Global Versus Local Consumer Culture: Theory, Measurement, and Future Research Directions
Abstract
The last few decades have seen the emergence of global consumer culture (GCC) as an important force in the marketplace. Yet, in recent years, powerful political and economic forces suggest that globalization might be stalling, leading to renewed interest in local consumer culture (LCC). This article provides an overview of where the field of international marketing stands on GCC and LCC, and it presents new empirical insights. It elaborates on the roots of GCC and LCC in consumer culture theory, cultural globalization theory, and acculturation theory. This background information sets the context for an in-depth discussion of how international marketers have operationalized consumer attitudes toward GCC and LCC, and their individual-level and national-cultural correlates. The article addresses behavioral and managerial consequences of GCC and LCC and concludes with areas for future research.
Market globalization has increased rapidly in the last few decades. This phenomenon is due to a host of factors, such as the collapse of communism; global opening of previously closed markets in India, China, Eastern Europe, and Latin America; worldwide investment and production; increases in world travel and consumer sophistication; advances in telecommunication technologies; and the growth of global media (Steenkamp 2017). Several scholars (e.g., Appadurai 1996; Ritzer 2007) and many in the popular media see these forces of globalization as leading to increasing cultural homogenization. Some have argued that globalization and (alleged) homogenization favor those marketers who are able to position their brands as symbols of global consumer culture (GCC; Özsomer, and Altaras 2008; Steenkamp, Batra, and Alden 2003; Xie, Batra, and Peng 2015).
At the same time, globalization processes offer opportunities for local brands to differentiate themselves on unique local consumer culture (LCC) meanings (Schuiling and Kapferer 2004; Steenkamp, Batra, and Alden 2003). Their prospects may be enhanced by growing indications that global integration is stalling (Hu and Spence 2017). Brexit, “America First” policy, America’s withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, trade disputes, the refugee crisis in Europe, threats to the Schengen Area (the ID-free travel zone within Europe), the (re)emergence of increasingly assertive China and Russia, China’s state-sponsored master plan (“Made in China”) to gain global dominance in key industries, and heightened xenophobia have undermined the seemingly inexorable march toward greater global integration. Compared with, say, five years ago, nationality and borders seem to have become more important. If anything, this situation should make the distinction between GCC and LCC even more important to consumers, firms, and international marketing scholars.
Our discipline has long recognized the importance of GCC and LCC. International marketing research on GCC and LCC draws heavily on consumer culture theory (the domain of anthropologists and ethnographic consumer researchers), cultural globalization theory (studied by political scientists and sociologists), and acculturation theory (developed in psychology). Marketing academics use and adapt these theories to study how GCC and LCC affect the marketplace. Much of this research is focused on consumer behavior (demand side). Other work examines managerial applications of GCC and LCC (supply side) or the interplay between the demand and supply sides.
After 20 years of marketing research on GCC and LCC, it is time to take stock. Extant research is vast, has dealt with a variety of aspects of GCC and LCC, draws on different foundational literatures, and has appeared in publications for fields ranging from anthropology to international marketing (Table 1). Researchers have often used different labels for what are essentially the same constructs, leading to confusion.
With these considerations in mind, the contribution of this research is threefold. First, I organize and synthesize the rapidly growing body of research of GCC and LCC (Figure 1). Second, I add new empirical marketing insights on GCC and LCC by reanalyzing a massive global data set previously used by Steenkamp and De Jong (2010), and by leveraging new data on brand equity. Third, I identify important holes in our knowledge of GCC and LCC and use them to develop several exciting opportunities for future research.
Figure 1. A framework for research on global and local consumer culture.
Notes: PBG = perceived brand globalness; PLI = perceived local iconness. The dotted arrows do not indicate a causal relation but show the flow of information dissemination and sources of conceptual ideas. Topics for which this article presents new empirical insights are in italics.
The remainder of the article follows the flow outlined in Figure 1. More specifically, I start by tracing the development of GCC and LCC, elaborating on their roots in consumer culture, cultural globalization, and acculturation theories. This sets the context for an in-depth treatment of consumer attitudes toward GCC (AGCC) and LCC (ALCC). Next, I turn to their individual-level and national cultural correlates. The discussion proceeds to behavioral consequences of GCC and LCC. Do GCC and LCC really matter to consumers? The focus then shifts from the demand side to the supply side. I discuss managerial applications of GCC and LCC in brand positioning and brand equity. The article concludes with areas for future research.
Theoretical Foundations of GCC and LCC
Consumer Culture Theory
The idea of consumer culture has a broad, even all-embracing quality (Arnould and Thompson 2018). It implies that in a modern world, core identities are defined and oriented in relation to consumption. Arnould and Thompson (2005, p. 869) define consumer culture as “a social arrangement in which the relations between lived culture and social resources, and between meaningful ways of life and the symbolic and material resources on which they depend, are mediated through markets.”
Consumer culture theorists have highlighted several defining, interconnected characteristics of consumer culture. First, consumer culture is about consumption. According to Slater (1997, p. 8), consumer culture is “a culture of consumption” (emphasis in the original). People embracing consumer culture regard consumption as important and valuable in its own right (Ritzer 2007, pp. 163–69). They attempt to add meaning to their lives, to make collective sense of their environments, and to orient their own experiences and lives through consumption (Tomlinson 1999, p. 18). Second, consumer culture is not just about the consumption of tangible products, but about anything that can be “consumed,” including services, images, lifestyles, and symbols (Arnould and Thompson 2005). In the literature, these various consumption categories are commonly referred to as “commodities.” Third, these commodities are “market-made” (Arnould and Thompson 2005, p. 869), and their consumption is mediated through markets. Fourth, consumer culture is closely associated with the principles of modernity, choice, individual freedom, and market relations (Slater 1997, p. 8). All these characteristics underline that consumer culture is of central importance to marketing (Alden, Steenkamp, and Batra 1999).
In the not-too-distant past, consumer culture was overwhelmingly, if not exclusively, local in content. However, in the last decades, consumer culture has been increasingly shaped by globalization processes. Tomlinson (1999, p. 190) calls “localism” and “globalism” the “two axial principles of our age,” while Arnould and Thompson (2005) note that local consumer cultures are increasingly interpenetrated by globalization forces. The world is an increasingly interconnected place, and these interconnections influence individuals’ worldviews. These forces of globalism collide—and have to be reconciled—with the forces of localism that have been the defining feature for consumers for centuries, if not millennia. In the spirit of Arnould and Thompson’s (2005) definition of consumer culture, I define global (local) consumer culture as a social arrangement in which the relations between lived culture and social resources, and between meaningful ways of life and the symbolic and material resources on which they depend, are globally (locally) conceived and are mediated through deterritorialized, global (geographically anchored, local) markets.
Cultural Globalization Theory
Cultural globalization theory studies the responses to the joint forces of globalism and localism largely at the macro level of groups or societies (Pieterse 2004). Cultural globalization theorists study the cross-national transmission or diffusion of media forms, symbols, lifestyles, and attitudes. They also focus on the processes underlying such transmissions, the principal actors, and possible consequences. One school of thought within this literature argues that large numbers of people around the world are assimilating into GCC (Holton 2000; Pieterse 2004), substituting globally diffused behaviors and preferences for those from their traditional, local cultures. Supporting the globalization position, Hannerz (1990, p. 237) notes that GCC is emerging because of “increasing interconnectedness of varied local cultures as well as through the development of cultures without a clear anchorage in any one territory.”
Those arguing for assimilation further suggest that along with the diffusion of market economies, increasingly sophisticated technology and the spread of multinational corporations have led to standardized brand images, mass advertising, and “the sale of dreams of affluence, personal success and erotic gratification through advertising and the culture industry of Hollywood” (Holton 2000, p. 142).
