as Moderators We then added the interactions between individual-level cultural orientations and the symbolic– instrumental interactions. Table 2 reports the results of the full structural model for each country and for the pooled dataset. We found that the three-way interaction among self–brand incongruity, perceived quality, and collectivism was not significant (b¼0.02, n.s.). The three-way interaction among self–brand incongruity, perceived quality, and uncertainty avoidance was not significant either (b¼0.01, n.s.). For the country-specific analysis, with the only exception in the UK, these three-way interactions were not significant in any of the 15 countries. Therefore we did not find support for either Hypothesis 3 or Hypothesis 5. We found support for Hypothesis 4, which predicts that the positive interaction between CBI and perceived quality in predicting identitypromoting behavior is stronger for collectivist consumers than for individualist consumers (b¼ 0.08, po0.001). Furthermore, there is a weak but significant three-way interaction among CBI, perceived quality, and uncertainty avoidance in predicting identity-promoting behavior (b¼0.03, po0.001), in support of Hypothesis 6. We plot the significant interactions in Figures 3a and 3b, respectively. Figure 3a shows that when perceived quality is low, individual-level collectivism does not change the positive relationship between CBI and identitypromoting behavior. In contrast, when perceived quality is high, collectivism significantly elevates the positive relationship between CBI and identitypromoting behavior. For identity-sustaining behavior, Figure 3b suggests that the main effects of CBI and perceived quality are both strong, while the moderating effect of uncertainty avoidance is weak. Robustness Check and Additional Analyses The moderating effect of culture may be attributed to either national culture or economic development. To explore these possibilities, we estimated a hierarchical linear model with consumers at Level 1 and countries at Level 2 (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002). We adapted collectivism and uncertainty avoidance scores from Hofstede (2001) and the gross national income index as a proxy for economic development from the World Bank website. All the main effects of these national predictors and their cross-level interaction terms with the Level 1 interaction were not significant. Although the statistical power is limited at Level 2, the results suggest that national culture and economic development do not explain the effects we report. It can also be argued that the effects of collectivism and uncertainty avoidance are due to the absence of other cultural orientations such as power distance and masculinity. To rule out this possibility, we added these individual-level cultural orientations as additional control variables and re-estimated the whole structural model for each country. We measured consumers’ power distance and masculinity by using short scales we adapted from Kirkman and Shapiro (2001, four items) and Lam (2007, three items), respectively. We found that the results remain stable as reported. The correlation between the affective and evaluative dimension was high in the data. As a robustness check, we also specified CBI as being formed by two dimensions, with the cognitive dimension consisting of two items and the second dimension consisting of the affective and evaluative dimensions. Then, we extracted the latent scores of the focal constructs from the main-effects model as we explained previously, Journal of International Business Studies 318 Journal of International Business Studies Table 2 Country-specific structural results with PLS estimation Holland France UK Germany Spain Italy Sweden Denmark Switzerland Slovakia Turkey Romania Poland US All Incongruity-CBI Perceived quality-CBI Collectivism-CBI Uncertainty avoidance-CBI Incongruity  perceived quality-CBI (Hypothesis 1) Incongruity  collectivism-CBI Perceived quality  collectivism-CBI Incongruity  perceived quality  collectivism-CBI (Hypothesis 3) Incongruity  uncertainty avoidance-CBI Perceived quality  uncertainty avoidance-CBI Incongruity  perceived quality  un. avoidance-CBI (Hypothesis 5) CBI-promoting Perceived quality-promoting Collectivism-promoting CBI  perceived quality-promoting (Hypothesis 2b) CBI  collectivism-promoting Perceived quality  collectivism -promoting CBI  perceived quality  collectivism-promoting (Hypothesis 4) CBI-sustaining Perceived quality-sustaining Uncertainty avoidance-sustaining CBI  perceived quality-sustaining (Hypothesis 2a) 0.21** 0.21* 0.08 0.01 0.10 0.31** 0.30** 0.04 0.01 0.19** 0.24** 0.25** 0.10 0.08 0.00 0.30** 0.23** 0.14** 0.00 0.17** 0.19** 0.27** 0.08 0.05 0.05 0.28** 0.44** 0.16* 0.00 0.15* 0.30** 0.20** 0.07 0.01 0.08 0.29** 0.21** 0.02 0.10** 0.19** 0.28** 0.26** 0.02 0.04 0.18** 0.26** 0.37** 0.03 0.11** 0.11* 0.19** 0.49** 0.15** 0.04 0.11* 0.09 0.25* 0.18* 0.00 0.02 0.23** 0.51** 0.15** 0.05 0.16** 0.19** 0.40** 0.08 0.01 0.06 0.26** 0.48** 0.13 0.01 0.16* 0.22** 0.24** 0.08** 0.04** 0.09** 0.10 0.05 0.11 0.02 0.04 0.03 0.02 0.01 0.00 0.11 0.08 0.05 0.08 0.01 0.02 0.05 0.04 0.03 0.07 0.07 0.03 0.06 0.04 0.05 0.08 0.05 0.02 0.01 0.05 0.13 0.02 0.05** 0.04 0.06 0.02 0.04 0.02 0.04 0.02 0.04 0.05 0.08 0.03 0.03 0.01 0.04 0.07 0.02 0.03 0.00 0.02 0.06 0.07 0.11 0.08 0.02 0.01 0.00 0.01 0.01 0.06 0.05 0.10 0.01 0.04 0.08 0.07 0.15* 0.03 0.14 0.07 0.06 0.04 0.05 0.03 0.10 0.08 0.06** 0.08 0.06 0.00 0.12* 0.08 0.01 0.01 0.02 0.02 0.08 0.03 0.00 0.05 0.01 0.40** 0.03 0.07 0.13 0.53** 0.03 0.07 0.03 0.42** 0.00 0.02 0.11 0.59** 0.06 0.09 0.01 0.46** 0.06 