antecedents, moderators[1]

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Antecedents, moderators anddimensions of country-of-origin

evaluationsSadrudin A. Ahmed

Faculty of Administration, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada, and

Alain d’Astous HEC Montre al, Montre al, Canada

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide an in-depth examination of country-of-origin(COO) perceptions of consumers in a multinational setting. It shows how explanatory factors like

demographics, familiarity with a country’s products, purchase behaviour and psychological variables jointly work to explain consumers’ COO perceptions.

Design/methodology/approach – This is a quantitative study using a drop-off and pick-up surveyamong three samples of consumers in Canada, Morocco and Taiwan. The final sample size wascomprised of 506 male consumers. The data were analyzed using factor analysis to group countries of origin and analyses of variance to relate COO perceptions to the explanatory variables.

Findings – The familiarity with products made in a country was the strongest predictor of countryperceptions, followed by nationality and the manufacturing process and product complexitydimensions of country evaluation. Canadians had the highest propensity to distinguish betweencountries of origin on the basis of product technological complexity and manufacturing dimensionsand Moroccans the least. Taiwanese appeared to show animosity towards China.

Research limitations/implications – The study used an only-male sample from a limited numberof countries. Future research should seek to develop a multi-dimensional scale for the familiarity

construct. They should also explore the concept of consumer capacity to distinguish between COOs.Cross-national studies using cognitive style scales should be carried out. A qualitative examination of Taiwanese’s COO perceptions is also recommended.

Practical implications – It seems important to increase consumers’ familiarity with a COO and itsproducts to improve its overall perception. Products made in Latin American countries have the lowestlevel of familiarity in general. Thus, increasing familiarity with their products is particularlyimportant to achieve export success.

Originality/value – This study contributes to the marketing and international business literaturesand provides insights to international marketers by bringing valuable information that can help makedecisions as to where to manufacture and how to promote global products. It provides guidance as towhat types of nations are likely to require multi-dimensional information about countries of origin.

Keywords Country of origin, Consumer behaviour, International marketing, Canada, Morocco, Taiwan

Paper type Research paper

IntroductionA large body of research has provided strong empirical evidence of country-of-origin(COO) effects on product evaluations (Pharr, 2006). COO is one of the most widely

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

www.emeraldinsight.com/0265-1335.htm

The authors would like to thank Christian Champagne, Jelloul Eljabri and Jean Brice Yoou fortheir help in collecting the data for this study.

Country-of-originevaluations

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Received August 2006Revised June 2007

Accepted July 2007

International Marketing ReviewVol. 25 No. 1, 2008

pp. 75-106q Emerald Group Publishing Limited

0265-1335DOI 10.1108/02651330810851890



researched concepts in marketing and consumer behavior, yielding over 700 publishedstudies to date (Papadopoulos and Heslop, 2003). From a marketing point of view,global companies that are operating in highly competitive domestic and foreignmarkets need to understand consumers’ perceptions and evaluations of foreign-made

products. Understanding global consumer behavior is the first step of corporatelearning about how to compete in the world market (Craig and Douglas, 1996).Questions such as whether to cluster countries based on the similarity of targetconsumer groups within each country or to target different segments in differentcountries with the same product (Hassan et al., 2003) need to get appropriate answers.This is why international marketing academics have shown a great deal of interest inidentifying the variables that affect consumers’ evaluation of domestic and foreignproducts. Within this context, instead of simply considering COO information as asingle cue, recent studies have attempted to compare the relative salience of manufacturing dimensions such as the country of assembly (COA) and the country of design (COD) on product evaluations (Insch and McBride, 2004) and additionally, tounderstand how this salience may vary across such product dimension as the level of technological complexity (e.g. low versus high) (Ahmed et al., 2002a, b). Other authorshave attempted to delineate the antecedents and moderators of COO image (Balabanisand Diamantopoulos, 2004; Hsieh et al., 2004; Kucukemiroglu et al., 2005; Roth, 1995;Samiee et al., 2005).

Although some research has linked the evaluation of countries of origin toantecedents and moderators such as the familiarity with a country, demographiccharacteristics, shopping behaviour, attitudes and human values (Balabanis et al.,2002; Hsieh et al., 2004; Kucukemiroglu et al., 2005; Samiee et al., 2005; Wall et al., 1991),or manufacturing dimensions such as COD and COA (Insch and McBride, 2004) acrossproducts of varying degree of complexity, little is known about how these variables

jointly work in a multinational setting. Understanding how country evaluations are

related to the product and manufacturing dimensions of a COO and antecedents suchas demographics, and personal traits, and moderators such as product familiarity andshopping behaviour across a variety of nations may help international marketingresearchers to better understand the contributing factors underlying the formation of COO evaluations and how these vary across nations. It may also help to uncovergaps in our knowledge of the COO concept and suggest further research avenues to fillthese gaps.

