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3.3.2 Consumer Multiculturation and Extant Theories of Ingroup/Outgroup Cultural Attitudes
Whetten (1989) has long pointed out that the value of a proposed theory comes from demonstrating how the addition of a new construct(s) “alters our understanding of the phenomena” (p:493). Simply put, for a theory to be of value to scientific knowledge it is not enough for it to explain a phenomenon – it should provide additional insights that help to explain a phenomenon differently and/or in greater depth. From this perspective, so far conceptual development of Consumer Multiculturation theory focused on overcoming restrictiveness of demographic (mainstream/migrant) divide when considering the effects of cultural identity transformations on consumption. However, it is also important to consider how Consumer Multiculturation approach is positioned within another stream of theories concerned with explaining the divergences in consumer responses to cultural meanings of brands to inform organisational approaches to COBO-based brand meaning formation, termed here as ingroup/outgroup cultural attitudes.
Ingroup/outgroup cultural attitudes theories have found a wide application in marketing and consumer behaviour research with the rise of COO effect theory (discussed in Chapter 2, Section 2.3.1, p:31). Linking national/ethnic (ingroup) identification and outgroup cultural biases to consumption contexts, these theories distinguish a notably differing range of consumer attitudes to cultural meanings of brands that can be grouped as follows (see Table 3-4 for a detailed summary of key concepts definitions):
Favouritism of home country/culture and its produce and avoidance of all non-local cultures and products based on strong emotional attachment, concern for ingroup, beliefs about the ingroup’s superiority and/or hostile prejudice towards outgroups (consumer patriotism – Han, 1988; consumer ethnocentrism – Shimp and Sharma, 1987; consumer nationalism – Druckman, 1994; Balabanis et al., 2001);
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Openness to or selective preference of non-local (global and foreign) perceived produce based on aspiration to non-local cultures in general or particular foreign cultures (cosmopolitanism – Cannon and Yaprak, 2002; cultural openness – Sharma, Shimp and Jeongshin, 1995; xenocentrism – Kent and Burnight, 1951, Mueller et al., 2009).
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Table 3-4: Summary Definitions of Extant Cultural Ingroup/Outgroup Attitudes Theories Utilised to Explain COO/COBO Consumer Behaviour Specifics (see also Kipnis et al., 2014)
Construct Definition Consumption Implications Sources
Cosmopolitanism “Willingness to engage with the other” (Hannerz 1992:
p252); readiness to engage with diverse cultural experiences, i.e. world citizenship; aspiration to for dynamic cultivation of cultural capital and commitment to being non-judgemental and objective when processing cultural experiences.
Tendency to consume a wide variety of products associated with different countries/cultures, product evaluations are not based on
World-Mindedness Acceptance and adaptability to ideas and cultural norms of other countries/cultures. Concern for social, environmental issues in context of the world.
Openness to, interest in and adoption of consumption norms and products of foreign countries/cultures.
Sampson and Smith, 1957;
Hannerz, 1992 Cultural Openness Acceptance or no hostility towards foreign cultures. General openness and lack of negative attitude
to products of foreign countries/cultures.
Sharma, Shimp and Jeongshin, 1995
Xenocentrism Favourable attitudes towards outgroups combined with ingroup derogation.
Aspiration towards and preference of foreign products. concern for welfare of people in other countries.
Favouritism of foreign products to support other countries/cultures.
Kosterman and Feshbach, 1989 Ethnocentrism Favourable attitude towards the ingroup combined with an
unfavourable attitude towards outgroups.
A belief about inappropriateness of buying foreign products.
Sumner, 1906; Shimp and Sharama, 1987; Balabanis et al., 2001
Patriotism Strong emotional attachment to own country. A belief of duty to purchase domestic products. Han, 1988; Feshbach, 1990;
Druckman, 1994;
Balabanis et al., 2001 Nationalism Emotional belief in own country's superiority combined
with hostility towards the others.
