To Buy or Not to Buy Under Brand Image Transgression? Consumer Behavior and Underlying Mechanisms from a Power Distance Belief Perspective

Brand image transgression occurs when a brand-caused change in a brand’s current image, relative to its original image, creates a marked incongruence between consumers’ self-image and the brand image—a change that is negative for the brand’s original customer base. Compared with quality and moral transgressions, this covert type of brand transgression has received little scholarly attention, particularly with respect to individual differences in cultural orientation. Drawing on power distance belief (PDB), five experiments (total valid N = 1184) examined how consumers with different levels of PDB respond to brand image transgression, the mediating role of face consciousness, and the boundary condition of public versus private usage context. Under image transgression (vs. no transgression), the decline in purchase intention was significantly greater among high-PDB than among low-PDB consumers (Experiments 1 and 2). PDB was positively related to face consciousness, both correlationally and causally (Experiment 3). The results were consistent with face consciousness mediating the interactive effect of PDB and image transgression on purchase intention, whereas neither perceived quality risk nor perceived psychological risk showed such an effect (Experiment 4). The effect emerged in public usage contexts but was not statistically significant in private contexts (Experiment 5). These findings extend PDB research to the brand transgression domain, provide evidence consistent with face consciousness as an important mediating mechanism underlying consumer responses to image transgression, and offer guidance for transgression-recovery strategies tailored to consumers’ individual-level cultural orientations.