Transformations  in
Business & Economics

The Measurement of Consumer Ethnocentrism and COO Effect in Consumer Research
Oliver Parts

ABSTRACT. The conception of consumer ethnocentrism in economics was worked out by two American scientists, Shimp and Sharma, in 1987. This conception represents the beliefs held by consumers about the appropriateness, indeed morality, of purchasing foreign-made products. From the perspective of ethnocentric consumers, purchasing imported products is wrong because it hurts the domestic economy, causes loss of jobs, and is plainly unpatriotic; products from other countries are objects of contempt to highly ethnocentric consumers.

This paper analysis the formation and development of consumer ethnocentrism and the country of origin effect (COO) in consumer research. CETSCALE methodology measures consumer preferences toward product origin, especially food products. Data are also available for the Baltic States. This paper has the following aims:

1. to analyse the development of consumer ethnocentrism and country of origin effect research in marketing;
2. to investigate consumer preferences towards domestic and foreign goods;
3. to examine the strength of consumer ethnocentrism;
4. to compare different research and to determine the need for additional information, which will be examined further.

Different consumer research in the developed world has shown that consumers are quite loyal to their home country products. Estonian consumers are rather ethnocentric in their purchasing decisions, too.

KEYWORDS: consumer ethnocentrism, country of origin effect, consumer preferences, CETSCALE methodology, consumer behaviour, Estonia.

JEL classification: M3, P2.