Role spořebního etnocentrismu v pokrizovém nákupním chování a demonstrativní spotřebě

The Czech Republic is facing rising consumer prices, with inflation reaching 16% (year-on-year). With over 50% of Czech households with a financial reserve for less than six months, many consumers will face economic challenges and the need to alter their lifestyles.

The proposed research aims to answer how those who have become vulnerable due to the increasing costs of living handle that change and whether it can affect their consumption. Specifically, what role will the economic challenges play in the consumers’ ethnocentric tendencies, and how will the tendencies toward conspicuous consumption (e.g., displaying wealth, social class, or possibly pretended values through displays of their consumption habits) change?

Changes in lifestyles and their public presentation can be expected, leading to different decision-making processes around purchasing. The role of ethnocentrism, behavior in which consumers prefer domestic products to foreign ones, will be examined in the context of purchase behaviors and their displays during a crisis. Based on previous research, it is expected that more ethnocentric consumers might still prefer domestic products over the relatively cheaper imported ones or, under a pretense of being ethnocentric, purchase the imported products, demonstrating conspicuous consumption.

The research question driving this proposal is how consumer ethnocentricity directly or indirectly influences purchasing behavior and the adjustments in the presentation of purchasing decisions during a crisis. The secondary focus of this study is the role of ethnocentrism in conspicuous consumption during a crisis and the changes in purchasing decisions and their portrayal during an economically challenging period.

The project will combine quantitative and qualitative research methods, particularly secondary data from a syndicated research, agency marketing research Market & Media & Lifestyle – TGI (MML-TGI), provided and conducted by Median, focusing on consumer and media behavior, and in-depth interviews. The respondents who after the initial screening questions at the beginning of the in-depth interviews meet the criteria of being ethnocentric (based on the results from CETSCALE, a rating scale consisting of 17 statements concerning products of foreign origin and their import introduced by Shimp& Sharma, 1987, who first anchored theoretical and empirical explanation of consumer ethnocentrism) and are significantly affected by the increased living costs (the sensitiveness of this topic will be reflected in the questions and the approach to interviews) will be interviewed to observe their tendencies toward conspicuous consumption. For the qualitative research, data will be collected for maximum variation sampling and the minimum sample size for the quantitative part will be computed.

Keywords: Consumer Ethnocentrism; Conspicuous Consumption; Purchase Behavior; Consumer Behavior; Decision Process, Crisis