Purpose - This study aims to investigate the effect of brand personality
and consumer ethnocentrism on perceived quality and purchase intentions
in China's sportswear market. Design/methodology/approach - In order to
examine and compare the effect of brand personality and consumer
ethnocentrism on the evaluation of product quality and purchase
intention toward domestic and foreign brands, COB (the country with
which the brand or firm is associated) and COM (the country in which
final production takes place) cues were used in this study. Chinese
college students represented the sample of 385 respondents. Structural
equation modeling was used to investigate the causal relationships among
brand personality, consumer ethnocentrism, perceived quality, and
purchase intention. Findings - Results revealed that brand personality
has a significant effect on Chinese consumers' product quality
perceptions and purchase intentions toward both domestic and foreign
brands. Furthermore, it is found that Chinese consumers' ethnocentric
tendencies have no significant impact on their intentions to buy either
domestic or foreign sportswear brands. However, ethnocentric Chinese
consumers do positively evaluate the quality of domestic brands when
domestic brands are also made domestically and negatively evaluate the
quality of foreign brands when foreign brands are also manufactured
non-domestically. Originality/value - The study contributes
theoretically and empirically to research on the effects of brand image
and consumer ethnocentrism in emerging markets. The findings from this
study will help domestic and international marketers have a better
understanding of the role of brand personality and consumer ethnocentric
tendencies in influencing young Chinese consumers' product evaluation
and purchase intentions. In addition, few studies have simultaneously
examined the effects of brand image and consumer ethnocentrism
(moderated by COO) on consumers' product evaluations and purchase
intentions, which provided new research and managerial implications.