An Examination of Pre-Purchase Information-Search Tendencies of an Immigrant Population

Abstract

Abstract Perhaps because immigration is currently one of the most hotly debated issues in America (e.g., Kuttner 2004), there is little appetite, especially lately, in the academic literature for an examination of some of the more serious, but lesser known issues that go along with this key demographic factor. These currently ignored issues nonetheless have serious implications for businesses (Crock 2004), the government (Bernstein et al. 2004), public-policy makers (Magnusson and Kripalani 2003) and social-service providers (Dobbs 2004), among others. One such much ignored, albeit serious issue is that of how immigrants gather information to solve problems (including those of consumption) in their new host culture. This issue has been barely investigated in the academic literature, though anecdotal evidence from the popular press show that it has serious implications for marketers (Vence 2002), public-policy makers (Aldrich and Variyam 2000) and social-service providers (Stewart 1996), among others. Consequently, in this paper I investigate this issue as follows. First, I focus on Chinese-American immigrants, for reasons I explain later in this paper. Second, I examine assimilational differences between these individuals, again, for reasons I explain later in this paper. Third, I investigate how these differences affect how these individuals search for information prior to the purchase of three durable products (personal computer, video camera and color television) and one non-durable product (dandruff-control shampoo). What I found is that each of the cultural, identificational, and structural assimilation has (1) distinct effects on this search behavior and (2) these effects vary by type of Product-purchase. I conclude by discussing implications of these findings for marketers, social-service providers and public-policy makers, among others.