Can consumers be racist? An investigation of the effect of consumer racism on product purchase
Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics
ISSN: 1355-5855
Article publication date: 11 January 2011
Abstract
Purpose
Consumer racism (CR) is a highly relevant issue to societies such as Australia and one which has, up until now, been somewhat neglected by marketers. This paper aims to investigate this relatively “new” construct and its impact on product evaluation and subsequent willingness to buy cross‐ethnic products amongst Australian consumers.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses a quasi‐experiment method. Data were collected from an intercept sample of 212 Australian consumers via personal interviews. Data were analysed with descriptive statistics, and hypotheses were tested using regression analysis and two‐way between groups ANOVA.
Findings
The results provide evidence that higher levels of CR translate into more negative evaluations of product quality which, in turn, decrease willingness to buy products perceived as originating from the ethnic minority. Further, regardless of the importance of product outcome, CR has a consistent negative effect on product evaluation and willingness to buy amongst Australian consumers.
Research limitations/implications
Future research could be expanded into other ethnic groups and other countries, and could include other moderators such as level of interaction. CR construct can also be examined in service contexts.
Originality/value
The major contributions of the study are the validation of the CR construct and the findings about the impact of it on consumers' willingness to buy cross‐ethnic products via product evaluations in the Australian context.
Keywords
Citation
Rao Hill, S. and Paphitis, K. (2011), "Can consumers be racist? An investigation of the effect of consumer racism on product purchase", Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, Vol. 23 No. 1, pp. 57-71. https://doi.org/10.1108/13555851111099998
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2011, Emerald Group Publishing Limited