A second possible response discussed in this literature is localization, reflecting the desire to maintain one’s local consumer culture and to generally reject influences perceived as global. In line with this perspective, Inglehart and Baker (2000) show that national cultures and values change in a path-dependent way rather than converge toward each other. Furthermore, despite the forces of globalism, local culture remains the central influence on consumer behavior and individual identity. Many consumers prefer local consumption imagery because they more easily identify with local lifestyles, values, attitudes, and behaviors (Crane 2002).
A third proposed response, hybridization, or glocalization, concerns a desire to embrace elements of global culture and to integrate them into the local culture. Appadurai (1996) states that global cultural forces tend to become indigenized in one way or another. Echoing this position, Sandikci and Ger (2002) argue that “modernization” for consumers does not mean global culture assimilation. Rather “hybridity, creolization and fusion…resonate postmodern plurality in a country currently struggling to be modern” supporting the notion of “multiple modernities” (Sandikci and Ger 2002, p. 465). In a similar vein, Pieterse (2004, p. 59) argues for “hybridization,” and Friedman (1995, p. 82), for “creolization.” Individuals can be global in one consumer domain but local in another (Robertson 1992). Consistent with this perspective, Belk (2000) reports that elite consumers in Zimbabwe largely measure their consumption “success” through reference to the more developed world in general, and the United Kingdom and United States in particular. However, they also retain a strong local culture orientation with respect to food and music. Thus, their consumption behaviors are global in some categories but not in others.
A fourth response to GCC is glalienation or cultural anomie. This response has received little attention in the globalization literature, which implicitly assumes that all consumers have high cultural involvement, whether focused on GCC, LCC, or both. However, cultural alienation is identified in the cultural identification and adaptation literature (e.g., Oetting and Beauvais 1991). The glalienation response concerns rejection of all symbols of culture, be they global, hybrid, or local. It is associated with low cultural identification, loss of identity, and problems of well-being (Oetting and Beauvais 1991).
Acculturation Theory
Acculturation theory studies globalization and localization processes at the micro level of individuals (Schwartz and Unger 2017). Acculturation refers to changes that individuals and groups of people experience as a result of coming into contact with another culture. In this article, the focus is on acculturation as an individual-level phenomenon, also called psychological acculturation. Intercultural encounters may lead to varying degrees of individual-level change, such as newly learned social skills; modified expectations, attitudes, and values; and/or redefined cultural identities and self-identities (Ryder, Alden, and Paulhus 2000). Acculturation models are often applied to explain how individuals differ in their response to new (“host”) cultures that they physically enter (e.g., immigrants). However, these models have also been used extensively to understand how external forces that enter home cultures affect the people already living there (e.g., exposure of “native” peoples to colonizing cultures; Berry et al. 1989). For this reason, the acculturation literature provides a rich source of insight on potential responses by local consumers to global consumption flows that enter their home cultures through the mass media, travel, tourism, and other avenues.
An important issue in this literature is the effect of acculturation on one’s cultural identity. The unidimensional and bidimensional models of acculturation are the most popular frameworks for understanding how individuals respond to secondary cultural influences over the longer term (e.g., Flannery, Reise, and Yu 2001; Ryder, Alden, and Paulhus 2000). The unidimensional model specifies an individual’s response on a single bipolar continuum, from cultural maintenance (of the old culture) to assimilation (into the new culture), while the middle ground is occupied by the bicultural (integration) option (Ryder, Alden, and Paulhus 2000). A person is placed somewhere on this continuum, and the overriding question is “how far [someone has] progressed (or regressed) on the assimilation pathway” (Flannery, Reise, and Yu 2001, p. 1036).
The bidimensional model treats (old) cultural maintenance and (new) cultural adaptation as two conceptually separate dimensions, allowing identification with the new culture to coexist alongside identification with the old culture. The most influential bidimensional model is Berry’s framework (Berry et al. 1989; Berry and Sam 1997), in which four alternative acculturation responses are identified: assimilation (embracing the new host culture and ultimately losing one’s home culture identity), integration (both maintenance of one’s home culture identity and participation in the new host culture), separation (maintenance of home cultural symbols, values, and behaviors and avoidance of cultural interaction with the new host society), and marginalization (little desire either to maintain the old home culture or to participate in the new host culture). Note that the marginalization response concerns rejection of all symbols of culture, be they global, hybrid, or local, often as a result of “acculturative stress” (Ryder, Alden, and Paulhus 2000, p. 53).
A third acculturation model calls for a fusion and integration of the two cultures, creating a mixture and combination that not only contains “the best” of the original cultures but also new and unique elements that are atypical of both of them (Coleman 1995). This model is conceptually somewhat similar to the hybridization/creolization notions in the cultural globalization literature discussed previously.
What this diversity of acculturation models shows, importantly, is that when individuals from one culture come into contact with another culture, assimilation into the dominant culture is by no means the only possible outcome. Indeed, LaFramboise, Coleman, and Gerton (1993) concluded their review of models of “second-culture acquisition” by favoring models that allow individuals to develop “bicultural competence.” They discussed several models in the acculturation literature that hypothesize that individuals can develop responses to both cultures that allow them to identify with both, one, or neither culture.
In synthesis, the review of the theoretical foundations of GCC and LCC reveals four ideal types of consumer responses to the forces of globalism and localism with broadly the same meaning: (1) globalization/homogenization/ assimilation, (2) localization/separation/polarization, (3) glocalization/integration/hybridization/creolization/fusion, and (4) glalienation/marginalization.
Consumers’ Attitudes Toward GCC and LCC
Measurement
Any analysis of the role that GCC and LCC play in the behavior of consumers has to take into account consumers’ attitudes toward these two constructs. Attitudes are of central importance in any behavioral analysis. They guide people’s thoughts, feelings, and actions. Various marketing researchers have proposed instruments for measuring AGCC or closely related constructs that might be regarded as proxies for AGCC (Bartsch, Riefler, and Diamantopoulos 2016), such as susceptibility to GCC (Zhou, Teng, and Poon 2008), global connectedness (Strizhakova and Coulter 2015), and identification with the global community (Westjohn et al. 2009).
Alden, Steenkamp, and Batra (2006) proposed a construct called global consumption orientation. It is a bipolar measure consistent with the unidimensional model of acculturation. The negative pole of global consumption orientation is anchored on embracing LCC, the positive pole is anchored on GCC, and the middle ground is occupied by the hybrid option.
Tu, Khare, and Zhang (2012) developed an instrument to measure both local and global identity. They found that a person’s global and local identity are correlated. Yet the magnitude and direction of this correlation varied strongly, from a low of −.61 in one study to a high of .49 in another study. The reason for the variation is not clear, but it could be due to heavy reliance on convenience samples.
The most elaborate measurement instrument for AGCC, called acculturation to global consumer culture, was developed by Cleveland and Laroche (2007). Their 45-item scale consists of seven factors: cosmopolitanism, exposure to marketing activities of multinational firms, English language/exposure, social interactions, global mass media exposure, openness to and desire to emulate GCC, and self-identification with GCC. While this scale casts a wide net, it combines factors that in other research (e.g., Alden, Steenkamp, and Batra 2006) are treated as antecedents of AGCC (the first five factors) with measures of AGCC per se (the last two factors).
With the exception of that of Alden, Steenkamp, and Batra (2006), these instruments rely on Likert-type response scales. While rating scales are easy to use, they suffer from response-style bias (Baumgartner and Steenkamp 2001) and social desirability bias (Steenkamp, De Jong, and Baumgartner 2010). This approach can also give rise to common method bias because the antecedents and consequences of AGCC are usually measured with the same response scales.
Building on the work of Alden, Steenkamp, and Batra (2006), Steenkamp and De Jong (2010) introduced an instrument for the measurement of AGCC and ALCC that differs from previous ones in four respects. First, it is explicitly grounded in the notion that consumer culture is about consumption of market-mediated products, services, images, lifestyles, and symbols (Arnould and Thompson 2005). The scale includes six consumption domains central to consumer culture: lifestyle, entertainment, home furnishings, foods, clothing, and brands.
