Abstract

Globalization is spreading through the world, shaping people's daily lives and affecting their attitudes and behaviours. Global media, mass migration, advancements in technology and international business are creating a homogenized world market with similar preferences, needs and wants. Keeping in mind that past research has repeatedly demonstrated that culture exerts a very intense influence on consumer behaviour, the emergence of a global consumer culture is expected to be of predominant importance to marketing practitioners when deciding on whether to standardize or localize their marketing strategies. The present study demonstrates that the global consumer culture has emerged among the Dutch population and is affecting their consumption patterns. An investigation of the interplay of the global and local cultural influences on consumer behaviour revealed that people who have acculturated to the global consumer culture are more prone to purchase culture-free products, while people who have strongly maintained their ethnic identity are more susceptible to purchase culture-bound products. The present study's empirical data reveal that the acculturation to the global consumer culture (AGCC) and the ethnic identity (EID) constructs are negatively related. Moreover, significant correlations were found between the two first-order constructs of the study, namely AGCC and EID and such factors as materialism, ethnocentrism and some demographic variables