Country of Origin

Country of origin effects
On
Consumer behavior
Term Paper Submitted to the University of Delhi in Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements for the Degree of
MASTER OF PHILOSOPHY
IN
COMMERCE
By
Vandana munjal
M.Phil. Part-I
(Batch-XXXVII)
Under the supervision of
Dr. S.k. Jain
Associate professor
Department of Commerce
Delhi School of Economics
University of Delhi
Delhi-110007
February, 2014
Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2429131

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to express my deep regards to my supervisor Prof. S.K. Jain, for his incessant
encouragement and support. Without his guidance and persistent help, this paper would not
have been possible. I wish to extend my sincere thanks to him, for all suggestions and
information to keep me enlightened throughout my path.
I would also like to thank department teachers, M.Phil & PhD senior batch mates, family and
friends for their never ending help and encouragement.
Vandana Munjal
M.Phil Part I
Batch XXXVII
University of Delhi
Delhi 110007
Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2429131

DECLARATION
I hereby declare that the project work entitled ―country of origin effects on consumer behavior‖ is the
outcome of my own research work and the same has not been submitted in part or full to the
University of Delhi or any other university for any degree or diploma. My tribute to various sources
has been duly acknowledged at relevant places.
VANDANA MUNJAL
Dr. S.K JAIN
M.Phil Part I
(Supervisor & area coordinator)
Batch XXXVII
Associate professor
University of Delhi
University of Delhi
Delhi 110007
Delhi 110007
3
CONTENTS
Chapter 1: Introduction…………………………………………….
Chapter 2: objectives…………………………………....................
Chapter 3: Methodology………………………………………..
Chapter 4: literature review……………………………………
Chapter 5: Conclusions………………………………………
Chapter 6: References ……………………………………………
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Chapter- 1
Methodology
This paper is a review of various research studies in the field of country of origin effects. It is based
on secondary data usage.
Chapter- 2 Paper starts with a brief introduction into the area of country of origin where its history,
nature, and relevance of this study have been discussed.
Chapter- 3 Provides the objectives to be met with the study.
Chapter- 4 A detailed literature review is given in this chapter. It is divided into 12 sub- sections. A
model has been prepared at the end of chapter so as to provide a picture view and recall of all that
has been discussed.
Chapter- 5 Deals with conclusions.
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Chapter- 2
Introduction
1. What is country of origin?
In simple terms country of origin refers to country in which the product has been developed or we
can say the country to which product belongs to and identifies with. It is called motherland of a
product.
Country of origin is generally indicated by ―made in ...‖ labels the use of these labels can be traced
back to ancient Greece, where it was common to stamp product with logos or marks and other
indicators of origination. In ancient Egypt, brick makers used to mark their bricks, farmers used to
mark their animals with place of origin. The purpose was identification and differentiation of
products. The origin was specified not only for identification, but also to signal quality because since
ancient times countries has been famous for their products such as India for its spices, French for its
wines and perfumes, china for its herbs, textiles industry in Egypt, pearls of Australia etc.
The main turning point came into country of origin use was after the end of world war one, in 1914.
The countries that lost the war (Germany) were obliged to mark their products with made in labels
(made in Germany) so that people can identify and avoid the products from war defeated countries.
Country of origin was more of ―Beware Sign‖ rather than a label or a brand. But the stigma which it
carried did not work any bad for the defeated countries because made in labels emerged as strong
tool of marketing in the hand of marketers. Made in Germany became a sign of high quality well
known for its workmanship and Germany is carrying its legacy even today. (cai, 2002)
2. What is the difference between country of origin, geographical indications and region of
origin?
These three terms are generally used interchangeably but these terms are more of interrelated rather
than synonymous. All of these terms point towards the place where product is made; developed,
associated etc. the difference lies in the scope of coverage. Region of origin, Geographical indication
can be said to be a part of Country of Origin.
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Region is an area, situated within one or more countries, which forms an entity based on local
characteristics such as traditions, culture and society. Regional product can be said to be the one
which is marketed using the name of region of origin and whose qualities and features can be
attributed to that particular region.
Country of origin on the other hand includes country as a whole it‘s political, legal, economic and
cultural environment, geographical climate, and its people; their competencies and skills etc.
Geographical indication typically denotes a much smaller area which may includes town or a region
but the main feature of it is that it is legally protected. It comes under one of intellectual property
rights list as specified by world trade organization. The basic idea behind legal protection is to
provide a sense of security, assurance of quality to those who are buying products on the basis of
made in labels. Along with this, to maintain a country‘s specialty and its cultural heritage which it
has acquired or have created over a period of time from attacks of piracy and infringement.
(Menapace,2009)
Country of origin
Region
Geographical
Of origin indication
3. What does the various terms country of origin (COO), country of manufacture (COM),
country of design (COD) specifies?
With the opening up of economies, organizations are moving production to lowest cost possible so
as to achieve economies of scale. With this trend, production process has been dispersed across
countries. Products are assembled in one country; they are produced in some other country, they are
designed somewhere else. So country of origin term has got bifurcated into country of manufacture,
then country of assembly, country of design so on and so forth.noe here is an explanation of few
terms, understanding of which may help us in going through this paper easily.
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Home country: - refers to the country in which consumer resides.
Origin country: - refers to the country, consumer associate a product with no matters whether
actually that is the country where the product has actually been manufactured or not.
Country of manufacture: - refers to the country where product has actually been produced.
Country of design: -refers to the country where physical shape to a product has been given or where
a product has been designed.
Country of assembly: -refers to country where the final assembling of various parts (whether
produced in same country or imported from other countries) product has been done and the final
product is prepared.
Country of origin is generally that country where the product has been manufactured or has been
assembled or we can say that it is the country where product is in its final shape. (Nebenzahl, 1997)
We can understand all these terms with an example: ―IBM operations represent a global web of
activities. IBM ThinkPad X31 laptop computer was designed in United States by IBM engineers
because IBM believed that it was the best location in the world to do the basic design work. The
case, keyboard and hard drive were made in Thailand, the display screen and memory were made in
south Korea; the built in wireless card were made in Malaysia; and the micro processor was
manufactured in the united states. In each case components were manufactured in optimal location
possible. These components were shipped to an IBM operation in Mexico where the product was
assembled before being shipped back to United States for final sale‖. ( hill & jain, sixth edition)
In this case
Country of design is United States
Country of manufacture of various parts is Indonesia, Malaysia, and South Korea.
Country of assembly is Mexico
As products final product is shipped back to United States for final sale, consumers generally tends
to associate IBM with United States. So country of origin is United States.
Thus we can herby analyze the difference between the terms.
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4. What is consumer buying behavior?
Consumer behavior is the study of how individuals, groups and organization select, buy, use and
dispose of goods, services, ideas or experiences to satisfy their needs and wants. Consumer buying
behavior is a detailed process which starts with stimuli and ends with a response. It starts with certain
inputs which are processed and then output comes up.
Marketing and environment stimuli enter the consumer consciousness and a set of psychological
process combine with certain consumer characteristics to result in decision processes and purchase
decisions. Marketers‘ task is to understand what happens in consumer consciousness between the
arrival of the outside marketing stimuli and ultimate purchase decisions. (kotler)
Here is a consumer buying behavior model. It is a stimulus response model. In marketing, consumer
receives stimulus from their internal (need, tension, anxiety etc.) environment or their external
environment (advertising, family, friends etc.) consumer evaluate these stimulus on the basis of his
cultural, social and economical backgrounds. Consumer psychology plays an important role in
evaluation of various alternatives. Four key psychological processes-motivation, perception,
learning, and memory-fundamentally influence consumer response.
Our main concentration in this research paper is on consumer evaluation which constitutes a part of
consumer pre purchase behavior.
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Marketing stimuli other stimuli
 Products & services Economic

 Price Technological
 Distribution Political
 Communication Cultural
Consumer psychology Consumer characteristics

Motivation Cultural
Perception Social
Learning Personal
Memory
Buying decision process
Problem recognition
Information search
Evaluation of alternatives
Purchase decision
Post purchase behavior
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5. What is customer evaluation process?
Consumer evaluation process constitutes all those steps starting from consumer coming into contact
with a stimulus, processing information so obtained and ultimately deriving conclusions about
product quality, durability, credibility etc on the basis of all possible cues available. Before buying a
product consumer evaluates a product on various dimensions such as quality, durability,
convenience, disposal etc.
6. How consumers evaluate various cues available?
Evaluation process at all arises because of the presence of choice i.e. when there are number of
alternatives available to the consumer. Larger the number of alternatives more complex the
evaluation process becomes.
In all economic theories we assume that consumer is a rational entity. Before buying a product, a
consumer evaluate each and every alternative, involve himself in a cost-benefit analysis, analyze
various constraints and try to come out with a decision which is best for him.
According to early economic theories, a consumers‘ choice was based upon assumption that he knew
what he was buying. This was probably true for an era where the limited number of alternatives were
available to consumers.
With increasing technology, emergence of marketing concept, increasing competition there is a flood
of products and brands available to consumers, hence thereby making evaluation process complex.
But for an average consumer it has literally become impossible to evaluate various alternatives in the
midst of so many constraints (time, money, effort).
Cox (1962) was one of the first investigators to develop a model on consumer evaluation process. He
suggested that a product could be viewed as ―Array of Cues‖. Consumer makes judgment about a
product through these cues. (Johansson et. al. 1989)
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Cox hypothesized that consumer tend to evaluate cues on two dimensions
Intrinsic
&
Extrinsic cues
Predictive value refers to the extent to which a cue can be associated with an attribute of a product
(price with quality, appearance with performance etc). Confidence value refers to certainty
consumer feel about his ability to interpret and use that cue.
7. What factors in a product consumer evaluates?
Consumer utilizes various cues to make inferences about a product‘s quality. It is necessary to make
inferences because process of trial and error is generally not available in real life situations.
Olson (1972), consumer perceives, distinguishes and makes judgments of cues which he believes are
related to product quality. Since it is difficult for consumer to carry out objective product quality
testing procedure, consumer judges product quality on the basis of factors which he believes are
related to product quality. (Johansson et. al. 1989)
8. What are extrinsic and intrinsic cues related to product?
When we talk about cues in consumer evaluation process, it is necessary to distinguish between
extrinsic and intrinsic cues. In this system, a cue to product quality is considered in terms of the
degree to which it is intrinsically or extrinsically a part of physical product.
A cue is called intrinsic to the extent that, if changed the resultant change would take place in
physical product itself. Extrinsic cues are not related to physical product at all rather they are
hypothetically created to be part of physical product. Extrinsic cues include price, brand name etc.
as we are very well aware about price quality relationship, that ―higher the price higher will be the
quality‖.
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9. Country of origin, whether it is an extrinsic cue or intrinsic cue?
Country of origin formulates part of labels. They are not at all related to physical performance of a
product. Consumer can only analyze about the conditions under which the product would have been
produced and nothing more than that about the physicality of a product can be derived from it. So
country of origin is an extrinsic cue.
10. What is country of origin effect?
Country of origin effects refers to how country of origin as an extrinsic cue is used by the customer
in evaluation and shapes their perception, attitudes and intentions toward buying a product.
There are various dimensions of country of origin effect which effects consumer perception at one
level, consumer attitude and beliefs on the other.
Country of image effect consumer perceptions
Cognitiv Halo effect