Second, it specifies four response options for each consumption domain. These response options are derived from cultural globalization theory and acculturation theory. To illustrate, the response options for the entertainment domain of consumption are as follows:
•
I enjoy entertainment that I think is popular in many countries around the world more than traditional entertainment that is popular in my own country.
•
I enjoy traditional entertainment that is popular in my own country as well as entertainment that I think is popular in many countries around the world.
•
I enjoy traditional entertainment that is popular in my own country more than entertainment that I think is popular in many countries around the world.
•
I don’t enjoy most entertainment, whether it’s traditionally popular in my own country or popular in many countries around the world.
The first response option indicates preference for global consumption alternatives (globalization), followed by preference for combining global and local alternatives (glocalization), preference for local alternatives (localization), and lack of interest in the consumption domain regardless of whether the alternatives are local or global (glalienation).
Third, they used a forced-choice format. For each of the six consumption domains, the respondent was instructed to select the one response option that most closely matched their preference. The forced-choice response format avoids issues of response styles. It also reduces the biasing effects of socially desirable responding as respondents “have to consider the social desirability of all four elements [response categories], which is more difficult than judging the social desirability of a single element” (Triandis, Chen, and Chan 1998, p. 277).
Fourth, Steenkamp and De Jong (2010) conceptually link the response options to underlying attitudes toward GCC and LCC (Figure 2). The globalization response is hypothesized to be characteristic for people who embrace GCC (i.e., have a positive AGCC) and reject LCC (i.e., have a negative ALCC). The localization response is the characteristic response for the opposite combination of attitudes: negative AGCC and positive ALCC. Glocalization is the likely response for a person who both has a positive AGCC and a positive ALCC, while glalienation is driven by a negative attitude toward both GCC and LCC.
Estimation of AGCC and ALCC Scores
Researchers using Likert-type measurement instruments derive construct scores for AGCC and ALCC using either (weighted) factor scores or (unweighted) summated scores. Such procedures are less suitable for the categorical response scales employed by Steenkamp and De Jong (2010). These authors proposed a nominal item response theory (IRT) measurement model. In that model, the probability that respondent i in country j, with latent values AGCCij and ALCCij, will respond to consumption domain k (k = 1,…, 6 in the Steenkamp and De Jong measurement instrument) in nominal response category c (c = 1,…, 4) is given by the following equation:
(1)
where
(2)
Zijkc can be regarded as the unobserved preference that respondent i from country j has for response category c in the context of consumption domain k. The parameter ξkc indicates a category response “easiness” parameter, with more positive (negative) values being associated with a greater easiness (greater difficulty) of the response category being chosen. The parameters akc,1 and akc,2 refer to the discrimination parameter for the underlying AGCC and ALCC, respectively. The easiness and discrimination parameters are allowed to vary across items and response categories.
To identify the model, Steenkamp and De Jong (2010) place theory-based restrictions on the discrimination parameters. Their theorizing dictates that for the globalization response, a.,1 should be positive and a.,2 should be negative, because a rise in AGCC (ALCC) should have a positive (negative) effect on the tendency to opt for global consumption options only. For the localization response, the opposite is true. For the glocalization response, both a rise in AGCC and a rise in ALCC would give rise to an increase in the likelihood of the response option. Finally, with glalienation, both a rise in AGCC and a rise in ALCC would negatively affect the odds of selecting the response option.
Even though the sign of the discrimination parameters is fixed, it is the magnitude of the discrimination parameters and easiness parameters (which are freely estimated) that determines the shape of the probability surfaces in Equation 1. To arrive at the probability of any particular response for a specific item, it is necessary to take into account the discrimination and easiness parameters for the focal response as well as for the other three responses options (see Equations 1 and 2).
Some studies have used the Steenkamp and De Jong (2010) items but instructed respondents to score each response option on a Likert-type response scale. This approach can lead to strange results. For example, Tu, Khare, and Zhang (2012, Table 6) reported that higher endorsement of the localization response was positively correlated with global identity and negatively correlated with ethnocentrism. Moreover, scores on the globalization and localization responses were correlated at .48, whereas one would expect them to be negatively correlated because they are diametrically opposed (Figure 2). On the other hand, globalization and glocalization exhibited the largest negative correlation (−.57), which is surprising because they share a preference for global alternatives. Yet the Steenkamp and De Jong model might be daunting for researchers who are less familiar with IRT. If that is the case, I recommend not using Likert scales but rather a simple coding scheme, at least for AGCC. See the Appendix for details.
Quantifying Elements of Consumer Culture Theory
Consumer culture theory is descriptively rich, but insights are mostly based on qualitative, ethnographic data (Arnould and Thompson 2018). Thus, generalization across populations and countries is difficult. For example, it is not clear whether each consumption domain is equally diagnostic for people’s appreciation for GCC or LCC. Perhaps people’s global and/or local cultural attitudes do not matter for some domains but are important for others. Is it is more difficult to embrace GCC (or LCC) in some consumption domains than in others? For example, food is often considered central to LCC (Özsomer 2012). This situation would suggest that it is difficult for a person to be totally alienated from food and that cultural responses that include local options (glocalization, localization) are likely to be viable options for most people.
The IRT model developed by Steenkamp and De Jong (2010) can be used to quantify the diagnosticity of consumption domains for people’s attitudes toward GCC and LCC (by examining the discrimination parameters) and to assess the psychological barrier toward embracing any particular response options for any given consumption domain (by examining the easiness parameters).
The following illustration uses IRT parameter estimates obtained by Steenkamp and De Jong (2010) but neither reported nor discussed in that article. These parameter estimates are based on survey data from demographically diverse samples of respondents in 28 nations in Western Europe (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland), Central/Eastern Europe (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Ukraine), Asia (China, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand), Latin America (Argentina, Brazil), and North America (United States). The data were collected by the global marketing research agencies GfK and Kantar Worldpanel. A web survey was used in countries in which the internet is widespread. In other countries, mall intercepts were used, in which respondents either filled out the questionnaire on laptops or completed a hard-copy version. The total number of respondents was 13,112.
Diagnosticity of consumption domains
By evaluating the absolute magnitude of the discrimination parameters, one can assess which consumption domains are more strongly linked to AGCC and/or ALCC. Table 2 shows that lifestyle and clothing are on average most diagnostic for AGCC, while food is least diagnostic, indicating that this consumption domain discriminates the least between respondents varying on AGCC. The six consumption domains have less variation in diagnosticity for ALCC, but lifestyle scores highest and entertainment lowest. Taken across AGCC and ALCC, lifestyle and clothing are the most diagnostic consumption domains for capturing people’s AGCC and ALCC. Table 2 further shows that food and entertainment are the least diagnostic. This finding does not mean that they are not important components of consumer culture, but rather that how people respond to these items is not so strongly related to their specific attitudes toward global and local consumer culture.
| Globalization | Glocalization | Localization | Glalienation | Average | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Discrimination Parameters | |||||
| AGCC | |||||
| Entertainment | 1.142 | .853 | −.413 | −.550 | .740 |
| Furnishings | 1.427 | 1.099 | −.645 | −.757 | .982 |
| Clothing | 1.224 | .823 | −1.027 | −1.436 | 1.128 |
| Food | .485 | .485 | −.485 | −.485 | .485 |
| Lifestyle | 1.074 | .940 | −.960 | −1.223 | 1.049 |
| Brands | 1.022 | 1.079 | −.586 | −.629 | .829 |
| ALCC | |||||
| Entertainment | −.538 | .375 | .820 | −.618 | .588 |
| Furnishings | −.581 | .576 | .891 | −1.196 | .811 |
| Clothing | −.707 | .469 | .994 | −.957 | .782 |
| Food | −.527 | .510 | 1.027 | −.884 | .737 |
| Lifestyle | −.579 | .731 | 1.349 | −.976 | .909 |
| Brands | −.562 | .750 | 1.052 | −.784 | .787 |
| Easiness Parameters | |||||
| Entertainment | −1.286 | .983 | −.322 | −.773 | |
| Furnishings | −1.294 | 1.239 | .286 | −.636 | |
| Clothing | −1.674 | .942 | .008 | −.016 | |
| Food | −.778 | 1.931 | .851 | −1.640 | |
| Lifestyle | −1.588 | .862 | .459 | −.090 | |
| Brands | −1.060 | 1.181 | −.482 | .413 | |
| Average | −1.280 | 1.190 | .133 | −.457 | |
Notes: All discrimination parameters are significant at p < .05. Average discrimination parameters are based on absolute values.
