The influence of the ethnocentric tendency on the purchasing behaviour of the consumers: A comparative analysis on the Eastern Anatolia and The Black Sea Region

When the historical development of marketing is examined, it can be clearly seen that customer-driven marketing concept began to domineer at the end of the process of inversion from the era of production concept to the era of modern marketing concept. This change united practitioners and researchers about the necessity of viewing consumers as individuals. Recent studies in the field of consumer behavior also support this approach. Within this context, personal and cultural factors which directly or indirectly influence the buying behaviors of consumers have become more important. It is also possible to say that the concept of consumer ethnocentrism, which has recently become much more important with the influence of especially intercultural interaction, is one of the important factors affecting the buying behaviors of consumers. This study was conducted to analyze how and why consumers' willingness to buy is influenced, in parallel with all these developments and changes in the field of marketing. The objective of the study is to examine to what extent consumer's sense of self affects their willingness to buy domestic products with the moderatorship of the concept of ethnocentrism. For this purpose, data were collected from a total of 832 participants in Turkey's East Anatolia and Black Sea Regions through scales. Three scales, CETSCALE (Consumer Ethnocentrism Tendency Scale) by Shimp and Sharma (1987), willingness to buy domestic products by Klein, Ettenson and Moris (1998), Relational, Individual, Collective Self- Aspects Scale (RIC) by Kashima and Hardie (2000) were used to examine the associations between consumers' ethnocentric tendencies, willingness to buy domestic products and sense of self. According to the results of this study conducted on consumers in Black Sea and East Anatolia Region, consumer ethnocentric tendency levels score (CETSCORE) was found to be 47,4. In line with this result, it can be said that consumers have moderate or low levels of ethnocentric tendency. As a result of data analysis, it was concluded that there was a significant association between consumers' sense of self, ethnic origins, willingness to buy domestic products and their ethnocentric tendencies. A significant difference was found between the ethnocentric tendencies of consumers in Black Sea Region and consumers in East Anatolia Region. Besides, the association between ethnocentrism levels and demographic levels was found to support literature to a great extent; however, while female participants were found to have higher ethnocentric tendencies than male participants in literature, female participants in this study were found to have the same level of ethnocentric tendency with the male participants according to the results of this study. In addition to these results, some unexpected results were found especially when the association between sense of self and willingness to buy domestic products was examined. As a result of more detailed analyses conducted because of these data, the main reason which influenced this association was found to be the variable of "ethnic origin" specified as a control variable in the study model. In terms of the results and the sample size of the study, it is thought that the study will give useful hints to practitioners, firms and researchers about the buying behaviors of consumers during the phase of deciding on the marketing strategies.