國家形象及主觀知識在態度改變上之研究：以經典品牌醜聞初期之抗拒說服為例

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(1)Examining Resistance to Persuasion After Prototype Brand Transgressions: The Effect of Subjective Knowledge and Ethnocentrism on Consumer Attitude Change. Graduate Institute of Management Taipei, Taiwan 2016. Date of Submission: January, 22nd 2016 by Christoph Lex.

(2) ABSTRACT Considering the increasing amount of brand transgressions, their impacts on consumer attitudes have received very limited attention by literature. Research on resistance to persuasion and attitude change has shown that individuals are motivated to maintain stable belief systems and are reluctant to change their attitudes towards products, brands or services. Relatively little is known about attitude formation after brand scandals. In this study, the author investigates (1) the influence of subjective knowledge, ethnocentrism and country-of-origin on magnitude and mode of individual attitude change after a major brand transgression as well as (2) the underlying resistance strategies used to prevent attitude change. The results of a study reveal that the likelihood of employing efficient resistance strategies can be used as substitute for attitude retention. The level of subjective knowledge and ethnocentrism show a positive interaction with the degree of attitude change. In contradistinction to the majority of research on country attitudes, attitude change is not influenced by a country-of-origin effect.. Keywords: country of origin, prototype theory, brand transgression, subjective knowledge, ethnocentrism, resistance to persuasion, social vigilantism. !. 2!.

(3) 1! Introduction+. 5!. 1.1! MOTIVATION+OF+RESEARCH+ 1.2! GOAL+OF+RESEARCH+. 6! 7!. 2! Literature+Review+. 8!. 2.1! ATTITUDE+CHANGE+AND+RESISTANCE+TO+PERSUASION+ 2.1.1! STRATEGIES!TO!RESIST!PERSUASION! 2.1.2! REASONS!FOR!RESISTANCE! 2.1.3! THE!STRATEGIES!AND!MOTIVES!FOR!RESISTANCE!TO!PERSUASION!FRAMEWORK! 2.1.4! LOW=!AND!HIGH=COGNITION!STRATEGIES! 2.2! BRAND+TRANSGRESSIONS+ 2.3! PROTOTYPE+BRANDS+ 2.4! COUNTRY+OF+ORIGIN+EFFECT+ 2.5! SUBJECTIVE+KNOWLEDGE+ 2.6! SOCIAL+VIGILANTISM+. 8! 9! 14! 15! 16! 17! 19! 20! 22! 23!. 3! Methodology+. 24!. 3.1! HYPOTHESES+ 3.2! QUALITATIVE+ANALYSIS+ 3.2.1! METHOD! 3.2.2! PARTICIPANTS! 3.2.3! PROCEDURE! 3.2.4! INTERVIEW!RESULTS! 3.3! QUANTITATIVE+ANALYSIS+ 3.3.1! DESIGN! 3.3.2! VARIABLES! 3.3.3! PARTICIPANTS! 3.3.4! PROCEDURE!AND!MEASUREMENT!. 24! 27! 27! 27! 28! 29! 35! 35! 36! 36! 37!. 4! Results+and+Discussion+. 41!. 4.1! ANALYSIS+OF+DESCRIPTIVE+STATISTICS+ 4.2! DATA+PREREQUISITES+AND+DATA+PREPARATION+ 4.2.1! VALIDITY! 4.2.2! RELIABILITY! 4.3! RESULTS+. 41! 44! 44! 47! 48!. 5! Implications+and+Limitations+. 65!. 5.1! MANAGERIAL+IMPLICATIONS+ 5.2! LIMITATIONS+AND+FURTHER+RESEARCH+. 65! 66!. Declaration+of+Academic+Integrity:+. 70!. 6! Appendix+. 81!. TABLE+OF+CONTENTS:+FIGURES+ TABLE+OF+CONTENTS:+TABLES+ INTERVIEW+TRANSLITERATIONS+. !. 81! 82! 137!. 3!.

(4) Abbreviations: AC:. Assertion of Confidence. AB:. Attitude Bolstering. ANOVA:. Analysis of Variance. AoC:. Assertions of Confidence. AV:. Avoidance (content). AVD:. Avoidance (compound variable, factor). CA:. Counter-Arguing. CO2:. Carbon-2-Oxide. COO:. Country-of-Origin. ENGMT:. Engagement. EC:. Ethnocentrism. FL:. Factor Level. NA:. Negative Affect. NO2:. Nitrous-2-Oxide. PENGMT:. Pure Engagement. R & D:. Research and Development. SD:. Source Derogation. SE:. Selective Exposure. SK:. Subjective Knowledge. SV:. Social Validation. SVG:. Social Vigilantism. USP:. Unique Selling Proposition. VW:. Volkswagen. !. 4!.

(5) 1!. Introduction. Brand transgressions1 are widely prevalent in the 21st century and are becoming an increasingly interesting field for researchers. The automotive industry in particular has been cluttered with brand scandals recently. Toyota was severely troubled by faulty brakes and unintended acceleration leading to a huge safety crisis in 2010 (Kingston, 2010). GM’s faulty ignitions switches killed more than 100 customers in 2015 (Spector and Matthews, 2015) and VW is currently facing its biggest scandal in the history of the German flagship company (Boston and Spector, 2015) deliberately using manipulative software to lower CO2 and NO2 emissions during exhaust emission tests. Surprisingly, history teaches us that even major scandals are not always as devastating as they are depicted by media, financial analysts or researchers. After Toyota’s scandal, the Japanese government raised public concerns and expected a change in public perception of Japan as a high-quality manufacturing CoO. They further argued that this backlash would eventually spillover to other Japanese brands and industries (Mochizuki, 2010). Flint expected that “it’s unlikely that we’ll ever again hear about wonderful Japanese quality compared to shoddy Detroit’s work” (Flint 2010). Against expectations, it came to nothing. How much a brand actually suffers from a scandal and how long it takes to recover is largely dependent on the researcher you ask. There is no overall agreement among researchers on the lethality of scandals for brands and their products. For companies, this can be thoroughly seen as good news. Consumer attitudes seem to be harder to change by brands committing major transgressions than originally expected by research. Consumers “are struck not by the ease of producing attitude change but by the rarity of it” (Miller, 1965, p. 121). This statement seems to be applicable for attitudes consumers form about their brands as well. However, the underlying cognitive mechanisms preventing consumers from changing their !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1. Brand transgressions are defined as „violations of consumer-brand-relationship-norms and refer to the breaches of the implicit or explicit rules guiding relationship performance and evaluation” (cf. Steinman, 2012, p. 77). !. 5!.

(6) attitudes towards transgressing brands in a negative way have received very little attention by researchers.. 1.1! Motivation of Research The main motivation for this study is derived by the lack of research on this topic. To the author’s knowledge, the link between brand transgressions and change in country images have only been examined in a unidirectional manner. Magnusson et al. (2014) identified potential spillover effect of prototype brand transgressions on attitude changes towards country images. However, reciprocity hasn’t been the target of any research even though the CoO effect is a well-researched psychological construct applied to countless of different scenarios and replicated frequently (Erickson et al. 1984, Knight and Calantone 2000, Loeffler 2001). Reviewing the abundance of research on the COO shows plausible grounds to suspect an interaction between COO and the likelihood of attitude changes due to prototype brand transgressions. Furthermore, Magnusson et al. didn’t take into account subjective (brand and product) knowledge as a variable or at least as a potential cofounding factor even though research shows that knowledge, respectively the consumer’s self brand connection (Cheng et al. 2012) is a crucial moderator for attitude formation and attitude change processes. For instance, the central route of Petty and Cacioppo’s famous elaboration likelihood model takes into account the participant’s knowledge (1984). In addition, the consumer’s brand and product knowledge in countries with long histories of product safety and quality such as Germany or Japan is closely linked to the country image itself and might weaken the potential impact of counter-attitudinal information. Moreover, the latest VW scandal is undoubtedly one of the biggest brand transgression in the latest history of Germany, a country with a very distinct, well-known country image and a high reputation for product quality standards. Finally, with the Volkswagen AG being both, the !. 6!.