Favouritism of domestic products fuelled by belief and willingness for own country's economic superiority, combined with boycott of foreign products.
Druckman, 1994; Frank, 1999;
Balabanis et al., 2001
86 Application of cultural attitudes theories have been demonstrated to provide attractive segmentation solutions (Cleveland, Papadopoulos and Laroche, 2011; Riefler, Diamantopoulos and Siguaw, 2012). However, contrasting the implicit linkages between culture-informed behavioural outcomes specific to cultural identity orientation strategies distinguished in CMIO Matrix and extant cultural attitudes theories summarised in Table 3-4 indicates a challenge to the explanatory accuracy of these theories in relation to cultural identity orientation strategies’ manifestations in consumption contexts of a multicultural marketplace.
Despite extensive validation in a number of markets, the theories summarised in Table 3-4 delineate culture-informed attitudes to local versus non-local products in isolation from one another and offer explanations of consumption behavioural outcomes that may be regarded as mutually exclusive (Kipnis et al., 2014). This poses particular theoretical and operational limitations to study of culture-informed consumption in conditions of multicultural marketplaces. Specifically, establishing that consumers are not ethnocentric (Shimp and Sharma, 1987) will not explain whether consumers are xenocentric (Kent and Burnight 1951; Mueller et al., 2009) or internationally inclined (Kosterman and Feshbach, 1989). Similarly, application of the theory of consumer xenocentrism (Kent and Burnight, 1951; Mueller et al., 2009) can establish consumers’
general preference for foreign produce and avoidance of local products but it does not explain whether this favouritism applies to all foreign products in general or is culture-specific. Consequently, whilst useful, each of these individual theories capture only one of the many potential cultural choices guiding consumption, failing to produce an integrative picture that explains culture-specific behaviours emerged in multicultural marketplaces.
Further, analysis of culture-informed brand meaning formation within Consumer Multiculturation framework may offer some explanation to the emerged variances and complexities in relationships between individual cultural attitudes and consumption behaviours identified by some studies. For instance, Cannon and Yaprak (2002) argue that consumers harbouring cosmopolitan attitudes may harbour selective preferences for global or foreign perceived products, since some consumers seek global standards of
87 excellence while others seek authenticity in their consumption experiences. Recent sociological research (i.e. Roudometof, 2005; Woodward, Skribs and Bean, 2008) highlights that cosmopolitan attitudes may be either an expression of willingness to engage with particular cultures/countries/regions (i.e. ‘rooted’ or ‘thick’
cosmopolitanism) or indicate openness to and acceptance of cultural diversity on a global scale (i.e. ‘thin’ cosmopolitanism). Similarly, Shankarmahesh’s study (2006) poses questions regarding attributing the concepts of cultural openness (Sharma et al., 1995) and world-mindedness (Hannerz, 1992) as simply predictors of consumers’
willingness to engage with non-local cultural experiences and products. Shankarmahesh (2006) draws antecedent socio-psychological links between cultural openness and world-mindedness and ingroup cultural identification and domestic consumption (specifically consumer ethnocentrism) and posits that culturally open individuals may become ethnocentric through judgment of other cultures at the point of self-identification. It is therefore reasonable to assume that in multicultural marketplaces where consumer interaction with several cultures is virtually inevitable, multicultural consumer identification influences cultural attitudes and culture-informed consumption behaviours such that consumers may integrate varying, at times contradictory, behavioural responses to local, global and foreign perceived products.
Consider a hypothetical example of two consumers, one internalising LC and specific FC(s) (Foreign Adaptation strategy) and the other internalising LC and GC (Global Adaptation strategy). Both may harbour cosmopolitan attitudes, however the former consumers will be willing to engage only with produce associated with the specific FC(s) he/she identifies with (‘thick’ cosmopolitanism) while the latter will be willing to engage with global perceived products ('thin’ cosmopolitanism).
