Effect of Cultural Globalization & Social Trends On Consumer Behavior

Effect of Cultural Globalization & Social Trends on
Consumer Behavior
Research Report
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Abstract
1. Introduction1
1.1 Statement of problem...1
1.2 Hypothesis....1
1.3 Research Questions..2
1.4 Significance..2
1.5 Limitations...2-3
1.6 Objectives.3
2. Literature Review...3-4
3. Research Methodology
3.1 Target Population..4
3.2 Sample Population.4
3.3 Sampling Technique..4
3.4 Sample Size4
3.5 Research settings4
3.6 Data Collection Tool..4
4. Data Analysis.5-9
5. Findings/Discussion.....10
6. Conclusion...11

7. Recommendations12
8. Bibliography13
9. Glossary...14
10. Appendix
Appendix 1: Overall Percentage Graph15
Appendix 2: Questionnaire....16
Appendix 3: Excel Data17
Appendix 4: Online Survey Data..18

List of Illustrations:

3.1 The Holy Factor.. 4
3.2 Celebrity Charm4
3.3 Foreign Phrases.5
3.4 Advert Effects..5
3.5 Money Matters 6
3.6 Price Tag..6
3.7 Loyal Horse.7
3.8 Social Status7
3.9 Birds of Feather.8.
3.10 Being Sure.8
5. Overall Results Chart10

Acknowledgements

Any accomplishment requires the effort of many people and this is no exception. The research
being submitted is a result of collective effort.
We would like to thank the course instructor, Ms. Shumayla Bari for her continuous help and
support during the making of this report. We would also like to thank each other for being patient
and going through with the project despite the momentous ardor of the task at hand.

Abstract

Shopping is very much a part of culture rather than just a product acquisition.
Products can provide identity for consumers who might be losing their distinctive
identity. Shopping behavior can be embraced from societal norms with which one
identifies or it can be learned behavior from parents or school. One compares oneself
and adjusts ones behaviors more with similar others than with dissimilar others. Among
all the challenging facing organizations, globalization of the marketplace if the most
critical one. Companies need to make informed decisions based of valid assumptions
about cultural influences. The world economy is becoming increasingly cross-cultural.
During the next decades, as marketers enter new international markets, an understanding
of how culture influences consumer behavior will be crucial for both managers and
consumer researchers.

Cultural
Globali
zation
Social
Trends
Language
Celebrity
Culture
Advertising
Prices
Society &
Environment
Global
Trends
Religion
Effects on Consumer Behavior
Rizwan, Waqar, Khan and Istikhar Page 1

1. Introduction:
1.1. Statement of Problem: To investigate the impact of cultural globalization and social
trends on consumers innovativeness and product choice.

1.2. Hypothesis: Cultural globalization and social trends do affect consumers
innovativeness and product choice. People are susceptible to being affected by
multiple factors such as marketing techniques and social pressure in making their
buying choices.

1.3. Research Questions:
You always buy products that lie within the limitations of your religion?
You get attracted towards products endorsed by famous celebrities?
You are attracted to advertisements in English compared to your native language?
Media advertising affects what brand of a particular product you chose?
Buying an expensive product means high quality?
Price always affects your choice of product?
You stick to your own brand even if the prices have increased?
It is important to you that others like the products that you buy?
You associate with people after buying products from popular brands?
You rely on other peoples opinion/experience before buying something you
havent had the experience of buying before?

Rizwan, Waqar, Khan & Istkhar Page 2

1.4. Significance:
Such survey are not usually conducted by social institutions. Businesses who
conduct these surveys are only concerned with the economic advantages at hand.
The psychological outcomes are usually ignored.
The survey analyzes the consumer behavior of young people who are trend-setters
for the integration of new innovations and technology in the society, thereby
creating change.
The survey aims at analyzing the less focused-upon factors affecting consumer
behavior such as celebrity-endorsement affect and language -preferences.

1.5. Limitations:
The survey was conducted online. The following factors may have affected the
quality of the collected data.
Limited sampling and respondent availability. Only people who had an internet
connection could take the survey.
Possible cooperation problems. Internet users today are constantly bombarded by
messages and distractions. This may have contributed to a lack of focus in filling
out the survey
No interviewer. A lack of a trained interviewer to clarify the questions for the
respondents.