The aim of this research is to examine the COO perceptions of consumers in thecontext of increasing global trade flows. Our interest centres on an in-depthexamination of consumers from Canada, Taiwan and Morocco (three culturally andeconomically diverse countries) with regards to their perceptions of highlyindustrialized countries (HIC) and newly industrialized countries (NIC) in the

Americas, Europe and Asia, varying both as sources of technologically simple (TS) andtechnologically complex (TC) products and as CODs and COAs. We are particularlyinterested in examining the effect of nationality on these perceptions. This researchshould be particularly relevant for learning about cross-national differences in theevaluations of products originating from diverse countries along their design andassembly dimensions, taking into account their degree of technological complexity.International marketing researchers need answers to such questions as: What are thecross-national differences in the perceptions of products made in NICs and in HICs?

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Do these differences in perception depend on the technological complexity of products?Do consumers view design and assembly functions differently? Can these systematicvariations in perception across nations be attributed to differences in the culturalheritage and/or level of economic development of a country?

A number of studies have looked at COO’s evaluative dimensions (Chao, 2001;Thakor and Lavak, 2003) or its demographic and socio-psychological antecedents andmoderators (Balabanis and Diamantopoulos, 2004; Balabanis et al., 2002; Hsieh et al.,2004; Kucukemiroglu et al., 2005; Wall et al., 1991), but these studies were mostlyconducted in a single-country context. There does not seem to be an in-depthmulti-country study directly linking COO evaluations with their manufacturing andproduct dimensions, antecedents and moderators. Although there is a growingrecognition that COO is a multidimensional concept varying across dimensions such asmanufacturing process and technology (Pharr, 2006), so far there has been littleattempt to understand how a country’s culture and economic development impact onproduct/country perceptions along these dimensions. To this end, in this study, CODand COA consumer perceptions of durable products varying in technologicalcomplexity, collected in three culturally and economically diverse countries, namely,Canada, Taiwan and Morocco, are examined along with their antecedents andmoderators. The paper reviews the COO literature relevant to fulfilling the objectivesof this study, derives the research propositions that guided the study design andprovides a research framework and a description of the research methodology. This isfollowed by a discussion of the empirical results, conclusions and managerial andpublic policy implications.

In the paragraphs below, some background to the study is offered through adiscussion of the three data collection sites, namely, Canada, Taiwan and Morocco.Following this, the literature dealing with COO effects on consumer productevaluations is briefly reviewed and research propositions based on this literature are

presented. The research propositions are put forward with a view to provide a researchstructure and build a conceptual framework.

Data collection sitesThe data collection sites were chosen with the objective of gathering data fromcountries with a large variance in the level of per capita income, geographical locationand socio-cultural background. In the following section, a brief description of each siteis presented, based on CIA (2007). The per capita GNP figures are stated in $USpurchasing power parity.

An affluent, high-tech industrial society, Canada today closely resembles the USAin its market-oriented economic system, pattern of production and high standards of living. With a population of 33 million, its GNP per capita is $35,500. The median age

of the Canadian population is 38 and the average population growth of 0.9 per centis largely attributable to immigration. Canada’s dominant religion is Christianity(60 per cent Catholic and 40 per cent Protestant) (Statistics Canada, 2001). Theproportion of Catholics in the French speaking province of Quebec is about 80 per cent.

Taiwan has a dynamic capitalist economy. Largely urban-based, the Taiwanesepopulation is 23 million with an annual growth rate of 0.65 per cent and a median ageof 33.6 years. The per capita GNP is $25,300. Buddhism and Confucianism, the twomain religions, have had a profound and pervasive influence on the Taiwanese culture.


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Morocco is a fast-growing, economically-emerging North-African country locatedonly 12 kilometers from Europe, with a population of 33 million and a per capitaincome of $4,200. With a young and rapidly growing population, it possesses a smallbut very wealthy middle class. With a median age of 23.3 years, its population is

growing at a rate of 1.6 per cent. Strong cultural and economic ties are maintained withFrance and the European Union and the French language is widely used by themiddle class and in the country’s educational institutions and commerce. Islam is theprevailing religion in Morocco and Arabic is the most common language. WhileMorocco is located in Africa, it belongs in fact to the Arab World.

