Search results

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of acculturation on immigrant consumers’ loyalty. The authors posit that the acculturation orientation of immigrants determines their consumer loyalty to both ethnic and mainstream brands and stores.

Using a sample of Hispanic consumers in the USA and consumers from the former Soviet Union in Israel, this study tests a model in which two acculturation continua, original culture maintenance and host culture adaptation, serve as antecedents for immigrants’ consumer loyalty.

Acculturation determines the extent of immigrants’ consumer loyalty. Both acculturation continua are associated with distinct loyalty patterns that are similar across the two immigrant groups.

Despite sampling limitations, the paper demonstrates that immigrants’ acculturation orientation influences their loyalty to ethnic and mainstream brands and stores. Shared by ethnic consumers in two culturally diverse markets, this relationship transcends geographic boundaries.

The results provide insights for marketers with respect to the development of segmentation and positioning strategies and tactical implementations that address the preferences of ethnic consumers.

This paper highlights the importance of understanding the unique needs of ethnic consumers and addressing them. Successful integration of immigrant consumers into the marketplace can also help in their integration into the host society at large.

Findings shed light on the commonalities and differences among immigrant groups in different national settings. The paper highlights the role of cultural transition as a key experience that affects immigrants regardless of specific environmental or situational circumstances.

The objectives of this study are: to gain a better understanding of the modes of acculturation of West African immigrants in Canada; to relate these modes of acculturation to consumers' perceived likelihood of successful complaint and complaining behavior; and to compare consumers' complaint attitudes and behavior in their home countries (i.e. original countries) and the host country (Canada).

An empirical study is conducted among a sample of 218 immigrants from several West African countries now living in Canada. ANOVA and paired samples t‐tests were used to test the research hypotheses.

The results show that the majority of the surveyed West African immigrants fall into one of two acculturation groups: integrated or separated. Although there are no significant differences between these two groups in terms of their perception that a consumer complaint is more likely to be successful in Canada than in their home countries, there are significant differences in their complaining behaviors in Canada and at home.

Marketers should be aware that not all immigrants are the same and that market segmentation based on the degree of immigrants' acculturation might lead to a sound marketing strategy.

Caution should be exercised in generalizing the research results to the entire population of West African immigrants in Canada.

Most previous studies of the consumption behavior of immigrants have examined their perceptions and behavior mainly in the context of the host country, while overlooking their perceptions and behavior in their home countries. The present study has addressed this gap in the literature by investigating the perceptions and behavior of West African immigrants to Canada in both contexts.

This paper aims to develop an understanding of key variables for designing and marketing healthcare services for immigrant consumers – widely considered a vulnerable consumer group.

Data collected from 277 participants was analyzed using ANOVA models and mean score comparisons.

Differences based on immigrant status and acculturation level are identified. Differences between immigrant acculturation levels based on service quality dimensions are also revealed.

This research indicates that acculturation-based studies are insightful and finds that immigrants’ service responses do not mirror those of native respondents in healthcare services.

This research highlights key nuances within immigrant populations that hold significant implications for service providers. Culturally appropriate service design and marketing can enhance service utilization by the target population.

This study focuses on the healthcare service experiences of immigrant populations and application of this information to service design.

This study compares perceptions regarding Indian versus American print advertisements of Asian‐Indian immigrants residing in the United States of America. It examines whether these perceptions varied with their degree of acculturation. Our results show that when Asian‐Indian immigrants are treated as a homogeneous group without considering their degree of acculturation, the preferences for Indian versus American advertisements are mixed. However, when examined from an acculturative perspective, we find that as acculturation increased, subjects preferred American advertisements more, and Indian advertisements less. The results imply that degree of acculturation should be considered as a segmentation variable when developing an advertising strategy for immigrant consumers.

Social media has transformed communication possibilities for immigrant consumers with their home country in their acculturation efforts. However, the acculturative outcomes of consumer interactions with the home country through social media are largely overlooked in previous research. This study aims to investigate the acculturative processes and outcomes resulting from interacting with the home country through social media.

A netnographic approach is used to collect data from a social media platform that provides an interactive social context in which Iranian immigrants in Australia share their experiences of immigration with non-immigrants who are considering and planning to migrate to Australia.

Findings show how both immigrants and non-immigrant users via social media reflexively contribute to the formation of two competing collective narratives, namely, the dominant, romanticizing narrative and counter, pragmatic narratives. Findings highlight how notions of the home and host countries, and the idea of migrating from home to host, are constructed as the result of the circulation of the dominant and counter narratives. Further findings include how these two collective narratives come into play in the formation of three acculturative outcomes, namely, self-validating, ordinary experts and wellbeing. These insights extend consumer acculturation theory through highlighting the acculturative processes and outcomes of interactions with the home country via a social media platform. This includes, for example, how interacting with the home culture can take on assimilationist properties through the construction of a romanticized representation of the hosting society (i.e. Australia) in the dominant collective narrative.

Implications for ethnic marketing practice, policymakers and non-governmental organisations are advanced, especially regarding using social media as a channel to communicate with current and potential immigrant consumers. Notably, policymakers can use social media to engage with immigrants before and after migration to reduce the potential for cognitive dissonance in recent arrivals. Managerially, brands can advertise on Web-based forums, independent websites and social media platforms to target potential immigrants to sell relevant products immigrants needs after migrating to the host country.

Findings broaden the understanding of the potential acculturative outcomes on social media by moving away from the traditional outcomes, which are restricted to the dichotomy between the home and host cultures.

Scholarly attention is deficient on the role of direct interaction with the home country in immigrant consumer acculturation, especially through social media, which is the focus of this study.

