Critical for international marketers in volatile markets is understanding of factors that influence consumer responses during a product-harm crisis. Applying social psychology concepts of heuristic judgments and attribution theory, the authors study mistrust of non-contaminated but...

Purpose: Industry-wide crises involving consumer products place consumers at risk. Consumers rely on institutions that constrain corporate practice and control product quality to reduce risk. As institutions vary by country, country-of-origin (COO) acts as a salient cue for consumers to...