How culture belonging shapes negative emotion during product-harm crisis and influences consumers’ purchase intention of the faulty brand

The aim of the paper is to investigate consumer responses to different typology of product-harm crisis (PHC), performance-related vs values-related crisis, in terms of negative emotion arousal and purchase intention. Moreover, the intent is to introduce the cultural belonging (collectivistic vs individualistic) as a moderator variable of this mechanism. This study tests on a sample of 220 Italian and Asian consumers a model of moderated mediation that explains under what circumstances (crisis typology) the negative emotions mediate people intention to buy the faulty brand and how this mechanism is moderated by cultural belonging. The study extends current understanding on how people react to PHC and introduces the role of cultural dimension in predicting consumers’ responses toward a faulty brand or firm.