Background: The ethnic subcultural consumer is a valuable segment in the multicultural societies of today, which has received little attention from both marketers and researchers. One of the most multicultural cities in Sweden is Malmoe, with 38% of its habitants having a foreign background. For IKEA Malmoe this segment has long been of interest, but have found it hard to increase their diversity among customers. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to help IKEA Malmoe get a greater understanding of the ethnic subcultural consumption behaviour, to attract a higher cultural diversity among customers. This research paper will explore why IKEA Malmoe is not reaching a greater cultural diversity of customers today, and offer insights to how they could work, through their local marketing, to attract this segment. Delimitation: This study will be delimited to the subject of ethnic subcultural consumption behaviour in the area of retail marketing. The research will focus on general consumption behaviour; how consumption is influenced by culture; both the originating culture and the hosting culture; and for the empirical investigation, how ethnic consumption is related to IKEA. Method: The research is a qualitative study with an deductive stance, based on the semi- structured interviews of 14 respondents from eight different subcultures of Malmoe. Result/ Conclusion: The findings of this research showed that it is essential not to see the ethnic subcultural consumer as one homogenous segment, as aspects such as acculturation, age, income and lifestyle were shown to have greater impact on consumption behaviour than national culture. Proposed continued studies: To more thoroughly research the affect of acculturation and national culture as an aspect to ethnic subcultural behaviour, using a homogenous group of respondents
Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:lnu-11273 |
Date | January 2010 |
Creators | Engström, Lisa |
Publisher | Linnéuniversitetet, Ekonomihögskolan, ELNU |
Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
Language | English |
Detected Language | English |
Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
Format | application/pdf |
Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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