UK Consumers’ Perceived Risk of Buying Products from Emerging Economies: A Moderated Mediation Model

While considerable research has been conducted on consumer attitude towards
foreign products, most of these studies focuses on the attitude of products from Western developed countries. Our study intends to investigate the effects of consumers’ national identification and culture sensitivity on their perceived risk of buying products from Eastern developing countries. Especially, this study advances the literature by identifying the mediation effect of consumer ethnocentrism and the moderating effect of consumer value consciousness. Taking China and India as focal emerging economies, the consumer survey (n=308) in the UK produced the following results. First, UK consumers’ national
identification is positively related to their perceived risk of buying eastern products through consumer ethnocentrism, whilst their cultural sensitivity has a negative relationship. Second, the effect of consumer ethnocentrism on the perceived risk of buying eastern products is moderated by consumer value consciousness. Third, value consciousness also attenuates the indirect relationships between national identification /cultural sensitivity and perceived risk via consumer ethnocentrism.