How easy is it to embrace forces of globalism and localism?
The easiness parameters are also reported in Table 2. Larger values indicate that it is easier (more likely) to obtain the response in question. One striking result is that glocalization, and to a lesser degree localization, have larger easiness parameters than glalienation and, even more so, globalization. This finding provides strong empirical support for the idea that many consumers are reluctant to disassociate themselves from LCC. Thus, LCC remains a vital cultural force in today’s world.
However, the finding that the easiness parameter for glocalization is larger than the corresponding parameter for localization in all consumption domains reveals a preference among many consumers to include GCC elements in their behavior. Given that GCC is still a recent phenomenon, this finding provides compelling empirical evidence concerning its appeal.
Specific easiness parameters are also informative. For example, the low parameter for glalienation and the high parameter for glocalization with respect to foods indicates that the hurdle to show disinterest in food culture is high, whereas there is great interest in combining local and global foods in one’s consumption repertoire. This finding gives quantitative, generalized evidence for the occurrence of glocalization responses in foods, as identified in consumer culture theory research. Furthermore, a consumer has to be extremely low on AGCC and ALCC before being likely to indicate alienation from cultural connotations with respect to food.
Probability surfaces
To get a complete picture of the probability of any particular response for a specific consumption domain, one needs to take both discrimination and easiness parameters into account. Figure 3 plots the probability surfaces for lifestyle—the most diagnostic consumption domain—and brands, the domain that is of special importance to marketers. This figure illustrates the substantive richness of the IRT model parameters. It shows that even under extreme circumstances (extremely high AGCC and extremely low ALCC), the probability of selecting the globalization response is much higher for brands than for lifestyle. This response is due to the higher easiness parameter for brands. The psychological barrier that consumers have to overcome to go exclusively for the global alternative is lower for brands than for lifestyle. This finding is consistent with previous research documenting that global brands benefit not only from associations with GCC but also from quality and prestige associations (Özsomer 2012; Steenkamp, Batra, and Alden 2003).
With respect to the localization response, the response surface for lifestyle is both steeper and elevated compared with that for brands. Indeed, the discrimination parameters for lifestyle are larger in absolute magnitude, indicating a stronger effect of changes in AGCC and ALCC on the probability that a respondent opts for the local alternative. Furthermore, it is considerably “easier” to choose the local alternative for lifestyle than for brands. Another interesting finding is for the glalienation response. Its response surface for brands is flatter (lower absolute magnitude of discrimination parameters) and elevated (larger easiness parameter), compared with that for lifestyle. This difference implies that the probability of disassociation from brands is higher and is less influenced by attitudes toward GCC and LCC.
Correlates of Consumer Attitudes Toward GCC and LCC
Individual-Level Correlates
Previous findings
Alden, Steenkamp, and Batra (2006) found that high foreign mass media exposure, mass migration, and materialism and low susceptibility to normative influences are associated with higher AGCC, whereas the converse holds for ALCC (recall that their measurement is bipolar). Nationalism, consumer ethnocentrism, the Big Five trait agreeableness, and prevention regulatory focus are positively associated with ALCC, and cosmopolitanism, the Big Five trait openness to experience, and promotion regulatory focus are positively associated with AGCC (Cleveland and Laroche 2007; Tu, Khare, and Zhang 2012; Westjohn et al. 2016; Westjohn, Singh, and Magnusson 2012).
In the largest empirical study to date, Steenkamp and De Jong (2010) regressed AGCC and ALCC on ten personal values (Schwartz 1992), five consumer traits, and several sociodemographic characteristics. These authors found that AGCC is positively related to the importance a person attaches to power, stimulation, and universalism values, while it is negatively related to tradition and conformity. Furthermore, people with high AGCC are more materialistic and innovative and less ethnocentric and nostalgic. The researchers also found relations with sociodemographic characteristics. The picture that emerges is that people with high AGCC are younger and better educated, looking for new experiences in their lives, and less beholden to the past, tradition, conformity, and economic xenophobia. This profile is consistent with the idea that GCC offers the promise of modernity, progress, and a new, different, and more exciting future. In many respects, people with high AGCC can be regarded as the vanguard of society.
Steenkamp and De Jong (2010) further found that ALCC is positively associated with the importance given to tradition, conformity, and security values and negatively associated with the importance given to stimulation and self-direction values. People with high ALCC are older and more ethnocentric and materialistic than people with low ALCC and are environmentally conscious.
New insights
I use the aforementioned data set of Steenkamp and De Jong (2010) to expand on previous insights in two ways. First, Steenkamp and De Jong did not provide information about effect sizes. Which individual-level factors matter the most? I investigate this question by reporting the (bivariate) correlation between each construct and AGCC and ALCC. Note that the use of bivariate correlations to assess construct validity is common in psychology and consumer research (see Bearden, Netemeyer, and Haws [2011] for a wealth of examples). Second, I examine 12 variables not considered by Steenkamp and De Jong (2010). These variables are the Big Five personality traits and seven consumer traits: exploratory information seeking, susceptibility to normative influences, generalized brand loyalty, deal proneness, health consciousness, quality consciousness, and attitude toward advertising.1
The results of this new analysis are shown in Table 3. Because statistical significance is of limited usefulness with such a large sample (a correlation of .017 is still significant at p < .05), I only report results that exceed Cohen’s (1988) cutoff of .10 for small effect size.
| Type of Construct | Variable | Number of Items | Correlation with AGCC | Correlation with ALCC |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Personality | ||||
| Openness to experience | 6 | .159 | ||
| Conscientiousness | 6 | |||
| Extraversion | 6 | |||
| Agreeableness | 6 | .104 | ||
| Neuroticism | 6 | |||
| Personal Values | ||||
| Power | 4 | |||
| Achievement | 4 | .146 | ||
| Hedonism | 2 | .141 | −.145 | |
| Stimulation | 3 | .203 | −.171 | |
| Self-direction | 5 | .162 | −.182 | |
| Universalism | 8 | |||
| Benevolence | 5 | |||
| Tradition | 5 | −.249 | .208 | |
| Conformity | 4 | −.200 | .158 | |
| Security | 5 | .105 | ||
| Consumer Traits | ||||
| Consumer ethnocentrism | 4 | −.339 | .338 | |
| Consumer innovativeness | 8 | .237 | −.108 | |
| Materialism | 6 | .115 | .105 | |
| Nostalgia | 2 | −.198 | .166 | |
| Environmental consciousness | 3 | .111 | ||
| Exploratory information seeking | 1 | .134 | ||
| Susceptibility to normative influences | 8 | .162 | ||
| Generalized brand loyalty | 1 | .128 | ||
| Deal proneness | 2 | |||
| Health consciousness | 3 | .178 | ||
| Quality consciousness | 2 | |||
| Attitude toward advertising | 2 | −.157 | ||
| Sociodemographics | ||||
| Age | 1 | −.286 | .145 | |
| Gender | 1 | |||
| Household size | 1 | |||
| Education | 1 | .224 | −.183 | |
| Social class | 1 | .148 | ||
Notes: All correlations are significant at p < .001. Only correlations with absolute value ≥.10 are shown. Variables not included in Steenkamp and De Jong (2010) are in italics.