(7) culprit in this scandal and a prototype brand2 for Germany as a COO, the topic is a highly relevant brand transgression with an unforeseeable impact on VW’s brand equity, consumer attitudes or the reputation of Germany as a high-quality product manufacturer. Therefore, studying brand transgressions provides learning opportunities about the nature of customer relationships and might identify new paths for marketers to foster this relationship (Altman and Taylor, 1973).. 1.2! Goal of Research A multitude of research on brand transgressions has shown that brand scandals have negative implications for brand evaluations as well as for relationship strength (Aaker et al. 2004). According to Ahluwalia et al., there has been a general agreement among researchers that negative information “is almost always devastating” and that there is a mostly “homogenous consumer response to negative publicity information” (2000, p. 203 f.). These assumptions were nourished by the negativity effect (Fiske 1980; Klein 1996; Skowronski and Carlston 1989) stating that negative information attracts more attention than positive information (Fiske 1980) and the high credibility of the source of information (Bond and Kirschbaum 1998). Publicity is considered a relatively credible source of information and therefore is more influential than other marketer-driven communications (Bond and Kirshenbaum 1998). The subject of brand transgression research has been the source of negative information while neglecting the recipient of the message and the recipient’s characteristics (Ahluwalia & Gurhan-Canli, 2000). However, the latest studies converged the notion that strongly positive brand attitudes are “relatively insulated from the impact of negative brand information” (Cheng 2011, p. 280) and seem to be almost “immune” to brand transgressions (Ahluwalia & Gurhan-Canli, 2000; !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 2. A country’s major corporate brands can be seen as prototypical exemplars of the country’s image. For instance, IKEA is a prototype brand for Sweden, McDonald’s a prototype brand for the US. !. 7!.

(8) Ahluwalia, Unnava, & Burnkrant, 2001; Chandler & Schwarz, 2010; Hess, Ganesan, & Klein, 2003; Swaminathan, Page, & Gürhan-Canli, 2007; Tax, Brown, & Chandrashekaran, 1998). Furthermore, Magnusson et al. showed that consumers were rather forgiving if scandals happened in developed countries such as Germany or Japan and were committed by prototypical brands: “The effects of brand transgressions are moderated by the degree of prototypicality of the transgressing brand and the level of development of the transgressing brand’s home country” (2014, p. 21). Based on the latest research and the assumption that attitude changes due to prototype brand transgressions in high developed COOs are surprisingly unlikely, this study’s goal is to apply these findings to the latest VW brand scandal. The main objective is to identify relevant interactions between country image, subjective knowledge (SK) and the strategies used to protect attitudes against dissonant information. Both, country image and knowledge, are suspected to boost the usage of cognitively effortful strategies to undermine the validity of counter-attitudinal information whereas the consumer’s Nationality is expected to be a cofounding variable triggering resistance due to an increased ethnocentric behavior.. 2!. Literature Review 2.1! Attitude Change and Resistance to Persuasion. Attitude change and resistance to persuasion has been extensively covered in psychological literature for several decades. Probably the most interesting characteristic about resistance and attitude change is the stability of attitudes. The latest research indicates that the impact of persuasion attempts is surprisingly limited. According to Miller (1965, p. 121) people “are not struck by the ease of attitude change, but by the rarity of it”. Ringold even assumes that individuals are motivated to resist persuasion (2002). Furthermore, Ringold is claiming that one. !. 8!.

(9) of the main reasons for the low likelihood of a successful persuasive communication is that consumers dislike the feeling of being influenced and have a natural motivation to resist persuasive attempts. Since persuasion attempts frequently differ in their level of sophistication and lack proper design or execution, resistance doesn’t necessarily have to be motivated but is simply a consequence of a poorly conducted persuasion attempt. Therefore, a differentiation has to be made between motivated resistance and outcome resistance. Knowles and Linn define the latter one as “the antithesis of persuasion” (2004, p. 3) whereas Sagarin et al. (2002) treat outcome resistance as a “lack of attitude change in response to a persuasion attempt” (Fransen et al., 2015, p. 1). Motivated resistance takes into consideration that consumers, who are exposed to well-designed persuasion attempts, are likely to make use certain resistance strategies. In doing so, people are avoiding the process of attitude change in favor of maintaining a state of behavioral and attitudinal consonance. The author’s understanding of resistance in this paper is grounded on McGuire’s work (1964), who understood resistance as a person’s characteristic which is subject to moderation by content or contextual message attributes. The following paragraphs are based on the latest work of Fransen et al. (2015) providing an extensive framework about existing resistance strategies and their underlying motives.. 2.1.1! Strategies to Resist Persuasion A review of the existing literature on resistance to persuasion indicates that prevailing strategies can be organized into four different clusters: avoidance (AV), contesting, biased processing and empowerment strategies. Strategies differ in the amount of cognition that is used to prevent an attitude change. Zuwerink Jacks and Cameron (2003) differentiate cognitive effortful strategies such as counter arguing (CA) or attitude bolstering (AB) from strategies like AV, social validation (SV) or source derogation (SD) where less cognition is involved. Furthermore, they. !. 9!.

(10) regard cognitive effortful strategies to be more effective in undermining the validity of dissonant information than low cognition strategies. AV strategies can be classified as passive strategies used to ignore counter-attitudinal information. Fransen et al. (2015, p. 2) consider AV as “perhaps the most straightforward means of protecting oneself from persuasive messages”. Since AV originated from the field of marketing communications, more specifically TV advertising (Brodin, 2007), it is meaningful to distinguish different AV behaviors. Speck and Elliot (1997) distinguish between physical AV (e.g. avoid product advertising in magazines by turning pages), mechanical AV (e.g. switching TV channels during commercial breaks) and cognitive AV (deliberate ignorance of commercial messages). Perhaps the most common manifestation of AV which has been replicated in a large number of experiments, is the selective exposure effect or confirmation bias. According to Brannon et al. (2007) the selective exposure effect was derived from Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory stating that individuals prefer to receive information which is supporting their attitudes while ignoring or avoiding dissonant or non-consistent pieces of information (1957). Festinger already unveiled that the strength of the selective exposure effect is influenced by the credibility of the counter-attitudinal arguments and further studies were able to replicate his findings (Lowin 1967, 1969, Frey 1981). The likelihood of the selective exposure effect also depends on attitude strength because maintaining consistent attitudes is more desirable than constantly changing attitudes. Brannon et al. (2007) demonstrated that participants preferred reading articles if the article’s headlines were consistent with their opinions. The more extreme their attitudes were, the stronger the tendency for selective exposure. Similar findings were observed by Knobloch-Westerwick and Meng (2009) who replicated Brannon’s et al. finding in an online reading experiment. Consequently, selective exposure effects are expected to be more evident for both, strong and extreme attitudes, since they exert more influence on cognition and behavior in general (Krosnick & Petty, 1995). Besides attitude strength and extremity, Smith et !. 10!.

