Consumer Ethnocentrism, Perceived Product Quality and Choice—An Empirical Investigation

Abstract

This article examines, firstly, the evidence for the existence of consumer ethnocentrism (Shimp and Sharma, 1987) in Australia, and, secondly, the existence of home-country bias, the latter through the use of conjoint analysis. Thirdly, the question as to whether the level CETSCALE can adequately measure the ethnocentric tendencies of consumers to buy domestic products is examined. The results show that, though correlations between consumer ethnocentrism and perceived quality, and choice, of domestically assembled and designed products are positive, the values were found to be only moderate, suggesting that, for the majority of the population, consumer ethnocentrism would notbe a major factor influencing the choice of the domestic product.