...Ana Fikir Sahibi...Consumer Ethnocentrism. Construction and validation of the cetscale

8/7/2019 ...Ana Fikir Sahibi...Consumer Ethnocentrism. Construction and validation of the cetscale

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TERENCE A. SHIMP and SUBHASH SHARAAA='

The concept of consumer ethnocentrism is introduced and a corresponding mea-sure, the CETSCALE, is formulated a nd valida ted. Four separate studies providesupport for the CETSCALE's reliability and convergent and discriminant validity. Aseries of nomological validity tests show consumer ethnocentrism to be moderatelypredictive of theoretically related constructs.

Consumer Ethnocentrism: Construction andValidation of the CETSCALE

American-made products historically provided the frameof reference whereby American consumers evaluatedimported products, which often were considered inferiorand eschewed. Though large numbers of consumers noware willing to consider foreign-made goods as alterna-tives to American-made items, some consumers staunchlyrefuse to buy imported products and chastise fellow con-sumers for doing so, claiming that buying foreign goodsputs Americans out of work, hurts the economy, or isunpatriotic. Other consumers are equally vociferous indefending their right to buy whatever products they wish,regardless of place of manufacture.A study was designed to develop a psychometricallyrigorous scale for measuring a concept we term "con-sumer ethnocentrism." Though the general applicabilityof ethnocentrism to the study of consumer behavior hasbeen recognized (e.g., Berkman and Gilson 1978; Mar-kin 1974), no known work has reformulated the conceptspecifically to suit the study of marketing and consumerbehavior.THE CONSUMER ETHNOCENTRISM CONCEPT

The term "consumer ethnocentrism" is adapted fromthe general concept of ethnocentrism introduced morethan 80 years ago by Sumner (1906). Though originallya purely sociological concept to distinguish between in-

*Terence A. Shimp is Professor of Marketing and Subhash Sharmais Associate Professor of Marketing, College of Business Adminis-tration, University of South Carolina.The authors thank Craig Andrews, Tom Madden, Joel Urbany, andthree anonymous JM R reviewers for comments on drafts of the manu-script.

groups (those groups with which an individual identifand outgroups (those regarded as antithetical to the group), ethnocentrism has become a psychosocial cstruct with relevance to individual-level personality stems as well as to the more general cultural- and socanalytic frameworks (Levine and Campbell 1972). general, the concept of ethnocentrism represents the uversal proclivity for people to view their own groupthe center of the universe, to interpret other social unfrom the perspective of their own group, and to rejpersons who are culturally dissimilar while blindly cepting those who are culturally like themselves (Bo1979; Worchel and Cooper 1979). The symbols and vues of one's own ethnic or national group become jects of pride and attachment, whereas symbols of otgroups may become objects of contempt (Levine aCampbell 1972).We use the term "consumer ethnocentrism" to rresent the beliefs held by American consumers about appropriateness, indeed morality, of purchasing foreimade products. From the perspective of ethnocentconsumers, purchasing imported products is wrong cause, in their minds, it hurts the domestic economcauses loss of jobs, and is plainly unpatriotic; produ

from other countries (i.e., outgroups) are objects of cotempt to highly ethnocentric consumers. To nonethncentric consumers, however, foreign products are jects to be evaluated on their own merits withconsideration for where they are made (or perhaps to evaluated more favorably because they are manufactuoutside the United States). In functional terms, cosumer ethnocentrism gives the individual a sense identity, feelings of belongingness, and, most importfor our purposes, an understanding of what purchase bhavior is acceptable or unacceptable to the ingroup.280

Journal of Marketing ResearchVol. XXIV (August 1987), 28


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CONSUMER ETHNOCENTRISM 281SCALE DEVELOPMENT

We have developed an instrument, termed the CET-SCALE, to measure consumers' ethnocentric Tendenciesrelated to purchasing foreign- versus American-madeproducts. We characterize the scale as a measure of"tendency" rather than "attitude," because the latter termsuggests a greater degree of object specificity than theCETSCALE is intended to capture. "Attitude" is usedmost appropriately in reference to the consumer's feel-ings toward a specific object, such as a particular au-tomobile model. "Tendency" captures the more generalnotion of a disposition to act in some consistent fashiontoward foreign products in toto.Construction of a unique scale is necessary becausethe classic measure of ethnocentrism, the Califomia eth-nocentrism scale (Adomo et al. 1950), is not directlyrelevant to the study of consumer behavior. It was notdeveloped for that purpose and contains items inappro-priate for the contemporary American situation (e.g.,"European refugees may be in need, but it would be abig mistake to lower our immigration quotas and allowthem to flood the country"). More recent ethnocentrismscales are available (e.g., Chang and Ritter 1976; Warr,Faust, and Harrison 1967), but they also have little rel-evance to the study of consumer behavior and marketingphenomena.Domain Specification and Item Generation

