Abstract:
Practitioners in marketing impulse of understanding consumer behaviours than before.
Recent studies showed that consumer’s enthusiasm towards foreign brands was declining.
One explanation for such changes may be patriotic, nationalistic or ethnocentric behaviours
of consumers. Therefore, the objective of this study was to identify the effect of
ethnocentrism and patriotism on consumer preference for handloom products with special
reference to western province Sri Lanka. A sample of 150 consumers was randomly selected
who bought handloom products from handloom outlets in Western Province. Multistage
sampling technique was applied for the study. Primary data were collected through a
questionnaire. Regression, correlation techniques and Statistical Packages for Social
Science version 23.0 software were used to analyse the data. The result revealed that the
ethnocentrism and patriotism have positive effect on consumer preference for handloom
products. Further, findings conclude that handloom consumers in Western Province
ethnocentric to domestic handloom products according to the Consumer Ethnocentric
Tendency Scale. This study recommends handloom manufacturing firms to develop their
marketing strategies using nationalism promotional strategy and remind consumers to have
a sense of ethnocentrism.
