A Comparative Case Study of Global Marketing and Ethnocentrism ...

Therefore, the topics discussed in this chapter include ethnocentrism, ethnocentrism
measurement, U.S. ethnocentrism, global marketing, and the Internet as a global
marketing tool.
Ethnocentrism
The term “ethnocentrism” derives from a more general concept first introduced
by William Graham Sumner in 1906. Sumner defines ethnocentrism as the view of
things in which one’s own group is the center of everything, and all others are scaled
and rated with reference to it (Sumner13). He goes on to say that each group nourishes
its own pride and vanity, boasts itself superior, exalts its own divinities, and looks with
contempt on outsiders (Sumner 13). In this initial concept, ethnocentrism was a purely
sociological construct wherein Sumner described “in-group” vs. “out-group” conflicts.
He relates that a differentiation arises between ourselves, the we-group or in-group,
and everybody else, or the others-group, the out-group (Sumner 12). This concept has
persisted for almost a century. A recent article in “MC Technology Marketing
Intelligence” discusses a similar “us vs. them” theory of ethnocentrism. It states that,
no matter what country you live in, people living in your country are considered “us”
and people living in other countries are “them”(Zhivago 97). Later studies then dealt
with ethnocentrism as a psychological construct, describing the tendency of an
individual to identify strongly with his or her own in-group and culture, the tendency to
reject out-groups, or the tendency to view any economic, political or social event only
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