Modifying an American Consumer Behavior Model for Consumers in Confucian Culture:

Most of the accepted consumer behavior models and marketing principles have been developed in the United States and not in the “other” cultures. Several researchers have recently raised the need to validate the applicability of these models to the other cultures and to modify them to improve the models' performances for the cultures concerned. The objective of this research is to modify the Fishbein behavioral intention for Confucian culture consumers (i.e., Koreans in this study) having a fundamentally different cultural background than that which is dominant in the United States. The modified model incorporates the concepts of group conformity and face-saving, both of which have pervasive influences over Confucian culture consumers' attitudes and behaviors. The findings of the study strongly suggest the modified model improves the performances of the Fishbein behavioral intention model in explaining Korean consumer's behavioral intention formation process.