Consumer Xenocentrism as Determinant of Foreign Product Preference: A System Justification Perspective

Foreign and domestic product purchase behavior largely depends on consumer predispositions. The dominant construct in international marketing literature explaining such behavior has been consumer ethnocentrism, which is conceptually anchored in social identity theory. However, such a perspective overlooks evidence that certain consumers are consistently attracted by the “foreignness” of a product. Drawing from system justification theory, the present investigation conceptualizes and provides an empirical test of the consumer xenocentrism construct that is intended to explain consumer attraction toward foreign products. Using survey data from five complementary studies, the authors develop and validate a new scale (the C-XENSCALE) to measure consumers’ xenocentric tendencies and offer extensive evidence on its ability to explain consumer preferences for foreign products. The authors discuss implications of the findings for theory and managerial practice and identify future research directions.