A Cross-cultural Empirical Study On The Consumption Values Among Chinese And American College Students

Among human being’s daily activities,consumption contributes to an individual’s existence and a country’s economic development.Due to great purchasing power of college students,college students’ consumption has aroused great concern and attention from many investigators and scholars in the fields of marketing and education.This study attempts to conclude and compare the consumption values of Chinese and American college students from the cross-cultural perspective so that American and Chinese college students can interact with each other more efficiently.This empirical study is conducted by a mixed method of questionnaires and interviews.82 Chinese and 74 American college students completed the questionnaire,and 3Chinese and 3 American college students were interviewed.The statistical analysis software SPSS 26.0 was used to conduct Pearson correlation analysis,independent sample t-test,one-way ANOVA,and k-means clustering algorithm on the results of the questionnaire.And interviews provided explanations to the results of the questionnaire.This research aims to solve the following research questions:RQ1: What are the Chinese and American college students’ consumption values?RQ2: What are differences and similarities between these two groups of college students’ consumption values?RQ3: Are there any problems existing in Chinese and American college students’ consumption values?The results show that that Chinese and American college students’ consumption values are different in terms of Geert Hofstede’s cultural dimensions of individualism,power distance,masculinity,long-term orientation and indulgence versus restraint.Chinese college students’ consumption value is manifested as characteristics of frugality,quality,restraint enjoyment,face-work and relation-based altruism.Influenced by family,their consumption value is related to self-esteem and face-work,and involved with maintaining relationship.American college students’ consumption value is manifested as characteristics of thriftiness,indulgent enjoyment,equal altruism,self-image and quality.Their consumption value is influenced by their financial independence,necessity of pleasure pursuit,and low awareness of saving money.Based on the findings,four problems on Chinese and American college students’ consumption values are concluded: firstly,the financial education in China and America is not efficient;secondly,some negative influence on Chinese college students’ consumption value can be caused by their family;thirdly,it is not easy to spend money without considering face or in-group in China;thus,Chinese and American college students will encounter cross-cultural inadaptation on consumption during their interactions.Therefore,parents should take the responsibility for promoting financial education.And financial education should be integrated into the educational systems of colleges and universities.What’s more,Chinese and American college students should know the consumption habits and values of each other during their cross-cultural interactions.