Developing Scales for Measuring Cultural Values in the Context of Consumer Research

Cultural dimensions have been commonly used to understand, contrast and interpret cultures; however specific limitations have affected their applicability for assessing and generalizing Malaysian consumer behavior issues. This study is to re-evaluate Malaysian consumer cultural behaviour. The approach used in the study included both qualitative and quantitative where consumers from different ethnic groups participated in the study. The EFA procedures revealed seven factors; oneself values, religiosity, social harmony, humane oriented, ethnic ancestry, group collectivism and environment. The factors have been empirically tested for unidimensionality using EFA and CFA procedures. The coefficients index, clearly indicated an acceptable model fit. The correlation analysis suggested that all the factors are positively correlated among themselves. The findings provided useful insight to the ongoing debate about the role of culture in the multi-ethnic marketplace which has put a new perspective into the relevancy of adopting a concept of national culture in explaining consumer behaviours as a whole.