0.11** 0.05 0.38** 0.00 0.07 0.07 0.42** 0.02 0.01 0.16* 0.43** 0.03 0.07 0.08 0.36** 0.10 0.05 0.14* 0.58** 0.00 0.05 0.13* 0.55** 0.04 0.03 0.03 0.54* 0.02 0.03 0.03 0.05 0.10 0.02 0.14 0.06 0.00 0.06 0.06 0.13 0.02 0.07** 0.04* 0.04 0.05 0.15 0.08** 0.41** 0.48** 0.17** 0.06 0.41** 0.52** 0.05 0.01 0.27** 0.60** 0.01 0.00 0.38** 0.51** 0.01 0.01 0.43** 0.07 0.04 0.13 0.36** 0.00 0.12 0.03 0.09* 0.00 0.04 0.07 0.09 0.05 0.01 0.06 0.09 0.14 0.08 0.00 0.06 0.09 0.11* 0.07 0.03 0.06 0.07 0.03 0.13* 0.00 0.04 0.08 0.18 0.15 0.17 0.23* 0.11* 0.11 0.13 0.17 0.14 0.10 0.26** 0.65** 0.02 0.04 0.29** 0.53** 0.06 0.10** 0.33** 0.54** 0.04 0.04 0.32** 0.56** 0.00 0.07 0.36** 0.53** 0.00 0.02 0.41** 0.49** 0.03 0.01 0.27** 0.63** 0.08 0.02 0.36** 0.49** 0.02 0.04 0.27** 0.60** 0.07 0.03 0.48** 0.42** 0.03 0.03 0.45** 0.40** 0.07 0.03 0.29** 0.56** 0.02 0.12** 0.12* 0.00 0.53** 0.06 0.09 0.06 0.52** 0.07 0.11 0.11* Son K Lam et al Belgium Consumer–brand identification Paths Consumer–brand identification Son K Lam et al a 3 Identity-promoting Behavior 2.5 2 1.5 (1) High Perceived Quality, Collectivistic (2) High Perceived Quality, Individualistic 1 (3) Low Perceived Quality, Collectivistic (4) Low Perceived Quality, Individualistic 0.5 Low CBI High CBI b Identity-sustaining Behavior 4.8 4.4 4 3.6 3.2 2.8 2.4 (1) High Perceived Quality, High Uncertainty avoidance (3) Low Perceived Quality, High Uncertainty avoidance (2) High Perceived Quality, Low Uncertainty avoidance (4) Low Perceived Quality, Low Uncertainty avoidance 2 Low CBI High CBI Figure 3 (a) Three-way interaction among CBI, perceived quality, and collectivism; (b) three-way interaction among CBI, perceived quality, and uncertainty avoidance. Notes: Standardized coefficients. a Demographic variables and product category dummies as control variables are not shown to save space. R-squares are reported in the order of variance explained in CBI/identity-promoting/identity-sustaining behavior. **po0.001. *po0.01 (one-tailed tests). 0.42/ 0.35/ 0.61 0.61/ 0.49/ 0.66 0.37/ 0.44/ 0.67 0.49/ 0.40/ 0.73 0.49/ 0.43/ 0.64 0.49/ 0.29/ 0.67 0.42/ 0.28/ 0.62 0.40/ 0.31/ 0.57 0.51/ 0.20/ 0.57 0.39/ 0.38/ 0.63 0.48/ 0.29/ 0.63 0.43/ 0.45/ 0.60 0.28/ 0.30/ 0.60 0.47/ 0.15/ 0.56 0.55/ 0.30/ 0.70 0.50/ 0.38/ 0.63 0.27** 0.09 0.09 0.10 0.09 0.34** 0.18* 0.21* 0.18* 0.34** 0.06 0.21** 0.32** 0.23** 0.13* 0.35** 0.03** 0.05 0.06 0.07** 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.09* 0.06 0.05 0.02 0.00 0.04 0.03 0.00 0.03 0.04 0.07 0.01 0.01 0.09 0.08 CBI  uncertainty avoidance-sustaining Perceived quality  uncertainty avoidance-sustaining CBI  perceived quality  un. avoidance-sustaining (Hypothesis 6) Covariates Brand image-CBI Demographic and product categories-CBIa R-squares 0.12 0.05 0.01 0.03 0.06 0.05 0.01 0.08 0.00 0.04 0.05 0.02 0.05 0.04 0.03 0.02 0.01 0.04 0.00 0.04 0.02 0.01 0.12 0.02 0.02 0.02 319 created the interaction terms using these scores, and reran the analysis. The structural results of this model remained essentially the same. We also tested whether CBI fully mediates the relationships among self–brand incongruity, perceived quality, and identity-sustaining and identity-promoting behavior. The results suggest that CBI partially mediates the relationship among self–brand incongruity, perceived quality, and identity-sustaining behavior. When we include CBI in the model, the direct path from self-brand incongruity to identity-promoting behavior is significant but much weaker (b¼0.03, po0.001), and that between perceived quality and identity-sustaining behavior remains significant (b¼0.24, po0.001). However, the direct relationship from self–brand incongruity and perceived quality to identitypromoting behavior becomes nonsignificant in the presence of CBI, in support of the full mediation role of CBI. Journal of International Business Studies Consumer–brand identification Son K Lam et al 320 GENERAL DISCUSSION Consistent with Katz’s (1960) theory and the widely accepted perspective on mixed exchange in marketing, we propose and empirically tested an interactive symbolic–instrumental framework of CBI. Our research attempts to answer two questions: (1) Is there an interaction between symbolic and instrumental drivers of CBI antecedents and consequences? (2) How generalizable is this interaction across consumers with different cultural orientations? The empirical findings shed lights on the symbolic– instrumental drivers of consumer–brand relationship antecedents and consequences, and provide international marketing managers with important implications. Theoretical Implications Symbolic–instrumental drivers of CBI correlates Previous marketing research has focused mainly on either self–brand incongruity or perceived quality in explaining consumer attitudes toward the brand and consumer behavior. However, Belk (1988) laments that self–brand congruity captures only part of how consumers incorporate possessions into their self-concept. Fournier (1998) has shared the same concern. In response to this viewpoint, we show that the absence of self–brand incongruity is important in building CBI, but its importance is universally contingent on the instrumental driver, and vice versa. Our study is also among the very first to test CBI correlates from an internationally diverse sample of actual consumers. When we compared the relative strength of the coefficients across predictors within each country, we found several notable patterns. First, the interaction between CBI and perceived quality in predicting identity-sustaining behavior was weak across countries. Second, CBI partially mediated the relationships between self–brand