A preliminary study provided insight into consumerthoughts about foreign-made products. More than 800consumers expressed their opinions in response to therequest to "describe your views of whether it is right andappropriate for American consumers to purchase prod-ucts that are manufactured in foreign countries." Contentanalysis ofthe responses, along with researcher intuitionand insights from pertinent literature, led to the speci-fication of seven facets of consumers' orientations to-ward foreign products: (1) consumer ethnocentric ten-dencies, (2) price-value perceptions, (3) self-interestconcems, (4) reciprocity norms, and (5) rationalization-of-choice , (6) restrictio ns-m entality , and (7) freedom-of-choice views. '

Multiple items were generated to scale all seven di-mensions. The preliminary study was the primary sourceof items. Editing of redundant statements reduced theinitial pool from 225 to 180 items, all of which have thedesirable property of being worded in the common con-sumer's vemacular rather than in formal academic lan-guage.

Scale PurificationJudgmental panel screening. Individual members ofa six-person judgmental panel (five holding Ph.D.s andone advanced doctoral student) assigned each of th e 180items to one of the seven conceptual dimensions. An apriori decision rule specified retaining an item only if atleast five of six judg es cho se the same catego ry. Onehundred twenty-five items satisfied the rule; 25 of thosewere eliminated subsequently because they were redun-dant with other items.First purification study. A mail questionnaire con-sisting of 117 Likert-type statements was administeredto a sample of 850 households. In addition to the 100statements that satisfied the initial screening and editing,17 items from Adomo et al. 's (1950) patriotism (P) andpoliticoeconomic conservatism (PEC) subscales of theclassic F (for fascism) scale were included for validation(details follow in the construct validation section).^ Itemswere ordered randomly as 7-point Likert-type state-ments. Four hundred seven usaple questionnaires were

retumed.The 100 items were subjected to common factor anal-ysis. Because the objective at this early juncture was toverify the postulated dimensions and to reduce the manyitems to a more tractable number, we used a moderatelystringent decision rule and deleted all items loading


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282 J O U R N A L O F A AA R K E TIN G R E S E A R C H , A U G U S T 1 9matory factor analysis designed to (1) substantiate thedimensionality of the 5-factor structure obtained from thefirst purification study and (2) eliminate additional un-reliable items. An administrative decision rule specifiedthat items loading less than .707 (the square root of .5)on a given factor be regarded as unreliable and thereforeeliminable (cf. Fomell and Larcker 1981). The analysis(with data pooled across all four geographic areas) re-jected one of the five conceptual dimensions (along withthe three items postulated to load on it) and also foundunreliable 22 of the items postulated to load on the fourremaining conceptual dimensions.

The scale at tiiis stage of development consisted offour conceptual dimensions and 18 items, 12 items load-ing on the consumer ethnocentrism dimension and twoitems on each of three remaining conceptual dimensions.Two features of this "final" scale were disturbing: twothirds of the items represented only one of four dimen-sions, and correlations between the complete 18-item scaleand theoretically related variables (discussed subse-quently in the construct validity section) were virtuallyidentical to the correlations between these same vari-ables and the 12-item consumer ethnocentrism subscale.We therefore decided to eliminate the three nonethno-centrism dimensions and to focus exclusively on refiningthe measure of consumer e thnocent r i sm, the CET-SCALE.CETSCALE refinement. Of the 25 items remaining inthe consumer ethnocentrism dimension after the first pu-rification study, 13 were found to be unreliable whenanalyzed by a confirmatory factor model that simulta-neously tested all four conceptual dimensions and all 43items. However, because only one conceptual dimensionwas retained, it was appropriate to test a confirmatorymodel containing all 25 of the items that passed the ini-tial purification test.An aggregate test was performed by pooling data fromthe four geographic areas into one overall sample; dis-aggregate tests also were run on data from each of thefour areas. Results across all five tests consistently showedthat 17 items satisfied the .5 reliability criterion. These17 items represent the final CETSCALE. The items andtheir reliability values are reported in Table 1.With reliable items identified, a final confirmatoryanalysis tested factor-structure equality across the fourgeographic areas by comparing a model having all pa-rameters for all geographic areas set equal (i.e., a con-strained solution) with a model allowing all parametersto vary freely (unconstrained solution). The uncon-strained solution yielded a marginally better fit (p < .1),but the near equivalency of goodness-of-fit indices forthe two solutions indicates that the four geog raphic areasare essentially comparable in their response to theCETSCALE.

