Purchasing the Counterfeit: Antecedences and Consequences from Culturally diverse Countries

Counterfeiting is known as the cross-border crime of the 21st century and has been increasingly investigated in the academic literature within a national context. The present study addresses a cross-county examination and investigates antecedents of purchase intention toward counterfeits and its impact on consumers´ willingness to pay for the original in culturally diverse countries. Based on the theory of planned behaviour and the adoption level theory the developed framework is tested on consumer data from China, Romania, and Germany. Results of the partial least squares approach revealed significant differences in the antecedents’ impact on purchase intention toward counterfeits between the countries. While fairness does not appear as a significant driver of purchase intention in countries, which score high in ‘Confucian dynamism’, subjective norm accounts for a higher predictive value in collectivistic countries compared to individualistic ones.