incongruity, perceived quality and identity-sustaining behavior, but fully mediated the relationship between self–brand incongruity, perceived quality and identity-promoting behavior. These results suggest that repurchase intention can serve as both functional utility maximization and identitysustaining behavior. This finding is consistent with Bagozzi’s (2000) theorization, which refers to the intent to engage in these behaviors as I-intention and We-intention, respectively. More specifically, repurchase intention is essentially an individual Journal of International Business Studies behavior that serves only a specific consumer’s purpose. In contrast, identity-promoting behavior is social in nature. It is necessary for consumers to have a strong identification with a brand to view the brand’s success as their own, and to ensure the brand they identify with is also viewed positively by others to motivate them to engage in identitypromoting behavior. Role of cultural orientations The role of individual-level cultural orientations in the symbolic–instrumental framework of CBI is surprisingly limited. On the antecedent side, we found that the interaction between self–brand incongruity and perceived quality was universal. Furthermore, the two-way interactions between perceived quality – but not self–brand incongruity – and each of the two cultural orientations are positive and significant. This suggests that symbolic attributes can be a universal selling point to build CBI. On the consequence side, we found that collectivism enhanced the interaction of symbolic–instrumental drivers in predicting identitypromoting behavior, and that an orientation of high uncertainty avoidance impaired identitysustaining behavior. However, the effect size of these significant interactions was not strong, especially the moderating effect of uncertainty avoidance. Moreover, when we compared the country-specific results with the results from the pooled data, the variation in the fixed effect of these interactions was large. In addition, these interactions were significant in only two of the 15 countries in the data (Spain and Italy for identity-promoting behavior, and Denmark and Romania for identity-sustaining behavior). Consequently, the empirical results suggest that the proposed symbolic–instrumental framework of CBI should hold true in various countries. Implications for Brand Managers and International Marketing Managers Brand managers spend billions of dollars creating points of difference or incorporating competitors’ attributes to achieve points of parity. Consumers are constantly asked to compare brands. This is not a new phenomenon. However, with shorter product life cycles and innovation speed, pioneer marketers are continually introducing new product features. Second movers are more aggressive. In contrast, the image of brands is likely to remain stable. It is in this new consumption context that consumers often find themselves tangled in a Consumer–brand identification Son K Lam et al 321 paradox: should they simplify their decision process by focusing on brands that are congruent with the self (symbolic utility maximization), or should they complicate the decision process, especially for high-involvement consumption, by trying to identify the best attributes available (functional utility maximization)? This paradox is not always easy to resolve, and represents a daunting task for international marketing and brand managers. In addition, as competition and globalization intensify, these managers look for customer engagement, not just repeat purchase. In this context, our study has important managerial implications by pointing out the nature of the interactive effects of symbolic–instrumental drivers of CBI correlates. First, the study informs brand managers and international marketing managers that a misalignment of symbolic–instrumental attributes universally impairs consumer–brand relationships, which in turn lowers their identity-sustaining and identity-promoting behavior. Thus consumers’ decisions not to buy a brand may not be diagnostic of the product quality but rather of the brand’s symbolic values, or vice versa. More broadly, we capture these misalignments in a 2  2 matrix in Table 3 with two dimensions: symbolic incongruity and instrumental congruity.3 Previous research has demonstrated that symbolic drivers, such as brand personality, brand identity, and consumer personality, are sticky and difficult to change, while instrumental drivers are more amenable to improvement or erosion. As Table 3 shows, the most undesirable cell is Cell 3, in which consumers do not find the instrumental (i.e., utilitarian) or symbolic values of the brands attractive enough. Cell 2 is the most desirable, and brand managers’ task should be to maintain consumers’ positive perceptions of the instrumental Table 3 Typology of symbolic-instrumental (mis)alignments Symbolic incongruity (difficult to change) Instrumental attributes High congruity (easy to change) Low High (mismatch) Low (match) Cell 1 Misalignment Type A Cell 2 Perfect match Cell 3 Complete mismatch Cell 4 Misalignment Type B values. For brands in Cell 4, brand managers should invest in enhancing consumers’ perceptions of the brands’ instrumental values. Cell 1 is the most challenging cell, in which consumers perceive the brand as good on the instrumental dimension but do not desire its symbolic values. Because changing consumers’ perceptions of the symbolic values of a brand is time consuming and costly, brand managers should ask the following questions: (1) How important is the symbolic value of the brand in driving consumer attitudes and behavior