REUABIUTY ASSESSMENT AND CONSTRU CTVAUDATIONFour separate studies were performed to assess the re-liability and construct validity of the 17-item CET-

Table 11 7 - I T E M C E T S C A L E 'Item Reliability"

1. American people should always buy Ameri-can-made products instead of impo rts. .652. Only those products that are unavailable in theU.S. should be imported. .633. Buy American-made products. Keep Americaworking. .514. American products, first, last, and foremost. .655. Purchasing foreign-made products is un-Amer-ican. .646. It is not righ t to purchase foreign produ cts,because it puts Americans out of job s. .727. A real American should always buy Ameri-can-made products. .708. We should purchase products manufactured inAmerica instead of letting other countries getrich off us. .679. It is always best to purchase American prod-ucts. .5910. There should be very little trading or purchas-ing of goods from other countries unless outof necessity. .5311. Americans should not buy foreign products,because this hurts American business andcauses unemploym ent. .6712. Curbs should be put on all impo rts. .5213. It may cost me in the long-run but I prefer tosupport American produ cts. .5514. Foreigners should not be allowed to put theirproducts on our mark ets. .5215. Foreign products should be taxed heavily toreduce their entry into the U .S. .5816. We should buy from foreign countries onlythose products that we cannot obtain withinour own country. .6017. American consumers who purchase productsmade in other countries are responsible forputting their fellow Americans out of work. .65'Response format is 7-point Likert-type scale (strongly agree = strongly disagree = 1 ) . Range of scores is from 17 to 119.''Calculated from confirmatory factor analysis of data from fouareas study.

SCALE. For ease of reference, the studies are termethe "four-areas study," the "Carolinas study," the "ntional consumer good stu dy," and the "crafted-with-pristudy." Each study's sample characteristics are reportein Table 2.Four-areas study. This study provided the sample bafrom which the final 17-item CETSCALE was deriveMeasures of attitudes toward foreign-made productpurchase intentions, and ownership of imported autombiles were taken at the same time consumer ethnocentrism was measured. Included were samples of 322, 32and 315 respondents from the Detroit, Denver, and LoAngeles metropolitan areas, respectively, and 575 rspondents from the Carolinas. Mean scores and standardeviations on the CETSCALE for the four geographareas are Detroit M = 68.58, SD = 25.96; Carolinas M= 61.28, SD = 24 .41 ; DenverM = 57.84, SD = 26.1and Los Angeles M = 56.62, SD = 26.37.


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284 JOURNAL OF MARKETING RESEARCH, AUGUST 1Convergent and Discriminant Validation

Only in the Carol inas study could we assess conver-gent val idity in the true sense of co rrelating maxim allydissimilar measures . The 17- item CETSC AL E was cor -related with an open-ended measu re taken two years priorto the CETS CA LE adniinistration ("Please describe yourviews of whether it is right and appropriate for Americanconsumers to purchase products that are manufacturedin foreign countr ies") . Two coders were in high agree-ment (93% concurrence) in classifying responses to theopen-ended question as ref lecting either "ethnocentr ic"or "nonethnocentr ic" sentiments. The correlation be-tween the two measures (r = .54 , n = 388 , p < .001)supports the CETSCALE's convergent va l idi ty , espe-cially in view of the fact that there is no shared methodsvariance between these two t ime-separated mea sures .Discriminant validity evidence is available in all stud-ie s except the national consu mer good stud y. The studiesincorporated measures of three cons tructs patr iotism ,politicoeconomic conservatism, and dogmatism that are

related intuit ively to consumer ethnocentr ism. Correla-tions between consumer ethnocentr ism and the relatedconstructs are reported in Table 3.All correlations between the CETSCALE and i ts re-lated constructs are high and statistically significant. Theseco r re l a t i o ns d o n o t , h o w e v e r , u n d e r m i n e t h e C E T -S C A L E ' s discriminant val idity. Consumer ethnocen-trism should share a moderately high am ount of variancewith these related constructs, part ly because of com monmethods covariation (al l constructs were measu red at thesame t ime with the sam e 7-point Likert- type scales) andalso because of true covariation between related con-