The three countries also differ with respect to their fundamental culturalorientations (Hofstede, 2001). Among the three groups, Canadians are the mostindividualistic, least masculine, least prone to uncertainty avoidance, and least likely tomaintain power distance. Moroccans, on the other hand, score low on individualism,maintain the highest degree of power distance and are more prone to uncertaintyavoidance and most masculine than Canadians. Taiwanese fall between Canadians andMoroccans in terms of uncertainty avoidance, power distance and masculinity and likeMoroccans, score low on individualism. Several studies have shown the relevance of Hofstede’s (2001) cultural value framework for understanding national differences inconsumer behaviour. Hsieh et al. (2004) have used Hofstede’s (2001) four value systemscales to explain cross-national differences in product advertising image. These valuescales have also been found to be related to country differences in tipping behavior(Lynn et al., 1993), product usage (de Mooij, 2000), consumer innovativeness(Steenkamp et al., 1999), perceived good-life image (Zinkhan and Prenshaw, 1994),information search (d’Astous et al., 2005) and brand image (Kale, 1995).

Literature reviewStereotyping is one psychological process that is commonly used to explain how

consumers react to COO information (Maheswaran, 1994; Tse and Gorn, 1993).Stereotypes are used as standards to evaluate products from foreign countries affectingthe cognitive processing of other product-related cues. Since, country stereotypes maybe negative or positive, the management of a product’s national image is therefore animportant element in the strategic marketing decision-making process of internationalfirms (Al-Sulaiti and Baker, 1998).

A great number of studies have demonstrated that a product’s COO affects differentaspects of consumer evaluation and choice behaviour. As an extrinsic attribute, COOhas an influence on consumers’ perceptions of a product’s quality (Ahmed et al., 2002a,b; Kaynak et al., 2000) and of its attributes (Kim and Pysarchik, 2000; Leonidou et al.,1999), on consumer attitudes towards a product (Lee and Ganesh, 1999), on theirperception of risk (Johansson, 1989) and the perceived value of that product (Ahmed

and d’Astous, 1996; d’Astous and Ahmed, 1999). COO has also been shown to influenceconsumer preferences (Knight and Calantone, 2000) and purchase intentions (Kim andPysarchik, 2000). In addition, COO effects have been observed with products in general(Kaynak et al., 2000; Leonidou et al., 1999) as well as with specific product categories(Kim and Pysarchik, 2000; Teas and Agarwal, 2000) and both as regards the behaviourof individual consumers and that of organizational buyers (Ahmed and d’Astous,1995). Recent research (Laroche et al., 2005; Pereira et al., 2005) using structuralequation modelling contends that COO evaluations are part of a larger “COO image”

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construct consisting of cognitive, affective and conative components. This researchsuggests that COO is a complex construct, perhaps much more complex than originallyconceived and encompasses symbolic and emotional components, as well ascognitions.

COO has been very extensively studied and is now a mature research topic(Papadopoulos and Heslop, 2003). Detailed literature reviews on this topic have beenprovided by Samiee (1994), Peterson and Jolibert (1995), Al-Sulaiti and Baker (1998),Chao (1998), Verlegh and Steenkamp (1999), Kaynak and Kara (2002) and Pharr (2006).Therefore, in what follows, the discussion of the COO literature will be limited to issuesdirectly related to the objectives of this study.

COO effects on product evaluations vary by product category (Papadopoulos andHeslop, 1993; Roth and Romeo, 1992). The economic, social and cultural systems of countries as well as their relative stage of economic development are pieces of information which serve to position countries hierarchically in consumers’ mind (Linand Sternquist, 1994). For example, although Iran, a NIC, is generally perceivednegatively as a COO, woollen rugs made in this country are perceived quite favourably.The global nature of businesses, the presence of multinational corporations and theintertwined nature of commercial transactions complicate the assessment of COOeffects on product evaluations. Thus, a distinction between COD and COA is critical asfirms attempt to become global suppliers via central manufacturing, usingstandardized marketing programs that include global brands and universal appealsfor their products. Although COA and COD constitute factual information, consumerperceptions are the crucial elements (Chao, 1998; d’Astous and Ahmed, 1995; Samiee,1994). These perceptions are influenced by such factors as product complexity (Samiee,1994), the level of involvement in a product class (Maheswaran, 1994), the familiaritywith a COO (Zhang, 1996), as well as demographic and socio-psychologicalcharacteristics (Kucukemiroglu et al., 2005).