e level
Summary effect
National
stereotypes
National identification effect consumer attitudes
Consumer
Ethnocentrism
AFFECTIVE
Patriotism
& NORMATIVE
Animosity
LEVEL
13 In-group biases
Previously, we saw a model which states that country of origin effects works at three levels-
cognitive, affective and normative level.
A person‘s cognitions refer to knowledge and perceptions that are acquired by him through a
combination of direct experiences with the product or indirectly through information from various
other sources. This knowledge and resulting perceptions commonly take the form of beliefs.
At affective level, consumer has feelings and emotions associated with a country. These feelings and
emotions are generally so strong that they enter the product evaluation process and create biases.
At normative level consumer feel obliged by his responsibilities and duties towards others, society at
large and nation as a whole. These duties and responsibilities create positive attitude towards a
project. Sometimes normative feelings are so strong that country of origin work as a direct stimulus
and create purchase, skipping all the steps of evaluation process in between. For example:- people
buying products to help those suffering due to a natural calamity. (Verlegh, 2001)
Country of origin does affect consumer perceptions, his attitudes and beliefs. But there are certain
consumer characteristics such as product knowledge, his level of involvement, his demographics
(age, gender etc.) which moderate this effect. This all constitute country of origin effect. A detailed
overview of all these dimensions will be undertaken on the basis of past researches in chapter-4 to
study consumer purchase behavior.
11. What is the relevance of studying country of origin effects in current scenario?
The concept of country of origin has emerged years or we can say decades ago. We have already
studied that it was used as an identification mark and also for signaling quality. During 16th century,
whiskey distillers started to use actual brand names and throughout 18th century, brand concept
evolved. During 19th century, producers tried to enhance the perceived value of their products
through consumer associations with brand names. During second half of 20th century,
internationalization expanded rapidly. Closed economies such as India and china opened up their
economies. With concept of new trade theory (1970‘S) companies from all over the world joined
each other in the race to achieve economies of scale. With a view to gain competitive advantage,
companies stared locating the production to their optimal locations (John dunning-LOCATION
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SPECIFIC ADVANTAGES). Optimal location refers to those locations where cost of production is
minimal and has an ease to accessibility of raw material, skills required for production. (Hill & Jain)
With all this, country of origin labels found to be irrelevant. Levitt (1983) gave the concept of global
brands. He said that with globalization, a global class of consumer is emerging having similar tastes
and preferences (Global youth segment). Therefore there is a need for standardization rather than
differentiation, Global corporations rather than Multinational corporations and hence global brands
rather than multinational brands. Therefore with this theory of Levitt, country of origin labels and
study into their effects found to be irrelevant.
The concept given by Levitt is true only for certain category of products and applies only to certain
category of consumers. Even with the globalization, this concept seems far away from reality. This is
because still there is class of consumers, who have this strong desire of belongingness to the place
they identify with. This however becomes difficult to satisfy in globalizing world. This is what we
call as ―Paradox of Internationalization‖. Belk explains this concept through Newton‘s principle
―that for every action there is equal and opposite reaction‖. The opposite reaction in this case is,
consumer perceives internationalization as direct threat to their identity and there b end up in loving
their region more. This attachment encourages them to buy locally produced goods as reassurance to
their identity.
Secondly, standardization and lower costs have resulted in an urge to buy something different in
customer. They want variety but unique distinctiveness in product. In this case regional products can
be offered to them as alternative to the standard global brands. Two unique characteristics of regional
products are:-
1) They provide a unique selling point in comparison to global brands.
2) They are rare and constitute a status symbol and specialty good because special effort has to be
made for their purchase.
Thus it is relevant to study COO effects on consumer purchase evaluation.
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Chapter- 3
Objective of the study

