Acculturation to the global consumer culture: a generational cohort comparison

Abstract

While on a global scale consumers are becoming more homogeneous, as a result of the increasingly globalized marketplace, researchers suggest that consumers within individual countries are becoming more culturally heterogeneous. Consequently, M. Cleveland and J. Laroche (2007. Acculturation to the global consumer culture: Scale development and research paradigm. Journal of Business Research, 60, 249–259) advocate segmenting consumers across markets on the basis of acculturation to the global consumer culture (AGCC) rather than segmenting at the individual country level. In this they anticipate AGCC will reflect demographic characteristics. However, little empirical work exists to validate or challenge the assertion that demographics moderate AGCC. This exploratory study uses generational cohort theory (GCT) to examine the relationships between cohort membership and level of AGCC among a sample of US consumers (N = 492). The findings suggest AGCC does identify differences between cohorts.

Keywords:

• global consumer culture
• acculturation
• generational cohorts