Sellers in today's global marketplace need to understand how consumers in
different countries make purchase decisions. One approach is to assume a trend
toward a homogeneous style of global consumption (e.g. Belk, 1995;
Featherstone, 1990). An alternative is to consider an inter-cultural blending that
will lead to a heterogeneous pattern of consumption (Ger and Belk, 1996). This
second approach is based on the assumption that cultural context affects
consumer decision making.