Table 3 shows that consumer ethnocentrism exhibits the largest effect on AGCC. Over 10% of variance in AGCC across thousands of consumers and many countries around the world can be explained by a person’s ethnocentrism. In my experience, this effect is strong and cannot be easily attributed to common method variance because the measurement instruments are different. Stimulation, tradition, conformity, and consumer innovativeness also have substantial effect sizes (r ≥ .20). Concerning the newly added variables, people high on AGCC are more open to experience (a finding consistent with that of Westjohn, Singh, and Magnusson [2012]) and are higher on an additional dimension of seeking new experiences (exploratory information seeking) but also have a more negative attitude toward advertising. Although advertising is a main conduit through which GCC is communicated (Alden, Steenkamp, and Batra 1999), people with high AGCC may consider advertising bland and uninspiring, given their need for change and new stimuli. A cursory examination of ads aired on television gives credence to this explanation.
Sociodemographic characteristics usually explain little variance in consumer traits, which is unfortunate because they are particularly useful for managers. Yet for AGCC, we find a strong effect of age, as well as substantial effects of education and (to a lesser degree) social class. Information on age and education alone explains 12.7% of global variance in AGCC.
Consumer ethnocentrism also exhibits the largest effect size for ALCC; in fact, it has by far the largest effect size of all ALCC correlates. Tradition also plays a substantial role. Concerning the newly added variables, people with high ALCC are more agreeable, a finding consistent with that of Westjohn, Singh, and Magnusson (2012). They are also more brand loyal, which is consistent with the profile of ALCC as people who tend to be more risk averse and less likely to seek new experiences (Baumgartner and Steenkamp 1996). The positive relation with susceptibility to normative influences is in line with the findings of Alden, Steenkamp, and Batra (2006). Finally, ALCC is positively correlated with health consciousness. This correlation is surprising at first sight but is consistent with recent work by Gineikiene, Schlegelmilch, and Ruzeviciute (2016). Sociodemographic characteristics exhibit much weaker relations with ALCC than with AGCC. This finding suggests that ALCC is much more diffused across sociodemographic groups in society than AGCC is.
National-Cultural Correlates
Previous findings
Steenkamp and De Jong (2010, Figure 5) documented that AGCC and ALCC do not only differ systematically between people but also differ systematically between countries. They regressed country means on AGCC and ALCC on the two dimensions specified in Inglehart’s national-cultural framework (Inglehart and Baker 2000; Inglehart and Wezel 2005): secular-rational versus traditional values, and self-expression versus survival values. Inglehart’s theory is grounded in materialism and modernization theory, which makes it especially relevant for studying GCC and LCC. After all, materialism and modernization occupy a central position in both consumer culture theory and globalization theory (Arnould and Thompson 2018; Ritzer 2007). Steenkamp and De Jong found that stronger endorsement of secular-rational cultural values has a positive effect on the country’s average score on AGCC and a negative effect on its average ALCC. Furthermore, the higher a country scores on self-expression values, the lower its average AGCC and ALCC.
New insights
I expand on the Steenkamp and De Jong's (2010) findings in two ways, paralleling what I have done for the individual-level analysis. I correlate country average scores on AGCC and ALCC with their national-cultural scores, and I add the national-cultural frameworks of Hofstede and Schwartz to my analysis. Hofstede’s (2001) framework is the most widely used operationalization of culture in international marketing. Hofstede distinguishes five dimensions: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, masculinity, and long-term orientation.
Schwartz’s (1994) framework contains seven dimensions: harmony (fitting in with the environment), embeddedness (people as embedded in the collective), hierarchy (legitimation of unequal distribution of power), mastery (exploitation of the natural or social environment), affective autonomy (pursuit of positive experiences), intellectual autonomy (independent pursuit of own ideas), and egalitarianism (recognition of people as moral equals). Schwartz further proposes that these seven dimensions can be grouped into three bipolar dimensions: autonomy versus embeddedness, harmony versus mastery, and hierarchy versus egalitarianism.
Table 4 reports the results of this correlational analysis. Correlations that exceed Cohen’s (1988) cutoff of .30 for medium effect size are reported.2 Countries that, on average, have a more positive AGCC are more long-term oriented (i.e., have lower preference for maintaining time-honored traditions and norms and view societal change more positively). They are also higher on intellectual autonomy and are more secular-rational. Countries that have a more positive ALCC are more hierarchical (refer to power distance, hierarchy, lower egalitarianism) and collectivistic (embeddedness, lower individualism). They are lower on harmony, autonomy (affective, intellectual), and secular-rational and self-expressiveness values (i.e., embracing survival and traditional values). These results generally have face validity, but results for harmony are unexpected. I revisit this finding in the final section of the article.
| Cultural Framework | Cultural Dimension | Correlation with AGCC | Correlation with ALCC | R2/R2 adj., AGCC | R2/R2 adj., ALCC |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hofstede (2001) | .276/.114 | .466/.345 | |||
| Power distance | .475 | ||||
| Uncertainty avoidance | |||||
| Individualism | −.330 | ||||
| Masculinity | |||||
| Long-term orientation | .383 | ||||
| Schwartz (1994): Individual dimensions | .367/.145 | .494/.317 | |||
| Harmony | .375 | −.378 | |||
| Embeddedness | .621 | ||||
| Hierarchy | .409 | ||||
| Mastery | |||||
| Affective autonomy | −.419 | ||||
| Intellectual autonomy | .405 | −.547 | |||
| Egalitarianism | −.426 | ||||
| Schwartz (1994): Bipolar dimensions | .108/−.004 | .397/.322 | |||
| Autonomy versus embeddedness | −.593 | ||||
| Harmony versus mastery | .310 | −.360 | |||
| Hierarchy versus egalitarianism | .412 | ||||
| Inglehart | .240/.179 | .516/.477 | |||
| Secular-rational versus traditional | .485 | −.612 | |||
| Self-expressiveness versus survival | -.413 | ||||
Notes: Only correlations with absolute value ≥.30 shown. Correlations exceeding .32 are significant at p < .10. All R2 values except for AGCC regressed on Schwartz’s bipolar dimensions are significant at p < .10. For Inglehart’s and Schwartz’s bipolar dimensions, the scores are keyed in the direction of the first pole. For example, if a country scores high (low) on the secular-rational versus traditional dimension, this result means that the country embraces secular-rational (traditional) values more strongly than traditional (secular-rational) values. Only the Inglehart dimensions were included in Steenkamp and De Jong (2010).
Across AGCC and ALCC, Inglehart’s secular-rational dimension is the single most diagnostic factor for explaining country differences in consumer cultural attitudes. Countries that are low on this dimension (“traditional” societies) emphasize the importance of deference to authority, along with absolute standards and traditional family values. These societies have high levels of national pride and take protectionist and nationalist attitudes. Secular-rational societies’ values have the opposite preferences on all these topics. Traditional societies’ nationalism and protectionism are closely aligned with a focus on the local element in one’s consumer culture, whereas secular-rational societies’ greater openness is more closely aligned with a focus on the global element of consumer culture.
I conclude the analysis of national-cultural correlates of AGCC and ALCC by examining which framework has the greatest predictive power. I regressed AGCC and ALCC on each set of cultural dimensions separately. Table 4 provides R2 values and adjusted R2 values. The R2 is an absolute measure of explained variance, but in international marketing, where degrees of freedom at the country level are almost invariably modest at best, parsimony is a key consideration. Thus, the adjusted R2 is the more useful comparison metric.
This analysis yields several interesting insights. Even in an absolute sense, the predictive power of Inglehart’s framework for ALCC is higher than that of Hofstede or Schwartz, and this result does not even take parsimony into account. For AGCC, Schwartz’s seven-dimensional framework yields the highest absolute predictive power, followed by Hofstede’s and Inglehart’s. Schwartz’s bipolar dimensional framework performs the worst, its R2 not even being significant. However, when degrees of freedom are taken into account, Inglehart’s framework performs best. Inglehart’s framework is also preferable for an additional statistical reason. By construction, the Inglehart dimensions are orthogonal in his full sample, and in my sample, they were also virtually uncorrelated (r = .062). On the other hand, Hofstede’s dimensions exhibited several high correlations (in the range of .5 to .6). Correlations between Schwartz’s seven dimensions were even worse: 12 correlations exceeded .5, including four exceeding .7. Such high correlations, especially in small samples, create severe multicollinearity problems and thus make interpretation of individual regression coefficients suspect. In sum, Inglehart’s framework is most useful for cultural attitudes at the country level, from both a conceptual and a statistical perspective.