A mock survey was taken with ten respondents to check for language and
understanding difficulties. None of the respondents, when questioned, reported
any such issue with the survey.

1.6. Objectives:
To analyze social trends and their effects on an individual
To analyze the effect of corporate behavior and advertising on consumers
To analyze the development of social trends and innovations by noticing
consumer behavior among the youth.
2. Literature Review:
The Surveys of Consumer Attitudes and Behavior were analysed and looked at before
the start of the survey. Initiated in the late 1940s by the Survey Research Center of the
University of Michigan, the purpose of these surveys is to measure changes in consumer
attitudes and expectations, to understand why these changes occur, to evaluate how they
relate to consumer decisions to save, borrow, or make discretionary purchases, and to
forecast changes in aggregate consumer behavior. Changes in consumers' willingness to buy
are best assessed by making use of the answers to all questions asked in the surveys,
especially the open-ended questions that probe underlying reasons. Nevertheless, in order to
make available a summary measure of change in consumer sentiment, the Survey Research
Center uses the answers to selected questions to calculate an Index of Consumer Sentiment.
Each survey also probes a different aspect of consumer confidence. The surveys use a
national sample of dwelling units selected by area probability sampling that is representative
of the adult population of the United States.

To familiarize ourselves with technicalities of report-making, survey reports from
Sustainable Lifestyles Frontier Group (value GAP: the business value of changing consumer
behaviors) and Business Development Bank of Canada (Mapping Your Future Growth: Five
Game Changing Consumer Trends) were studied.

3. Research Methodology:
3.1. Target Population: 18-24 year olds
3.2. Sampled Population: Facebook Friend list
3.3. Sampling Technique: Random
3.4. Sample Size: 30 people
3.5. Data-Collection Tool: Online Questionnaire
3.6. Research Setting: Quantitative
3.7. Data Analysis Tool: Google Docs, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word


4. Data Analysis:

4.1. The Holy Factor:

4.2. Celebrity Charm:

0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
50%
agree strongly agree neutral disagree strongly disagree
1.You always buy products that lie within the
limitations of your religion.
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
2. You get attracted towards products endorsed
by famous celebrities.

4.3. Foreign Phrases:

4.4. Advert Effects:

0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
3. You are attracted to advertisements in English
compared to your native language
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
4. Media advertising affects what brand of a
particular product you chose

4.5. Money Matters:

4.6. Price Tag:

0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
5. Buying an expensive product means high
quality
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
6. Price always affects your choice of product

4.7. Loyal Horse:

4.8. Social Status:

0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
7. You stick to your own brand even if the prices
have increased
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
8. It is important to you that others like the
products that you buy

4.9. Birds of Feather:

4.10. Being Sure

0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
0.4
9. You associate with people after buying
products from popular brands
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
10. You rely on other peoples opinion/experience
before buying something you havent Had the
experience of buying before

5. Findings/Discussion:
Religion, advertising, rates and public opinion were found to heavily weigh upon
what the consumers bought and were agreed/strongly agreed upon by heavy margins of
over 80% agree/strongly agree. This means that six out of ten questions confirmed the
hypothesis comfortably. Language and social association were not considered to affect
decision-making with a majority of respondents staying neutral. Loyalty was deemed as a
thing of the past when it came to increased prices and the only query where majority
opinion disagreed with the given hypothesis. If the neutrals are not considered and the
overall ratio for agree/strongly agree to disagree/strongly disagree is compared then the
hypothesis is comfortably confirmed by 74% of the respondents.

74%
26%
Overall Results
Agree/Strongly Agree
Disagree/Strongly Disagree

6. Conclusion:
This research provides a framework that integrates and reinterprets current
research in cross-cultural consumer behavior. The framework is of a practical nature in
that it can be easily operationalized by managers and consumer researchers interested in
understanding how culture shapes consumer behavior. This framework is distilled from a
more general model of the relationship between culture and consumer behavior.
Managers can use the framework as a template to examine how consumers in
foreign markets will react to their products or services. For example, a marketer entering
a foreign country could research each of the graphs to identify potential culture related
problems or issues. It can also be used to conduct further surveys on a similar scale by
academic analysts and consumer researchers.