(11) al. (2008) discovered that message range and target audience size also influence selective exposure. A widely used strategy to resist persuasion is to form counter arguments against the message (Wright, 1975; Zuwerink Jacks and Cameron, 2003). By “contesting the content”, consumers use cognition to reach disagreement with a counter-attitudinal message. Researchers commonly refer to CA as mediating element between a persuasive message and the anticipated attitudes and behavior (Festinger and Macoby, 1964; Silvia, 2006). Counter-arguments are formed by reflecting on the message’s arguments and activated when incoming information is dissonance with existing opinions or attitudes (Wright, 1973). Besides CA the content of a message, the source of a message might also be the target of a CA strategy. By using SD, individuals are questioning a source’s credibility or cast doubt on their trustworthiness or expertise (Abelson and Miller, 1967; Zuwerink Jacks and Cameron, 2003). For Wright (1973, 1975), SD requires less effort than CA since only the source of the message needs to be processed. Batinic and Appel stated that SD is less likely for non-commercial information whereas commercial messages will be more prone to source CA. Individuals may also resist counter-attitudinal messages by questioning the source’s persuasive strategies. Friedstad and Wright (1994) use their Persuasion Knowledge Model to propose that consumers form hypotheses about the strategies persuasion agents use to influence them. Tooth paste commercials will exclusively show models with flawless teeth even though individuals know that the reality looks quite different. They argue that once a persuasion strategy is discovered by the consumer, the meaning of the message will change and most likely trigger a resistance behavior. Another important set of strategies to resist persuasion is biased processing. By aligning or reducing content and relevance of a message to attitudes and behavior, individuals can resist dissonant information. Fransen et al. (2015) distinguish three different strategies distorting the effect of counter-attitudinal messages: weighting attributes, reducing impact and optimism bias. !. 11!.

(12) Whereas weighting attributes and reducing impact is distorting the content of the message, optimism bias is down-grading the relevance of the information. According to Ahluwalia (2000), people tend to attach more weight to consonant information while dissonant information is regarded as less important. While studying the Clinton /Lewinsky affair, Ahluwalia found out that people with a very positive attitude of the former US president lowered the importance their attached to personal traits such as honesty and morality in favor of leadership and intelligence (2000). Interestingly, the effect strength increased with the availability of information about his guilt. Consequently, the strength of this effect largely depends on the quality of the counter-attitudinal message. By reducing the impact of dissonant information, people avoid potential spillover or halo effects and isolate “judgments of the focal attribute from one’s other judgments” (Fransen et al., 2015, p. 4). Ahluwalia (2000) revealed that dissonant information didn’t cause halo or spillover effects when participants had a high motivation to resist counter-attitudinal information. They significantly lowered the effect negative information had on the overall evaluation of a topic. Following Ahluwalia’s findings, a loyal customer who receives dissonant information about a single product aspect is likely to isolate his opinion adjustment and avoid negative spillover or halo effects. By isolating VW’s latest actions to a single aspect (e.g. eco-friendliness), loyal VW owners are likely to maintain their attitudes about product quality, design or value for money. Spillover or halo effects will be triggered, if less loyal customers are confronted with dissonant information. A higher than advertised emission level might devalue the car’s overall attractiveness, the value for money or even spillover to a corporate level and compromising the company’s quality standards. For the sake of completeness, the optimism bias is another way of distorting the effect of dissonant information. Since people have a general tendency to believe that they are less likely to be the target of negative experiences (Weinstein, 1987). The optimism bias commonly appears with health information. Smokers who are aware about the risks of smoking would !. 12!.

(13) evaluate their personal lung cancer risk lower because of overoptimistic, biased reasoning such as stating a low likelihood of lung cancer for close relatives. Empowerment strategies are commonly used to resist persuasive information by boosting the self or one’s existing attitudes to lower the likelihood of a possible attitude change. Message recipients use strategies to reinforce self-confidence or their confidence in existing beliefs to counter persuasive attempts. While AB and SV are used to boost existing beliefs, individuals use self-assertion to reinforce their self-confidence (Fransen 2007). AB can be seen as a process of generating cognitions which are supporting existing beliefs (Lydon et al., 1988). While exposed to dissonant information, message recipients reevaluate the reasons for existing beliefs and behavior. However, counter-attitudinal messages are not questioned or refuted. For example, people with a favorable opinion on the death sentence are able to resist reasonable arguments against capital punishment by actively generating thoughts underscoring the benefits of the death sentence. Even though the counter-attitudinal information might be evaluated as reasonable, reinforcing existing beliefs and behavior prevents attitude changes. Besides CA, AB is the only resistance strategy that requires high cognitive efforts (Eagly & Chaiken, 1995). AB is more likely to occur when the persuasive messages are targeting on attitudes that are more central to self. Another way of reinforcing personal beliefs is SV. Validating one’s attitudes through interactions with or forming cognitions about like-minded people enables message recipients to resist dissonant information. Axsom et al. (1987) discovered that individuals formed heuristics about the accuracy of their own beliefs based on either positive or negative audience feedback. Zuwerink Jacks and Cameron (2003) claim that participants in their persuasion experiments used self-assertion to resist persuasive messages. High self-esteem individuals proved to be particularly confident about their own beliefs and unlikely to respond to dissonant information with a change in their attitudes. !. 13!.

(14) 2.1.2! Reasons for Resistance People choose a certain resistance strategy based on their motivation for resisting the message. Fransen et al. (2015) argue that motives triggering resistance can be categorized into threats to personal freedom, reluctance to change and concerns about deception. Brehm’s (1966) theory of psychological reactance offers a sophisticated framework explaining why treats to freedom often trigger resistance to persuasion. The theory states that individuals strive for independence and autonomy and show reactant behavior when they experience that personal freedoms or threatened or eliminated. A threat in freedom motivates individuals to maintain or restore freedoms that are subject to threats or restrictions (Brehm and Brehm, 1981). Therefore, reactance can be regarded as a motivational state that is reached when freedoms are endangered. “Persuasive messages, regardless of their congruities with personal beliefs, are frequently misperceived as external threats to personal freedom and often motivates people to engage less (more) of the encouraged (discouraged) behavior” (Fransen et al. 2015, p. 5). These so-called “boomerang-effects” (Ringold, 2002) do not only explain the low impact of persuasive information but also account for the opposition of the persuasive message. For Dillard and Shen (2005), reactance is a functional interaction of a cognitive and a highly affective response of CA persuasive information. Research showed that the likelihood of reactance is influenced by traits, age of message recipients and several message factors such as the use of imperative or assertive language language leaving message recipients no room for refusal (Kronrod et al., 2012). Individuals have a natural motivation to maintain existing attitudes and behavior which lowers the likelihood of changing their beliefs with persuasive attempts. As Steinburg (1992) puts it, change requires people to dismiss the known in favor of the unknown and triggers a feeling of not being in charge of the situation. For Conner (1992), this loss of control is the main reason for resistance. Consequently, reluctance to change can be caused by both, a natural disposition to change or a personal desire to retain beliefs and behavior. Factors affecting reluctance to !. 14!.