Table 3DISCRIMINANT VAUDITY EVIDENCE'

Four-areas studyDetroitDenverLos AngelesCarolinasCarolinas study

Patriotism''r n

.65 293.66 297.66 286.57 536.55 390Crafted-with-pride study .39 137

Politico-economicconservatism'r n

.59 295.53 296.44 288.52 535.51 390.40 138

Dogmatism''r nN AN AN AN AN A.40 134

"Pearson correlations betw een the CE TSCA LE and three intuitivelyrelated constructs. All correlations are significant at a = .0 1.'Patriotism was measured by a 5-item purified version of Adomoet al.'s (1950) patriotism scale. Coefficient alpha for this scale rangesfrom .58 to .69 across the various geographic locales and differentstudies.'Politicoeconomic conservatism was measured by a 6-item purifiedversion of Adomo et al.'s (1950) politicoeconomic subscale. Coef-ficent alpha for this scale ranges from .64 to .80 across the variousgeographic locales and different studies.^Dogmatism was measured by a 20-item scale (Robinson and Shaver1973, p. 435-36). Its coefficient alpha is .74.

Structs. We believe that these correlations, though merately high, do not compromise the CETSCALE's criminant validity.*Nomological Validation

Extensive data have been amassed to examine thefects of consumer ethnocentrism on consumers' foreproduct-related beliefs, attitudes, intentions, and chase behaviors. Two general predictions frame the sequent presentation.

Hi: Scores on the CETSCALE should be strongly atively correlated with co nsum ers' beliefs, attituand purchase intentions toward foreign-made pucts.H2: Scores on the CETSCALE should be negatively related with consum ers' foreign-product behavhowever, these correlations should not be as stas the correlations with behavioral antecedents,cause the actual choice between American- and eign-made products is determined by a variety oftors other than consumer ethnocentric tendenciesse (e.g., product availability, price differentialsFour-areas study. The same questionnaire that msured respondents' ethnocentric tendencies also msured their attitudes toward foreign-made products, mof automobile owned (whether foreign or domestic), make of automobile (foreign or domestic) that wouldchosen if the respondent purchased a new car withinnext year or so. The au tomob ile was selected as the fproduct because its material and media prominence mit the one consumption object of perhaps greatest rvance to the issue of attitudes toward origin of mafacture and the impact of consumer ethnocentrism on thattitudes.

In Table 4 are correlations between the CETSCAand the various criterion variables. These results supthe hypotheses, showing that (1) general attitudes towforeign-made products are strongly negatively correlawith ethnocentric tendencies and (2) the stronger oconsumer ethnocentrism, the more likely one is to oa domestic-made automobile and/or to intend to pchase a domestic-made automobile.Carolinas study. Of the four studies conducted, one provides the most complete and rigorous nomolical validity evidence. Respondents' ethnocentrism scowere used to retrodict a variety of measures adapted frWarshaw (1980), Fishbein and Ajzen (1975), and Ajand Fishbein (1980) that had been taken two years be

'Fomell and Larcker (1981, p. 46) propose that discriminant vity is evidenced when the average variance extracted by each of constructs is greater than their shared variance. This test applieour data consistently supports the consumer ethnocentrism concediscriminant validity. For example, for just the four-areas data,average variances extracted by the CETSCALE and Adomo et (1950) politicoeconomic conservatism measure are 71% and 62%spectively, whereas the shared variance between the two construc35%. Similar results obtain for the remaining tests.