relative to the instrumental driver? (2) In addition to brand personality, how much can the company improve consumers’ perceptions of their symbolic values if the company takes on corporate social responsibility initiatives? (3) How large is the consumer segment in that cell? The results also suggest that symbolic attributes such as self–brand congruity can be a marketing universal in driving CBI, while the role of perceived quality in CBI formation is contingent on consumer cultural orientations. Investment in a consistent brand personality that consumers can relate to and a corporate social responsibility program that resonates with consumers can give brand managers more leverage across countries than customizing products to different nations. In addition, by screening competitors using Table 3, brand managers can unravel new market opportunities by improving on the dimension on which competitors are weak. Therefore Table 3 can serve as a new way to segment the market and enhance brand management. Finally, the results suggest that consumer cultural orientations play a role, although a limited one, on the consequences side. These results imply that international brand managers who market to collectivist consumers can leverage the synergy between CBI and perceived quality, because these consumers are likely to promote the high-quality brands with which they identify. Limitations and Further Research Our empirical results should be interpreted within our study limitations. Although the multinational dataset is uniquely suitable for addressing the research questions we raised, the study is not free from limitations, and thus raises other questions that further research could explore. First, we confined the study to a business-to-consumer context. Although the multinational nature and multiple product categories of the study give us confidence in concluding that the findings are robust and Journal of International Business Studies Consumer–brand identification Son K Lam et al 322 generalizable across several countries and contexts, further research should explore the symbolic– instrumental interactive effects we examined here in a business-to-business context (e.g., Geyskens, Steenkamp, & Kumar, 1999) or in other categories (e.g., banking services). For example, it might be the case that buyers in business-to-business markets identify with brands, but perceived quality may play a more important role in driving their decisions. Second, the misalignment of symbolic–instrumental drivers of CBI has not received much academic attention. We assumed that consumers can develop simultaneous perception of the two types of drivers. Such an assumption is not ungrounded, because consumers are exposed to abundant information about the brand identity and can infer perceived quality from the brand image, as our model suggests. Further research might explore the antecedents of these misalignments. Third, we rely on consumers’ self-reported data. Although the main focus of our study is interaction effects that cannot be an artifact of common method biases, further research that uses an objective dependent variable (e.g., actual net behavior, actual repurchase) and time-lagged data can further validate the findings. Fourth, we adopted PLS as the analytical method. Although this choice is particularly suited for the predictive and exploratory nature of the study and the complexity of the model being estimated, further research that zeros in on specific aspects of the framework and relies on other estimation methods, such as covariance-based methods, will be useful. Finally, we attempted to include a more comprehensive scope of the nomological network at the cost of including a more refined operationalization of self–brand incongruity and CBI. Although previous research has verified the six-item CBI scale, further research could enhance the construct’s measurement by including more items for each dimension. We operationalized self–brand incongruity as the Euclidean distance between the brand and self personality traits and corporate social responsibility concerns. Research with a richer conceptualization (e.g., ideal or actual self incongruities) and direct measure of this construct might be useful. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The first author thanks his advisor, Professor Michael Ahearne, and the committee members, Assistant Professor Ye Hu, Professor Ed Blair, and Professor Bob Keller, for their useful comments during the development of this project as part of his dissertation. Special thanks to Professor C. B. Bhattacharya for helpful comments on an earlier version, and Professor Wynn Chin for the PLS Graph license. The authors also thank three anonymous reviewers and the Area Editor, Daniel Bello, for their guidance during the review process. NOTES These five categories reflect variation in terms of their symbolic, sensory, and functional meaning (Park, Jaworski, & MacInnis, 1986; Roth, 1995). The ten brands are: Heineken, Budweiser, Nike, Adidas, Nokia, Motorola, McDonald’s, Burger King, eBay, and Amazon. 2 Country-specific correlation matrices are available on request. 3 Note that we do not propose that the two drivers are equally important across all product categories. 1 REFERENCES Aaker, J. L. 1997. Dimensions of brand personality. Journal of Marketing Research, 34(3): 347–356. Agustin, C., & Singh, J. 2005. Curvilinear effects of consumer loyalty determinants in relational exchanges. Journal of Marketing Research, 42(1): 96–108. Ahearne, M., Bhattacharya, C. B., & Gruen, T. 2005. 