Contents lists available at ScienceDirect International Business Review journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ibusrev Mass prestige value and competition between American versus Asian laptop brands in an emerging market—Theory and evidence Ajay Kumar a , Justin Paul b, ⁎ ,1 a Department of Management Studies, Central University of Haryana, Mahendergarh -123031, Haryana, India b Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico, USA ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Mass prestige Brand equity Prestige brands Competition Strategic brand management Emerging market ABSTRACT In recent years, competition between brands have been linked to mass prestige associated with the brands. Mass Prestige (Masstige) is very important to study, and yet it is a relatively less investigated construct in the lit- erature. This study is an attempt to contribute to the literature grounded in masstige theoretical approach by examining the prestige associated with the four best-selling laptop brands: 1) two American brands (HP, Dell); and 2) two Asian brands (Lenovo and Acer). We analyzed the competition between these brands in the second fastest growing emerging market, India. In order to measure masstige value, we used the Masstige Mean scale (Paul, 2015). The results show that American brands have the potential to be seen as prestige brands while Asian brands are trailing behind in masstige value and competition. Finally, but not less important, this paper discusses the potential reasons for different masstige value of four laptop brands. 1. Introduction Brands are semiotic marketing systems that generate value for participants, society, and broader environment, through co-created meaningful exchange (Conejo & Wooliscroft, 2014). Brands today are touching the lives of consumers across the globe in unprecedented ways. Brand Management as a topic has never been this important as it is today. The ‘brand equity’ as a concept has captured the attention of many researchers (Cobb-Walgren, Ruble, & Donthu, 1995) with com- petition intensifying in different industries with the globalization gathering momentum. Several researchers have addressed the con- ceptualization, measurement and management of brand equity (e.g; Christodoulides & de Chernatony, 2010; Keller, 1993, 2001, 2016; Keller & Lehmann, 2003, 2006; Pappu, Quester, & Cooksey, 2005; Yoo, Donthu, & Lee, 2000; Yoo & Donthu, 2001). Pertaining to the im- portance of brand equity, specifically consumer based brand equity (CBBE), Yoo and Donthu (2001) developed a multi-dimensional CBBE scale using students sample from America and Korea based on Aaker’s (1996) and Keller’s (1993) conceptualization of brand equity. Subse- quently, researchers (Netemeyer et al., 2004; Pappu et al., 2005) in- troduced a modified CBBE measure. Despite extensive research and significant advances over the last three decades in the area of brand equity conceptualization (e.g. Aaker, 1991; Keller, 1993, 2001), mea- surement (e.g. Netemeyer et al., 2004; Pappu et al., 2005; Yoo & Donthu, 2001) and management (e.g. Yoo et al., 2000), our under- standing of brand equity is yet to be fully explored. For example, Christodoulides and de Chernatony (2010) in their review paper re- ported six different conceptual thoughts and sixteen measures of con- sumer based brand equity (CBBE). The available measures of CBBE across cultures are biased towards its country of origin (Christodoulides & de Chernatony, 2010). There exist gaps in global branding literature and the area offers the potential to advance and enrich the measure- ment scales and literature (Chabowski, Samiee, & Hult, 2013). Chabowski et al. (2013) examined 120 articles related to the global branding literature (GBL), and evaluated the knowledge structure of this area of research to date. They employed multidimensional scaling, leverage resource and capability-based paradigms, using the five un- derpinning knowledge groups (international branding strategy, brand positioning, brand/country origin, brand concept-image, and brand performance), to propose an agenda for future research by identifying the existing gaps. According to their findings, there is potential for re- search that advances and enriches the GBL. We respond to their call to fill the research gap by addressing perhaps the most important topic in branding literature – brand equity. There are many studies analyzing national brands within the same country in repeated ways; however, the studies comparing the brand equity of foreign versus local brands are not many. It is interesting to report that research in some newly introduced measures of CBBE like https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ibusrev.2018.02.007 Received 21 June 2017; Received in revised form 15 January 2018; Accepted 20 February 2018 ⁎ Corresponding author. 1 Formerly, faculty member – University of Washington. E-mail addresses: ajaykumar@cuh.ac.in (A. Kumar), Justin.paul@upr.edu (J. Paul). International Business Review 27 (2018) 969–981 Available online 07 March 2018 0969-5931/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T