Finally, for each cultural framework, national culture has much greater predictive power for ALCC than for AGCC. The consistency across frameworks suggests that this finding is not a coincidence. National culture appears to be more of a factor in explaining how much a country appreciates its own LCC than what its attitude toward GCC is. This finding makes sense because, conceptually, LCC is part of a country’s national culture. Although elements of GCC may be absorbed into various national cultures, GCC and national culture are much farther apart than LCC and national culture are.
Behavioral Consequences of GCC and LCC
Studying behavioral consequences of GCC and LCC has been one of the most active research domains in international marketing (see Table 1). Although some of this research does not directly test effects of LCC and GCC, the underlying theorizing relies heavily on LCC/GCC theory. A person’s attitude toward GCC has a positive effect on the person’s attitude toward, and purchase of, global brands (Alden, Steenkamp, and Batra 2006; Riefler 2012; Strizhakova, Coulter, and Price 2011). Strizhakova and Coulter (2015) contrasted local brand purchases with global brand purchases and found that the higher a person’s AGCC, the greater the proportion of global (versus local) brands in the person’s purchase repertoire.
The concept of perceived brand globalness was introduced by Steenkamp, Batra, and Alden (2003). It is created through consumer perceptions that the brand is marketed in multiple countries and/or by using GCC symbols (such as brand names, logos, visuals, themes, and endorsers associated with modern lifestyle) in marketing communications and other elements of the brand’s marketing strategy (Akaka and Alden 2010). A large body of research has documented important consequences associated with perceived brand globalness, including higher perceived quality and prestige, association with global citizenship, higher brand trust, affect, purchase likelihood, and loyalty (Batra et al. 2000; Davvetas, Sichtmann, and Diamantopoulos 2015; Dimofte, Johansson, and Bagozzi 2010; Dimofte, Johansson and Ronkainen 2008; Holt, Quelch, and Taylor 2004; Steenkamp, Batra, and Alden 2003; Strizhakova, Coulter, and Price 2011; Swoboda and Hirschmann 2016; Xie, Batraf, and Peng 2015).
Research has further documented that local brands can counter the threat posed by global brands by incorporating LCC elements into their brand promise (Özsomer 2012; Schuiling and Kapferer 2004; Steenkamp, Batra, and Alden 2003; Strizhakova and Coulter 2015). Successful local iconic brands have built strong associations with local cultural values, heritage, authenticity, national identity, and nostalgia for an imagined past (“the good old days”). Although perceived local iconness has a positive effect on behavioral outcomes such as purchase likelihood, Steenkamp, Batra, and Alden (2003) and Xie, Batra, and Peng (2015) found that the total effect of perceived brand globalness on purchase likelihood is greater than that of perceived local iconness.
Thus, LCC and GCC are compelling forms of cultural authority. Strong evidence shows that many consumers take local and global cultural considerations into account in their evaluation of brands and brand purchases. Firms can—and do—use these insights in their marketing strategies.
Managerial Applications of GCC and LCC
Consumer Culture in Brand Positioning Strategies
Alden, Steenkamp, and Batra (1999) proposed three types of brand positioning strategies based on consumer culture. Global consumer culture positioning (GCCP) is a positioning strategy that associates the brand with global cultural meanings, reflects global culture norms and identifiers (global village membership, passport to global citizenship), portrays the brand as consumed by people around the world in a setting that is deterritorialized (could be anywhere, global connection hubs or imagery), and/or depicts the brand as coming from nowhere in particular and being consumed by globally recognized celebrities or people from any or all cultures.
Local consumer culture positioning (LCCP) associates the brand with local cultural meanings, reflects local culture norms/identities, portrays the brand as consumed by local people in the national culture, and/or depicts the brand as locally produced for local people. Finally, foreign consumer culture positioning (FCCP) positions the brand as symbolic of a specific foreign consumer culture; that is, the brand’s personality, use occasion, and/or user group are associated with a foreign culture. To the extent that a country has a globally favorable image in the category (Japanese electronics, German cars, French perfume), FCCP is closely aligned with GCCP because these country stereotypes (Japanese inventiveness, German craftsmanship, French elegance) have become part of a GCC brand-building repertoire (Steenkamp 2017). Thus, I focus here on GCCP and LCCP.
Alden, Steenkamp, and Batra (1999) examined the use of consumer culture positioning (CCP) strategies in television advertising in seven countries in Asia, Europe, and North America. Overall, LCCP was used in 59.0% of the advertisements, versus 22.4% for GCCP (and 3.8% for FCCP). Only 14.8% of the advertisements did not use a dominant CCP, attesting to CCP’s widespread use by firms. In addition, GCCP is relatively more often used for newer product classes (e.g., high-tech durables [33.3%]) than for products that have deep local cultural roots (e.g., foods [18.6%]).
Alden, Steenkamp, and Batra (1999) hypothesized that indirect, image-oriented, soft-sell appeals are more suitable for advertisements using GCCP than direct, strong, hard-sell message arguments are, because soft-sell appeals would be more similarly interpreted across countries. In line with this expectation, they found that GCCP advertisements use soft-sell appeals more often than hard-sell appeals (56.3% vs. 43.7%). Okazaki, Mueller, and Taylor (2010) tested Alden, Steenkamp, and Batra’s assumption and found that GCCP advertisements using soft-sell appeals are indeed perceived similarly across countries, specifically the United States and Japan. Yet, Okazaki, Mueller, and Taylor also found that cross-national differences in appreciation of hard-sell appeals were less than implicitly assumed by Alden, Steenkamp, and Batra. In addition, Okazaki, Mueller, and Taylor reported that hard-sell appeals received higher ratings on attitudes toward the ad and purchase intention. The combination of these two findings can explain why hard-sell appeals are still used by nearly 45% of GCCP advertisements in the Alden, Steenkamp, and Batra study.
Nijssen and Douglas (2011), Westjohn, Singh, and Magnusson (2012), and Westjohn et al. (2016) studied which consumers are most likely to respond favorably to advertisements using GCCP or LCCP. Less open-minded, more ethnocentric consumers who identify more strongly with their own country and have a negative AGCC have a more positive attitude toward ads using LCCP, whereas more open-minded, less ethnocentric consumers with a more positive attitude toward GCC have a more positive attitude toward GCCP ads. This finding is important because attitude toward the ad acts as a mediator of advertising effectiveness. These psychographic profiles are consistent with results reported in Table 3. This result suggests that people’s AGCC and ALCC can be used as indicators for how they will respond to advertisements using these types of positioning. Given this insight and the fact that managers can most easily take action based on sociodemographic information, we can conclude that GCCP ads are likely to be most effective when the brand’s target segment consists of younger, better educated people from upper-middle and higher social classes, whereas LCCP ads are most effective when the target segment is mainly older and lower educated consumers.
As shown, perceived brand globalness has a greater effect on purchase likelihood than perceived local iconness does. The brand’s CCP positioning strategy is an important channel through which the firm can influence these perceptions (Akaka and Alden 2010). If a firm’s GCCP strategy is effective in establishing perceptions of globalness as well as associations with quality, prestige, and/or global identity, GCCP may overall be a more beneficial positioning strategy than LCCP. This conclusion should be tempered by considering the characteristics of the target segment. If the target segment has low AGCC and high ALCC, a combination of attitudes more often found among older, less educated consumers, LCCP is the more beneficial positioning strategy.
