GERMAN AMERICANS VS. CHINESE AMERICANS: COMPARING THREE GENERATIONS OF IMMIGRANT CONSUMERS

摘要

Owing to the increasing cultural heterogeneity of most nations around the world, culture is being recognized as the most powerful determinant of consumer attitudes and behaviors (Cleveland and Chang 2009). As nations become more culturally heterogeneous, it becomes more crucial for marketers to understand the psychological and behavioral characteristics of ethnic groups (Zolfagharian and Sun 2010). By addressing the following two important gaps in consumer identity literature, this study provides exploratory evidence for a new theory of immigrant consumer identity; namely, the theory of Intergenerational Identity Swing. First, past research has examined the effect of ethnic identity on religiosity and materialism, and compared the first and second generations of immigrants in those terms (e.g., Cleveland and Chang 2009; Kwak and Berry 2001). Since the third generation of immigrants in ethnic identity literature has been the most controversial wrought with mixed findings (Rosenthal and Feldman 1992), this study incorporates all of the three generations and examines their religiosity, materialism and strength of identification with ethnic root. Second, past research has not measured or controlled for the degree of cultural (dis)similarity between home and host countries. This study is the first to consider this important factor by including and contrasting two highly different immigrant communities: German Americans whose home and host countries are highly similar; and Chinese Americans whose home and host countries are highly dissimilar.