An empirical investigation of the cross cultural buying behaviour of Indian consumers

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to study the Indian consumer behavior with respect to its diversity across geographic sub cultures. It investigates the effects of Indian culture on various characteristic of consumer behaviour in an integrative mechanism among the four geographic sub cultural groups in India. To show the relative influences of sub cultural variables on Indian consumer buying behavior the Tobit regression analysis was employed. The Hofstede’s cultural framework was employed to identify the differences in the cultural orientation of the four sub groups. Results showed that societal customs had the highest impact among all sub cultural variables followed by beliefs, language, ethnicity and social class. Nine consumer behavior cultural variables were found to influence the culture out of which risk perception is the most significant one. Interesting findings were related to the family decision making dynamics across India. It was recommended that managers should evaluate and reconsider the diversity that exists across geographic sub culture and plan their marketing strategy for better return on investment.