CONSUMERS ETHNOCENTRISM AND ATTITUDES TOWARDS LOCAL VERSUS FOREIGN MILK POWDER BRANDS: EVIDENCE FROM SRI LANKA

Sri Lanka spends a colossal sum of money for importing milk powder. But Sri Lanka has its own milk powder too. So, local brands have to face competition in the market. To get benefit from competition, local firms should identify the consumers’ attitudes towards both foreign and local milk powder brands. The main objective of this research is to identify the consumers’ attitudes on local and foreign milk powder brands. Survey strategy was used. Primary data was collected through the pre-tested self-administered questionnaire. Convenience sampling was used to collect data from 120 respondents in Colombo district. Fishbein’s model was used to calculate the attitudes, CETSCALE used to measure the effect of ethnocentrism on consumers’ attitudes towards local and foreign milk powder brands. Mann- Whitney test was used to compare mean rank between attributes. Spearman’s correlation used to find the ethnocentrism effect on consumers’ attitudes on local and foreign milk powder brands. According to the findings, consumers’ have more attitudes towards foreign milk powder brands than local milk powder brands. There is the difference between attitudes on availability, awareness, price, and trust on local milk powder brands and foreign milk powder brands. Ethnocentrism has an effect on consumers’ attitudes on foreign milk powder brands.