Globalization and reluctant buyers

This study attempted to empirically test a debatable hypothesis that globalization entails homogenization in consumers’ mind and behavior. Using samples from two countries (USA, n = 120 and Korea, n = 128), this study explored a path model centered on consumers’ reluctance to purchase foreign goods. The findings indicated that, in the US sample only, consumer ethnocentrism plays a mediating role between global openness and the reluctance to buy, although it is on the decrease with the increasing level of global openness. Consumer ethnocentrism is still an important factor in determining the magnitude of reluctance to buy a foreign product in both samples, while product judgment also plays an important role, but only in a certain cultural context (i.e. the USA). It is concluded, therefore, that consumers in a different culture, who are different in their attitudes and perceptions, tastes and preferences, and values, are still different even after being exposed to the massive wave of globalization.