(15) change include dogmatism3 (Lau and Woodman, 1995), cultural dimensions (Gudykunst, 1997) such as Hofstede’s uncertainty-avoidance dimension (Hofstede, 1980) and the importance people attribute to certain attitudes and beliefs (Johnson and Eagly, 1989). Another motive of resistance to persuasion is simply the fact that people have a strong aversion against being fooled. Individuals tend to regard their system of beliefs to be appropriate and veritable and are more protective about their attitudes and behavior. Especially, if they are convinced about their righteousness. As stated earlier, individuals often use selective exposure to look for information that is not challenging the truthfulness of their beliefs (Lundgren and Prislin, 1998). Furthermore, past negative experiences with persuasive messages are likely to foster doubt and make it more likely for the recipient to form concerns of deception. In Darke and Ritchie’s (2007) experiment, participants exposed to a deceptive advertising treatment showed higher levels of skepticism4, even if they were exposed to unrelated, non-deceptive ads. Pollay (1986) argues that already a one-time deceptive experience lowers the impact of further persuasive communications since recipients form negative attitudes towards communicators of potentially deceptive messages. Generally speaking, the likelihood of dismissing persuasive messages as deceptive depends on the individual’s past experiences with persuasion attempts.. 2.1.3! The Strategies and Motives for Resistance to Persuasion Framework The Strategies and Motives to Resistance to Persuasion Framework (SMRP) describes the interaction and intertwingularity of motives and strategies of resistance and predicts the use of a certain resistance strategy by the underlying resistance motives (cf. Fig. 1). While many previous studies in different research fields covered resistance motives and strategies, Fransen et al. (2015) claim to be the first ones to deliver empirical evidence for the interaction of resistance motives and resistance strategies.. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 3. 4. !. Dogmatic people can be characterized by close-mindedness and cognitive rigidity (Fransen et al., 2007) Tendency to disbelieve. 15!.

(16) Fransen’s et al. framework provides a general overview about the interaction between motives and strategies of resistance. The author decided to include this framework since it helps to give the reader a better understanding of the methodology used provides an explanation for the occurrence of certain resistance strategies. In the SMRP model, AV strategies differ from Contesting, Empowerment and Biased Processing because they are already present before people are exposed to a persuasive message whereas the other types of strategies being launched intra- or post-exposal. People usually employ AV mechanisms when unwanted, persuasive communications are anticipated while other strategies are triggered by the actual experience of the persuasive message.. Figure 1: The SMRP Framework, taken from Fransen et al. 2015. 2.1.4! Low- and high-cognition Strategies A common distinction made to group resistance strategies is by the amount of mental resources employed. Magnusson et al. suggest that using cognitively effortful strategies is the best way to resist informational influence. Strategies such as CA or AB are used by individuals to undermine the validity of counter-attitudinal information. (Eagly and Chaikan, 1995). On the !. 16!.

(17) other hand, strategies such as AV, NA or the derogation of the message’s source require less cognitive efforts. These strategies do not directly target at the content of the message. SD tries to undermine the validity of a message by questioning context-related factors such as the sender of the message, the credibility of a newspaper or the quality of the presentation. Zuwerink – Jacks and Cameron (2003, p. 147) argue that the former strategies are more likely to be employed and more effective than less mentally effortful strategies. The likelihood of using a certain strategy is also determined by the perceived social desirability of the response type. Burleson et al. discovered that communication strategies are often distorted by individuals concerns about the social acceptability of their message (Burleson, Wilson, Waltman, Goering, Ely, & Whaley, 1988) and the perceived use of persuasive communication techniques (RoskosEwoldsen, 1997). These concerns are expected to decrease the use of strategies which are perceived as social inacceptable and in favor of socially acceptable strategies. Individuals perceive strategies such as AB and CA as social acceptable ways of resisting persuasion. According to Zuwerink –Jacks and Cameron (2003, p. 147) NA, SD or AV means for message recipients to put down “the source of the persuasive communication, expressing anger at the source and his or her arguments, or leaving the communication context altogether”. Fraser (1990) states that these strategies are likely to be interpreted as rude or socially undesirable making the usage of low-cognition strategies less likely compared to mentally-effortful strategies. The employment of SV strategies is expected to be less likely than counteragruing and AB, but more likely than SD, NA or or AV. SV techniques do not process the persuading message content directly making them less efficient, but socially acceptable Zuwerink –Jacks and Cameron (2003).. 2.2! Brand Transgressions Metts (1994) defines brand transgressions as a “violation of the implicit or explicit rules guiding relationship performance and evaluation” (Aaker et al. 2004, p. 1). Magnusson et al. (2014) !. 17!.

(18) see brand transgressions as a brand’s “omissive or comissive behavior causing a negative falsification of the consumer’s expectations”. In other words, a brand transgression is an intentional misconduct of a brand that dashes customer’s expectations. According to Magnusson et al. and in line with cross-disciplinary research (Harris et al., 2006; Cox et al., 2010), brand transgressions naturally occur two-dimensional:. Deep transgressions have. significant negative impacts but are limited in reach whereas wide transgression have a limited impact but a larger scope. To illustrate the difference, the latest VW transgression can be categorized as wide transgression which affected a large number of automobiles (Boston & Spector, 2015 while the consequences are neither fatal nor life-threatening. In contrast, the most recent scandal of General Motors about faulty ignition switches killing more than 100 customers (Spector & Matthews, 2015) can be labelled as a deep scandal due to its fatal consequences on a small scope. Surprisingly, Magnusson’s et al. (2015) latest study examining the extent of brand transgressions on country images and related brands couldn’t find any effect between the transgression extent and attitude formation. Most researchers consider brand transgressions as highly-significant events (Aaker et al. 2004) because negative news is more salient and diagnostic than positive information. An empirical examination of major brand transgressions might lead to learning opportunities about the nature of customer relationships and might identify new paths for marketers to foster customer relationships (Altman and Taylor, 1973). Even though transgressions will naturally differ in cause and severity, they all possess significant potential to endanger relationship progress. For Aaker et al. (2004), brand transgressions are likely to be the most significant events for relationship history of a company. There is a large dissent in research about the consequences of transgressing events. The vast majority of researcher’s view transgressions as naturally harmful since they unleash a chain of negative assumptions threatening the very core of the relationship (Buysee et al. 2000). Transgressions normally reveal disconfirming information about the transgressing brand’s agenda to adhere to rules of the relationship between customer !. 18!.

(19) and brand. Vulnerabilities, uncertainties as well as skepticism and doubts about the brand’s intentions are the consequences of deceptive actions and might change or even erode the customer’s quality perceptions (Boon and Holmes, 1999). Other researchers are less stringent about the severity of brand transgressions. Wiseman (1986) argues that the context of the relationship has to be considered before making assumptions about the impact of a transgression. She states that long-term, positive perceived relationships are able to cancel negative effects of brand transgressions. Ahluwalia et al. (2001) emphasize that people’s brand commitment and brand equity limit the impact of brand transgressions. Cheng et al. (2012) also identified the consumer’s self-brand connection as a major moderator for the effect strength of brand scandals.. 2.3! Prototype Brands According to Magnusson et al. “a dominant, iconic brand can be viewed as a prototypical exemplar of its membership category” (2014, p. 22). Developed by Rosch (1978), prototype theory states that people tend to form efficient cognitions by mental categorization. Mental items are categorized to develop similarity among intra-categorical items to the maximum. Rosch claims that people use a matching procedure for categorizing new objects to make information processing more efficient. This matching process reduces the differences between the newly categorized object’s attributes and the most representative exemplar / prototype of the relevant category. Generally speaking, prototype theory propose that categories are rather defined by it’s most striking cases (Prototypes) than by it’s boundaries border-line case. Following Rosch’s conception of prototype theory (1978), Magnusson et al. (2014, p. 23) regard prototypes as items of a mental category “whose attributes strongly resemble or reflect the attributes of the category. For Crocker, Fiske and Taylor (1984, p. 202), prototypical exemplars of a schema come very close to the “default values” for the category. !. 19!.

