How self-construal affects consumer reactions to unexpected events: The effects of event valence, event experience, event spread and leadership intervention

Consumers and marketers often find themselves in the midst of unexpected events. Unexpected events can be bad or good and often influence consumers' feelings about themselves and the brand. This marketing-leadership research examines, from a self-construal perspective, whether individuals with an independent versus interdependent self-construal (Markus and Kitayama 1991) react differentially to unexpected events.;Drawing from diverse theoretical perspectives within the literature in cross-cultural psychology, consumer behavior and organizational behavior, findings from the first study (N=371) suggest that consumers' feelings about themselves and the brand are different based on their self-construal. Specifically, as posited, consumers with an independent self-construal display greater comparative optimism (Weinstein 1980, 1983 and 1987) when facing a good event. Whereas, being affected or unaffected by a negative event does not appear to make a difference in how interdependents' feel about themselves. This hypothesized finding is likely due to an interdependents more connected and other-focused predispositions (Aaker and Williams 1998; Hamamura and Heine 2007). Yet, interdependents are significantly less positive and harsher on the brand when affected by the negative unexpected event. Interestingly, the spread of the event does not affect brand attitudes implying that only the initial reaction to the event matters. In other words, leaders or brand managers may have a 'window of opportunity' to manage a negative event without fearing a quick erosion of their brand equity.;I extend the 'window of opportunity' managerial finding from the first study by exploring leadership response to unexpected negative events, or crises, in the second experiment (N = 517). That is, does leadership response matter and what type of leadership response is preferred among consumers with distinct self-construals? Findings demonstrate that leadership clearly matters; however, consumers' with an independent self-construal were partial to a transformational leader response whereas consumers with an interdependent self-construal preferred a transactional response (Bass and Avolio 1994; Judge and Piccolo 2004). Taken together, the self-construal findings from these two large-scale experiments offer potential for further cross-cultural consumer behavior research within the marketing leadership interface and provide relevant managerial implications for brand managers and leaders who must navigate in an uncertain global context.