7. Recommendations:
Journals:
Heonsoo Jung; Wooyang Kim.(2005), Investigating the Effects of Consumer
Innovativeness on Shape of Consideration Sets: Focusing on Comparison between
Consideration Sets of Innovators and Non-innovators, Advances in Consumer Research,
Vol. 32 Issue 1, p212-218
Van Everdingen , Yvonne M. and Eric Waarts (2003), The Effect of National Culture on the
Adoption of Innovations, Marketing Letters, Vol.14 Issue3, p230
Venkatraman, Meera P.(1991), The Impact of Innovativeness and Innovation Type on
Adoption, Journal of Retailing,, Vol. 67 Issue 1, p51-68
Books:
Bryman,Alan and Emma, Bell.(2003), Business Research Methods, Oxford University
Press
Michael R.Solomon(2005), Consumer Behaviour : Buying, Selling, and Being, Prentice
Hall, 7th Edition
Everett M.Rogers. (2003), Diffusion of Innovations, The Free Press, 5th Edition
Electronic Resource:
http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/series/54


8. Bibliography:
Journals:
M. Burgess, Steven. (2002). Optimum stimulation level and exploratory consumer behavior
In an emerging consumer market. Intern. J. of Research in Marketing, Volume 19,Pg 131-150
Dwyer Sean; Mesak Hani; Hsu Maxwell. (2005), An Exploratory Examination of the
Influence of National Culture on Cross-National Product Diffusion, Journal of
International Marketing, Vol. 13 Issue 2, p1-27
Frank Alpert. (1994), Innovator Buying Behavior Over Time, Journal of Product &
Brand Management, Vol. 3 Issue 2, p50-63
Cleveland, Mark and Laroche, Michel. (2007). Acculturation to the global consumer culture:
Scale development and research paradigm. Journal of Business Research, Vol 60, Pg 242-259
Gez, Guliz and W.belk, Russell. (1996). Cross Cultural differences in Materialism. Journal of
Economic Psychology, Volume 16, Pg 55-77
Books:
Aaker D. A.; Kumar, V.; Day, G.S. (2004), Marketing Research, NJ: John Wiley & Son,
United States, 8th Edition
Hofstede, Geert H. (2001), Cultures Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors,
Institutions, and Organizations across Nations, Sage Publications, 2nd Edition
Leon G.Schiffman; Leslie Lazar Kanuk (2004), Consumer Behavior, Prentice Hall, 8
th
Ed


9. Glossary:
Advertising: The activity or profession of producing advertisements for commercial products or
services.
Brand Loyalty: The tendency of some consumers to continue buying the same brand of goods
rather than competing brands.
Cultural Globalization: Cultural globalization refers to the transmission of ideas, meanings and
values across national borders.
Culture: The ideas, customs, and social behavior of a particular people or society.
Consumer: A person who purchases goods and services for personal use.
Consumer Behavior: Consumer behavior is the study of individuals, groups, or organizations
and the processes they use to select, secure, and dispose of products, services, experiences, or
ideas to satisfy needs.
Celebrity: A famous person, especially in entertainment or sport
Endorsement: The action of endorsing someone or something.
Mock interview: A interview to gain information about the performance.
Predispositions: A liability or tendency to suffer from a particular condition, hold a particular
attitude, or act in a particular way.
Template: Something that serves as a model for others to copy.


10. Appendix:

10.1. Overall Percentage Graph:

0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Overall Percentage

10.2. Questionnaire:

1. You always buy products that lie within the limitations of your religion.
Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree
2. You get attracted towards products endorsed by famous celebrities.
3. You are attracted to advertisements in English compared to your native
language.
4. Media advertising affects what brand of a particular product you chose.
5. Buying an expensive product means high quality.
6. Price always affects your choice of product.
7. You stick to your own brand even if the prices have increased.
8. It is important to you that others like the products that you buy.
9. You associate with people after buying products from popular brands.
10. You rely on other peoples opinion/experience before buying something you
havent had the experience of buying before.



10.3. Online Survey Results (sample):


10.4. Compiled Survey Results (sample):

Effect of Cultural Globalization & Social Trends On Consumer Behavior

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