Ethnocentrism Mediation Effect on Social Psychological Antecedents and Bakers Purchase Intention of Flour from Domestically Grown Wheat in Nigeria

Abstract

Consumer ethnocentrism has featured in marketing literature for quite some time and has been described as a positive attitude toward the domestic country, which questions the appropriateness and morality of purchasing foreign made products. The influence of consumer ethnocentrism on consumer attitudes, intentions and actions is well established however not many studies have been conducted to underpin the mediation of ethnocentrism on Social Psychological Antecedents. The objectives includes to determine whether ethnocentrism mediates the effect of patriotism; cosmopolitanism; conservatism; collectivism; conspicuous consumption on baker’s purchase intention of flour from domestically grown wheat in Nigeria. The study adopted survey research design and questionnaire was used to collect primary data. The population of the is 1410 total registered bakers in Southeast Nigeria as sourced from the compilation by the Master Bakers Association of Nigeria. The statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 25 was used for preliminary analysis while SEM was used to test the hypotheses with the aid of Stata 15 small software. The results of the analysis show that all the five socio-psychological dimensions of ethnocentrism: patriotism, conspicuous consumption, collectivism, conservatism, and cosmopolitanism have statistically significant effect on baker ethnocentrism. It was also found out that ethnocentrism has a significant effect on purchase intention. Finally the study found that ethnocentrism partially mediate the effects of conspicuous consumption, conservatism and cosmopolitanism on purchase intention. In conclusion ethnocentrism mediates cosmopolitanism; conservatism; collectivism; conspicuous consumption on purchase intention while ethnocentrism does not mediate patriotism. We recommend that both the government and producers need to launch appeals that create and enhance ethnocentrism among the consumers.