Domestic (Local) Consumption in Young Pakistani Consumers – A Shift from Affective Mechanism to Cognitive Mechanism

Abstract

The research aimed at highlighting the shift in young consumers’ decision making style from affective mechanism to cognitive mechanism and its effects on their domestic consumption. The first goal was to empirically show that a shift in young consumers’ purchase decision making has started to occur in emerging markets, second goal was to link moral foundation theory (MFT) and model of goal directed behavior (MGB) with consumers’ affective and cognitive mechanisms of decision making and third goal was the operationalization of definition of domestic consumption in marketing literature. Research sample size was of 450 respondents. Validated scales were used for data collection. Hypothesized model was tested using Consistent Partial Least Square (PLSc) using Smart PLS and structural equation modeling using AMOS. Consumer ethnocentrism showed a negative significant effect on domestic consumption while consumer xenophobia showed no significant effect on domestic consumer. Moreover, relative product quality came out as the most significant construct influencing domestic consumption in young consumers.