Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of consumer ethnocentrism and country of origin across different immigrant communities. Design/methodology/approach A survey was used to collect data from immigrants in the USA and Mexico. Findings For immigrants with high levels of ethnocentrism, the bias for home and host country products interacts with the country of origin effect and creates multiple scenarios where the two effects move in the same or opposite directions. For immigrants with low levels of ethnocentrism, on the other hand, the country of origin effect alone is salient. Research limitations/implications The authors used a modified version of CETSCALE. Future research should revisit the content and dimensionality of consumer ethnocentrism in immigrant and other multicultural settings. Practical implications Both scholars and practitioners should exercise caution when working with ethnocentrism and country of origin as today’s societies are increasingly multicultural, which requires major modifications to the theories and tools. Social implications Similar to ways in which the US Census Bureau enabled multicultural consumers to assert their mixed identities, scholarly and business circles should embrace multiculturalism and empower immigrants. Originality/value Previous studies of consumer ethnocentrism and country of origin in multicultural contexts have restricted themselves to only one pattern of migration: consumers who move from developing to developed countries. The paper addresses this limitation by investigating various patterns of migration (including lateral, upward and downward) in multiple first-generation immigrant communities in two countries.

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The consumer perception of how products gain the status of necessities is characterized by complexity, laden with idiosyncratic consumer experiences, and driven by personally relevant historical developments. This study pushes the theoretical boundaries of understanding consumer necessities by reaching beyond the classification of products into traditional dichotomies such as necessity-luxury and need-want. It focuses on how consumers experience and recount emotion-laden events in their lives whereby certain products move to being perceived as necessities over time. An analysis of narratives reveals that product necessitation encompasses five stages: familiarization, transformation in the form of redemption or contamination, memorialization, (re)integration and reconstruction, and solidification. Comprehending necessitation experiences is of great interest to marketers in creating effective marketing strategies as well as to public policymakers in ensuring that their citizens have access to life necessities.

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