emac briefing

7/31/2019 EMAC Briefing

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Explaining the Product-Specificityof Country-of-Origin Effects

By

Ting-Hsiang Tseng, Feng Chia University

George Balabanis, City University London


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Rationale of the Study

Existing studies can not well explain the

phenomenon of product-specificity of COO

effects.

Peterson and Jolibert (1995) : a meta-

analysis of 69 independent COO studies

Verlegh and Steenkamp (1999) : a meta-

analysis of COO studies in the period from

1980 -1996


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Rationale of the Study

Balabanis & Diamantopoulos (2004) :

..instead of examining general country image

attributes, the focus should be onhow

consumers perceive different countries andtheir industries

The concept of Product Typicality provides

an opportunity to fill the gap.


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Hypotheses Development

Typicality - the degree to which an item is

perceived to represent a category (Loken

& Ward, 1990).

Positive relationships between typicality

and consumer attitudes (Loken & Ward,

1987; Nedungadi & Hutchinson, 1985).


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Ethnic typicality:

The typicality of a countrys product in theglobal market of its product category (i.e.,

how typical is a Japanese camera in thecamera product category?)

Country typicality:

Representativeness of a product category ofa whole countrys products (i.e., how typicalare cameras as a Japanese product?)


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H1:

Ethnically typical products receive stronger

consumer attitudes than do other products.

H2:

Country-typical products receive stronger

consumer attitudes than do other products.


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Hypotheses DevelopmentPrototype theory (Margolis & Laurence, 1999)

COO image of a product is the picture, thereputation, the stereotype that businessmen and

consumers attach to products of a specificcountry (Nagashima, 1970, p. 68).

Favourable COO images would be those which

possess the attributes more similar to theprototypical product in the category (i.e., thetypical product).


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H3:

The COO images of ethnically typical products

are stronger than those of other products.

H4:

The COO images of country- typical products

are stronger than those of other products.


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Variety seeking is more evident to hedonicproducts (Ratner, Kahn, & Kahneman, 1999) ,which may displace the importance of typicalityfrom the formation of a consideration set as

atypical (less main stream or unusual) productsbecome more attractive.

H5:The hedonic nature of products will negativelymoderate the effects of ethnic/country typicality onconsumer attitudes.


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Hypotheses DevelopmentMore subordinate categories may be more concrete andmentally representable as share more commonattributes than those in super-ordinate categories(Goldberg, 1986; Rosch, Simpson, & Miller, 1976; Sujan& Deklava, 1987).

As shared (common) attributes are linked to higherlevels of typicality, it is expected that consumer attitudesfor typical products will be more positive for subordinatethan for superordinate categories.

H6:The effects of ethnic/country typicality on consumer attitudes willbe stronger for subordinate than for superordinate products.


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Research Framework

COO images:

Ethnic typicality

Country typicalityTypicality Consumer Attitudes

Product type

Product Category level

H1

H3, H4

H5

H6

H2


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Experiment Design

416 Taiwanese College Students participated in

Mixed between- and within- subjects experiment

design

Participants randomly assigned to the conditionsin a balanced way


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Experiment Design

TABLE 1

The Four-Cell Experiment of This Study


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Instrumentation

Product typicality: Loken and Ward (1990)Explicit attitudes: Engel et al. (1995)

COO image: Nebenzahl et al. (2003)

Product category level: Loken et al. (1990)

Product type: Voss et al. (2003)

7- point Likert scales were applied


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Hypotheses Tests: ANOVA

COO images:

Ethnic typicality

Country typicality Typicality Consumer Attitudes

Product type

Product Category level

H1:

Accepted

H3, H4: Accepted

H5: Rejected

H6: Accepted

H2:Accepted


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Findings

Typicality can account for the discrepancies ofCOO effects across products of a country andacross COOs of a product.

Typical products of a country, no matterhedonic or utilitarian, both receive similarattitudes of consumers.

Typical subordinate products attract morefavourable attitudes than typical super-ordinateproducts.


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Implications

Towards the development of a generaltheory of COO capable of incorporatingand explaining product based differencesof COO effects.

Researchers need to take into accountthe product category level in their study.

For practitioner, the benefits of the studyare less visible.


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Thank you very much!

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