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Also, the common practice among marketing researchers is to model consumer brand choices based on product attributes and marketing mix (e.g., Guadagni & Little, 1983, and many subsequent extensions). However, according to the original multi-attribute utility theory (Lancaster, 1966), consumer utility includes not only a brand’s functional attributes but also its sociopsychological attributes. Similarly, McFadden (1986: 284) posits that it is necessary to incorporate psychometric data in choice models, because these factors also shape the utility function. Surprisingly, only recently has research on choice models revived the need to incorporate softer, nonproduct-related attributes, such as customers’ attitudes and perceptions, into models of brand choice and brand switching (e.g., Ashok, Dillon, & Yuan, 2002; Erdem et al., 2006). This research, however, treats functional utility (corresponding to the instrumental driver in Katz’s, 1960, conceptualization) and other utilities as additive rather than interactive. Note that Katz (1960) uses the word “functional” to refer to all the functions an attitude serves. Consumer Psychology Roots In psychology, Katz (1960) posits that an attitude can serve various functions. Two important functions that have received the most attention in marketing research are the symbolic and instrumental functions. However, our survey of the literature reveals a multitude of perspectives of how these drivers are linked together. The linear, sequential perspective Walker and Olson (1991) use the means–end chain goal to theorize that product knowledge affects self-knowledge linearly. In other words, they treat the self as the end in the means–end relationship. This perspective is also consistent with Young and Feigin’s (1975) “grey benefit chain,” which links product attributes to benefits and, ultimately, to emotional payoff. Sirgy and colleagues (1991) treat self–brand congruity (a symbolic construct) as an antecedent to functional congruity (an instrumental construct). From this perspective, self–brand congruity as a cognitive scheme at higher levels in the cognitive hierarchy is more accessible, and is likely to be processed before concrete schemes, such as functional congruity. Thus it follows that symbolic variables may bias perceptions of instrumental variables. Note, however, that Sirgy and colleagues find that the bias produced by top-down thinking is only moderate. Nevertheless, their perspective, which goes from abstract cognition to more specific cognition, is in contrast with Walker and Olson’s (1991) means–end chain model. The independent, dual-drivers perspective The independent, dual-drivers perspective originates from the influential work of Gardner and Levy (1955). Through qualitative research, they demonstrate (p. 39) that “products and brands have interwoven sets of characteristics and are complexly evaluated by consumers.” In Keller’s (2008) customer-based brand equity pyramid, brand performance and brand imagery are two key components of brand meanings. Similarly, Mittal (2006) contends that possessions become the extended self in two ways: (1) they become instrumental because of their functional benefits; and (2) they become identity implementing, because they enhance self-expression through self–brand congruity. In line with this dual-driver perspective, Brown and Dacin (1997) show that the association between corporate ability (i.e., capability for producing products) and corporate social responsibility can have different effects on consumer responses to products. Homburg, Wieseke, and Hoyer (2009) propose the social identity perspective as an alternative to the traditional satisfaction-based service–profit chain, but do not examine the interaction between customer satisfaction and customer–company identification. Several empirical studies based on social identity theory have also hinted at the differential effects of the instrumental component (e.g., customer satisfaction with functional attributes) and the symbolic component (e.g., company prestige) on customer identification with companies and nonprofit organizations (Ahearne et al., 2005; Arnett et al., 2003; Bhattacharya, Rao, & Glynn, 1995; Donavan et al., 2006; Kuenzel & Halliday, 2008). Other research has also treated the symbolic and instrumental components of people’s attitude and behavior as drivers that function independently (e.g., Lievens & Highhouse, 2003). Journal of International Business Studies Consumer–brand identification Son K Lam et al 326 Conceptually, the dual-drivers perspective is consistent with hygiene theory (Herzberg, 1966), which contends that individual needs can be classified into two independent categories: (1) basic or hygiene needs, and (2) growth or higher-order needs. In other words, factors that drive dissatisfaction are not the same as satisfiers. From the means– end model we have just discussed, we can infer that instrumental drivers are lower-order hygienes, and symbolic drivers are higher-order motivators. In fact, Agustin and Singh (2005) view transactional satisfaction (which is highly correlated with perceived quality) as a lower-order need. If the instrumental and symbolic drivers are processed independently, the prediction is that the interaction between them in driving consumer brand attitude and brand-related behavior will not be statistically significant. Herzberg’s theory is not without controversy (Bockman, 1971). In Lindsay, Marks, and Gorlow’s (1967) survey of the literature, they found that empirical research that relies on Journal of International Business Studies the theory produced mixed results. They revised Herzberg’s theory, and found a positive