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285Table 4

NOMOLOGICAL VALIDITY EVIDENCE FROMFOUR-AREAS STUDY"

DetroitDenverLos AngelesCarolinas

Attitudestowardforeign-madeproducts'"

r n- . 6 5 2 9 2- . 6 7 2 9 7- . 6 2 2 9 0- . 6 4 5 3 1

Automobileownership'r n

.22 280.45 290.41 282.31 533

Purchaseintents'r n

.20 278.44 276.50 267.40 514Pearson correlations between the CETSCALE and three theoreti-ally related constructs. All correlations are significant at a < .0 1.''Measured with single-item 11-point scale (0 = very unfavorableeelings toward personally buying and using foreign-made products,11 = very favorable feelings).'Response coded 1 for household ow nership of American-made ve-

''Measured with question: "If you were to purchase a new auto-

a priori predic-

The first set of fmdings involves various measures ofBly, Bly, an d Bly/y

(Bly), to purchase a(Bly),

(Bly/y). The predictions (TableBly should no t be correlated signif-

Bly should be weakly negatively correlated

Blyjy should be strongly negatively cor-

The corre la t ions in Table 5 ( r = .03, - . 2 2 , and - . 4 2 ,Bly, Bly, and B/^/j.) show close accord

with the foregoing predictions. The standard Fishbein/Ajzen measure of purchase intention, BI , is also stronglynegatively correlated with consumer ethnocentrism (r =- . 4 5 , p < .001).The next four items in Table 5 are adaptations of War-shaw 's (1980) general measures of purcha se "affordabil-ity" and "desirability" and foreign-car-specific measuresof those same constructs. The predictions are that (1) thegeneral measures should no t correlate with the CET-SCALE, because high scorers on the scale (i.e., eth-nocentrics) should consider purchasing a new car (anycar, without regard to origin of manufacture) no morenor less affordable and desirable than low scorers, but(2) high scorers, because of their general bias againstforeign-made products, should regard purchasing a for-eign-made car as less desirable and probably less af-fordable than would low scorers. The four correlationsin Table 5 generally support these predictions (r = - . 1 6 ,- . 0 3 , - . 2 3 , and - . 3 7 ) .

The fmal set of results is for Fishbein and Ajzen'scognitive structure (Xbfii) and attitude {A ^ measures.Cognitive structure was constructed with separate mea-sures of respondents' beliefs and evaluations pertainingto nine salient characteristics of automobile ownership(fuel economy, payments, dependability, status, safety,quality of workmanship, serviceability, appearance, andengineering innovativeness). A^ ^ is the summated scoreof a 4-item, 7-point semantic differential scale repre-senting respondents' evaluations of how foolish-wise,good-bad, harmful-beneficial, and pleasant-unpleasant itwould be to "purchase a foreign-made automobile within

Table 5NOMOLOGICAL VALIDITY EVIDENCE FROM

CAROLINAS STUDY

Warshaw measures'"BlyBI ,Affordability of new carDesirability to purchase new carAffordability of foreign carDesirability of foreign car

Fishbein and Ajzen measures'"LbfiiA,aBI

r.0 3- . 2 2- . 4 2- . 1 6- . 0 3- . 2 3- . 3 7

- . 3 1- . 4 1- . 4 5

n39 339 239 139 339 339 339 3

37 637 138 9

P.247.000.000.001.306.000.000

.000

.000.000

Prediction'N oYes (weak)Yes (strong)N oN oYes (weak)Yes (strong)

Yes (strong)Yes (strong)Yes (strong)

These predictions specify the strength and significance of corre-lations expected a priori between the CETSCALE and the Warshawand Fishbein/Ajzen variables. A "no" entry means the correlationshould be virtually 0, whereas the "yes (weak)" and "yes (strong)"entries predict varying magnitudes of signiflcant correlations.'Measures of Warshaw (1980) variables were taken two years be-fore the CETSCALE items were measured."Measures of Fishbein and Ajzen variables (cf. Ajzen and Fishbein1980) were obtained two years before the CETSCALE items weremeasured.


