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Consumer ethnocentrism: Reconceptualization and cross-cultural validation

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Abstract

Consumer ethnocentrism (CE) is a popular construct in international marketing research and is generally measured using the CETSCALE, a reliable scale with proven predictive validity but with limited evidence about its construct validity, dimensionality and cross-cultural measurement invariance. This note addresses these gaps by reconceptualizing CE as an attitude construct consisting of three dimensions: (1) affective reaction, (2) cognitive bias and (3) behavioral preference. A revised CE scale (CES) is developed and tested using two empirical studies with adult consumers from four different countries (China, India, UK and USA), showing that CES is a reliable, valid and cross-culturally invariant scale and it explains greater variance than the CETSCALE and other similar scales, in customer evaluations and behavioral intentions for a wide range of products and services.

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Correspondence to Piyush Sharma.

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Accepted by Daniel Bello, Area Editor, 2 July 2014. This research note has been with the author for two revisions.

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Sharma, P. Consumer ethnocentrism: Reconceptualization and cross-cultural validation. J Int Bus Stud 46, 381–389 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1057/jibs.2014.42

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/jibs.2014.42

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