Development of research propositionsThe literature indicates that a COO image depends on the perception of the level of economic development of the country (Roth and Romeo, 1992). The higher the level of industrialization of a country, the more favourable is the perception of the quality of itsworkers (Li and Monroe, 1992), which in turn is reflected in the perceived quality of itsproducts (Iyer and Kalita, 1997). However, as mentioned above, COO is not aunidimensional concept (Chao, 1998; Thakor and Lavak, 2003). In an increasinglyglobal economy, products may be designed in one country and assembled in another.Thus, COD and COA are two important dimensions in the perception of COO. RecentCOO studies have found that consumers do indeed distinguish between COD and COAand take both types of information into account when making product evaluations (see,

e.g. Ahmed and d’Astous, 2002 in the Philippines and in Thailand; Chao,1993 in theUSA; Insch and McBride, 2004 in Mexico; Thakor and Lavak, 2003 in Canada). It hasalso been found that NICs are less negatively evaluated as COAs than as CODs(Ahmed and d’Astous, 2007; d’Astous and Ahmed, 1995):

P 1a. HICs are more favourably perceived than NICs with respect to their productdesign and assembly capabilities.

P 1b. A NIC is less negatively evaluated as a COA than as a COD.


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Consumers usually place products into mental categories and make use of thisorganized prior knowledge to evaluate them (Meyers-Levy and Tybout, 1989).

Johansson (1989) states that when production technology is non-standardized, thereshould be some differences in country manufacturing skills and thus, COO effects

should be more pronounced. Therefore, the influence of the perceived quality of acountry’s workers on COO perceptions (Li and Monroe, 1992) should be greater asproducts get more TC:

P 2. A NIC is less favourably evaluated as a COO for TC products than it is for TSproducts.

Many studies have found that COO perceptions vary across countries. Kaynak et al.(2000) have shown that COO evaluations in a developing country differ from those indeveloped countries. Koreans have been found to be more prejudiced than Americansagainst less favourably evaluated countries (Nebenzahl and Jaffe, 1996). Jaffe andMartinez (1995) report that Mexicans are literally obsessed with USA and Japaneseproducts. Consumers from developing countries have been shown to have morestereotyped perceptions (Okechuku and Onyemah, 1966). Klein et al. (1998) found thatChinese consumers demonstrated animosity towards Japanese products because of cruelties committed by the Japanese during their occupation of China. These numerousfindings, based on cross-national differences in the level of economic development,culture, ethnocentrism and animosity, lead to the following general proposition:

P 3a. COO perceptions vary across nations.

Balabanis et al. (2001) have discussed the role of ethnocentrism in global productevaluations. Research on consumer ethnocentrism and national loyalty indicates thatattitudes are affected by one’s sense of loyalty to the nation and to other macro-orientedgroupings (Bruning, 1997). Studies have shown that consumers tend to perceive their

country’s products more favourably than do consumers in different countries(Balabanis and Diamantopoulos, 2004; Elliott and Cameron, 1994; Hsieh et al., 2004).Therefore:

P 3b. Country residents evaluate their country’s products more favourably thannon-residents.

Cultures can be broadly classified as either collectivist or individualist (Hofstede, 2001).An individualist culture is representative of a loosely knit society in which people takecare of themselves and their families, whereas a collectivist culture represents a tightlyknit society in which the group takes care of the people and the people are loyal to thegroup. In such cultures, consumer behavior is dictated by group norms and individualstend to sacrifice their own needs and desires if this is perceived as benefiting the group

(Gurhan-Canli and Maheswaran, 2000b). For example, in a study involving Americanand Japanese consumers, Gurhan-Canli and Maheswaran (2000a) found that thecultural value of individualism/collectivism significantly explains COO perceptions.Similar findings were reported by Suh and Kwan (2002) with American and SouthKorean respondents. As discussed earlier, Canadians are much more individualisticthan Moroccans and Taiwanese. Additionally, Hall (1977) states that Arabs have avery high-context culture, Americans a very low-context culture and that East Asiansare in between these two groups.

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Thompson and Hamilton (2006) point out the role of the information processingmode on how information is absorbed. Comparison and contrasts appear to be moreeffective among consumers who use an analytic mode rather than an imagery mode.Ng and Houston (2006) have found that individuals with an independent self-view

focus on the traits of an object whereas those characterized by an interdependentself-view place more emphasis on the contextual factors surrounding an object.