(20) A prototype is used to construct a stereotypical image of the exemplars category. Looking up information on a search engine is commonly referred to as “googling” information. If people in Germany ask for a tissue, they would most likely ask for a “Tempo” instead, which is the most common brand for tissues in Germany. Commercials advertising smartphone-related products or services would usually feature an “Apple Iphone” as a prototypical exemplar of a smartphone. And VW, respectively it’s bestselling model, the Golf, is a highly prototypical exemplar for a car made in Germany. Particularly important for the course of this study is the fact that the default values of a category are principally determined by prototype attributes (Jones 1983). Based on Jones findings, a change in prototypical attributes of a brand are likely to change the default attributes of its category. Magnusson et al. (2014, p. 23) claim that “a country’s major corporate brands are prototypical exemplars of the country’s image”. Different research on country image also seems to verify this assumption. For instance, Anhold (2002) argues that South Korea’s major corporate players are responsible for their country image which was almost non-existent before the ascendancy of Kia, Hyundai and Samsung, Lei et al. (2008) applied these assumptions to major brand transgression and proposed that a prototypical brand being involved in a major scandal is likely to change the change the attributes of related items of that category in an unfavorable way.. 2.4! Country of Origin Effect A large number of studies has concluded that consumers form certain images of countries influencing their beliefs (Erickson et al. 1984), evaluations (Loeffler 2001) as well as their purchase intentions towards products from these countries (Knight and Calantone, 2000). Roth and Romeo define country image as the “overall perception consumers form of products from a particular country, based on their prior perception of the country’s production and marketing strengths and weaknesses” (1992, p. 480). Martin and Eroglu understand country image as “the !. 20!.

(21) total of all descriptive, inferential, and informational beliefs one has about a particular country” (1993). Askegaard and Ger define it as “a schema, or a network of interrelated items that define a country,” and for Kotler, Haider and Rein (1993, p. 141) a country image is “the sum of beliefs and impressions people hold about places”. In other words, a country image is a mentally formed network of associations about a country. This construct has been the target of a multitude of experiments and applied to a large variety of study cues (Lim et al. 1994), respondent groups, countries and product types (Peterson and Jolibert. 1995). However, the is some disagreement among researchers. Differences encompass the concept, it’s structure and the item level. The most important differentiation is the interpretation of concept itself. Han (1989) states that concept level scales can be either seen as a “halo” or a “summary construct”. For Lala et al. (2009), the key difference between the two constructs lies in the consumer’s familiarity with the products manufactured in a particular country. A halo construct suggests that a country image serves as a cue for the quality of a brand and infers its product attributes. Thus, consumers tend to use a halo construct to evaluate product quality when their knowledge about the country’s products is low. For example, people are likely to have a very different opinion of a motorcycle made in Korea and a motorcycle made in India. Even though they might not know the quality of motorcycles made in India, they would use their existing knowledge about India (poverty, child labor, etc.) to estimate the quality of a motorcycle made in India. A summary construct would assume that consumer have prior experience with products from a foreign country and tend to use past experiences or perception to form their evaluations about products from that country. For instance, if asked about the quality of a Korean motorcycle, brands like Hyundai or Kia would come to their minds and influence their quality perception of a Korean motorcycle. There is a general agreement among researchers that cognitive, affective and normative associations with a certain country influence consumer’s brand or product attitudes. Moreover, !. 21!.

(22) a product’s Koschate-Fischer, Diamantopoulos, and Oldenkotte stated that “a product’s COO acts as a signal of product quality, influences consumers’ perceptions of risk and value, and directly affects the likelihood of purchase” (2012). According to Martin (2007), several articles in the business press also emphasize the impact major brand transgressions on the country image. For instance, Americans became more sensitive to product origins after several scandal involving oversea brands surfaced and caused product recalls and health threats (e.g. toys contaminated with lead. Therefore, the assertion can be made that strategies to resist a certain attitude change triggered by a brand transgression are also subject to the attitude towards the brand’s CoO.. 2.5! Subjective Knowledge According to Brucks (1985), consumer knowledge can be classified into three different categories. Objective knowledge is measuring the actual amount of knowledge a consumer has on a specific issue or topic. Prior experience indicates the level of familiarity with a brand or a product based on actual product experiences. And SK is the consumer’s meta-knowledge about a brand, a product or a service (Flynn and Goldsmith, 1999). Even though most researchers agree that the three different knowledge constructs are all capable of measuring consumer knowledge and can be used interchangeably (Beatty and Smith, 1987; Biswas and Sherrel; Selnes and Troye, 1989), using a SK scale yields certain advantages for the nature of this paper. As Selnes and Gronhaug demonstrated, SK is a stronger motivator for purchase-related behaviors than objective knowledge (Selnes and Gronhaug, 1986). Furthermore, product experience is more likely to be associated with subjective than with objective knowledge (Park, Mothersbaugh and Feick (1994). This makes SK a legitimate knowledge measuring construct which can be used more universally than the objective knowledge which requires the researchers to test a consumer’s factual knowledge of a product category.. !. 22!.

(23) There is a general agreement among researchers that knowledge is directly interacting with many consumer behaviors such as gathering product information (Beatty and Smith, 1987, Moore and Lehmann, 1980), product involvement (Bloch, 1986; Flynn and Goldsmith, 1993), decision making (Raju, Lonial, and Mangold, 1993, 1995) and resistance to persuasion (Zuwerink – Jacks and Cameron, 2003). The latter interaction is expected to predict the likelihood of high-cognition strategies as well as assertions of confidence (AoC). The perceived knowledge of an individual is a strong predictor for counter-argumentative strategies because a high-knowledge individuals are suspected to be more likely to engage in an argument with less knowledgeable individuals. In addition, a higher knowledge on a topic should lead to a higher level of confidence about a person’s opinion (Zuwerink – Jacks and Cameron, 2003). Therefore, measuring perceived knowledge is a vital part of the analysis of resistance to persuasion. SK is expected to yield the highest predictive validity for the mode of resistance making it an indispensable variable for measuring resistance to persuasion.. 2.6! Social Vigilantism Social Vigilantism is defined as the tendency of individuals to believe that their own opinions are superior and used to correct others rather “ignorant” beliefs (Saucier et al. 2014). People with high distinctive social vigilantism levels feel a social obligation to proclaim their “superior” beliefs. If an individual with high social vigilantism is confronted with an opinion significantly differing from one’s own belief system, existing beliefs are preserved by identifying flaws in the counter-attitudinal argument. In this way, superiority of beliefs is maintained and used to propagate it on others. Furthermore, Saucier and Webster (2010) demonstrated earlier that belief superiority, employment of CA and stability of attitude was especially high for individuals with high social vigilantism scores. The orientation of the opposite standpoint such as liberalism or conservatism had no influence on the effect strength of SV. Saucier and Webster’s findings indicate that SV is a crucial individual difference !. 23!.

(24) variable for measuring resistance to persuasion. In accordance to Saucier and Webster’s findings, high-SV participants in this study are expected to be more resistant to attitude changes since they are more likely to make use of CA, AB or AoC strategies.. 3!. Methodology. The methodology is divided in a two-step procedure with an initial semi-explorative qualitative part and a quantitative part partially based on the findings of the prior, qualitative research. Indepth interviews were chosen to gather qualitative information about the consumer’s attitudes towards the VW transgression. Free association questions are the most likely to unveil strategies used by participants to resist attitude changes. One assumption is that consumer’s in general are not aware of the cognitive strategies they make use of to resist persuasion. The second part is an online-based questionnaire for Taiwanese and German participants. The scales employed in the questionnaire are based on prior research. However, the most important scale measuring resistance is largely remodeled after the qualitative research. Specific examples provided by participants in the interviews were used to form a set of items. The scale for measuring resistance is only partially based on prior research. The main idea behind using a quantitative measurement is the extension of the scope of the interviews and the generalization of findings as well as the validation of interactions between variables observed in the interview setting.. 3.1! Hypotheses The hypotheses in this study are based on prior research on brand transgressions, resistance to persuasion, attitude change, country-of-origin (CoO) effects, social vigilance (SV), ethnocentrism (EC) and their interactions with each other. These interactions are initially tested. !. 24!.

