ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes the concept of consumer multiculturation to advance understanding of diverse identity transitions and their impact on consumption and consumer brand knowledge (CBK) of mainstream consumer groups in multicultural marketplaces. Researchers develop a conceptual framework that considers the contemporary cultural landscape as a complex multiple-cultural environment where people interact with multiple types of cultures concomitantly. It conceptualizes the process of mainstream consumer cultural identity formation as consumer multiculturation and considers varying types of identities that emerge depending on whether mainstream individuals develop positive or negative affiliations with one, two or more cultures. The consumer multicultural identity orientations (CMIO) framework enhances the predictive power of culture-of-brand-origin (COBO), based consumer behaviors and confusion of multiple theories on foreign culture/Local culture bias. It opens up several avenues for further research. First, research should focus on exploring and confirming the dimensionality of the proposed construct of consumer multiculturation. Further research can shed light on the psychosocial antecedents of these behaviors.
