I've done a study last year (still unpublished) and it showed poor influence of Consumer Ethnocentrism, compared with other constructs such as brand and corporate image.
Consumer ethnocentrism is very much relevant in today's marketplace in terms of product preference. But it depends on who you test or interview. Consumers who are general consumers shopping in major grocery stores in large cities would be less likely to be ethnocentric than people in smaller cities or who shop in neighborhood markets in large cities who have less interaction with global products. A study we have in press showed that a spiced fish product common in Northern European countries was not well accepted in Thailand (another country whose consumers commonly eat spiced fish products) because the spices used were too different from those used in Thailand and the fish was much softer than consumers were used to. Even "familiar" products that are too different from cultural norms are rejected.
I think it depends on the nature and type of product. Country of Origin remains powerful, although we can witness the blurred vision of COO in most markets.
I think to have a more realistic approach it is important to consider both globalization and fragmentation/localization forces simultaneously (which is termed as glocalization). The interaction between these two forces determines the ethnocentric tendencies of societies and individuals and I think there is not enough empirical evidence which indicates that the globalization forces have exceeded the localization forces. I have faced with an interesting finding in my study on ethnocentric tendencies of Iranian consumers. The findings indicated that there is no relationship between cosmopolitanism (which is highly fueled by the growth of communication technologies and globalization) and consumer ethnocentrism. Also, the results showed that consumer ethnocentrism has a negative impact on the willingness of consumers to buy foreign products.
It depends on the product and country in question. Some countries are more ethnocentric than others. Some consumers are. There is tremendous variance within countries, perhaps related to personality type. There also are undoubtedly cases where people reject products from one foreign country but accept them from another. This is something that would have to be measured. It would make for an interesting series of studies.
Ethnocentrism does have a major influence in purchase decision. In fact what's more important is the country-of-origin, which in fact goes a long way in contributing to brand equity. The brand name along with country-of-origin can actually be a major component of ethnocentrism.
Consumer ethnocentrism is still relevant, but I also find there are areas where it yields low scores. In studies done with a student sample, ethnocentrism scores tend to be very low as these samples are always relatively international. Generally speaking, without wanting to generalize too much, ethnocentrism tends to be higher for older consumers and for more rural consumers - consumers who less often come into contact with other cultures. There is also a quite strong difference between countries. Reporting ethnocentrism would run counter to social desirability for Scandinavian consumers, for instance.
Younger population is less Consumer Egocentric then older people. The reason for it is simple. Younger people are influenced by media, internet, and Global culture much more, so they are kind of "educated" not to be Consumer Egocentric. They were already prepared for consuming the products by multinational companies.
It is one more discourse how things can be observed, when it comes to this question.
Thank you very much for your answers. I've done a second study on Consumer Ethnocentrism, which shows stronger influence to consumer preference compared to my earlier study.
However, in this second study I observed consumer willingness to buy certain category of local products (e.g. produce, leather, culinary) instead of certain brands. This is also tied to local government campaign to promote certain categories of local products, regardless of their brands.
The two research used samples with similar consumer demographics.
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