 Its objective is to provide a thorough understanding of the concept of country of origin effect on
consumer behavior.
 Present study is an in depth review of various research that has been done in the area of country
of origin effects, what are the initiators and moderators of this effect.
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Chapter- 4
Literature review
4.1. First of all in this section we will look at ‗from where‘ does it all started and what were the
major milestones in this area. Country of origin as a tool in marketing is being studied now since
more than 40 years. First study in the area of country of origin was conducted by Schooler (1965).
He concluded that countries of origin do affect consumers‘ opinions regarding the product.
According to Dubin (1978) a theory must contain six elements ‗what‘, ‗how‘, ‗why‘, and ‗who‘,
‗where‘ and‘ when‘ in consumer context. But the study conducted by Schooler (1965) failed to
explain the ‗how‘ element of the theory. This limitation opened gateway to heavy research in the
area of country of origin effects.
After the initial research there were various breakthroughs which came in this area of research till
1982. Nagashima (1970, 1977) undertook a longitudinal approach to identify the effects of country
image. Nagashima two studies allowed him to draw an important suggestion that origin images can
change overtime.
Bilkey and Nes (1982) in their paper criticized studies so far stating that in all of them country of
origin was analyzed as single cue, which is leading to the overestimation of country of origin effects.
This paper was the first literature review of this area and till now is the most cited paper. This study
offered a vast area of potential research in this field, which, later on, was explored by Johansson et.al
(1985, 1988, and 1990) who undertook a multi-variable approach in the study of COO.
4.2. In this section we will through light on some studies which explain the nature of country of
origin as an extrinsic cue and offer its comparison in terms of effectiveness over other extrinsic cue.
In a recent study conducted by Veale et.al., (2006) analyzed the effect of country of origin as an
extrinsic cue. The study was conducted on Australian consumers to understand their product
evaluations based on country of origin with respect to wine and cheese. Country of origin variable
was compared across France, USA and Chile where France is the specialist in two product
categories, USA being an industrialized country and Chile having poor quality in these categories.
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Price was another extrinsic cue that was taken up along with country of origin. This study proposed
that consumer evaluation of a product quality are based both on extrinsic and intrinsic cues with
knowledge about product and personal self confidence acting as moderating variables. Consumer
expertise with regard to product consists of objective knowledge and subjective knowledge.
Objective knowledge is defined as current, accurate information stored by an individual in their long
term memory based largely upon cognitive type learning. Whereas subjective knowledge is defined
as product familiarity i.e. consumer perceived level of knowledge. The degree to which consumer‘s
knowledge and expertise will help him in product evaluation depends upon his confidence level.
Consumer may be an expert in using extrinsic and intrinsic cues to draw conclusions but with low
confidence level, he will easily let his best judgment overridden by others‘ opinion. Experiment was
conducted on 28 adult students. Findings suggest that students scored low both on subjective
knowledge ( measured through eight item nine point likert‘s scale) as well as on objective knowledge
(measured through 14 multiple choice question specific to cheese and wine). But they score high on
confidence level measured through 100 item nine point likert‘s scale. While evaluating cheese and
wine both country of origin and price were found to be more influential owing to low level
knowledge. France was believed to be most desirable for purchase of both the products which can be
attributed to its specialty. But the surprising results were that little difference of opinions was found
with respect to product from USA and Chile, with USA obviously having an upper hand because of
its industrialized status. This may be because of perception of high pesticide levels and genetic
modifications associated with food products from the USA. Thus we can conclude consumer do take
all information about country into account while deriving conclusions about quality of the product.
So country of origin is an important extrinsic cue. The tendency of consumer to use COO as a cue is
high when knowledge and familiarity with respect to product is very less. The degree to which
consumer will stick to his evaluations derived through an extrinsic cue will depend upon his
confidence level.
In the Introduction (chapter-2) we studied the difference between country of origin and geographical
indications. For a marketer geographical indications are an asset because they have legal protection
with respect to them. Analyzing the effect that place, geography, country have on consumer
evaluation every marketer is in the race to get a legal protection so as to derive full benefit of
positivity associated with name of the place. But as there are benefits there are costs associated with
getting legal protection in the form of cumbersome rules and fees. The following study analyzes this
trade off.
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4.2. Country of origin effect over GI & PDO labels
Menapace et.al., (2009) tried to analyze consumer reaction with regard to three nested types of origin
labels i.e. geographical indications (GI), Country of origin (COO) and Protected Designation of
Origin (PDO). We have already studied the above terms and difference between them (see
introduction Q.2). This study was conducted on Canadian consumers with respect to extra virgin
olive oil. Three countries chosen as origin countries were Greece, Italy and Spain. Canada was
chosen for study because it is not involved in production chain of olive oil, so it will prevent
occurrence of home biases among respondents. Secondly extra virgin oil has been chosen because it
is the highest grade olive oil which can solely be obtained from the fruit of olive oil. Italy, Spain and
Greece account for more than 70% of worldwide production of extra virgin olive oil. The findings of
the study showed that geography is an important determinant of quality especially in case of food
products. Geographical indications are legally protected and obtaining this legal protection is a costly
procedure and constitutes a kind of non-tariff barrier now a days. An important finding of this study
points out that there are decreasing returns to geographic labeling. This is because respondents
whose hidden preferences were analyzed on the basis of type of shopping stores (supermarkets,
gourmet store and farmer markets) they go to, were found to be ready to pay premium for country of
origin labeling at much higher rate than premium for geographical indications. When it comes to
PDO (organic olive oil) vs. GI consumers valued PDOs more than PGIs. This is because PDOs are
more linked to quality than geographical indications (see introduction Q.2). Thus marketers who are
trying best to get GI protection should understand that although GI labels are preferred over non GI
labels but it is not a source of sustained competitive advantage. So a cost benefit analysis should be
done according to type of consumer and accordingly it should be decided that whether to go for COO
or PDO or GI labeling. But the limitation of this study is that it failed to explain as to why COO
command premium over GI when later is more closely related to quality and have a greater guarantee
factor in the form of legal protection.
Thus we have analyzed country of origin as an extrinsic cue and its effectiveness in market over its
counter parts. We can say that we have studied „what‟ of the theory. As we have already studied in
the introduction part that in market place there is not a single cue but multiple extrinsic cues such as
brand name, price, country of origin etc are available to the consumer. So as rightly pointed out by
Bilkey and Nes (1982) COO cannot be studied in isolation from other variables. So in the following
section we will compare COO with other extrinsic cue in market.
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4.3. Country of origin and brand knowledge
Brand refers to name, mark, symbol given to a product for its identification and differentiation.
Brand is another extrinsic cue available to consumer to judge credibility, quality and value of a
product. In the past few years brand has gained so much importance due to the concept of brand
image, brand personalities and brand equity etc. A well known brand is an important tool of
competence in the hands of a marketer. It not only gives marketer premium price but also help in
launching new products based on existing goodwill of current brand name. Brand knowledge refers
to awareness about a brand a consumer have. This awareness is determined through fact that how
much information, familiarity or associations, a consumer is able to recall when encountered with the
brand. Various studies (Ettenson and Gaeth, 1991) (Cordell, 1993) have shown that as consumer
becomes more aware about the brand, he does not utilize country of origin information much. Thus
we hypothesize that
P1: As brand knowledge increases, consumer tendency to utilize country of origin information
decreases.
Aiello et al., Conducted empirical study in three European countries Italy, France and Germany to
see the interactive effect of country of origin and brand knowledge across various product categories.
Along with analyzing this relationship this study go ahead in classifying these effects across various
product categories that are convenience goods, shopping goods and luxury or specialty goods. With
the emergence of concept of multinationals, concept country of origin has also got bifurcated in
various parts such as country of design, country of packaging, country of manufacture, country of
assembly, country of brand etc. Author has also tried to study that whether consumers are affected by
country of manufacture or country of design or country of origin as a whole. The findings of this
study suggests that concept of country of origin is associated both with country of design and country
of manufacture. Each country has its own specialty where Italy is qualified by ―Design‖, France by
―Prestige‖, and Germany by ―Workmanship‖, Japan, United States and China by ―Innovativeness‖.
The results further showed that brand and COO do not affect product evaluations of convenience
goods. In case of convenience goods, price emerged as main determinant. Brand and COO enters in
the evaluations of luxury and shopping goods, but brand affects product evaluations more than
country of origin. Thus this study stated that when knowledge about a brand is available to
consumer, information about country of origin matter less for consumer. But further it has added to
relevance of country of origin in the sense that it helps in reinforcing brand personalities if there is
20
congruence between country specialty and brand strength. Thus this study offers an important piece
of information to our knowledge as to ‗where‘ and ‗how‘ various extrinsic cues are utilized in
consumer evaluation process.
A somewhat similar result was shown in study conducted by Ahmed et al.,(2002). The difference was
that they classified goods as low involvement and high involvement products to evaluate which
extrinsic cue matters the most in quality judgments for consumer.
Ahmed et.al., (2002) conducted a study on country of origin effects in case of low involvement
products in developing countries. Low involvement products are those products which are easily
accessible, low priced, fast moving and in case of which comprehensive information processing is
not required for example- toothpaste, home cleaner, bathing soap etc. We have already studied that
country of origin does not play an important role in evaluation of convenience goods. This study
however classifies the goods as low involvement and high involvement. Convenience goods can also
be called as low involvement goods. This study has been conducted on Singapore which is an
industrialized country but not a developed country. Two staple products bread and coffee has been
chosen in one popular brand and one in unknown (hypothetical) brand. For bread country of origin
chosen were France, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia in which France and Singapore being
famous for the quality of their breads. In case of coffee, Indonesia, Columbia (developing countries)
Singapore and Switzerland (developed countries) has been undertaken as country of origins. Nine
points Likert‘s scale has been used to identify familiarity of consumer with brand and country. The
findings of the study shows that in case of low involvement products consumer make cognitive
inferences about product quality based on extrinsic cues but when multiple cues are available such as
brand name and price, consumer utilize brand and price information more rather than country of
origin. This is because in case of low involvement products, purchase decisions are of minor
importance i.e. consumer has less to lose in the form of price and consumption. So consumer pays
less attention to cues such as COO and goes for brand they have already used or the one they
frequently use or the one they have heard a lot about. Thus from above two studies we can say that
relevance of country of origin as cue is reduced when multiple cues are available.
As above two studies show consistent results with respect to what earlier studies have proposed we
can say that P1 HYPOTHESIS is correct. But the limitation of the studies is that they were confined
to specific product categories.
In contrast to above studies Han and Terpstra (1987) pointed out that sourcing country stimuli have
powerful effects on consumer evaluations. Brand name may be a dominant extrinsic cue in case of
comparison among domestic products but whenever it will come to domestic vs. foreign goods,
21
country of origin information will be most sought out by consumer. These contradictions tell us that
there are other factors such as country image and consumer ethnocentrism yet to be analyzed for
final conclusions.
So here we move to our next section where we will analyze dimensions of country of origin effects
irrespective of product category. This section basically deals with as to „how‟ country of origin
information enters consumer psychology and effects his perceptions, attitudes and beliefs with
regard to a product despite consumer being never actually using that product.
Before going further in this section it is necessary to understand the three levels at which country of
origin information is processed and analyzed. These three levels are cognitive, affective and
normative level.
At cognitive level, consumer analyzes country of origin information as an extrinsic cue to formulate
quality perceptions. Processing information related to each and every product is complex especially
when so many alternatives are available. In this he undertakes mental shortcuts and formulates
perceptions about product. The mental shortcuts that he undertakes are called heuristics. At cognitive
level consumer perceptions are made. Consumer act and react on the basis of perceptions and not on
the basis of objective reality (Kotler). Thus when we talk about perceptions it is also necessary to
talk about perceptual distortions. In case of country of origin effects these distortions include
national stereotypes, halo effect and biases. These aspects we will study in detail in this section.
Second is Affective level; at this level consumer feelings, (anxiety, hospitality, sympathy, interests
etc.) emotions and experiences with product as well as country come into play. These feelings may
be based upon history of conflict (animosity) or cooperation between domestic and foreign country.
These feelings directly formulate consumer attitudes towards product. Overtime research has shown
that affective responses work more strongly in country of origin effects than cognitive responses.
Third is Normative level; at this level consumer involve himself in compliance behavior. Consumer
evaluates a product on the basis of ‗what he should buy‘ rather than ‗what he wants to buy‘.
Consumer will indulge in a behavior that fulfills his obligations towards society, country and the
group he belongs to. This level is reflected in consumer willingness to buy, his willingness to pay
and his actual buying behavior. Situational factors and other exogenous variables may interfere with
the degree.
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4.4. Country of origin and Consumer ethnocentrism
Shimp and Sharma (1987) coined the term consumer ethnocentrism to represent the belief held by
American consumers about the appropriateness, indeed morality, of purchasing foreign products. The
construct of ethnocentrism relies on the presumption that the consumers‘ patriotic emotions will have
significant effects on attitudes and purchase intentions and their ultimate behavior. In order to
measure consumer ethnocentrism, Shimp and Sharma (1987) developed a 17-item scale, called the
CETSCALE, to measure the construct of consumer ethnocentrism. According to Shimp and Sharma
(1987, p.280) "From the perspective of ethnocentric consumers, purchasing imported products is
wrong because, in their minds, it hurts domestic economy and causes loss of jobs..."(Dinnie, 2003)
Rezvani et al., (2012) in their research paper mentioned consumer ethnocentrism as part of a broader
term named patriotism. Patriotism refers to feeling of love, pride, loyalty for one‘s own country.
Akhter (2007) defined patriotism not being associated with any negative feeling. On the other hand
Adorno (1950) classified patriotism as ethnocentric patriotism and healthy patriotism where
ethnocentric patriotism being one associated with prejudices. Sharma (1995) put forward the
argument that patriotism is positively related with consumer ethnocentrism. Empirical support for
this positive relationship is supported by studies such as Han (1988), Sharma (1995), and Klein and
Ettenson (1998). Thus on the basis of previous studies we can hypothesize that
P2: Consumer high on ethnocentrism have more favorable attitude towards domestic goods.
Verlegh (2001) in their study used the term home country bias which refers to positive distortion in
the perception and evaluation of a domestic product in comparison to a foreign product.
They presented two perspective on home country bias –one being economic perspective called
consumer ethnocentrism which they defined as a belief among people of a nation that it is
inappropriate or even immoral to buy foreign products because of their strong desire to protect
domestic economy and employment. Secondly they give a socio-psychological perspective which
includes social identity theory (Tajfel, 1982). This theory defines that each individual associate
himself with a group. They have a desire to maintain a positive self image as well as a desire to have
a positive social identity which creates positive in-group bias in them. They evaluate the group they
belong to positively in terms of quality and superiority. Different nations can be seen as different
groups divided on the basis of nationality and citizenship. Just like a positive in-group bias towards a
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small group within a nation, there is sense of national identification among people which create
positive willingness to buy domestic product among individuals. With these concepts they conducted
a study on consumers of three countries Netherlands, France and Germany. Their objective was to
study how consumer ethnocentrism and national identification affects consumer Willingness to buy
domestic and foreign products. They choose four products apple,, tomatoes, refrigerator and CD-
players They made use of 7-point Likert scale and a shorter version of CETSCALE to measure
consumer ethnocentrism. Univariate Regression Analysis was used to find the effect of consumer
ethnocentrism and national identification on consumer willingness.
The findings of the study suggest that although national identification and consumer ethnocentrism
have different motivations but they have positive effect on consumer willingness to buy domestic
product and a negative willingness to buy foreign products. Research also suggested a strong
association between consumer ethnocentrism and national identification suggesting that more
strongly a consumer identify himself with a Nation more he‘ll be Ethnocentric.
But the limitations of the study are that it fails to study the effect of consumer ethnocentrism across
various product categories. The study has been conducted in developed countries where the feelings
of superiority are associated with the level of development also. There are associative groups and
there are avoidance groups with which a person although may be belonging to but want to
disassociate himself, in that case how his willingness toward domestic products will be shaped has
not been studied.
Watson & Wright (1999) in their study analyzed the concept of consumer ethnocentrism in case
where consumer is forced to choose amongst foreign products. Various studies have shown that in
case domestic options are not available Consumers high on ethnocentrism are more likely to buy
products from culturally similar countries. In this case a research on consumers of Newzealand has
been conducted. They used CETSCALE-seven point likert‘s scale as a medium to measure
ethnocentricity. Consumer‘s (who were high on ethnocentrism ) difference in attitude and
willingness to buy products from culturally similar countries USA & GERMANY in comparison to
culturally dissimilar countries ITALY & SINGAPORE has been tested. The main limitations of
earlier studies in this regard was subjective criteria of choosing culturally similar and dissimilar
countries but in this study schwartz‘s(1994) work has been used to classify countries. Findings of
this study shows that ethnocentrism is an important variable in the study of country of origin effects
as consumers have favorable attitude and positive willingness to buy products from countries which
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are culturally similar when domestic option is not available to them. This study offers important
insight as to situations where marketers should and where they should not emphasize country of
origin labels. But the limitation of this study is lack of genralizability. This is because consumer
attitude only with respect to limited durable category products such as televisions, cameras and
refrigerators has been studied. Along with this, study undertakes extreme attitude of consumer
ethnocentricity but neglects other attributes of human behavior such as product knowledge, tastes for
particular country products etc. Along with this, degree of ethnocentricity in a consumer may vary
from place to place and time to time. The role of situational factors has not been taken into account.
Thus we support hypothesis P2 with above studies which shows that ethnocentric consumers have
more favorable attitudes towards domestic products and if domestic product is not available then
than prefer to buy products from culturally similar countries.. But concept of consumer
ethnocentrism is more complex and layered then simplified explanations of above studies. What are
the motives, emotions of a consumer behind ethnocentric tendency has been explored as follows.
Huag et.al., (2009) conducted a study to analyze the effect of affective components of consumer
psychology such as allocentrism, consumer animosity etc on product evaluations. The study was
conducted on Taiwanese consumers with respect to Japanese products. Taiwan has long history of
hate relationship with Japan due to 50 years of harsh and ruthless Japanese occupation over Taiwan.
In recent years Taiwanese youth has developed a positive attitude toward Japanese products but still
signs of trade frictions are visible and territorial disputes over Diaoyu islands have never killed
feeling of animosity towards Japan. Animosity refers to an emotional feeling where due to political,
economic and military disturbances between the countries, foreign country takes enemy character in
the mind of consumers. Example, American consumer resistance to buy ‗made in Pakistan‘ products
after 9/11 attacks, people republic of china have animosity with Japan, Newzealand and American
consumers boycott French products due to France‘s nuclear tests in south pacific. The other aspect of
consumer psychology which has been studied is allocentrism which is associated with collectivism.
Collectivism is giving priority to group goals over individual goals. Research over time has shown
that consumer high on collectivism tend to maintain their in-group identity and hence are high on
ethnocentrism, if their group (one they belong to) is ethnocentric. Findings of the present study show
that there is high correlation between consumer ethnocentrism and animosity and consumer
ethnocentrism and allocentrism. That means consumer tendency to be ethnocentric increases with
out-group animosity and in-group identity. The only difference is consumer ethnocentrism due to in-
group identity directly affects consumer attitudes and they become reluctant to buy foreign products
but animosity only reinforces this tendency. Animosity is a kind of backward push taken by
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consumer due to out-group threats. Findings further showed that consumer product quality
evaluations moderate the effect of consumer animosity on negative product evaluations. Thus
marketers have ‗Quality‘ as a tool in their hand to enter consumer domain of preferences. But
contrasting result is consumer ethnocentrism effect is not moderated by product quality evaluations.
In this case marketer can change their symbols to national symbols and may emphasize the fact that
the products are not harmful for their economy.
Thus country of origin effect occurs due to consumer tendency of being ethnocentric, allocentric and
emotional feelings (animosity) but it is interesting to note that whether these tendencies are
formulated over a period of time or they are transient due to communications such as “Buy National
Campaigns”
Elliot & Cameron (1994) conducted a study to see the effects of ―Buy national campaigns‖ on
consumer purchase preferences. In recent times, goal of encouraging consumers to buy locally
produced goods has gained prominence. This is because long established industries of developed
countries have received a set back because of low cost production industries of developing countries
opening up their economy to international competition. The study is conducted across city of
Melbourne a metropolitan area in Australia to know consumer awareness and attitude towards
―Australian made‖ campaign. The study has been conducted among six product categories-computer,
cars, dishwashers, shoes, fans and tires to be analyzed on six product attributes-price, style, country
of origin, quality of manufacture, style, brand name and innovativeness. Consumers ranked country
of origin lowest as product evaluation factor especially in front of quality and price. Findings of the
study shows that consumers do have preference to buy locally produced goods when quality of
domestically produced goods is superior in terms of quality in comparison to imported goods. Even
when price and quality are equivalent then also they prefer locally produced goods. In case there are
significant deviations in quality (LOWER) of locally produced goods and imported goods
(HIGHER) consumers will go for the one having the highest quality. The results showed that when
Australian made products were not up to mark in quality, consumer preferred products from other
developed countries such as Japan & Germany (price remaining constant). Thus we can conclude
that buy national campaigns do create strong preference for locally produced goods but not a
conviction. For a conviction, the domestically produced goods must excel in quality and if not
quality than lower price strategy should be designed. Further, country of origin comes only into play
only when products are equivalent in terms of quality and price. This study offers an insight into
success of buy national campaign but the limitation of this study is that it is based on restrictive
assumptions that other product attributes (brand name, product features, and price) are equal.
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Thus with all above studies we can get a clear view of country of origin effects on consumer attitudes
due to ethnocentrism and its counter parts such as allocentrism and animosity. In subsequent
sections we will study various variables which act as moderators of ethnocentrism.
In the next section, we will study the second aspect country of origin effect how consumer
perceptions are formed on the basis of country image.
4.5. Country of origin effects and Country image effects