In sum, individual cultural attitudes theories may be reducing the complexity of consumption contexts in the contemporary multicultural marketplace. While several academic studies demonstrate that greater insights into culture-informed consumption can indeed be obtained from joint applications of these theories in consumer research (see, for example, Balabanis et al., 2001 for an integrated application of ethnocentrism, nationalism, patriotism and internationalism concepts; Cleveland, Laroche and Papadopoulos, 2009 for an integrated application of cosmopolitanism and
88 ethnocentrism), integrating a range of specific measures developed for each of these concepts may be impractical for managers. Thus, while not questioning the validity of the fundamental constructs such as consumer ethnocentrism or cosmopolitanism, it is proposed that Consumer Multiculturation theory and CMIO Matrix may cater for some of their limitations in multicultural marketplaces by capturing more precisely the trajectories of consumers’ identity (re)negotiations at the point of contact with each type of culture. Therefore:
Proposition 4: Variance and complexity in cultural identity orientation strategies resultant from Consumer Multiculturation cannot be distinguished in full by examining cultural attitudes.
Based on Proposition 4, a hypothesis is now drawn to specify the relationships between cultural identity orientation strategies distinguished in the CMIO Matrix and ingroup/outgroup cultural attitudes, represented by two constructs, consumer ethnocentrism and cosmopolitanism selected from those summarised in Table 3-4. The rationale for this selection is twofold. First, these two constructs are representative of ingroup versus outgroup cultural biases that are of interest in relation to Consumer Multiculturation. Specifically, consumer ethnocentrism is defined as favouritism of local produce due to affective attachment and loyalty to own country/culture combined with contempt, or unfavourable attitude to non-local outgroups (Shimp and Sharma, 1987; Balabanis et al., 2001). Cosmopolitanism is defined as a conscious openness, or overall positive attitude to non-local outgroups that can be held alongside positive attitude to local ingroup (Cannon and Yaprak, 2002). In relation to consumption, cosmopolitanism is viewed as a greater likelihood “to adopt products from other cultures” (Cleveland et al., 2009: p120). Past studies link cosmopolitanism to openness to both foreign (Riefler et al., 2009) and global perceived produce (Alden et al., 2006).
Given this characteristic, cosmopolitanism is widely utilised in international marketing studies as a determinant of favourable behavioural intentions towards non-local perceived brands (Kaynak and Kara, 2000; Balabanis and Diamantopoulos, 2004;
Reardon et al., 2005; Balabanis and Diamantopoulos, 2008; Vida and Reardon, 2008;
89 Cleveland et al., 2011). However, it remains unclear how consumer responses to and preferences of brands assigned with global versus foreign meanings can be differentiated if utilising cosmopolitanism as a determinant of these responses and preferences.
Relating to the point above, the ‘thick’ and ‘thin’ dimensions of cosmopolitanism distinguished by Roudometof (2005) discussed in the previous section suggest that cosmopolitanism will share nomological linkages with cultural identity orientation strategies distinguished in CMIO Matrix that assign value to affiliation with global and/or foreign culture(s). Oberecker and Diamantopoulos (2011) recently demonstrated that internationalism, another construct representative of openness to non-local cultural groups, outweighs ethnocentric tendencies among generally pro-local consumers who selectively favour specific foreign countries/cultures. From the perspective of Consumer Multiculturation manifestations, it is therefore expected that variances in how consumers that selectively internalise either global or foreign cultures (Global Culture Orientation and Global Adaptation versus Foreign Culture Orientation and Foreign Adaptation) and consumers that internalise both cultures (Imported Cultures Orientation and Full Adaptation) will not be distinguishable through cosmopolitanism. At the same time, it is expected that deployment of local culture in construal of sense of self will be only manifested as consumer ethnocentrism among those consumers who deploy local culture as a sole system of cultural meanings guiding sense of self. Therefore:
Hypothesis 2: Consumers that assign high value to GC affiliation and/or FC affiliation