(25) in an interview setting and results are interpreted to improve hypotheses or form new assumptions about the interdependencies of the variables observed. The author expects participants to show different manifestations of resistance as discussed in the literature analysis of this paper. Cognitive demanding strategies such as AB or CA are suspected to be more effective than low-cognition strategies like AV, SV or NA. Effectiveness is measured by a compound variable yielding a high correlation with participants’ current attitudes towards VW. This variable will be used as a substitute for attitude change In accordance with the findings of Koschate – Fischer et al. (2012), participants in this study are expected to show different resistance patterns with different magnitudes based on their attitude towards Germany as a CoO. Individuals with relatively favorable attitudes towards German products are likely to show less attitude change after the VW transgression compared to individuals with relatively unfavorable opinions on “Made in Germany”. However, for participants with a relatively low attitude towards products made in Germany, only a correlation between country attitude and brand attitude mediated by VW’s level of prototypicality can be expected. Causality cannot be obtained by the set of data analyzed in this study. It remains unclear, if a low attitude on “made in Germany” lowers the attitude towards VW or vice versa. Causality can only be eliminated if post-scandal attitudes are compared with pre-scandal attitudes. Knowledge was initially thought to be a intervening variable but the initial screening of the first interviews made clear that there was a strong connection between knowledge and the likelihood of employing certain resistance strategies. High-knowledge participants were more likely to use cognitively effortful strategies whereas low-knowledge individuals preferred strategies that required less mental effort such as AV or biased processing. This lead to the formation of the following hypothesis. The individual SK level of a participant is likely to weaken the negative impact of a brand scandal on attitudes towards the transgressing brand. SK and the mode of resistance are !. 25!.

(26) expected to be highly intertwined. Low SK leads to the employment of low-cognition strategies (AV, SV or NA), less efficient resistance and a higher attitude change. High-knowledge individuals tend to make use of mentally demanding strategies (AB and CA) leading to less attitude change. Female participants are expected to be less familiar / knowledgeable with the brand VW and its products and therefore less likely to show high-cognition strategies compared to male participants. Knowledge might also differ among nationalities since Germans in general have a deeper affiliation with cars and VW than Taiwanese EC is considered to have a strong effect on the attitude change of a participant. German individuals are expected to be less likely to change their attitude towards VW after the scandal, because they have a stronger brand connection than Taiwanese participants. However, the author does not expect a significant interaction between the level of EC and the mode of resistance. German participants with high EC scores should not differ in their resistance pattern from Germans with low EC scores. Considering the findings of Magnusson et al. (2014) on prototype brand transgression, a participant’s magnitude of resistance is likely to be influenced by his perception of VW as a prototypical or non-prototypical German brand. Since the impact of brand transgressions is proven to be influenced by the degree of prototypicality of the transgressing brand, higher ratings in prototypicality should lead to less attitude change than lower levels of prototypicality, as stated by Magnusson et al. (2014, p. 21). This effect might be different for the factor nationality. Naturally, Taiwanese participants are likely to see VW as a strong prototype brand for Germany whereas German participants have higher knowledge about German brands and therefore an abundance of companies with a perceived high prototypicality.. !. 26!.

(27) 3.2! Qualitative Analysis. 3.2.1! Method Conducting interviews is vital for confirming the underlying assumption of relatively stable attitudes after brand transgressions. Interviewing participants and evaluating their attitudes towards VW after their scandal determines the next steps since an unexpected change in attitudes would require a full revision of the research design. Additionally, the usage of quantitative methods does not only list the most common (existing) resistance strategies but might be able to unveil new means of resistance. Revealing consumer’s actions, reactions and thoughts about the scandal is the foundation for the development of the questionnaire used to evaluate the usage of certain resistance strategies. Even though research already provided a well-defined set of strategies for resistance, categorical examples can be best obtained by qualitative research.. 3.2.2! Participants Participants for the interviews were selected through convenience sampling since a randomization of the selection process would not necessarily lead to a higher validity of results. 4 German participants and 4 Taiwanese participants have been interviewed. All interviews have been conducted in person and lasted between 25 and 40 minutes. Age ranged from 24 years to 34 years. All participants had a college-level education and were holding at least an undergraduate certificate. Interviews were recorded and transcribed into their respective languages. Except for one German participant, all participants were interviewed in English language. All participants interviewed in English language had a proficient command of English language. All interviews can be found in the appendix (cf. App. Interview Transliterations).. !. 27!.

(28) 3.2.3! Procedure The interview has been structured into three main parts (cf. App., Interview Guideline, Tab. 3): An introductory quantitative part measuring brand- and industry knowledge, country image and brand familiarity while eliminating any biased evaluations due to possible affiliations with VW (“Are you or one of your family members in any way affiliated with VW?”). Consumer’s attitudes towards VW are not measured in because evaluations can be expected to be contaminated by the latest transgression. The SK scale is adapted from Flynn and Goldsmith, contains 12 both logically and semantically consistent, positively and negatively worded questions (1999). Flynn and Goldsmith’s scale is used for measuring the SK towards VW and the attitude towards the automotive industry. Brand familiarity is measured with a 5-item semantic differential scale developed by Diamantopoulos, Smith and Grime (2005) The COO attitude scale is taken from Roth and Romeo (1992). All scales use a 5-point Likert-type response format and contain positively and negatively worded questions. The second part is qualitative providing open-ended questions about the scandal itself “What do you know about the latest headlines about VW, free association “What comes to your mind when you think about VW?”, possible repurchasing intentions and a self-assessment of possible attitude changes for VW or Germany as a COO. The third part contains 12 dichotomous items evaluating the emergence of a certain resistance strategy. The quantitative first part is pretesting the participant’s attitudes towards VW and Germany and is assessing their level of knowledge about the brand VW and the automotive industry in general. Furthermore, it is confirming the underlying assumption of resistance towards attitudinal changes for prototype brand transgressions. The open-ended questions in the second part ensure that examples for the usage of resistance strategies can be generated and theses examples can be categorized correctly. The third part of the questionnaire provides a fail-safe system that gathers the participant’s strategies with a number of dichotic questions assessing the usage of different strategies. !. 28!.

(29) 3.2.4! Interview Results This part features the four most compelling interviews containing the most vital arguments and the preferred resistance techniques. Interviews were summarized and relevant findings or revelations which were crucial for the design of the questionnaire were commented by the author. All full-length interviews can be found in the appendix of this paper.. Participant 1: Male (26), German, Graduate Student Engineering) The first German participant yielded a moderate SK level about VW and its products and showed an above average EC score of 4.16. He had no affiliation with VW and perceived the brand as a stereotypical German brand. His opinion about products made in Germany was above average (4.25). He considered VW as a premium car manufacturer mentioned the better value for money as one of VW’s USPs. Normally, people in Germany would only consider Audi, Mercedes Benz, BMW and Porsche as premium, but for him the difference was marginal and he took his perception as evidence for VWs goals to be perceived as premium manufacturer. For him, VW is a very iconic German brand. Its reputation is partially owed by two models: The VW Beetle and the VW Bus which was a symbol of the hippy movement in the late 60ies and 70ies. In his opinion, VW stands for high quality, tradition, German engineering and affordable luxury. He has a high knowledge about the scandal, in particular about the technical aspect of VW manipulation. He stated that VW is to blame for the scandal. However, it doesn’t really affect his personal attitude towards the brand. He claims that all car manufacturers try to match the thresholds and improve their efficiency on the paper by using half legal ways. Furthermore, he added that most consumer are quite aware of these half-legal practices. People do not expect their cars to be as fuel-efficient as advertised in the commercials. He is convinced that this is one of the main reasons why people in Germany do not treat the scandal as serious other countries such as the US. !. 29!.