Brand Equity
Consumer culture can be used to build strong brands (Cayla and Arnould 2008; Holt 2004; Kumar and Steenkamp 2013). Firms transfer cultural meanings from the culturally constituted world via advertising and other marketing activities into their brands. The centrality of GCC and LCC in consumer behavior suggests that these cultural associations are an important source of brand equity, provided that the cultural positioning is aligned with consumers’ cultural attitudes. In general, one would expect that equity of brands using GCCP (LCCP) is higher among consumers who score high on AGCC (ALCC).
Yet little hard, quantitative evidence shows that consumer culture affects brand equity. For that reason, I conducted an initial study in collaboration with the global market research agency Kantar Worldpanel. In the first wave, data were collected on brand equity among a sample of British consumers for 97 international brands in various consumer packaged goods categories. Respondents evaluated up to four randomly chosen brands on a 16-item brand equity measurement instrument, which covers four components of brand equity: esteem, differentiation, relevance, and energy (Lehmann, Keller, and Farley 2008). Approximately 31 responses were obtained per brand for a final sample of 611 respondents. The overall brand equity score was obtained by averaging scores across the four components. Eight weeks later, the AGCC/ALCC measurement instrument was administered to the same respondents. Experts from Kantar Worldpanel independently classified the positioning of each brand used in the United Kingdom as primarily GCCP/FCCP, primarily LCCP, or no dominant CCP.
Results showed that GCCP/FCCP was the dominant CCP strategy of 33.0% of these brands, while 43.3% used primarily LCCP and 23.7% did not have a dominant CCP strategy. For each brand, consumers’ brand equity score was regressed on their AGCC and ALCC scores. For 30 brands, the effect of AGCC and/or ALCC was significant (p < .05), indicating that a person’s attitude toward consumer culture had significant effect on the person’s brand equity score. The average explained variance across these 30 brands was 17.3%, for a multiple correlation of .415. According to Cohen (1988), this effect size is medium to large, which attests to the importance of consumer culture for building strong brands.
The regression coefficients for each of these 30 brands can be found in the Web Appendix. For 83% of these brands, the effects for AGCC and/or ALCC were broadly aligned with the CCP used by the brand. For nine LCCP brands, a significant positive effect of AGCC was found, and for five of these nine brands, it was the only significant effect. Because these brands are all sold in other countries as well, consumers may be aware of their global reach, and their assessment of the brand’s equity may be more affected by their AGCC than by their ALCC, despite the LCCP used by these brands.
In sum, the brand equity analysis shows that the interplay between the CCP used by the brand and consumers’ attitudes toward consumer culture has an appreciable (medium to large) effect on brand equity for roughly one-third of the international brands in consumer packaged goods.
Marketing Strategy
I conclude the discussion of managerial applications of GCC and LCC by bringing various core concepts together (Table 5). The core process implicated by GCC is that astute use of GCCP increases perceived brand globalness, which increases purchase likelihood because of the brand’s associations with perceived quality, prestige, and global citizenship. The consumer’s relation with the brand is aspirational (Hung, Li, and Belk 2007), especially in emerging markets, where global brands signify modernity, the future, and dreams of abundance (Batra et al. 2000). Global segments that are especially receptive to GCCP and global brands are consumers with high AGCC (the effect is likely to be even stronger if they also have low ALCC), the youth segment, higher educated people, the global elite, and cosmopolitans. The marketing strategy for these brands can be fairly highly standardized. Because the target segments are global in scope and values, and global imagery and associations add to brand value, strong local adaptations are not advisable and may even detract from brand appeal.
| Element | Using GCC | Using LCC |
|---|---|---|
| Core process | GCC ↓ GCCP ↓ PBG ↓ Purchase likelihood |
LCC ↓ LCCP ↓ PLI ↓ Purchase likelihood |
| Key brand associations |
•
Quality
•
Prestige
•
Global citizenship
•
Global myth
•
Modernity, progress
|
•
Heritage
•
Authenticity
•
Nostalgia
•
Local cultural values
•
Prestige
|
| Consumer-brand relation | Aspiration (especially in emerging markets) | Identification |
| Target segments |
•
High AGCC
•
Youth
•
Elite
•
Cosmopolitans
|
•
Low ALCC
•
Older, lower educated
•
Rural
•
Ethnocentric, nationalistic
|
| Marketing-mix strategy |
•
Use of the same brand name worldwide
•
High degree of standardization of product, packaging, pricing, distribution
|
•
Consider using local brand name
•
High degree of adaptation of product, packaging, pricing, distribution
|
Managers leveraging LCC should opt for LCCP in their advertising and marketing strategy and, if successful, have imbued their brands with associations of heritage, authenticity, nostalgia, and local values. The consumer relation with the brand is likely one of identification (Hung, Li, and Belk 2007). The primary target segments for this strategy are people with high ALCC (and ideally low AGGC) and older, less educated, and ethnocentric consumers, who are overrepresented in rural areas. A successful marketing strategy for LCCP brands requires extensive adaptation. If the brand is in fact sold around the world, using a local brand name and possibly employing translation and transliteration techniques should be considered.
Future Research Directions
Since Alden, Steenkamp, and Batra (1999) introduced the concept of GCC in the marketing literature, it has attracted considerable research attention. Most research has either focused on GCC and related constructs (GCCP, AGCC, perceived brand globalness) or contrasted it to LCC and its related constructs (LCCP, ALCC, and perceived local iconness). As this article has shown, much has been achieved in the last 20 years. The field has recognized GCC and LCC as important marketing constructs, and international marketing researchers have developed an impressive body of empirical evidence concerning their importance to consumers and firms. Yet important unresolved issues remain. I organize them around the three themes (Figure 1): GCC/LCC theory, attitudes toward GCC and LCC, and managerial use of GCC and LCC.
GCC and LCC Theory
Currently, GCC is dominated by Western cultural symbols and values. How does GCC change if more people from different countries, such as India, China, or Brazil, are exposed to and become participants in GCC? This change in perspective is what Iwabuchi (2000, p. 269) calls “the shift from a Western gaze to a global gaze.” The concept of GCC itself could be further unpacked. It is customary to talk about GCC in singular. But perhaps instead of having one single GCC, the world has multiple GCCs—such as a global youth consumer culture and a global elite consumer culture—that operate fairly independently of each other. While few would dispute that global elites and global youth have different outlooks, should their cultures be regarded as subcultures under an all-encompassing GCC umbrella, or should GCC be broken up into these subcultures?
The issue is analogous to the question of whether a nation has an overarching national culture that subsumes subcultures, or whether the subcultures are so strong that it is not meaningful to speak of a national culture. Most international marketing researchers would agree that national cultures exist and affect market behavior. The wealth of empirical evidence documenting national cultural effects attests to this view. National cultural values, norms, and beliefs are instilled in people through institutions such as schools, churches, and other organizations from early childhood on (Hofstede 2001). Because GCC lacks such powerful cultural transmission institutions, perhaps the impact of the overall GCC relative to GCC subcultures is less prominent. This possibility does not invalidate the importance of GCC; rather, it points to the need for future research to reach an even more nuanced view of the content of GCC across different global segments.
In the cultural globalization and acculturation literatures, the glocalization response is less precisely defined than the globalization and localization responses are. Broadly, scholars agree that it involves combinations of local and global consumer culture within one person. The literature is less clear on the exact nature of such hybrid combinations. A consumer can have separate local and global cultural frameworks and alternate between them, depending on the circumstances (LaFramboise, Coleman, and Gerton 1993). Alternatively, the consumer may integrate elements of GCC into the LCC (or vice versa; Belk 2000). Thirdly, the consumer may fuse LCC and GCC, creating new and unique elements that are atypical of both (Coleman 1995; Sandikci and Ger 2002). These alternative modes of glocalization are related but have subtle differences. Future research should investigate whether alternative glocalization responses can be fruitfully separated and underlying processes and outcomes better understood, particularly in terms of consumer responses to global cultural flows. Moreover, future research should provide more guidance to managers on how to combine GCCP and LCCP in their branding strategies.