In this section we will study how consumer perceptions about country affect consumer evaluations
about product quality. The concept we are going to study refers to country image effects.
Nagashima (1970) in an academic paper defines country image-“it refers to economic, social,
technological and political part of each country.” With Globalization, Emergence of Multinationals,
various options are available to consumers but with a very limited knowledge to evaluate each
option. In this case consumers are likely to rely on their previous experiences with country and
product for decision making. When studying about country of origin effects distinction has to be
made between beliefs based on information about products from a particular country and beliefs
about country itself. Former refers to product knowledge whereas latter refers to country image. We
will study product knowledge later on.
Verlegh (2001) in his study stated that Country image has cognitive and affective dimensions. In
cognitive component consumer creates a perception about a product on the basis of geographic and
human component. Geography includes climate and landscape of a country whereas human
component refers to skill, competence and creativity level of people of country of origin of product.
Both of the components if positively evaluated with respect to a country create a favorable
evaluation of product. For example geographic component like right sunshine, temperature leads to
positive evaluation of food products. Similarly landscape of a country makes it a good tourist
destination. Human component make country ahead in technology and manufacturing.
Thus Country image have direct effect on perception about product quality. When goods are not well
known to people, country image creates a ―Halo Effect‖. Halo effect has been used to describe
situations in which evaluation of a single object or a person on multitude of dimensions is based on
evaluation of a single object (Kotler). Country image is a part of image variable of a product. Image
variable is defined as some aspect which is not related to physical characteristics of a product but is
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associated with it in the form of brand name, trade mark, symbols, celebrity endorsers, country of
origin etc. Image variable basically effects beliefs and attitudes.
In case of country of origin the debate overtime between studies is about whether attitudes precede
beliefs or beliefs precede attitudes. Thus we hypothesize that
P3: Country image is a multi dimensional construct having impact on consumer attitudes and
beliefs depending upon consumer degree of familiarity with the product.
According to Fishbein and Ajzen (1975) there are three kinds of beliefs; descriptive, inferential and
informational where descriptive are formed through direct experiences, informational are formed
through outside sources of information like advertising, friends, relatives etc. inferential beliefs are
formed by making inferences based on past experiences as this experience is related to current
stimulus. One thing to be noted is that beliefs are created on the basis of objective information and
rational experiences i.e. they are created after cognitive learning. As country of origin is an extrinsic
cue, consumer make inferences about a product on the basis of country image. Thus country of origin
affects beliefs which lead to attitudes.
But image variables may directly affect attitudes as well. For example an emotional feeling (pride,
animosity, love etc) with a country may have positive or negative affective implications for products
from that country.
Johansson et al., (1984) presented an important analytical piece of study to analyze the direction of
causation. They developed a system of simultaneous equation solving. At one time they took attitude
as independent variable and at other time they took beliefs as independent variable. They undertook
two important considerations into account; 1) as beliefs are based upon true objective level of
information for the product, this variable was controlled to analyze biases associated with image
effect of country of origin. 2) as attitudes are affected by both objective and subjective familiarity,
both have been incorporated where self assessed familiarity accounts for subjective familiarity and
actual ownership accounts for objective familiarity with the product. The study was undertaken on
students of Washington with regard to automobiles. Three countries were studied as country of
origins US, Japan and Germany. The findings showed a strong mutual relationship between attitudes
and beliefs but country of origin as image variable was found to be directly affecting beliefs rather
than attitudes. This study showed that image variables are not affective in nature and hence affect
beliefs on the basis of inferences made by consumers. Any country of origin effect on attitudes is
thus secondary or indirect via beliefs. But the limitation of this study is to be kept in mind that it has
studied only one particular class of product and only one image variable that is country of origin.
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Along with this although familiarity has been found out to be significant exogenous variable in the
study but its effects are not analyzed on attitudes and beliefs formation. Following study do account
for it.
Han (1989) studied effect of country image on product evaluations from two alternative views-Halo
construct and Summary construct. This study was different from earlier studies on country image in
the sense that it extended country image view not only as halo construct but also as summary
construct. As a halo, country image effects consumer beliefs about product attributes and indirectly
affects overall evaluation of products through those beliefs.
Halo effect occurs when consumer is not familiar with the product and use country image as proxy to
formulate quality judgments about product. But as consumer familiarity with product increases
country image act as a summary construct i.e. it directly affects consumer attitudes towards products
on the basis of previous beliefs and experiences with the product. For example if consumer knows
that German cars are known for their durability and Audi is a German car, in that case image of
Germany will act as a halo and consumer will evaluate that Audi is durable. But if consumer has
already used Mercedes Benz and he knows that it is manufactured in Germany, he will directly form
a positive attitude towards Audi on the basis of his positive experience with Mercedes. In this case
country image worked as summary construct. This study was conducted on consumers of US in
comparison with two foreign countries Japan and Korea selected on the basis of degree of
familiarity, with Korea being least familiar to consumers of US. Color television and automobiles
were examined as products under study. The images of country, product and brands were measured
on a seven point Semantic Differential Scale. The findings of this study indicated that when
consumers are not familiar with a product, country of origin label act as Halo Construct where
consumer make inferences about product quality and durability on the basis of country image they
have in mind. But as consumer becomes familiar with product, country image becomes a summary
construct contributing directly to formulation of brand attitudes. This study offered important
implications for marketer; individual companies can take the benefit of already established favorable
country image by highlighting the superior quality products from the same country rather than
creating a new brand altogether. The limitation of this study is that it considered only three countries
but for generalization of results different countries at various degree of country-product familiarity
should be tested.
With above two studies we can support the hypothesis P3. We can conclude that as consumer
familiarity with the product increases country image directly affects consumer attitudes. So whether
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country image will affect beliefs or attitudes will depend upon consumer degree of familiarity with
the product.
The above studies have been conducted in developed countries. Developed countries have altogether
a different political, legal and cultural environment. Where Consumers in developed countries are
more and more innovative, dynamic, proud and secured, consumers in developing countries are
strivers of that kind of lifestyle. Thus when it comes to developing countries, the idea of country
image work as follows.
4.6. Country image in case of developing countries

