A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON TURKISH AND ALBANIAN CONSUMERS ETHNOCENTRISM LEVELS

Abstract

As retail companies around the globe expand their international operations,consumers are introduced to numerous products. Therefore, the factors affectingtheir purchase intention have become diversified. One of the prominent factors inthis process is Consumer Ethnocentrism which helps to evaluate the consumer choice of local or foreign products.This paper explores the role of demographic factors on purchase intention of domestic and foreign products. Therefore, the correlation between consumerethnocentrism and demographic factors is examined.First, the concepts of "consumer ethnocentrism", "purchase intention" and "measurement of consumer ethnocentrism" are defined. In the empirical section, interms of consumer ethnocentrism levels and the effect of the demographiccharacteristics in Turkey and Albania is compared. "Consumer EthnocentrismTendencies Scale", improved by Shimp and Sharma, is used to measure the level of consumer ethnocentrism. As a result, its relationship with several demographic factors is observed.