Allocentrism and Consumer Ethnocentrism: The Effects of Social Identity on Purchase Intention

In this article the authors examine the effects of allocentrism and consumer ethnocentrism (CET) on intentions to purchase domestic versus imported products, focusing on the current phenomenon of the “Korean Wave” in Taiwan. Results based on data collected from 433 mall intercept interviews in Taiwan indicate that there is a strong positive relationship between allocentrism toward parents and CET. However, a significantly negative relationship between allocentrism toward friends and CET was also found. It was also found that friends' in-group attitude toward Korean television dramas has a mediating effect of allocentrism toward friends on CET and CET on intention to buy Korean products. In this study, it was found that CET played a mediating role between allocentrism toward parents and friends and purchase intention. This ethnocentric effect was attributed to parental and friends' in-groups which significantly enhanced and reduced, respectively, the impact of intergroup discrimination, making national identification a less obvious and important social category. These findings have significant implications for domestic and foreign marketers.