(30) Interestingly, his uses a generalization (other manufacturers act in similar ways) as an argument to lesson the magnitude of VW’s questionable behavior these questionable practices for the whole German car industry. Even more important is the fact that he is validating his suspicion by using a SV technique (“Everybody knows about the lab conditions”, “people in Germany don’t really care”, “everybody already knew that the specifications were too good to be true”). As expected, his purchase intentions didn’t change at all since the quality of the car itself didn’t change in his opinion. In fact, he adds that his purchase intention is probably even higher than before the scandal since he is expecting the price for VW cars to drop significantly after the scandal. Again he stresses the fact that all manufacturers in Germany operate on the edge of legality. Furthermore, he claims that his attitude towards Germany as a CoO did not change after the scandal and for other countries he might just expect a short term drop since it was a single event in a flawless brand history. Talking about media and the reporting on the scandal he accuses some newspapers of a rather one-sided reporting making the scandal bigger than it actually is. For him, the VWs transgression is clearly a corporate scandal. The questions used in the resistance scale show only positive answers for CA. When asked for his justification for arguing in favor of VW, his motivation is to educate people because in his opinion they lack of necessary background knowledge to be able to fully grasp the nature of VW’s action. It is likely that this education (engineer) put his beliefs in a more superior position than the beliefs of regular people. His tendency to argue is clearly motivated by social vigilantism.. Participant 2: Male (27), German, Manager Sales Processes The second German participant also had a slightly above average knowledge about cars and VW as a brand and (compound SK scale was 3.33) showed a moderate level of EC (compound. !. 30!.

(31) EC score was 3.17). His opinion about products made in Germany was above average (4.25). He was not affiliated with VW and considered the brand as a stereotypical brand for Germany. His perception of VW was very similar to the perception of the first participant. He saw VW as a traditional brand, mentioned the most successful models (e.g. VW Beetle) and perceives superior marketing expertise as one of VW’s core competencies. For him, VW is building cars for everybody. Furthermore, VW is not only a brand, but a large conglomerate of different companies such as Seat, Lamborghini, AUDI or MAN. His perception of the scandal itself is slightly different from the first participant because he is convinced that VW’s reputation is going to suffer quite a lot from the aftermath of the scandal. And in his opinion it seems that more and more negative details about VW are unveiled almost everyday. For him, the blame solely goes to the management of the company. A lot of people have been informed about what is actually going on in the R & D division of the company; especially VW’s former CEO Martin Winterkorn, who had to resign after the scandal became public. In addition, he also blames the German government. With the minister president of Saxony occupying a chair in VW supervisory committee, the government should have done a better job in assessing what VW is up to. The German government is one of the largest shareholders of Volkswagen and he also attests the German government a high interest in the car industry in general with close connections between German automotive lobbyists and the government and sees German protectionism and lobbyism as one of the triggers for this scandal. Favorable German and EU emissions laws make it easy for German premium manufacturers to sell their cars. However, on markets with stricter regulations such as the US, their products are no longer competitive and brands have to come up with “creative” ways to sell their products. His justification seems to be mainly based on the unfavorable legislation and protectionism in Europe and the US which leaves manufacturers with no other choice but to circumvent these regulations. The strategy he uses to maintain his attitude towards VW is CA. He also adds that !. 31!.

(32) the media is trying to make the scandal bigger than it actually is, indicating that he does not agree with its reporting. In his opinion, this is in particular true for international US newspapers rather than German ones and could be interpreted as SD. The way he sees Germany as a CoO and products made in Germany did not change at all. However, he is convinced that the scandal damaged the reputation of German products abroad (at least in the short run) and he expects other brands to follow VW’s fate. He also brings up a distorted US perception towards the diesel technology which is common in Europe, but rarely used in US markets. Most US car manufacturer put their bets on gasoline engines and are fearing increasing competition from more efficient German diesel engines. He admitted that he would argue in favor for VW because most people don’t understand the benefits of the German diesel technology. Again, it seems that social vigilantism has a clear impact on the employment of CA. This became even more obvious when he commented on some of the, in his opinion, ridiculous arguments, US Americans use to blame VW for its shortcomings. Clearly, he was convinced of his own, superior belief system. His purchasing behavior didn’t change after the scandal and he justifies his constant attitude with the fact, that most people in Germany know that cars consume more fuel on the streets than in the lab. For him, the scandal itself doesn’t have anything to do with the product itself.. Participant 3: Male (24), Taiwanese, Graduate Student Economics The first Taiwanese participant also had a very high knowledge about cars and was rather familiar with VW as a brand (compound SK scale was 4.4). He showed a rather high level of EC (compound EC score was 4.17). His opinion about products made in Germany was strongly above average (4.75). He was not affiliated with VW and considered the brand as a stereotypical brand for Germany. He thought of VW, compared to BMW or Mercedes, as an affordable German car brand with a good reputation in Taiwan. He emphasized brand characteristics such as being design-driven !. 32!.

(33) and building cars for the whole family. He was familiar with the nature of the scandal, they manipulation, knew about the how it got discovered and had a rough idea about the number of recalls VW had to announce. When asked if the scandal changed the way he thinks about VW as a brand, he negated. In his opinion the nature of the scandal doesn’t justify a devaluation of the brand since “nobody got killed and the quality remained the same”. In addition, he also maintained his purchase intention and would, despite the scandal, still buy a VW. For him, quality and a reasonable price is more important than the moral integrity of the company. Taiwan experienced a lot of product scandals from artificial milk in convenience stores to led in the pipes of Taipei’s utility companies. However, his perception is that the Taiwanese consumer tends to blind out these issues as long as the price seems compelling. His generalization about the vast majority of Taiwanese consumers blanking out scandalous corporate behaviors in favor of reasonable prices can be seen as a for of social AV. He is justifying his attitude towards VW with the tendency of Taiwanese people to disregard corporate shortcomings in favor of bargains. However, he feels that Germany reputation which has been quite flawless in Taiwan might suffer from the recent incident. He added that Taiwanese people were convinced that German companies put quality about everything and don’t compromise for less compared to products made in China or India. However, with its scandal, VW just confounded this perception of Taiwanese people. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the label “Made in Germany” is going to be degraded, but it might lead to a more conscious purchasing decisions of Taiwanese consumers when it comes to German products. For him, the scandal is clearly company-related.. Participant 4: Female (28), Taiwanese IT Consultant+ The second Taiwanese participant also had a below average knowledge about cars but was surprisingly familiar with VW as a brand (compound SK scale was 3.17). She showed an average level of EC (compound EC score was 3.00) and yielded the highest opinion about !. 33!.

