The impact of consumer ethnocentrism and consumer cosmopolitanism on consumption behaviour

Diploma Thesis from the year 2006 in the subject Business economics - Offline Marketing and Online Marketing, grade: 1, University of Vienna (Department für Internationales Marketing am Institut für Betriebswirtschaftslehre ), language: English, abstract: This diploma thesis investigates the impact of consumer ethnocentrism and consumer cosmopolitanism on consumption behaviour. For this purpose the confirmed CETSCALE was applied however given the insufficient psychometric properties of the existing consumer cosmopolitanism scale, the need arose to develop a new measure of consumer cosmopolitanism. Accordingly, first the concept of cosmopolitanism is introduced. A cosmopolitan consumer is defined as being an open-minded individual whose consumption orientation transcends any particular culture, locality or community and who appreciates diversity including trying products and services from a variety of countries. A corresponding measure, the consumer cosmopolitanism scale, is formulated and validated. Following assessments of the scale's structure, an extensive empirical study provides support for the consumer cosmopolitanism scale's reliability, content and construct validity. A series of nomological validity tests show consumer cosmopolitanism to be moderately predictive of theoretically related constructs. Managerial implications of these findings are considered and future research directions are identified.