Glalienation has received the least attention in the literature. This limited attention would be understandable if glalienation applied to a tiny minority of consumers. However, in the Steenkamp and De Jong (2010) sample, glalienation was the dominant response for one of seven respondents. That proportion is hardly negligible. Why are these people alienated from consumer culture? Is it because they base their product purchase decisions on functional performance and objective attributes? Are they anti-materialists who reject the modern consumption society and opt for voluntary simplicity? Are they economically so marginalized that consumer culture has little meaning to them? Is glalienation a socially sanctioned response in postmodern societies? The reason for glalienation likely varies between people, but it is important to study this reaction to the forces of globalism and localism.
In marketing, consumer culture research is mostly qualitative in scope (Arnould and Thompson 2005, 2018). While descriptively rich, this type of research makes it challenging to derive conclusions that are generalizable to an entire population, let alone to draw conclusions that apply across countries. Yet, international marketers are keenly interested in establishing cross-national generalizations and boundary conditions. As shown, the IRT model of Steenkamp and De Jong (2010) can be used to quantify key aspects of consumer culture theory. Model parameters can be estimated for groups of countries, such as developed versus emerging markets, to make international comparisons of specific consumption domains. This type of analysis deepens our understanding of the interrelations between consumer culture and consumption on an international and generalizable basis. These quantitative results could in turn stimulate qualitative studies of specific consumption domains and countries.
Attitudes Toward GCC and LCC
In this article, I have treated constructs such as susceptibility to GCC (Zhou, Teng, and Poon 2008), global connectedness (Strizhakova and Coulter 2015), identification with the global community (Westjohn et al. 2009), global consumption orientation (Alden, Steenkamp, and Batra (2006), acculturation to global consumer culture (Cleveland and Laroche 2007), global identity (Tu, Khare, and Zhang (2011), and attitude toward global products (Steenkamp and De Jong 2010) as proxies for AGCC, based on the construct content and measurement, the similarity of their relations with other constructs, and their close association with GCC theory. However, other researchers may disagree with these choices. Future research would benefit from a rigorous analysis of the convergent validity of these constructs and whether they behave similarly in nomological analyses. Given the importance of AGCC in international marketing, this issue requires urgent attention.
Extending current cross-sectional research on AGCC and ALCC by studying temporal dynamics would be worthwhile. Is the negative effect of age on AGCC a cohort effect or the effect of aging (Steenkamp and Maydeu-Olivares 2015)? What is the effect of current pushback against globalization on consumer attitudes? Does this change in trajectory differ between consumer groups or countries? If so, what underlies these differences? Answering these questions requires obtaining repeated measurements of AGCC and ALCC for the same people over a prolonged period of time.
By and large, the literature presents a coherent profile of AGCC and ALCC in terms of personality traits, personal values, consumer traits, and sociodemographics at the individual level, and in terms of national culture at the country level. But at least two findings need further attention. Why does country-level AGCC (ALCC) exhibit a high positive (negative) correlation of .375 (−.378) with the national-cultural dimension of harmony? Previously, authors have noted that environmentalism has strong overtones of universalism (Tomlinson 1999, p. 77), but why would environmentalism be inimical to LCC? Future research should examine this situation in depth. Perhaps GCC is seen as a unifying, harmonious force in an increasingly politically fractured world. If so, can multinationals use this view to their advantage? Unilever bets heavily on the future of “purpose branding” (Faber 2018). Can global unity and harmony be a “purpose”? Second, national culture has much lower explanatory power for AGCC than for ALCC. Is LCC more closely tied to national culture? Which country-level factors do a better job of predicting AGCC?
As highlighted herein, a large body of research has documented the behavioral consequences of AGCC and ALCC. Most of these findings are based on self-stated intentions and behavior. Thus, the incremental contribution of another such study may be limited. Future research should link GCC and LCC to actual behavior, which is the next frontier in research on the behavioral consequences of these two constructs.
Managerial Use of GCC and LCC
To what extent is the attractiveness of GCCP affected by economic and political events? In recent years, globalization has been under attack from various sides. One would intuitively assume that this situation will make LCC-based strategies more attractive, but perhaps AGCC is much more resilient to political developments than one may assume. After all, these various anti-globalization developments have also generated strong counterreactions in those same countries. If the move away from GCC is a broad-based phenomenon, does perceived brand globalness become a liability, and should multinational corporations try to reposition their global brands as icons of local culture? How can they do that, and would such efforts be believable?
International marketing has devoted more effort to studying GCC and LCC in consumer behavior than in firm strategy (Table 1). The contribution of consumer culture to brand equity remains underexplored. An initial focus on the demand side would make sense. After all, why should companies bother to study consumer culture if it does not affect consumer behavior? However, as companies expect ever more accountability from their brand managers, showing the impact of cultural marketing strategies on building strong brands and quantifiably higher brand equity is a priority (Steenkamp 2017). International marketing researchers could show them the way.
In sum, many unresolved issues await future research, ensuring that GCC will remain an important topic for international marketing researchers for many years to come.
Acknowledgments
The author gratefully acknowledges the JIM review team for encouragement and constructive comments.
Footnotes
Associate Editor Kelly Hewett served as associate editor for this article.
1 See Steenkamp and Maydeu-Olivares (2015) and Steenkamp, De Jong, and Baumgartner (2010) for references to these scales.
2 A small effect (r = .10), would be “significant” at p = .61, which makes little sense. With 28 countries, Cohen’s cutoff of .30 has a p-value of .12.
Appendix. A Unit-Weighting Alternative to Steenkamp and De Jong’s (2010) Item Response Theory Model
The IRT model proposed by Steenkamp and De Jong (2010) yields precise estimation and rich insights into response patterns for individual consumption domains. However, it is also psychometrically complex, and IRT models are not yet widely diffused in international marketing. A simpler model is one that omits the easiness parameter and restricts all discrimination parameters to be either −1 or +1. This model is akin to a unit-weighting model underlying Cronbach’s alpha. Unit weighting can be achieved by applying the following coding scheme to the item responses:
| AGCC | ALCC | |
| Globalization response | +1 | −1 |
| Glocalization response | +1 | +1 |
| Localization response | −1 | +1 |
| Glalienation response | −1 | −1 |
Add the scores on AGCC and on ALCC across the items, and divide them by the number of items. (Dividing the sum score by the total number of items is not necessary, but it facilitates comparison of scores between studies if different studies use different numbers of items.) This method yields a score on both constructs between −1 and +1. To illustrate, if a respondent gives four glocalization responses and two localization responses, the respondent’s ALCC score is ([4 × (+1)] + [2 × (+1)]) / 6 = 1, and the respondent’s AGCC score is ([4 × (+1)] + [2 × (−1)]) / 6 = .33.
To assess the validity of this simple solution, I turned to the large sample (N = 13,112) of Steenkamp and De Jong (2010). I calculated respondents’ unweighted scores using their survey responses, correlated the unweighted scores with the IRT scores, and then calculated the correlations between the individual-level correlates and unweighted AGCC and ALCC scores. The comparison is focused on correlations with constructs for which r > .10 in either the unweighted scores, the IRT scores, or both.
For AGCC, the results are extremely close. The correlation between the unweighted scores and the IRT scores was .935, and the correlations with personal values, consumer traits, and sociodemographic characteristics were similar. The unweighted scores exhibited an average downward bias of only 1.5%. On the other hand, the results for ALCC were less satisfactory. The correlation between the unweighted scores and the IRT scores was only .836. The correlations with the individual-level variables were also less similar. The unweighted scores exhibited an average downward bias of over 25%. The differences were most pronounced for the consumer traits and sociodemographics. For example, for consumer ethnocentrism, the correlation declined from .338 to .156, while for age, the correlation declined from .154 to .052.
In sum, these results suggest that the unit-weighting model is a viable alternative for the more advanced IRT model for AGCC, but its use for ALCC is not recommended.
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Supplementary Material
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