(34) products made in Germany possible (5.00). She was neither affiliated with VW nor did she believe that the scandal was product-related. She considered the brand as a stereotypical brand for Germany. The brand VW reminded her of a multinational company, sophisticated engineering, the hippie era, their slogan “Das Auto” and her time as an exchange student in Germany. She also used the adjective eco-friendly to describe VW. She was very well-informed about the scandal and the means VW used to deceive environmental agencies. Her attitude towards the brand didn’t change significantly after the scandal which she partly attributed to her time in Germany where she gathered some knowledge about the German car industry and about what differentiates German cars from US or Japanese ones. Furthermore, she thinks that it would be wrong to blame the whole company for a crime that was committed by some high-level executives. In her opinion, this will definitely have some negative implications for the brands in Taiwan, but people who appreciate high production standards, high quality and well-designed products would still stick to VW. Her statement indicated a tendency to bolster her attitude towards VW. By stressing some of VW’s qualities such as superior manufacturing or well-designed products, she uses some of the brand most positive characteristics to boost her own attitudes. Furthermore, she also admits that she is not an avid reader of Taiwanese news since “most of them seem to be too sensational for my taste”. However, she prefers to read critical articles, even if her standpoint is very different from the one of the author.. Summarizing the results from the interviews, there are four important results. Whereas the first two confirmed the authors assumptions, finding three and four unveiled interactions between resistance strategies and existing / new variables potentially useful for the successing quantitative analysis.. !. 34!.

(35) 1.! Participants, regardless of sex or nationality, maintained a rather favorable attitude towards VW after the scandal 2.! CA was the most commonly-used strategy to resist attitude change and was not influence by the participant’s SK or their attitude towards products made in Germany 3.! Social-validation was used by most participants including those with high-knowledge about the industry and the scandal itself 4.! The two German participants with the highest knowledge on both VW and their scandal were suspected to yield high levels of social vigilantism. Forming counter arguments was significantly influence by a feeling of superior knowledge on the technical specifications of the scandal.. 3.3! Quantitative Analysis The main purpose of the survey is the application of the findings obtained from interviews. Due to the larger scale, assumptions based on prior research and on the results of conducted interviews, the hypotheses can be validated or falsified. Interactions are initially tested in an interview setting and results are interpreted to improve hypotheses or form new assumptions about the interdependencies of the variables observed.. 3.3.1! Design Considering the hypotheses formed from the literature review in this paper on brand transgressions, prototype brands, country images and resistance to persuasion, the author of this study takes the view that knowledge and country attitude largely interact with the application of certain strategies. As stated by Verlegh and Steenkamp (1999) country image can be seen as an external cue moderating the consumer’s product perceptions and product evaluations. Therefore, the main design purpose of the questionnaire was the accurate measurement of SK. !. 35!.

(36) and country image to measure the impact of these variables on the likelihood of using a certain resistance to persuasion strategy.. 3.3.2! Variables Originally, the author of this study planned to use SK and attitudes towards “Made in Germany” as independent variables to measure the dependent variable, level of attitude changes towards VW. After the review of the literature on brand transgressions and resistance to persuasion, a scale measuring controlling for any ethnocentric effect was added to the design. Furthermore, the analysis of the interviews revealed that social vigilantism might have a significant impact on the likelihood of employing counter-argumentative resistance strategies. Using the variable attitude change as a dependent variable was discarded by the author due to a strong possibility of contamination. The questionnaire is measuring SK and attitude towards products “Made in Germany” as independent variables and is control for effects fueled by EC or social vigilantism. The dependent variable will take into account the most significant factors of the overall resistance scale serving as a close substitute approximation for attitude change.. 3.3.3! Participants Out of 260 participants 173 completed the questionnaire attesting the survey has a reasonable sample size. The composition of the sample reflects the population surprisingly well. There is an almost equal number of male and female participants (cf. Tab. 4), and with 45,78 %, almost half of the participants were Taiwanese (cf. Tab. 5). Approximately 40 % of all participants were between 25 and 34 years old, followed by participants between 18 – 24 years. Other age groups were less common and accounted for roughly 40 % of the sample (cf. Tab. 6). Most of the participants were either employees (38.92 %) or students (34.13 %), a significant smaller number was self-employed (14.37 %) or employed on the executive level (7.78 %). !. 36!.

(37) Two participants were unemployed and 3.59 % of participants were retired (cf. Tab. 7). 90 % of all participants have an academic education. One third of all participants is holding a graduate degree, roughly one third has an undergraduate degree educational level, followed by 23 % holding a high school diploma (cf. Tab. 8). On average, it took one participant 12:30 minutes to complete the survey. The median for questionnaire processing time was with 8:13 minutes significantly shorter, since only 173 out of 260 participants completed the whole questionnaire. 78 % of participants provided a valid email address and were eligible to take part in the lottery. 46 % of participants answered in German language, 44 % in Chinese, and 11 % answered in English language. This number is surprising in so far that the author of the study specifically stated that only Taiwanese and German citizens are eligible to take part in the survey. A possible explanation for the unexpected large number of English language preference over German or Chinese can be seen in a higher than average amount of bilingual participants or a higher than average command of English language among the participants.. 3.3.4! Procedure and Measurement The survey was launched as an online questionnaire on the platform unipark.de which is the academic application of questback, the world’s leading online survey software. The main advantages of this software is the large amount of statistical online tools as well as the possibility to create questionnaires in multiple languages. The survey was available online for participation for eight days. The URL linking participants to the questionnaire was distributed via the social media platforms Facebook, Twitter as well as business platforms such as LinkedIn and the German business network Xing. Due to a large number of items and an average response time of more than 10 minutes, participation was incentivized by a lottery draw. Each Taiwanese participant who finished the questionnaire was eligible to be part of a raffle with the chance of. !. 37!.

(38) winning a monetary reward of NTD 2000. In the same manner, German participants who completed the questionnaire and were eligible to a 50 Euro price draw. The first set of questions were designed to measure the participant’s SK about VW and automobiles in general. This part was positioned in the very beginning of the questionnaire. This way, the positioning of the SK scale should attract participants. Scale items were uncritical, required low cognitive effort and covered a highly familiar. Moreover, the first set of questions gave participants a sense for the direction of the questionnaire’s topic in case they missed to read the description provided. SK was measured by using a combination of the brand familiarity scale by Diamantopoulos, Smith and Grime and Flynn (2005) and Goldsmith’s subjective brand knowledge scale (1999). The overall scale consists of 13 items and should be capable of measuring each participant’s SK level about the transgressing brand VW and its products. Each item is measured on a 5-point Likert scale consisting of negative and positive statements to avoid answer tendencies. The mean value of all 13 items will be used for further statistical analysis. The second scale in the questionnaire was measuring the attitude participants had towards Germany as a CoO. The variable country image was measured by a slightly modified version of of Roth and Romeo’s country image scale (1992).. The scale is examining product. characteristics and conceptualizes country image as summary construct5. Roth and Romeo use a two-dimensional approach focusing on the product and product-marketing aspects of a country. As stated in chapter 2.2.2, VW can be seen as a prototype brand for Germany. Therefore, a product dimension scale is likelier to measure the construct country image accurately than a country characteristics scale. Eventually, it’s easier for participants to rate !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. 5. The usage of a summary construct as a measurement of country image is appropriate for this study, since participants are expected to have a prior product knowledge about Germany as a CoO whereas a country characteristics concept would only make sense when consumers have little knowledge about the products of a certain country (Lala et al., 2009). For instance, Taiwanese consumers might not be familiar with products manufactured in Austria but are perfectly familiar with certain products manufactured in Germany such as BMW, Mercedes Benz or Volkswagen. Furthermore, there is disagreement among researchers about the amount and type of dimensions.. !. 38!.