interaction between hygiene factors and growth motivators in predicting job satisfaction. The symbolic–instrumental interactive perspective that we propose reconciles the existing perspectives. First, it takes into consideration both symbolic and instrumental drivers of consumer– brand relationship correlates. Second, it allows for the linear sequential flowing from functional means (e.g., perceived quality) to symbolic ends (e.g., CBI). Third, it complements Sirgy and colleagues’ (1991) perspective by hypothesizing that the bottom-up process that Walker and Olson (1991) propose is as important as the top-down bias that self–brand congruity exerts on functional congruity. In other words, our interactive perspective conceptualizes the bias that Sirgy and colleagues (1991) mentioned as a mutually compensatory process between instrumental and symbolic drivers. APPENDIX B Table B1 Sample description France UK Germany Spain Italy Sweden Denmark Switzerland Slovakia Turkey Romania Poland US All 228 356 409 367 353 278 619 727 416 520 375 326 382 361 202 5919 Male (%) 58.30 54.50 42.10 53.70 53.30 37.80 52.70 39.80 64.90 62.10 68.80 69.30 52.40 61.20 54.00 54.20 Age (%) o20 21–35 35–55 455 0.90 28.50 49.60 21.10 3.10 23.30 52.50 24.20 4.20 43.30 38.40 14.20 1.10 23.70 52.30 22.90 3.40 33.10 48.40 15.00 1.80 52.50 42.10 3.60 2.30 48.80 43.30 5.70 1.10 36.50 52.40 10.00 2.20 30.00 55.80 12.00 3.30 29.80 52.10 14.80 2.70 47.50 37.60 12.30 9.50 70.20 19.90 0.30 4.20 56.50 35.60 3.70 8.30 64.80 21.10 5.80 26.20 52.00 21.80 0.00 3.10 40.40 44.20 12.30 Education (%) High school or less Undergraduate Master Postgraduate 46.90 27.60 17.10 8.30 43.50 37.40 15.70 3.40 28.60 42.10 17.80 11.50 44.70 35.70 7.40 12.30 63.50 11.00 23.20 2.30 29.10 29.90 25.90 15.10 47.20 26.50 11.60 14.70 6.20 43.20 27.00 23.70 45.00 22.80 17.80 14.40 41.30 22.10 28.10 8.50 46.90 42.10 6.10 4.80 23.00 59.20 14.10 3.70 22.50 37.40 36.10 3.90 41.30 13.00 41.60 4.20 19.30 37.10 22.80 20.80 35.90 33.60 20.10 10.40 75.40 70.80 63.60 63.80 67.10 75.50 63.80 75.80 76.40 71.70 66.40 62.60 76.20 66.50 74.80 68.70 Marital status (%) Single Married Other 26.30 57.50 16.20 27.20 55.90 16.90 32.80 45.20 22.00 27.00 56.10 16.90 40.20 43.10 16.70 46.80 40.30 12.90 49.40 42.20 8.40 21.60 70.60 7.80 30.00 49.80 20.20 36.20 46.20 17.70 38.10 51.70 10.10 58.30 40.50 1.20 35.60 51.00 13.40 47.10 46.80 6.10 32.20 59.40 8.40 36.10 51.50 12.40 Area of residence (%) Urban Other 43.00 57.00 60.40 39.60 57.70 42.30 36.50 63.50 56.90 43.10 86.30 13.70 70.60 29.40 40.90 59.10 57.90 42.10 43.70 56.30 80.30 19.70 96.30 3.70 94.80 5.20 87.80 12.20 54.00 46.00 62.30 37.70 Sample size Income (%) Equal or above national average Son K Lam et al Holland Consumer–brand identification Belgium 327 Journal of International Business Studies Consumer–brand identification Son K Lam et al 328 APPENDIX C Table C1 Construct measures CBI (adapted from Bagozzi & Dholakia, 2006; Bergami & Bagozzi, 2000) Cognitive CBI CBI1. (Venn diagram item). My Identity [Brand]’s Identity A B Far Close Together but Separate C Very Small Overlap D Small Overlap E Moderate Overlap F G H Perceived quality (adapted from Netemeyer et al., 2004) To what extent do you agree/disagree with the following statements: QUA1. Compared to other brands of (product), [brand] is of very high quality. QUA2. [Brand] is the best brand in its product class. QUA3. [Brand] consistently performs better than all other brands of (product). Large Overlap Very Large Overlap Complete Overlap CBI2. (Verbal item). To what extent does your own sense of who you are (i.e., your personal identity) overlap with your sense of what [brand] represents (i.e., the [brand]’s identity)? Anchored by: 4¼Completely different, 0¼Neither similar nor different, and 4¼Completely similar. Affective CBI CBI3. When someone praises [brand], it feels like a personal compliment. CBI4. I would experience an emotional loss if I had to stop using [brand] Evaluative CBI CBI5. I believe others respect me for my association with [brand] CBI6. I consider myself a valuable partner of [brand] Individual-level cultural orientation (adapted from Erdem et al., 2006; Patterson et al., 2006) To what extent do you agree/disagree with the following statements: Collectivism COL1. Decisions reached in groups are better than those reached by single individuals. COL2. I usually sacrifice my self-interest for the benefit of my group. COL3. It is important to me to be useful to others. Uncertainty avoidance UAI1. Security is an important concern in my life. UAI2. Life is so uncertain that one must continuously be on the alert so as not to be caught at a disadvantage. UAI3. It is important to closely follow instructions and procedures. Self-brand congruity (adapted from Aaker’s, 1997, brand personality scale and Marin and Ruiz’s, 2007, social responsibility scale). How do you perceive the following characteristics for [brand] and yourself? Congruity scores for each dimension are reverse-coded of the Euclidean scores between self and the brand. Personality congruity Sincere (e.g., down to earth, honest, genuine) Exciting (e.g., daring, spirited, young, up-to-date) Competent (e.g., reliable, efficient, leader) Sophisticated (e.g., glamorous, charming, upper class) Rugged (e.g., tough, strong, outdoorsy) Social responsibility congruity Ethical business Child labor issues Local communities Environment Brand image (adapted from Bergami & Bagozzi, 2000) To what extent do you agree/disagree with the following statements: Brand Prestige [Brand] is respected [Brand] is admirable [Brand] is prestigious Brand uniqueness [Brand] is distinct from other [product