Consumer motives to purchase regional products : the relationship with regional cultural differences and demographic variables

• Main Author: Waehning, Nadine
• Other Authors: Dahl, Stephan
• Published: University of Hull 2015
• Subjects: 658.8; Business
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.686234

Purpose – The purpose of this thesis is to propose a scale for measuring purchase intention of regional products (REGIOSCALE) to complement the currently used CETSCALE, which was developed to measure ethnocentrism, rather than region-specific purchase intention. Its findings provide insights into the motives of consumers who buy regional products and how such motives are related to individual factors. These include demographic variables as well as regional (within-country) cultural value differences. Design/methodology/approach – This thesis is divided in three parts, each of which will focus on one research question. Firstly, what motivates consumers to purchase regional products? This question is answered by analysing forty semi-structured interviews. Secondly, does the consumer region-centric scale (REGIOSCALE) derived from the interviews have more power to explain consumer motives than the original CETSCALE? This second question is answered by conducting a principal component analysis to start the scale development process of the REGIOSCALE, followed by regression analysis to evaluate which scale is the more significant predictor of consumer motives to purchase regional products based on 1027 surveys. Thirdly, is there a relationship between individual factors (regional cultural values and demographic variables) and the regio-centric scale (REGIOSCALE)? This third question is designed to evaluate what, if any, predictive power individual factors can have on consumer motives to purchase regional products. Answering this consisted of two steps: the first step was to evaluate regional cultural differences by applying the Kruskal-Vallis ChiSQ test based on secondary data, which showed that regional (within-country) cultural value differences exist. The second step was to use a regression analysis based on the 1027 surveys from the second research question to evaluate the relationship between individual factors and the REGIOSCALE. This second step demonstrated that the strongest predictor of consumer motives to purchase regional products in the majority of regions was provided by the cultural value of “Self-Transcendence”. Originality/value – This thesis’ originality and value is threefold. Firstly, it identifies and evaluates consumer motives to purchase regional products in Germany and England, which leads to the development of the new REGIOSCALE. Secondly, it provides empirical evidence that cultural value differences exist on a regional level within countries (not just on a national level). Thirdly, it shows that cultural values can have a significant impact on consumers’ motives to purchase regional products, while consumers’ demographic variables (like age, gender, education level and income) appear not to influence purchase intentions consistently. Findings – The findings are also threefold. Firstly, the REGIOSCALE has a more significant predictive power of consumers’ motives of regional products than the current CETSCALE. Secondly, regional within-country cultural differences exist within Germany and England. Thirdly, consumers’ demographic variables do not show the consistent relationships with consumer motives to purchase regional products that the regional (within-country) cultural value differences do.