On the basis of the size of the economy and per capita income, Canadians are mostlikely to be exposed to a large number of TS and complex products and made aware of the importance of both COD and COA in making product quality evaluations of TC andTS products. For instance, Insch and McBride (2004) found that COD was lessimportant in Mexico than in the USA when evaluating athletic shoes, mountain bikesand televisions. Therefore, it is proposed that:

P 3c. Canadians’ product/country evaluations are most likely to differ based onmanufacturing process (i.e. COD versus COA) and product technologicalcomplexity (i.e. simple versus complex), followed by those of Taiwanese and

those of Moroccans, in that order.

There are differences in the level of importance given to COO by consumers (Samiee,1994). Rawwas et al. (1996) found that world-minded consumers display a lower level of prejudice towards foreign products. World-minded consumers tend to be younger,better educated and more affluent (Hett, 1993). Consumers with more income andeducation accept foreign products more readily (Niss, 1996). Leonidou et al. (1999)found that younger and upper-class consumers show a lower level of prejudice towardsproducts originating from less-developed countries. Several authors found thatyounger, wealthier and more educated consumers evaluate foreign products morefavourably (Ahmed and d’Astous, 2002; Han and Terpstra, 1988):

P 4. COO evaluations are related to consumers’ age, marital status, havingchildren, income and education.

In the global marketplace, lifestyle variables are used to segment markets (Cateora andGraham, 2004). Innovativeness is one such variable (Hett, 1993). Consumers who aretechnological innovators are more willing to try out new products and to put greatervalue on new product features:

P 5. Consumers who are technologically innovative evaluate COOs differentiallythan consumers who are not.

Based on an extensive literature search, Samiee (1994) has concluded that productfamiliarity is related to COO evaluation. Consumers tend to develop country images

through familiarity with foreign products (Roth and Romeo, 1992). According toBalabanis et al. (2002), a greater level of direct contact with a country or its productslead to more objective consumer product perceptions. Moorman et al. (2004) haveshown how subjective knowledge exemplified by product familiarity can affect thequality of consumers’ choices by having an influence on where consumers search forinformation. Cowley and Mitchell (2003) have found that the level of knowledge affectsthe usage of information; higher levels of knowledge about an object lead to a moreefficient use of knowledge about that object. Therefore:


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P 6. COO perceptions depend on the level of familiarity with products made in thatcountry.

A greater involvement in shopping for a product has been shown to be associated with

a greater search for COO information (Hugstad and Durr, 1986). The elaborationlikelihood model championed by Petty and Cacioppo (1986) suggests that if a stimulusis relevant to the consumer, there is a greater likelihood of analytical informationprocessing. Eroglu and Machleit (1989) found that involvement in a product class wasrelated to the causal antecedents of COO effects. Insch and McBride (2004) reportedthat the ownership of a product was related to the strength of COO cues:

P 7. Shopping variables such as purchase ease, extent of information search,purchase, product ownership and purchase involvement have a significantimpact on COO evaluations.

Research framework

The framework underlying this research (shown in Figure 1) is derived from theliterature review and the research propositions. According to this model, antecedentsare the precursors to or the determinants of the COO construct. The empirical researchdescribed earlier suggests that consumers’ COO evaluations derive from bothendogenous and exogenous sources. Studies of endogenous sources look formeasurable traits within consumers, such as demographics or psychologicalvariables, to explain variance in COO evaluations whereas studies of exogenoussources investigate the structural or cultural dimensions of target countries to explainvariance in respondents’ COO evaluations. Studies of potential moderators, like thefamiliarity with a country’s products and shopping behaviour, focus on how to better

Figure 1.Conceptual framework:research model

Conceptual framework: Research model

Exogenous

Antecedents

Level of economic

developmernt

Culture (individualism/

collectivism)

Endogenous

Antecedents

Demographics (income,

age, education, marital

status, children)

Psychological variables

(techn. sophistication,

techn. innovativeness)

Country-Specific

Beliefs

Moderators

Product-country familiarity

Shopping behaviour (involvement, product

ownership, ease of purchase, extent of

information search)

Dimensions of COO Evaluations

Manufacturing process (assembly,

design)

Product technological complexity ( low, high)

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“circumscribe” (Peterson and Jolibert, 1995) COO evaluations in the presence of numerous influences that would be typical in real-world buying situations.