category] brands [Brand] really “stands out” from other [product category] brands [Brand] is unique compared to other [product category] brands Identity-sustaining behavior (repurchase intention). To what extent do you agree/disagree with the following statements: SUS1. I consider [brand] my first choice when buying/using (category). SUS2. I will buy more [brand] products or services in the next few years. SUS3. The next time you are going to buy or use [product category], how likely is it that it will be [brand] again? (1¼“very unlikely,” 10¼“very likely”) Identity-promoting behavior (net behavior). To what extent do you agree/ disagree with the following statements: PRO1. I read comments from others about [brand] on websites and blogs. PRO2. I pass along good stories about [brand] to my friends and contacts via the internet. PRO3. I send or post remarks about the [brand] brand. PRO4. I watch and share online videos on [brand]. PRO5. I write comments about [brand] on a blog or website. PRO6. I participate actively in online communities or fan sites related to [brand]. PRO7. I respond to other people’s questions / remarks about [brand] on the internet. PRO8. I invite people to join discussion forums about [brand]. PRO9. I rave about how great the [brand] is to others on the internet. Notes: All scales are seven-point Likert, except CBI1, CBI2, and Item 3 in the identity-sustaining behavior scale. During the measurement invariance tests, the following items were dropped from the collectivism scale: “I like sharing little things with my neighbors,” “Being a unique individual is not important to me,” and “I’d rather depend on others than on myself.” The following items were dropped from the uncertainty avoidance scale: “It is important to consider dissenting views when making personal and social decisions,” and “Standardized work procedures are helpful.” Journal of International Business Studies Consumer–brand identification Son K Lam et al 329 APPENDIX D Analytical Notes Exploratory factor analysis and measurement invariance Consistent with Van de Vijver and Leung’s (1997) work, the preliminary analyses began with an exploratory factor analysis to explore across countries, which included the item characteristics, itemto-total correlations across the measuring items of each construct across countries, and factor loading pattern of all items across all constructs. After we dropped five cultural orientation items (see Appendix C), the final set of scale items yielded the hypothesized factor structure across countries, and none of the items cross-loaded heavily onto other unintended factors. Therefore we proceeded with multigroup confirmatory factor analyses to test measurement invariance before testing the structural model (Steenkamp & Baumgartner, 1998). Because PLS estimation does not provide a fit index for the models that allows for testing measurement invariance, and the structural equation modeling estimation does not allow for a measurement invariance test of formative constructs, we specified CBI as a second-order reflective construct (instead of a second-order formative construct) and used the fit index of the full structural equation modeling as a proxy. The configural invariance model in which all loadings were freely estimated yielded good fit (w2(4590)¼15,411.25, comparative fit index [CFI]¼ 0.918, Tucker–Lewis index [TLI]¼0.906, root mean square error of approximation [RMSEA]¼0.02, Akaike information criterion [AIC]¼17,571.25, and Browne–Cudec criterion [BCC]¼17,759.08). In multiple-group analyses, the BCC imposes a slightly greater penalty than AIC for model complexity. Because the Bayes information criterion is normally reported only for a single-group analysis, we do not report it here. All factor loadings were highly significant across all 15 countries, and most of the standardized factor loadings exceeded 0.60. The full metric invariance model in which all the factor loadings were constrained to be invariant across countries also yielded good fit (w2(4856)¼16,175.91, CFI¼0.915, TLI¼0.907, RMSEA¼0.02, AIC¼ 17803.91, and BCC¼17,945.48). Although the increase in chi-square is significant (Dw2(266)¼764.66, po0.00), the alternative fit indexes showed only minimal changes. Steenkamp and Baumgartner (1998) recommend that, in comparing model fit, researchers should not rely exclusively on the chisquare difference test, because of its sensitivity to sample size, and that other fit indexes such as CFI, TLI, and AIC should also be used. Using this heuristic, we concluded that cross-national invariance was supported. Then, we specified a maineffects-only structural model in PLS to extract latent scores for each country. We create interactions of these latent scores to test the model with interactions (Chin, 1998). Discriminant validity Table 1 shows that the square of the zero-order correlation between any two constructs is smaller than the average variance extracted by the measurement items of the corresponding constructs, demonstrating discriminant validity (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). We also tested the discriminant validity of the focal constructs. Because there is no procedure for testing discriminant validity between a reflective construct and a formative construct, we model CBI as a reflective construct, and use the result of that model as a proxy for discriminant validity. The comparison of the AVE and the square of pairwise correlation suggests that discriminant validity was established. The models in which the correlations between the latent constructs were constrained to unity also yielded significantly worse fits, providing evidence of