Cognitive content of country image includes evaluating product based on consumer perceptions of
structural features (ability, skills, competence, climate, landscape, economic and political) of a
country to which that product belongs. Consumer evaluates products from developed countries more
favorably in comparison to products from less developed countries. This is called National
stereotypes. Stereotyping refers to human tendency of over generalization. It is perceptual process of
dividing people in groups and evaluating each stimulus, on the basis of group that stimulus belongs
to. In case of national stereotypes, consumer analyzes a country on the basis of a certain
characteristics. Stereotypes are generally negative. When consumer associate national stereotypes
with product evaluations it is called country of image effect. Based on this concept Lascu and Manrai
(1998) found that product evaluations were most favorable for highly developed countries and least
favorable for developing countries with newly industrialized countries falling in between. So here we
hypothesize that
P4: Products belonging to developed countries are evaluated more favorably by consumers in
comparison to products belonging to developing countries because of strong cognitive country
image.
Kerbouche et al., (2012) investigated the consumer attitudes towards Chinese products. China is
largest growing market today. Due to opening up of economy and entries of various multinationals
we can see various ‗made in china‘ products all over the world. But as already discussed it is
commonly perceived that products made in developing countries are of lower quality. Chinese
products are considered as cheap, old fashioned and poor in quality. This study has been conducted
in 19 countries from fine continents to study consumer attitude towards Chinese product (LENOVO)
in comparison to Japan(SONY).The findings of this study suggest that except in Asian market, where
30
we can find a positive sentiment toward Chinese products, in other markets( Africa, south America
,North America, Europe) there is really a negative image. Despite Lenovo being the most popular
brand in china, majority consumers were even not aware of it. Japan on the other hand found to be
perceived as well developed country, having a strong financial position, being high in creativity and
quality standards. It further found that even though overall attitude towards Chinese products is
negative but when we talk about developing countries where majority consumers are in the age
group of 41-50, have low income levels group had better attitude towards Chinese products. But the
limitation of this study lies in the fact that it has associated negative image of Chinese products only
with the degree of development. It failed to analyze the affective component of country image which
refers to set of emotions generated on the basis of experience or incidences, which are beyond the
purview of either performance of products or degree of development having a significant impact on
product evaluations. China with its communist regime, a very weak legal system and overtime
tensions with neighboring partners like Japan, India has lead to generation of sense of animosity
among consumers which is also one of reasons of negative product evaluations for Chinese products.
So these aspects have been ignored but a very important aspect it raised is that consumers with
higher education level have better attitude towards Chinese products because they had better decision
making power rather than going with heuristics, stereotypes and mental shortcuts, they involve
themselves in information search and evaluate products on their performance, reliability and quality.
Above study presents a view of what outside world has an image of developing countries. So it
supports our hypothesis P4. But the following study reinforces in favor of this hypothesis as
consumers belonging to developing countries themselves prefer to buy products from developed
countries rather than their own country.
Batra et al. (2000) conducted a study to understand consumer attitude‘s with regard to local and non-
local origin goods particularly in developing countries. They undertook a study in two major cities in
India-Bombay and Delhi. As most of the research in field of country of origin effects has been done
in developed countries it is very important to study dimensions like consumer ethnocentrism and
country image concept in case of developing countries also. Developing countries have different set
of political, legal, economical and cultural environment and have large consumer base with wide
income disparities. India is a transitional economy. Development economists such as James (1993)
have argued that transition periods of economic development increase the importance of position
values, oriented towards conspicuous consumption and status display. Therefore consumers in such
economies have generalized status preference for non-local brands. This study has explored various
dimensions of consumer attitude. Using Likert‘s scale, regression analysis and paired comparisons
31
between various variables it found a very positive attitude towards non-local brands. The degrees to
which brands are perceived as non-local have moderating effect on consumer attitude toward foreign
brands. Venkatesh & Swammy (1994, p.207) argued that consumers in developing countries today
want to be able to participate in the global consumer community, leading to an aspirator yearning for
many foreign made brands. Thus the degree to which consumer admires developed countries lifestyle
further moderates their positive attitude toward foreign brands. Along with this, COO effect will be
greater in case of product categories serving greater social signaling function. Consumer
ethnocentrism has negative effect with regard to foreign brands but no significant relationship has
been found between ethnocentrism, perceived non-localness and EDC lifestyle admiration. As with
increased globalization, consumer ethnocentrism is reduced. Thus this article serves a lot in
understanding consumer behavior in developing countries towards country of origin labels. But the
limitation of this study lies in the fact that it has been conducted in two metropolitan cities in India
where only 22% of population of India resides. Despite being trends of westernization so evident in
these two cities, there is deeply embedded love for Indian culture—Example MacDonald‘s beef
burger case. Along with this they have used quota sampling. So the results can be generalized to
countries‘ having dual economy rather than developing countries in strict sense.
Thus we have studied two important aspect of country of origin effects. The above two aspects tells
us why country of origin effect take place at all. The above two aspects are interrelated. Country
image also work at cognitive and affective level whereas consumer ethnocentrism work at normative
and affective level. At affective levels these two areas overlap. Consumer emotions and feelings
towards a country lead to a creation of image which is strong enough to derive an attitude which
may be positive or negative. In subsequent sections we will study these two aspects in the presence of
other variables which can moderate or neutralize their effect on consumer perceptions.
4.7. Country image effects across product categories

