The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of consumer ethnocentrism on attitudes toward foreign products among consumers in Malaysia. Self-administered questionnaires were developed and distributed based on convenient sampling. Measures were adopted from previous literatures. The higher the consumer ethnocentric tendencies are, the more reluctant they are to purchase foreign products. Consumers who are high in ethnocentric tendencies show less sense of global openness. This study contributes towards the consumer ethnocentrism literature as the findings did concur with findings from western samples. As reflected in the Malaysian consumers' sample, strong ethnocentric sense was accounted for but traded off by the lack of sense of global openness.

In the era of globalization, the entry of foreign products is unavoidable. As such, it is important to determine the level of ethnocentrism among Malaysians. As Netemeyer et al. (1991) recognized that there is a greater necessity to gauge consumers' attitudes towards both domestic and foreign products. Consumer Ethnocentrism (CE) is a challenge to international marketers as the world is growing global. According to Ruyter and Wetzel (1998), ethnocentric consumers are reluctant to buy foreign made products due to sense of loyalty towards their home country. CE may be defined as a preference for domestic products on the basis of nationalistic feelings.

In view of the growing internationalization of products and services, CE may play an important role in the global marketplace. CE can be viewed as a non-tariff barrier (Jeannet and Hennesy, 1995; and Shankarmahesh, 2006). There are a number of factors that have been found to influence consumers' buying behavior regarding foreign products. One of them is consumer attitude (i.e., nationalism or loyalty) and the other factors are like demographic factors (i.e., age, gender, education and income), and ethnocentric factors (openness to foreign cultures, patriotism, conservatism and collectivism/individualism).

Marketing Management Journal, Ethnocentric Tendencies, Ethnocentrism Literature, Consumer Ethnocentrism, CE, Global Openness, GO, Attitudes Toward Purchasing Foreign Products, AFP, Consumer Ethnocentric Tendencies, CET, Decision Making, Ethnocentric Tendencies, Globalization, Small and Medium Industries, SMI, Emerging Markets, Sociological Concept.