discriminant validity (for the focal pair of constructs, CBI-perceived quality, the change in model fit is Dw2(1)¼48.5, po0.01). Common method biases The conceptual framework of this study has two formative constructs (CBI, self–brand incongruity), and is focused primarily on interaction effects. Prior research has shown that, statistically, interaction effects cannot be artificially created by common method biases (Siemsen, Roth, & Oliveira, 2010). Conceptually, consumers who fill out the survey are much less likely to be able to guess the interaction effects that we test. Podsakoff et al. (2003: 900) recommend that “when formativeindicator constructs are an integral part of a study, researchers must be even more careful than normal in designing their research because procedural controls are likely to be the most effective way to control common measurement biases.” Consistent with this recommendation, we designed our survey such that it included a variety of question types and response formats, including Venn diagram and Likert scales of different lengths; the self–brand incongruity score is a Euclidean score calculated from a number of questions. The items of the focal construct of CBI appeared in three different sections in the survey, some of which appeared after we asked consumers about the dependent variables. These procedural remedies help with reducing common method biases (Podsakoff et al., 2003). Journal of International Business Studies 330 Journal of International Business Studies APPENDIX E Table E1 Factor loadings and path weights for focal constructs France UK Germany Spain Italy Sweden Denmark Switzerland Slovakia Turkey Romania Poland US All 0.29/0.45/ 0.43a 0.89 0.90 0.93 0.94 0.92 0.94 0.26/0.46/ 0.43 0.85 0.91 0.96 0.96 0.93 0.95 0.26/0.45/ 0.46 0.86 0.87 0.93 0.93 0.95 0.95 0.26/0.44/ 0.43 0.85 0.88 0.95 0.96 0.96 0.96 0.26/0.45/ 0.45 0.83 0.90 0.94 0.94 0.95 0.96 0.29/0.44/ 0.44 0.92 0.93 0.94 0.94 0.93 0.94 0.24/0.47/ 0.45 0.86 0.88 0.95 0.95 0.94 0.94 0.26/0.46/ 0.44 0.89 0.91 0.94 0.95 0.94 0.94 0.26/0.47/ 0.44 0.87 0.90 0.95 0.96 0.93 0.94 0.28/0.45/ 0.43 0.86 0.89 0.93 0.93 0.93 0.93 0.33/0.44/ 0.40 0.89 0.89 0.94 0.95 0.91 0.92 0.30/0.41/ 0.42 0.89 0.87 0.93 0.94 0.95 0.96 0.30/0.42/ 0.43 0.87 0.88 0.92 0.93 0.94 0.94 0.31/0.42/ 0.42 0.90 0.90 0.93 0.93 0.94 0.94 0.30/0.41/ 0.41 0.89 0.89 0.95 0.95 0.94 0.95 0.29/0.44/ 0.43 0.88 0.90 0.94 0.95 0.94 0.95 Perceived quality QUA1 0.95 QUA2 0.97 QUA3 0.84 0.91 0.96 0.83 0.85 0.95 0.84 0.93 0.95 0.83 0.95 0.93 0.84 0.92 0.95 0.81 0.87 0.95 0.92 0.95 0.97 0.85 0.91 0.95 0.83 0.90 0.92 0.84 0.93 0.94 0.82 0.93 0.93 0.91 0.92 0.92 0.90 0.87 0.95 0.86 0.94 0.94 0.88 0.92 0.95 0.86 Collectivism COL1 COL2 COL3 0.40 0.81 0.59 0.69 0.73 0.65 0.47 0.67 0.57 0.60 0.78 0.55 0.68 0.68 0.57 0.49 0.81 0.74 0.48 0.81 0.64 0.52 0.82 0.58 0.65 0.72 0.62 0.64 0.83 0.62 0.76 0.81 0.78 0.75 0.72 0.69 0.55 0.80 0.66 0.43 0.66 0.74 0.59 0.78 0.66 Uncertainty avoidance UAI1 0.71 UAI2 0.67 UAI3 0.72 0.64 0.58 0.76 0.61 0.85 0.74 0.70 0.70 0.74 0.55 0.77 0.65 0.74 0.71 0.69 0.77 0.70 0.85 0.49 0.62 0.43 0.65 0.59 0.64 0.58 0.69 0.77 0.75 0.73 0.76 0.78 0.89 0.77 0.57 0.72 0.88 0.68 0.85 0.82 0.59 0.64 0.79 0.67 0.74 0.65 Identity-sustaining SUS1 0.93 SUS2 0.83 SUS3 0.90 0.93 0.83 0.87 0.87 0.80 0.84 0.94 0.85 0.89 0.93 0.85 0.85 0.92 0.83 0.85 0.92 0.83 0.86 0.86 0.78 0.87 0.90 0.84 0.87 0.92 0.82 0.88 0.92 0.87 0.85 0.90 0.88 0.85 0.90 0.86 0.88 0.91 0.85 0.82 0.92 0.91 0.89 0.91 0.82 0.87 Identity-promoting PRO1 0.75 PRO2 0.76 PRO3 0.89 PRO4 0.80 PRO5 0.93 PRO6 0.88 PRO7 0.90 PRO8 0.92 PRO9 0.94 0.60 0.66 0.88 0.84 0.93 0.94 0.88 0.93 0.91 0.70 0.77 0.84 0.87 0.96 0.96 0.81 0.92 0.84 0.73 0.72 0.87 0.90 0.92 0.96 0.86 0.95 0.89 0.63 0.76 0.84 0.87 0.92 0.91 0.83 0.94 0.94 0.79 0.89 0.94 0.82 0.91 0.91 0.85 0.95 0.93 0.72 0.89 0.91 0.84 0.94 0.96 0.90 0.95 0.91 0.70 0.71 0.87 0.82 0.91 0.94 0.84 0.90 0.86 0.75 0.71 0.90 0.84 0.94 0.95 0.79 0.93 0.89 0.65 0.73 0.79 0.80 0.94 0.93 0.70 0.92 0.92 0.62 0.60 0.86 0.75 0.93 0.90 0.83 0.92 0.86 0.75 0.87 0.85 0.87 0.90 0.92 0.94 0.90 0.89 0.75 0.80 0.91 0.82 0.88 0.79 0.77 0.82 0.65 0.76 0.85 0.86 0.83 0.92 0.94 0.84 0.93 0.93 0.81 0.83 0.93 0.90 0.91 0.91 0.91 0.91 0.93 0.76 0.81 0.89 0.86 0.93 0.92 0.87 0.92 0.87 CBI CBI1 CBI2 CBI3 CBI4 CBI5 CBI6 a 0.60 0.82 0.62 Path weights of the three formative dimensions of CBI. Notes: Within-country standardized loadings. All factor loadings are significant at po0.01. Son K Lam et al Holland Consumer–brand identification Belgium Consumer–brand identification Son K Lam et al 331 ABOUT THE AUTHORS Son K Lam is Assistant Professor of Marketing at Terry College of Business, University of Georgia. His research focuses on relationship marketing from a social identity theory perspective. Dr Lam’s research on sales management, internal marketing, and consumer-brand relationships has appeared in the Journal of Marketing Research, the Journal of Marketing, and the Journal of Retailing. Michael Ahearne is the C. T. Bauer Chaired Professor in Marketing and Executive Director of the Sales Excellence Institute at the University of Houston. His research has focused primarily on two areas: the performance of sales organizations, and building brand identity and corporate image. Niels Schillewaert is Professor in Marketing at the Vlerick Management School (Belgium) and owner, managing partner of InSites Consulting USA. His research interests are in branding, consumer insighting and innovation, and social media. Accepted by Daniel Bello, Area Editor, 20 October 2011. This paper has been with the authors for two revisions. Journal of International Business Studies