Reassessing positive dispositions for the consumption of products and services with different cultural meanings: a motivational perspective

This paper offers a motivational perspective on why consumers engage with products and services assigned with diverse cultural meanings, in multicultural marketplace contexts, where interactions with multiple cultures occur routinely, voluntarily and involuntarily. It conceptualizes and empirically delineates the different motivations that underpin consumers’ positive dispositions for culturally plural consumption (PDCPC) via 31 interviews conducted in a multicultural city in the United Kingdom. It identifies three types of motivations: integrative (the desire to identify with an ideal social group or a worldview); instrumental (the desire for self-development and knowledge accumulation); and mundane (the desire for convenience). The paper extends international marketing literature on PDCPC by identifying three distinct motivations, and multicultural marketplaces literature by showing how consumers can be multiculturally adaptive for instrumental or mundane reasons. It provides insights for intercultural service encounters research into how different motivations for engagement with cultural diversity inform consumers’ perceptions of service experiences.