Till now we have studied how country of origin effect on overall evaluation of a product but this
effect varies in degrees across various product categories. We classify goods in various categories-
industrial good and consumer goods or convenience goods, shopping goods and specialty goods.
While studying COO effect consumer evaluation is studied across two broader categories- hedonic
goods and utilitarian goods.
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Utilitarian goods are ones whose consumption is primarily for the satisfaction of well defined goals,
are purchased after a thoughtful process and help in accomplishing functional and practical tasks. For
example: - automobiles, household durables etc. Whereas
Hedonic goods are those whose purchase is emotionally driven, no thoughtful process is carried out
rather they are items of impulse buying and they satisfy instantly aroused desires. For example: -
perfumes, clothes etc.
It is necessary to make this classification because country of origin effects varies across product
categories. For example- Japan is well known for its workmanship, so it has reputation in production
of automobiles but when it comes to buying perfume from Japan, French perfume will be preferred.
Thus every country has its specificity in production of certain goods. They enjoy competitive
advantage (Ricardo, 1817) in their production. In this case more products are associated with its
origin, more highly they will be perceived in terms of quality. Thus we hypothesize that
P5: country image effect varies across product categories. Country image effects will create
positive evaluations for a product only when there will be high congruence between place
specialty and product category consumer is evaluating.
The famous study in this regard was done by Roth and Romeo (1992) who examined COO effect
terms of fit between countries and product categories. Earlier studies have been done to examine the
overall effect of country of origin on consumer perceptions attitudes and beliefs. Country image do
effect consumer perceptions but the extent to which an image of a country has an influence on a
product will depend upon the category of product we are talking about. A product country match
occurs when the dimensions on which the country is being evaluated, perfectly defines the strengths
consumer is looking for in a product. In this case a survey was conducted on the students of Ireland,
Mexico and United States. Their perceptions with respect to eight countries were studied –Germany,
Ireland, Hungary, Japan, Korea, Spain, England and United States. Country image was tested across
four dimensions- innovativeness, design, prestige and workmanship. Six different categories of
products were chosen- beer, automobiles, leather shoes, bicycle and watches. Respondents were
asked to associate one product with each country. The findings of the study showed that Germany,
United States and Japan were highly favored by countries with regard to automobiles and watches
whereas Mexico and Hungary were less favorable for this category. With product country match,
consumer showed high willingness to buy automobiles from these countries. Second important
aspect which this study highlighted was that even though a country image can be favorable but if
those dimensions cannot be counted in strength of products, consumers will not buy that product like
33
in case of Japanese beer, Japan has favorable image in terms of its workmanship but consumer
willingness to buy beer from Japan was not seen. These results were consistent irrespective of
consumers‘ level of familiarity. Thus above study provided an insight into the fact that country of
origin information is relevant in those cases where there is strong match between product and
country image. A favorable country image can create preference for a product but cannot create a
conviction for purchase. The limitation of this study was country image emerged as one-dimensional
construct i.e. country favorite in one dimension was also favored in other dimensions which is
contradictory to various studies which has shown country image as multi dimensional construct. This
contradiction undermines the importance of results of this research.
Ho (2009) studied country image effects for utilitarian products. They pointed out that in case of
utilitarian goods perceived competence of a country in terms of sills, knowledge, expertise and
technological advancement is important in terms of evaluation. With globally distributed production
process, products are designed in one country and manufactured in other. Then which country should
a marketer emphasize so as to create a favorable impact of country image on product evaluation.
Author pointed out with an example that quality perception with regard to Sony TV of Japan does
not differ whether it is made in India or Singapore because in this case country of brand is more
important than country of manufacture. He undertook a study taking silk as utilitarian product with
two country of material –China and Australia. A fictitious brand of silk was created to avoid brand
perception biases. Bipolar adjective scale was used to measure person level of involvement. The
findings of the study suggest that respondents had a very low familiarity rate with brand ‗silky‘. In
terms of overall country image and country of brand Australia was evaluated more favorably then
china. But when it came to evaluating the quality of product, they rated Chinese and Australian silk
at par. Thus overall country image and brand failed to create positive effects for quality perceptions
rather country of material was used as significant predictor of product quality Therefore whether it is
high involvement product or low involvement product, consumer utilizes country of material
information in case of utilitarian goods. The general conclusions that can be drawn are that
depending upon product category various dimensions which constitutes overall country of origin
effects becomes activated and hence country image impact should be studied across various product
categories.
As we have analyzed country image effects across product categories. We support the hypothesis P5
and can say that different product categories act as moderators of country of image effects.
Moderating variables are those which vary the degree or extent to which one variable will affect the
other. There are variables like product knowledge, consumer involvement which interferes with
34
consumer tendency of being ethnocentric and using country image as halo construct. They are called
moderators of country of origin effects. These dimensions will be studied in the following sections.
4.8. Country of origin effects and Product knowledge
Brucks (1985) defined product knowledge as memories and knowledge‘s that are in people‘s minds
related to a product. It refers to set associations and experiences consumer have with product.
Research overtime has shown that product knowledge is a significant dimension to study while
analyzing consumer behavior toward country of origin labels. Product knowledge can be classified as
1) Subjective knowledge
2) Objective knowledge.
Subjective knowledge is based upon the set of experiences and the degree of familiarity a consumer
has with the product. Objective knowledge on the other hand is what a consumer knows about
product‘s quality, feature and performance level through various advertisements, public and opinion
leaders in the society. Studies show that subjective knowledge has greater effect on product
evaluation. Consumers having less of subjective knowledge go more for objective knowledge. The
reason as to why we are studying the concept of product knowledge with regard to country of origin
effects is that the level of knowledge has an indirect relationship with the evaluation bias (Halo
effects, National Stereotypes etc.). Johansson (1988) argued in contrast to above statement, he said
more familiar a person is with a product, the higher the possibility that he/she‘ll use COO
information. The above two results are contradictory because of difference in research
methodologies. Former is based on objective methods to measure product knowledge whereas the
later is based on subjective familiarity to measure product knowledge. It is to be noted that time and
again the negative relationship between COO and objective product knowledge has found to be more
valid. Here we‘ll basically study the later. So we hypothesize that
P6: As consumer’s objective knowledge with regard to product increases, his tendency to
utilize country of origin information to formulate quality judgments will decrease and there
will be lesser scope of personal biases entering the consumer evaluation process.
Moon(2004) studied the effects of consumer ethnocentrism and product knowledge on consumers‘
utilization of country-of-origin information for their product evaluation. They conducted a study on
five countries-Korea, USA, Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong. As Camcorders are manufactured in
each of these countries, were undertaken for study to offer comparison amongst countries in terms of
35
their image, with Japan being the top and Korea being the lowest. Consumer ethnocentrism was
measured on CETSCALE. Consumers were classified on two extremes, one being highly
ethnocentric and low ethnocentric and other being high knowledge consumers and low knowledge
consumers. The findings of study showed that regardless of consumers‘ ethnocentrism, low level
knowledge consumers due to their little ability to process intrinsic cues were heavily dependent upon
their stereotypical information regarding COO. The data also show that, when domestic and foreign
products are given as alternatives, regardless of consumers‘ knowledge, low ethnocentric consumers‘
product attitude is influenced by country of- origin perception; however, high-ethnocentric
consumers‘ product attitude is not influenced by country-of-origin perception as Consumers high in
ethnocentrism showed highly positive attitude towards domestically produced Korean products
whereas consumer low in ethnocentrism showed positive attitude towards Japanese products. Thus
we can conclude that higher product knowledge may offset the tendency of consumer being
ethnocentric. When the quality of domestic products is perceived as being superior to that of foreign
products, consumer ethnocentrism strengthens the impact of country-of-origin perceptions on
consumers‘ product evaluation. But when the quality of domestic products is perceived to be inferior
to foreign products, consumer ethnocentrism does offset the impact of country of origin perceptions
on product evaluations.
4.9. Country of origin effects and Consumer involvement

Once we have studied the concept of product knowledge, it is very important for us to analyze what
we can say as the other side of the coin i.e. consumer involvement. Consumer involvement refers to
the degree to which consumer engage himself in information search, information processing and to
the extent he can go for to seek variety, quality and specialty. Product knowledge plays an important
role in information search behavior which in turn is an important indicator of consumer buying
behavior. Consumers engage themselves in information search when they are faced with several
questions about choices in their mind. They need data to help them make decisions about their
purchase. Secondly they process the information, in which they select, accept and retain information
in their memory and create organized knowledge structures. Consumers with high level of
knowledge have high degree of involvement. The level of involvement plays an important role in
designing consumer behavior with regard to country of origin labels.
36
In this context it is important to understand two model- Petty & Cacioppo (1981) - Elaborations
Likelihood Model on consumer attitudes. This theory suggests that a person‘s level of involvement
during a message processing is a critical factor in determining which route to persuasion is likely to
be. This model states that consumer either go through a central route or a peripheral route for
decision making. In central route he exerts all necessary cognitive effort to evaluate information
available to him which we call as high involvement behavior. When consumer adopts peripheral
route they tend to base their evaluation on a more superficial basis which we call as low involvement
behavior.
Second model by Josiassen, Lukas & White Well, (2008) is PIWCE-product involvement weakens
the COO effect which states that consumers with low degree of involvement are more likely to utilize
country of origin information because in that case COO label act as reasonable proxy in place of
detailed information analysis. More the consumer is involved; lesser he‘ll make use of country
stereotypes and heuristics in decision making. Gurhan, Canli and Maheswaran (2000) also pointed
out that country of origin effects weakens under high involvement. Thus we hypothesize that
P7: As consumer involvement with product increases, his tendency to utilize country of origin
information in product quality judgments decreases.
Lee et.al., (2008) conducted a study on US consumers . The objective of the study was to analyze
the relationship between coo cues, product quality perceptions and purchase intentions and how these
factors are affected by consumer level of involvement. They further elaborated the concept of
involvement as situational involvement and enduring involvement. They defined Situational
involvement as interest in product which arises due to instant product related stimuli such as sales
promotion and socio-psychological factors like positive word of mouth communication etc.
consumer came across. On the other hand Enduring involvement arises due to individual value
system and prior experiences with the product. It reflects a relatively stable nature of a personality
trait. In this study consumer attitudes with respect to laptop made in Japan and Korea were analyzed.
The findings of this study suggested that country of origin is not a universal tool that affects
consumer product evaluations, it is only when consumer situational involvement is very less with
product that consumer rely on country of origin as information cue. We can say this because
respondents, who were less involved, evaluated Japan‘s laptop favorably on ‗workmanship‘
dimension in comparison to Korea. They draw this conclusion largely on the basis of Japan‘s image
in this field. On the other hand respondents who were high on situational involvement showed no
37
perceptual differences in evaluating laptop from Japan and the ones made in Korea, which shows a
systematic processing behavior. This study further showed an interactive relationship between
situational involvement and enduring involvement. It stated that moderating effect of situational
involvement on coo cues will depend upon enduring involvement of consumer. That means if a
consumer is low on enduring involvement then even high situational involvement cannot guarantee a
systematic processing behavior. Thus we can support our hypothesis that a consumer who is highly
involved will rely less on country of origin as information cues.
Consumer involvement and product knowledge are interrelated. This is because first of all they both
work as moderating variables in country of origin effects. Secondly, consumer involvement works as
moderator via product knowledge. When a consumer is highly involved, his objective knowledge with
respect to product increases and hence his biases with respect to product decrease. Consumer level
of involvement and knowledge varies with demographic factors such as age, gender, level of income
etc. In further section we‟ll be analyzing these variables.
4.10. Country of origin effects considering demographic factors

