Impact of Globalization on Consumer Choice

Journal of Macromarketing http://jmk.sagepub.com/ Globalization, Consumer Tensions, and the Shaping of Consumer Culture in India
Giana M. Eckhardt and Humaira Mahi Journal of Macromarketing 2012 32: 280 originally published online 24 April 2012 DOI: 10.1177/0276146712440708 The online version of this article can be found at: http://jmk.sagepub.com/content/32/3/280

Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com On behalf of:

Macromarketing Society

Additional services and information for Journal of Macromarketing can be found at: Email Alerts: http://jmk.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://jmk.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Citations: http://jmk.sagepub.com/content/32/3/280.refs.html

>> Version of Record - Sep 10, 2012 OnlineFirst Version of Record - Apr 24, 2012 What is This?

Downloaded from jmk.sagepub.com at University of Leicester Library on March 6, 2014

Globalization, Consumer Tensions, and the Shaping of Consumer Culture in India
Giana M. Eckhardt1 and Humaira Mahi2

Journal of Macromarketing 32(3) 280-294 ª The Author(s) 2012 Reprints and permission: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0276146712440708 http://jmk.sagepub.com

Abstract The authors examine consumer tensions arising in India’s transitional marketplace. These findings uncover cultural characteristics underlying consumption strategies to address these tensions: the danger and immorality of consumption, the distance and inaccessibility of many newly available products, and the desire for sociality and relationships via consumption. Consumer desires sometimes are in opposition to and sometimes in line with local cultural values and norms such as the frugality ideal and Indian rituals and beliefs. The authors present a typology of resistance strategies, discuss how these impact marketplace transitions, and outline implications for

Citations: http://jmk.sagepub.com/content/32/3/280.refs.html >> Version of Record - Sep 10, 2012 OnlineFirst Version of Record - Apr 24, 2012 What is This? Downloaded from jmk.sagepub.com at University of Leicester Library on March 6, 2014 Globalization, Consumer Tensions, and the Shaping of Consumer Culture in India Indian Consumerism: Ideological Shifts As Chaudhuri and Majumdar (2006) observe, India has had three distinct consumer culture phases in the last century: ‘‘ Food: Sacred, Pure, and Spiritual Food is a consumption category particularly tied into cultural traditions (Mintz 1985) Downloaded from jmk.sagepub.com at University of Leicester Library on March 6, 2014 284 Downloaded from jmk.sagepub.com at University of Leicester Library on March 6, 2014 Eckhardt and Mahi and immorality aspects of consumer desire and demonstrate how consumers make choices that go against social norms in this case