Consumer ethnocentrism, materialism and values: A four country study

ABSTRACT

Ethnocentrism is an enduring form of non-tariff barrier (Shimp and Sharma 1987) which centers on the tendency of buyers to prefer domestically-produced goods to imported goods regardless of price or quality considerations. This study attempts to: (1) examine country differences in consumer ethnocentrism across samples in the United States, Mexico, France and Australia and (2) investigate the roles of materialism and values as antecedents of consumer ethnocentrism in this multi-country setting.

The following hypotheses were tested:

H1a: Mexican consumers will display more ethnocentric tendencies than French, Australian and U.S. consumers;

H1b: French consumers will have more ethnocentric tendencies than Australian and U.S. consumers;

H1c: Australian consumers will display more ethnocentric tendencies than U.S. consumers;

H2: There will be a positive correlation between materialism and consumer ethnocentrism;

H3a: There will be a negative correlation between the "internal dimension" of the list of values (LOV) and consumer ethnocentrism;

H3b: There will be a positive correlation...