Demographic factors refer to age, gender, income, education level etc. of a consumer. These factors
play an important role in consumer evaluation process. For example-it is generally said that female
indulge themselves in more impulse buying then man or young consumers are more open to
westernized and unconventional products then old age consumers. Thus it is important to analyze
that whether these factors affect consumer evaluation of country of origin information or not. Thus
we hypothesize that
P8: consumer demographics such as age, gender and income affect the magnitude to which
consumer utilizes country of origin information.
Josiassen (2009) in his paper analyzed COO effect in case of young consumers. He analyzed whether
demographic variables such as age can moderate the effect of consumer perceptions with regard to
country of origin effects. Young consumers are young in the era where trends of globalization,
internationalization of production are prevalent. They have got variety of products, multi-origin
offerings than any other generation has ever experienced. So it is very important to study what all
cues (country of origin in particular) and other variables that help shape up their behavior towards a
product. Researches overtime have shown that young consumers are more involved in buying then
old consumers. So product involvement is one of the variables which have been taken into account. It
has been shown that highly involved young consumers utilize less country of origin information then
38
those who are less involved. Second important variable is product origin congruency. With
increasing globalization, products originate in different countries, endorsed by number of channels
and are available at multiple outlets. Congruency refers to the level of consistency across differences.
Congruency effect is present when more sources of information are pointing in the same direction.
Incongruent information creates dissonance. Young consumers have tendency to achieve congruency
between their actual and ideal selves. Therefore just like all other information cues, country of origin
information i.e. place of origin, place specificity, its image and all need to be consistent. Study shows
that when there is high perceived congruency, reliability on country of origin as source of
information increases. The above two results shows that country of origin effect is still a salient cue
on which product evaluations are based. Marketers just need to analyze the circumstances under
which the cue is more salient. The future research can be to analyze behavior of young consumers
with respect to COO cues in developing countries and in case of countries such as USA, with a very
large economy but having little foreign trade.
Schaefer (1997) conducted a study to see the effects of demographic variables, age, sex and socio-
economic groups. It was a comprehensive study undertaken on the consumers of UK. As most of the
studies in this field have been undertaken on durables, this study undertook FMCG goods-sparkling
wine and lager. This study hypothesize that as old age consumers generally face loss of working
memory and speed to process new information but they have long stored experiences which often
help them in escaping information processing. Thus they tend to rely more on extrinsic cues such as
country of origin then young consumers. Secondly this study hypothesize that consumers belonging
to middle class are more conservative and have more sense of maintaining in-group identity whereas
upper class have more means to process information as well as have desire to experiment. Thus
consumers high in socio economic status are more equipped to use country of origin information in
product evaluations. Thirdly this study hypothesize that male consumers are more likely to rely on
few, easily accessible cues whereas females have more rational approach as they process all cues
available. Hence male consumers utilize country of origin cue more often than females. The findings
of this study showed influence of age as well as socio—economic groups in support of hypothesis
but all in all very minor effect have been noticed in terms of magnitude. With respect to gender, no
differences were found as such between male and females utilization of country of origin
information.
Thus above studies show that demography do effect consumer evaluation based on country of origin
but to a very small extent. As overtime various studies have shown contradictory results with regard
to demographics so direction and magnitude of moderation is not clear.
39
Now after analyzing country of origin effects and its moderators, it is necessary to understand that
what a help this cue is in creating a purchase conviction. This is important to analyze from a
marketer‟s point of view. Thus we move to our next section which explores this issue.
We have already studied consumer buying behavior (In chapter-2). Before going for actual
purchase, consumer passes through various stages as part of consumer adoption process or
consumer diffusion process. This process states that First of all consumer get to know about a
product, develop a liking then interest then intention then preference and at the last conviction to
purchase. Country of origin effects vary in accordance to the fact that at which stage consumer is
standing. The stage of buying process decides about the extent of relevance of country of origin
information. The relevance of country of origin information is very important for marketer because
accordingly they can decide about a marketing strategy.
4.11. Country of origin effects and stage of buying process

Matteo (2011) in their study examined that whether country of origin can be a source of competitive
advantage or not in the era of rigorous competition. For this they examined that to what extent
consumer utilize country of origin information in their buying process. He studied the effect of
country of origin labels on consumer perceptions and then studied its effect on consumer willingness
to buy and pay for the products being positively perceived by the consumers. A cross national
empirical research was taken on Italy and Spain across fashion industry. A popular brand of Spain
‗oyscho‘ was chosen to test brand knowledge as the other cue in product evaluation. 10-point likert‘s
scale was employed to get a clear understanding of consumer decision making and Roth & Romeo
scale (1992) four factor scale was employed to test country image. The perceptions related to clothes
produced in a specific country were investigated according to five out of the six Keller‘s Customer
Based Brand Equity (CBBE) building blocks (Keller, 1993). Findings suggest that there is gap
between consumer perceptions and consumer actual buying behavior. It suggests that COO still have
the potential to influence consumers because both Italian and Spanish consumers preferred Italian
clothes over Spanish. Their preference may be directly linked to image of Italy being better than
Spanish products in this particular category of products. When ‗made in Italy‘ and ‗made in Spain‘
labels along with the brand ‗oyscho‘ ere put on the product, Spanish consumers showed positive
willingness to buy and pay for ‗oysho‘ brand rather than ‗made in Italy‘. This is because ‗oysho‘
40
brand is well known among Spanish consumers .so as brand knowledge increases, COO effect
decreases. Thus country image may create a preference, but not a conviction and willingness to buy.
4.12. Amalgamation of all above concepts
Cai (2002) in their study amalgamated various aspects we have studied so far. They analyzed the
effect of country of origin on consumer willingness to buy and along with that they quantified the
effect in monetary terms in terms of price elasticity‘s associated with consumer willingness to pay.
They studied this effect across developed (Japan) and developing countries (Indonesia), country of
origin effects are different with respect to each. Further, as price elasticity tends to vary across
product categories so on from durable (telephone) and one from non-durable category have been
chosen. The results of this finding indicates that developed countries have more favorable image than
developing countries and hence made in effect is found to be significant in multi-attribute scenario
also but as consumer move ahead in buying process, COO effect diminishes. This is because
consumer starts considering other attributes especially economic factors among which the most
important one is price. The implications that economic factors play an imperative role in consumer
decision making is particularly important for developing countries. This is because negative country
of origin effect in case of developing countries is not all together prohibiting them to buy their
products as price competitiveness can offer compensation. But price discounting strategy works
differently in case of different product categories. When studied in terms of own price elasticity of
demand for different products it was confirmed that a durable good from a less developed country is
less own price elastic than one in a non-durable category. Thus for sophisticated technology related
products success can only be made through technological improvement. Japan is a case study in this
regard which lacked in basic factors but overtime it invested in advanced factors such as skills,
creativity, and workmanship and today it is one of the super powers of the world.
With this entire concept of country of origin, we hereby try to bring all of its dimensions together
through this model and conclusions in the next chapter.
41
Buy national
campaigns
NATIONAL Consumer buying

HALO
STEREOTYPE behavior
EFFECT
Perceptions
COUNTRY OF
ORIGIN EFFECTS Attitudes &
Beliefs
Country image
Consumer
ethnocentrism
Moderating variables
Product knowledge
Low High
Consumer involvement
Demographic factors
42
Old age consumer‘s young consumers
Chapter- 5
Conclusions
Above study opens up various pages of research history in the field of country of origin effects.
Country of origin is a complex area because it is studied in the context of consumer behavior.
Behaviors are uncertain to predict and analyze. Behaviors change place to place and over a period of
time. This is what underlies the reason of such a vast and inconsistent research in this area. The
above study has tried to untangle various interlinked threads. It has tried to bring various concepts
together to present a systematic view.
Country of origin refers to place where the product has originated or manufactured or place which is
associated by consumers with the product. It is an extrinsic cue, which is used by consumer to make
quality judgments about a product. Consumer formulates these judgments on the basis of country
image. Country image refers to a mental picture of a country created in the mind of consumers on the
basis of information about a country political, legal and cultural environment or on the basis of
degree of its economic development or on the basis of set of personal experiences they have with
country. Country image helps in formulating consumer perceptions. These perceptions with regard to
product may be positive or negative depending upon consumer perceptions about country. These
perceptions will vary across product categories. A product will be favorably evaluated if there would
be congruence between the category of product which is being evaluated and specialty of country. If
there would be mismatch consumer will look for other extrinsic cues such as brand name and price.
But a consumer may not always be cognitive. With so many alternatives available he may rely upon
mental shortcuts which may lead to perceptual distortions such as halo effect, stereotypes etc.
Country of origin has direct affect on consumer attitudes towards product based on consumer
tendency of being ethnocentric or allocentric or consumer feeling of animosity or sympathy for that
country. These tendencies create biases in favor of domestic products. Countries initiates ‗buy
national campaigns‘ to create barrier to international trade. For example-―In USA companies try to
capitalize on this concern by emphasizing that their product is “made in the U.S.A." According to
43
the made in the USA Foundation (2001), buying national "[instills] a pride in US citizens about our
economy and our manufacturing process‖ (Verlegh, 2001).
These biases and perceptual distortions tell marketer what implications country of origin labels may
have on product. In this case it is important to know that there are variables which moderate the
effects on these biases and perceptual distortions. The research has shown that as consumer becomes
more involved in purchase process he search for information and process it rationally. Similarly
more consumers will have objective knowledge with respect to product his tendency to go for
shortcuts will be reduced. Knowledge and involvement aspects vary from consumer to consumer on
the basis of their demographics. It has been noticed that young consumers are more involved and
knowledgeable compared to old age consumers similarly females go for more impulse and irrational
buying in comparison to males.
Thus based on above factors we can give following suggestions to marketer with respect to country
of origin labels:-
1) As country of origin effects is mainly a part of globalization process. So first and foremost
suggestion to marketer is thorough analysis of global markets. Cross cultural analysis is very
necessary. Cross cultural analysis refers to determining the extent to which consumers‘ of two
different nations are different in their culture. Cultural background of a person decides maximum
part of a consumer psychology. Thus marketer should understand culture of a country on following
dimensions as stated by Hofstede-collectivism vs. individualism, uncertainty avoidance, power
distance, masculinity vs., feminity. If he feels that consumers are collectivist and are high on
ethnocentrism, he may go for national symbols, brand names and should emphasize that product is
by no means harmful to their domestic, legal and physical environment. Whereas if he feels that
consumers go for foreign products because of their desire for higher status, they can emphasize
aspiration country brand names.
2) Marketer should analyze the demographic profile of consumers. For example- If the data suggest
that majority population consists of young, educated and high income consumers like in India, he
may go for creation of world brands. World brands are for products that are manufactured, designed,
packaged and positions in same way regardless of the country they are sold to.
3) Thirdly marketer should analyze image of a country in the minds of targeted consumers. When
country image is favorable, marketer should emphasize and highlight ‗made in labels‘. When country
44
image is unfavorable marketer may not attach country name with product, he may go for foreign
branding. Foreign branding is a technique of giving foreign brand names to products where although
product may belong to one country but its name associates it with some other country. This is done
to increase the perceived value and desirability of product when country image is not good.
4) As country of origin is linked with quality, countries have designed comprehensive rules of origin
to protect their consumers from harmful imports. This is called product homologation where
marketer can‘t help but have to emphasize country of origin labels due to legal requirements; in that
case marketer may go for global branding. A global brand refers to worldwide use of a name,
symbol, term, and design etc. to distinguish a product from competitor. Powerful global brands
include Coca-Cola, Kodak, Sony, McDonalds etc. Perceived ‗Globalness‘ help in increasing sales
and tend to play down the country of origin effects.
5) It should be remembered that country of origin can create a preference not a conviction for
purchase. A positive country image may help in reaching evoked set of consumer but country of
origin labels is not a source of competitive advantage. In order to reach choice set marketer can only
fight through real differentiation. Conviction for purchase comes only through real factors. So
marketer should overtime improve upon real factors like design, quality, innovativeness and
creativity in the product.
Chapter-6
45
References:
Agrawal, J., & Kamakura, W. A. (1999). Country of origin: A competitive advantage? International Journal of
Research in Marketing , Vol 16, 255-267.
Ahmed, Z. U., Johnson, J. P., Yang, X., Fatt, C. K., Teng, H. S., & Boon, L. C. (2004). Does country of origin
matter for low-involvement products? International Marketing Review, Vol. 21 No. 1, .
Batra, R., Ramaswamy, V., Alden, D. L., Steenkamp, J.-B. E., & Ramachander, S. .. (2000). Effects of Brand
Local and Nonlocal Origin on Consumer Attitudes in Developing Countries. Journal of consumer psychology ,
Vol. 9 (2), 83-95
cai, y. (2002). Country of origin effects on consumer willingness to buy foreign products: an exxperiment in
consumer decision making.
Dinnie, K. (2003). Country of origin 1965-2004 : A Literature Review. Journal of Customer Behaviour .
Elliott, G. R., & Cameron, R. C. (1994). Consumer Perception of Product Quality and the Country-of-Origin
Effect. Journal of International Marketing, Vol. 2, No. 2 , 49-62.
Erickson, G. M., Johansson, J. K., & Chao, P. (1984). Image Variables in Multi-Attribute Product Evaluations:
Country-of-Origin Effects. Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 11, No. 2 , 694-699.
Ho, D. C. (2009). A study of the effect of country image on consumers’ evaluation of an unfamiliar foreign
utilitarian product. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
Huanga, Y. A., Phaub, I., & Linc, C. (2010). Effects of Animosity and Allocentrism on Consumer Ethnocentrism:
Social Identity on Consumer Willingness to Purchase. Asia Pacific Management Review , Vol.15 (3), 359-376.
Josiassen, A. (2009). Are young consumers still susceptible to the country of origin effects? Journal of
Business systems, Governance and Ethics , Vol 4 (2).
Lee, W.N., Yun, T., & Lee, B.K. (2008). The Role of Involvement in Country-of-Origin Effects on Product
Evaluation. Journal of International Consumer Marketing . URL- http://dx.doi.org/10.1300/J046v17n02_04
Mateo, P. (2011). The country-of-origin effect in a globalized world:a study in the fashion industry across Italy
and Spain. Universita Commerciale Luigi Bacconi, Department of Marketing.
Menapace,Luisa ,Colson, Gregory, Grebitus,carola. (2009). Consumer preferences for country‐of‐