A pronounced rise in postpandemic immigration is creating consumption opportunities and challenges for countries worldwide. Past research has shown that immigrant homeownership indicates advanced consumer acculturation. However, critical factors which differentiate immigrant decisions to purchase a home remain underexplored. This study aims to examine the importance of different identity resources in determining homeownership gaps between immigrant groups in Spain during a dynamic decade.

A mixed methods research design with triangulation was used. First, the critical “historical research method” is used to empirically assess 15,465 household-level microdata files from the National Immigrant Survey of Spain. Second, the analysis is corroborated through informant interviews, an evaluation of digital news archives and other historical traces such as relevant advertisements in Spain from 2000 to 2009.

Results provided an account of immigrant homeownership whereby foreign-born consumers leveraged resources to promote social identities aligned with an advanced level of acculturation through housing investment during this period. Furthermore, marketing focused on specific targets of ethnic minority consumers coupled with government policies to promote immigrant homeownership reinforced the “Spanish Dream” as a new paradigm for housing market integration.

Spain provides an unprecedented historical context to explain marketing-related phenomena due to a perfect storm of immigration, job availability and integration supports. Contrary to popular wisdom, immigrant consumer homeownership gaps are not solely a result of differences in income and economic mobility, but rather an advanced acculturation outcome driven by personal and social investments in resources that lead to consumer identities.

The paper examines relationships between acculturation, affective attitude toward the advertisement (Aad), and purchase intention (PI) of Asian‐Indian immigrants. Our results indicate that (i) Aad as well as PI of Asian‐Indian immigrants for the Indian versus the American advertisements vary within and across the stages of acculturation: low, moderate, and high, and (ii) there is a strong positive relationship between Aad and PI. Our results imply that the degree of acculturation (DA) should be considered in advertising. Low and moderate acculturated Asian‐Indians would be more effectively reached by developing Indian advertisements depicting Indian cultural themes rather than American advertisements showing mainstream American culture. High acculturated Asian‐Indian immigrants should be reached by American advertisements rather than Indian advertisements. Our findings also confirm that the more consumers like an advertisement the more likely they are to indicate an intention to purchase the advertised product.

This paper aims to assess recent acculturation theory regarding the existence of two co-existent characteristics, the public and private. This has been focussed on the ethnic Turkish community in The Netherlands.

Considering more than 200 second- and third-generation citizens, the underlying structure of this acculturation using an established two-dimensional public/private metric has been identified using exploratory factor analysis. An assessment has been made of generational differences, alongside associations with the respective assessment of host and ethnic identity.

The findings in the paper suggest that the Turkish acculturation within The Netherlands is based on “Turkish socialisation”, “Islamic faith/religion”, “Dutch socialisation” and “Dutch assimilation”. The “socialisation” constructs capture both public and private experiences, suggesting acculturation is more one-dimensional. Furthermore, these constructs display the greater associations with their respective identity measures, and this ethnic identity is increasing rather than diminishing by generation.

As emerging ethnic markets continue to become more mainstream in Western Europe, their marketing importance also grows. Muslim immigrants are a growing interest of marketers, as they grow in size and purchasing power, and marketers use sub-cultural segmentation and targeted marketing to reach these consumers.

Purpose: The paper makes use of Kuhn’s “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” to explain Consumer Culture Theory (CCT) as a normal scientific tradition. The paper intends to show how a previously marginalized research tradition has now started solidifying its paradigmatic boundaries, and what implications this holds for aspiring CCT scholars.

Method/approach: The paper makes use of literature from the Journal of Consumer Research and Marketing Theory to point out the methodological and practical issues in the discipline that have been pointed out by CCT proponents. These criticisms are discussed as scientific “anomalies.” Furthermore, the paper critically analyzes immigrant acculturation literature produced by CCT researchers in the past 30 years through a Kuhnian lens to show proponents of the fields implicitly addressing different “anomalies,” explaining the tradition to be a normal scientific one.

Findings: An in-depth analysis of immigrant acculturation literature within CCT shows every successive project within the field has addressed “anomalies” by pointing out research gaps, providing a rationale for their respective methodology, and, in turn, adding precision to theoretical frameworks, depicting a normal scientific tradition.

Originality and value: The paper adds value by discussing the probable consequences of this boundary solidification. On one hand, aspiring scholars will have scientific assumptions with which to enter the laboratory (consumer world) and guidelines that can be used toward publishing. On the other, this can also lead to a possible dogmatization of an emerging consumer research paradigm, making it difficult for new scholars to be creative.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the impact of American culture-oriented values, Chinese culture-oriented values and self-improvement values on luxury value perception through acculturation by examining an acculturated sample (Chinese living in the USA), a host cultural sample (Caucasian-American) and a home cultural sample (Mainland Chinese).

In order to examine the acculturative changes of Chinese living in the USA in terms of the influence of American and Chinese culture-oriented values and self-improvement values on their luxury value perception, data were collected via three online samples: host (American), home cultural (Chinese) and acculturated (Chinese living in the USA). Effects of acculturation were tested via comparisons between acculturated to host and home cultural samples.

Compared to that of Mainland Chinese and Caucasian-Americans, luxury value perception of Chinese living in the USA is jointly influenced by both American and Chinese culture-oriented values. The influence of cultural values on luxury value perception of Chinese living in the USA is not strengthened by their wish to integrate into the American culture or to maintain their Chinese culture. Nevertheless, Chinese living in the USA show more significant self-improvement (standing out) and conformity (fitting in) motives in luxury value perception when they wish to integrate into the mainstream culture.

The authors surveyed acculturated sample, host and home cultural samples to test the bidimensional acculturation model (Berry, 1997) in the context of luxury consumption. Although the conceptual model is not fully supported, this research broadens current understanding of the effect of acculturation on luxury value perception.