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286 JOURNAL OF MARKETING RESEARCH, AUGUST 1the next year or so." Cognitive structure (r = .31) and^act (' = .41) are strongly negatively correlated withrespondents ' scores on the CETSCALE; ethnocentr icconsumers have predictably less favorable cognitivestructures and attitudes toward foreign-made automo-biles than do nonethnocentric consumers.The overall pattem of the foregoing results providesstrong support for the nomological validity of the con-sumer ethnocentrism concept and its measurement viathe CETSCALE. The results are particularly gratifyingin view of the two-year interval between the measure ofethnocentrism and the other measures, which mitigatesthe possibility of inflated correlations due to commonmethods covariation.National consumer good study. A telephone surveyprovided measures of two criterion variables that wereused to validate nomologically the 10-item, reduced-formCETSCALE that was measured with a followup mailquestionnaire. The first variable (origin-of-manufactureimportance) is a measure of the importance of countryof origin in the respondent's purchase decision for his/her most recent purchase in the product category (1 =not important at all, 5 = very important). The secondvariable is a set of three indices (USABIAS, EURO-BIAS, and ASIABIAS) that were constructed by sum-ming scores based on respondents' evaluations of whichmanufacturers (United States, European, and Asian) are"best" and which are "worst" on 11 separate product-specific features (price, quality of workmanship, etc.).Indices for each geographic area were constructed by as-signing a +1 to, say, USABIAS if American manufac-turers were considered best on a particular feature, 1if they were considered worst, and 0 if they were neitherbest nor worst. Manufacturers in each of the three geo-graphic areas received an index score ranging from - 1 1to +11, the higher scores reflecting more favorable eval-uations.The reduced-form measure's nomological validity issupported. Origin of manufacture becomes a predictablymore important purchase consideration with increases inCETSCALE scores (r = .44, n = 1,803, p < .001) .Higher scorers on the CETSCALE are predictably biasedin favor of American manufacturers (r = .38, n = 2279,p < .001) and in opposition to European (r = - . 2 5 ,n = 2279, p < .001) and Asian (r = - . 1 1 , n = 2 279,p < .001) manufacturers.Crafted-with-pride study. The respondents completedthe 17-item CETSCALE on one administration. Fiveweeks later they viewed three 30-second crafted-with-pride commercials and responded to various measures oftheir attitudes and purchase intentions toward American-and foreign-made apparel items. Correlations betweenthe CETSCALE and theoretically related constructs arereported in Table 6. All correlations are predictably strongand significant. Two of the correlations (attitude foreign1 and general feelings 1) are artificially infiated by beingmeasured contemporaneously with the CETSCALE items;nonetheless, the correlations between the CETSCALE

Table 6NOMOLOGICAL VALIDITY EVIDENCE FROM

CRAFTED-WITH-PRIDE STUDYTheoretically relatedvariableAttitudes foreign 1'Attitudes foreign 2"General feelings I 'General feelings 2"Atti tudes American 'Intent American''

r- . 5 9- . 4 4- . 6 9- . 4 5.5 0.3 2

n139140139140140138

......'Atti tudes toward foreign-made products were measured bothfore and after (foreign 1, foreign 2) respondents viewed the crafwith-pride commercials. Attitudes measured with 3-item semantic ferential scale. Coefficient alpha = .92, .90.""General feelings toward foreign-made products were measured before and after (feelings 1, feelings 2) respondents viewed the cpaign. Feelings measured with single 1 l-point scale (very unfavo= 0, very favorable = 10)."Atti tudes toward buying American-made apparel products wmeasured after exposure to ads. Attitudes measured with four 7-pLikert-type scales. Coefficient alpha = .81.' 'Intentions to purchase American-made apparel were measuredthree 7-point semantic differential scales after exposure to ads. Cficient alpha = .84.

and these same items when measured five weeks la(i .e. , attitude foreign 2 and general feelings 2) remlarge (r = .44 and .45) and represent approximately 2shared variance.THE ROLE OF THREAT

The foregoing results support the reliability and vality of the consumer ethnocentrism construct. A remaing issue is whether consumer ethnocentric tendencoperate uniformly across all consumers or whether ctain population segments are disproportionately moreless likely to have ethnocentric tendencies. For many dividuals, quality of life and economic livelihood "threatened" by foreign competition.* Persons expecto experience the greatest degree of threat are thoselow socioeconomic strata (because their jobs are escially displaceable) and residents of geographic arwhere foreign competition is particularly acute.H3: Consumer ethnocentric tendencies are especiaprominent among individuals whose quality of and economic livelihood are threatened by forecompetition.

The hypothesis was tested with data from the Calinas study. Socioeconomic status was measured w

'The concept of threat has a theoretical basis in psychologicalactance theory (Brehm 1966). Because an unemployed or imm ineunemployed individual's quality and way of life are threatened,individual should be motivated to evaluate more positively the threned altemative (i.e., "the American way of life" and associatedtifacts such as American-made products) and to evaluate less ptively the source of threat (i.e., foreign competition) and its associproducts .


