Notes toward an application of McCracken's ''cultural categories'' for cross cultural consumer research

The importance to cross-cultural consumer research of an encompassing yet intricate approach to evaluating the role of culture has been broadly recognized. This article charts a procedure for operationalizing the descriptive term ''cultural categories'' for this purpose. By analyzing the acceptance, use, and meaning-attachment patterns of selected goods or services in a given environment, culture-exclusive (and nonexclusive) categories can be discerned and labeled. Explanation and illustration of this approach are drawn from a field investigation conducted in western Japan.