origin,geographical indication, and protected designation of origin labels. IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY,
Department of economics.
Moon, B. J. (2004). Effects of Consumer Ethnocentrism and Product Knowledge on Consumers’ Utilization of
Country-of-Origin Information. Advances in Consumer Research , Volume 31.
Nebenzah, I. D., Jaffe, E. D., & Lampert, S. I. (1997). Towards a Theory of Country Image Effect on Product
Evaluation. Management International Review, Vol. 37, No. 1 (1st Quarter, 1997) , 27-49.
46
PharrSource, J. M. (2005). Synthesizing Country-of-Origin Research from the Last Decade: Is the Concept Still
Salient in an Era of Global Brands? Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, Vol. 13, No. 4, Globalization
and ItsMarketing Challenges , 34-45.
Rezvani, S., Dehkordi, G. J., Rahman, M. S., Fouladivanda1, F., Eghtebasi, S., & Habibi, M. (2012). A
Conceptual Study on the Country of Origin Effect on Consumer Purchase Intention. Asian Social Science , Vol.
8 (12).
Rezvani, S., Shenyari, G., Dehkordi, G. J., Salehi, M., Nahid, N., & Soleimani, S. (2012). Country of Ori A Study
over Perspective of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Cues on Consumers Purchase Decision. Business Management
Dynamics , Vol.1 (11), 68-75.
Roth, M. S., & Romeo, J. B. (1992). Matching Product Catgeory and Country Image Perceptions: A Framework
for Managing Country-Of-Origin Effects. Journal of International Business Studies, Vol. 23, No. 3 , 477-497.
Schaefer, A. (2010). Do demographics have an impact on country of origin effects? Journal of Marketing
Management . URL- http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0267257X.1997.9964513
Veale, R., Quester, P., & Karunaratna, A. (2006). The role of intrinsic (sensory) cues and the extrinsic cues of
country of origin and price on food product evaluation. 3rd International Wine Business & Marketing
Research Conference, Montpellier,.
47
References
cai, y. (2002). Country of origin effects on consumer willingness to buy foreign products: an experiment in
consumer decision making.
Mateo, P. (2011). The country-of-origin effect in a globalized world:a study in the fashion industry across Italy
and Spain. Universita Commerciale Luigi Bacconi, Department of Marketing.
Moon, B. J. (2004). Effects of Consumer Ethnocentrism and Product Knowledge on Consumers’ Utilization of
Country-of-Origin Information. Advances in Consumer Research , VoL. 31.
Josiassen, A. (2009). Are young consumers still susceptible to the country of origin effects? Journal of
Business systems, Governance and Ethics , Vol 4 (2).
Ho, D. C. (2009). A study of the effect of country image on consumers’ evaluation of an unfamiliar foreign
utilitarian product. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
Erickson, G. M., Johansson, J. K., & Chao, P. (1984). Image Variables in Multi-Attribute Product Evaluations:
Country-of-Origin Effects. Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 11, No. 2 , 694-699.
Veale, R., Quester, P., & Karunaratna, A. (2006). The role of intrinsic (sensory) cues and the extrinsic cues of
country of origin and price on food product evaluation. 3rd International Wine Business & Marketing
Research Conference, Montpellier,.
Nebenzah, I. D., Jaffe, E. D., & Lampert, S. I. (1997). Towards a Theory of Country Image Effect on Product
Evaluation. Management International Review, Vol. 37, No. 1 (1st Quarter, 1997) , 27-49.
Batra, R., Ramaswamy, V., Alden, D. L., Steenkamp, J.-B. E., & Ramachander, S. .. (2000). Effects of Brand
Local and Nonlocal Origin on Consumer Attitudes in Developing Countries. Journal of consumer psychology ,
VOL. 9 (2), 83-95
Rezvani, S., Shenyari, G., Dehkordi, G. J., Salehi, M., Nahid, N., & Soleimani, S. (2012). Country of Ori A Study
over Perspective of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Cues on Consumers Purchase Decision. Business Management
Dynamics , Vol.1 (11), 68-75.
48
PharrSource, J. M. (2005). Synthesizing Country-of-Origin Research from the Last Decade: Is the Concept Still
Salient in an Era of Global Brands? Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, Vol. 13, No. 4, Globalization
and ItsMarketing Challenges , 34-45.
Menapace,Luisa ,Colson, Gregory, Grebitus,carola. (2009). Consumer preferences for country‐of‐

origin,geographical indication, and protected designation of origin labels. IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY,
Department of economics.
Rezvani, S., Dehkordi, G. J., Rahman, M. S., Fouladivanda1, F., Eghtebasi, S., & Habibi, M. (2012). A
Conceptual Study on the Country of Origin Effect on Consumer Purchase Intention. Asian Social Science ,
VOL. 8 (12).
Agrawal, J., & Kamakura, W. A. (1999). Country of origin: A competitive advantage? International Journal of
Research in Marketing , Vol 16, 255-267.
Elliott, G. R., & Cameron, R. C. (1994). Consumer Perception of Product Quality and the Country-of-Origin
Effect. Journal of International Marketing, Vol. 2, No. 2 , 49-62
Roth, M. S., & Romeo, J. B. (1992). Matching Product Catgeory and Country Image Perceptions: A Framework
for Managing Country-Of-Origin Effects. Journal of International Business Studies, Vol. 23, No. 3 , 477-497
Ahmed, Z. U., Johnson, J. P., Yang, X., Fatt, C. K., Teng, H. S., & Boon, L. C. (2004). Does country of origin
matter for low-involvement products? International Marketing Review, Vol. 21 No. 1, .
49

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Country of origin effects

Term Paper Submitted to the University of Delhi in Partial Fulfillment of the

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2429131

information to keep me enlightened throughout my path.

friends for their never ending help and encouragement.

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2429131

has been duly acknowledged at relevant places.

Chapter 4: literature review……………………………………

Chapter 6: References ……………………………………………

on secondary data usage.

nature, and relevance of this study have been discussed.

Chapter- 3 Provides the objectives to be met with the study.

has been discussed.

Chapter- 5 Deals with conclusions.

1. What is country of origin?

Country of design is United States

Country of manufacture of various parts is Indonesia, Malaysia, and South Korea.

Country of assembly is Mexico

Thus we can herby analyze the difference between the terms.

 Products & services Economic

Consumer psychology Consumer characteristics

Buying decision process

Post purchase behavior

6. How consumers evaluate various cues available?

7. What factors in a product consumer evaluates?

8. What are extrinsic and intrinsic cues related to product?

10. What is country of origin effect?

Country of image effect consumer perceptions

Cognitiv Halo effect

National identification effect consumer attitudes

1) They provide a unique selling point in comparison to global brands.

Thus it is relevant to study COO effects on consumer purchase evaluation.

Objective of the study

4.5. Country of origin effects and Country image effects

4.6. Country image in case of developing countries

4.7. Country image effects across product categories

4.8. Country of origin effects and Product knowledge

4.9. Country of origin effects and Consumer involvement

4.10. Country of origin effects considering demographic factors

4.11. Country of origin effects and stage of buying process

4.12. Amalgamation of all above concepts

NATIONAL Consumer buying

Menapace,Luisa ,Colson, Gregory, Grebitus,carola. (2009). Consumer preferences for country‐of‐

Menapace,Luisa ,Colson, Gregory, Grebitus,carola. (2009). Consumer preferences for country‐of‐

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