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288 J O U R N A L O F A A A R K E T I N G R E S E A R C H , A U G U S T 1 9The process by which consumer ethnocentric tendenciesare socialized is particularly worth examining. Studiesare needed to determine how socioeconomic, demo-graphic, geographic, and regional economic factors in-fluence early childhood socialization of consumer eth-nocentric values and what role these variables have duringadulthood in accentuating ethnocentric tendencies. Re-lated to this work would be further examination of theconcept of threat and its influence on consumers' atti-tudes, buying intentions, and actual purchase behaviortoward foreign-made products. The research we reportdemonstrates that more threatened consumers (i.e., thosewhose jobs and quality of life are vulnerable to inter-ruption from foreign competition) have the highest scoreson the CETSCALE. Additional research is needed to ex-amine correlates of threat other than the geographic andsocioeconomic variables examined in our research, todetermine how real and perceived threat changes overtime, and to evaluate how threat moderates the impactof consumer ethnocentrism on attitudes, intentions, andbehavior related to foreign-made products.Practical Implications

The CETSCALE has several potential uses for con-temporary marketing managers. Companies could ad-minister the CETSCALE as part of their periodic track-ing studies. Study results would reveal how strongethnocentric tendencies are and whether the use of ma de-in-America and buy-American themes would be prudentin future promotional campaigns. It would be naive toexpect consumer ethnocentrism alone to provide a mean-ingful basis for market segmentation. However, if theCETSCALE scores are correlated with actionable seg-mentation variables (e.g., a combination of demographicand lifestyle variables), marketing communication pro-grams could be directed to those market segments thatare accessible via appropriate media vehicles and retailoutlets.

An especially exciting application of the CETSCALEis for regional marketing and geographic segmentation.Extensive geographic differences in consumers' life-styles and purchase behaviors have prompted many com-panies to develop regional marketing programs that cus-tomize marketing mix elements to regional preferences(cf. "C losing in on the Con sum er" 1986; Lesser andHughes 1986; "Marketing's New Look" 1987). Thegrowth of regionalized marketing programs and the in-creasing availability of research services specializingin geodemographic data collection (e.g., Claritas Cor-por a t i on ' s PRI Z M a nd N a t iona l D e c i s ion Sys t e m s 'VISION; see "Closing in on the Consumer" 1986) sug-gest that marketing managers would be receptive to ad-ministering the CETSCALE and using the results to cus-tomize communication programs to different regions.Direct mail advertising, for example, could be used tovary buy-American appeals to suit zip code areas thatdiffer in their response to the CETSCALE. The mediaselection applications are certainly not limited to direct

mail. Regional magazine editions, local newspapers, aspot broadcast advertising also could be customized the ethnocentric inclinations of sjjecific geographic areaThe CETSCALE could be of value to retail chamaking store location decisions. For example, a chaspecializing in imported merchandise could apply tCETSCALE in areas contemplated for new store opeings to determine the likelihood that consumers wourespond favorably to a store carrying little, if any, Amican-made merchandise.Other practical applications for the CETSCALE udoubtedly can be envisioned. Suffice it to say that tscale offers marketing managers a useful tool for betunderstanding how present and prospective customers feabout purchasing foreign- versus American-made proucts . Because consumer ethnocentrism, like all aspecof culture in contemporary North America, is probabsubject to constant change (McCracken 1986), annuapplications of the CETSCALE could reveal the intesity of ethnocentric tendencies in different geographareas and among different consumer groups. The apprpriateness of using buy-American and made-in-the-USappeals could be ascertained from these results.The concept of consumer ethnocentrism and its mesurement via the CETSCALE are l imited to contemprary American society. Whether the scale is applicabto other cultures is entirely problematic at this timTranslating the scale into other languages and testingin other countries is a needed next step. Future researalso should examine whether the scale differentiates tbeliefs, attitudes, and purchase behaviors of demgraphic and socioeconomic groups other than those wtested. For example, it is not known whether the scais applicable to consumers of high school age and youngor to blacks, Hispanics, and other ethnic groups.

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...Ana Fikir Sahibi...Consumer Ethnocentrism. Construction and validation of the cetscale

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