According to this framework, consumers’ country-specific beliefs (our dependentvariable) are the result of their country’s level of economic development and culture

(exogenous antecedents) and their demographic and psychological profile (endogenousantecedents). These beliefs lead to evaluations of countries of origin along two productand manufacturing dimensions. These evaluations are assumed to be moderated byfamiliarity with a country’s products as well as various shopping behaviour variables.

MethodQuestionnaireThe questionnaire was originally written for French-Canadian respondents. It wasthen back-translated into Chinese for Taiwanese respondents. Before collecting data inthe three countries, the questionnaire was pre-tested with a convenience sample of

Canadian (in the city of Sherbrooke), Taiwanese (in the city of Taipei) and Moroccan (inthe city of Agadir) residents. Based on the results of this pre-test, no changes weremade to the Canadian questionnaire, but the Moroccan and Taiwanese questionnaireshad to be slightly altered to take into account the local usage of the French language inMorocco and that of the Chinese language in Taiwan.

In the first section of the questionnaire, 13 countries had to be evaluated as CODsand COAs using nine-point bipolar scales (very poor/excellent) and for familiarity withtheir TC and simple products (very unfamiliar/very familiar). Canada, England,Germany, Japan and the USA represented the HICs; Mexico, Chile and Argentinarepresented Latin American countries (LACs); and China, Singapore, South Korea,Taiwan and Thailand represented East Asian countries (EACs). The HICs covered

most of the large advanced economies, the LACs covered the three most prosperousSpanish-speaking Latin economies that have also attained a moderate degree of industrialization and the EACs covered the most prosperous and/or fastest growingAsian exporters that have attained a moderate to high degree of industrialization. Toensure that the concepts of COD and COA were understood, respondents were providedwith descriptive information; COD was defined as the country where the product isconceived, designed, or engineered whereas COA was described as the country wherethe product is assembled or manufactured. Similarly, in order to ensure that theconcept of technological complexity was clearly understood, it was explained asfollows in the questionnaire:

Some of the products that we buy, for example computers, are technologically more complex

than others, such as televisions. The products that are TC evolve rapidly. Therefore,computers are quickly surpassed when new and more refined models are born. Otherproducts, those that are simple, don’t alter much.

The last section of the questionnaire included five questions about shoppingbehaviour, two four-item purchase-related individual difference measures, namelytechnological sophistication and innovativeness and standard socio-demographicvariables (these measures are presented in the Appendix). The annual income questionwas framed in the local currencies being used at the research sites.


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Data collectionThe Canadian study was carried out in Sherbrooke, a Canadian city located 90 mileseast of Montreal. Sherbrooke is a mid-sized city (about 120,000 inhabitants) in theFrench-speaking province of Quebec in Canada. Its demographic profile reflects the

average population of the province of Quebec. The Taiwanese study was carried out inTaipei, capital and the major business centre of the state of Taiwan. Taipei is a verylarge city (about 3,000,000 inhabitants) located in the very top end of the TaiwanIsland. The Moroccan data were collected in Agadir, an industrial and services(tourism) centre with a population of about 200,000. The choice of the threelocations was guided by the opportunity to collect data from very diverse geographicallocations that are also very different in terms of their level of economic development.

Homes were visited by graduate business students in the city of Sherbrooke usingan area sampling procedure. After giving appropriate instructions concerning how toproceed with the materials, the interviewer left the questionnaire with the respondentsand picked it up the next day or at a convenient time. From a total of 250questionnaires that were distributed in Sherbrooke, 70 (28 per cent) were incomplete, 29(12 per cent) were badly completed and therefore 151 (60 per cent) usable answers couldbe collected.

As we were particularly interested in getting the participation of present andpotential buyers of a TC product like a computer and given the relatively lower incomeof Taiwanese and Moroccans, the sampling procedure was somewhat different inTaipei and Agadir. Only middle and upper-middle class neighborhoods were selectedfor the distribution of the questionnaires. In Taipei, 300 questionnaires weredistributed, 72 (24 per cent) were incomplete, 28 (9 per cent) were badly completed and202 (67 per cent) usable answers could be collected. A further sampling restriction wasadded in Agadir; respondents had to be fluent in the French language. With thisprocedure, 275 questionnaires were distributed in Morocco, 83 (30 per cent) were

incomplete, 39 (14 per cent) were badly completed and 153 (56 per cent) usable answerswere collected. The lower response rate in Morocco, as compared with that in Canadaand Taiwan, can probably be attributed to the lower level of experience of Moroccanswith participating in survey research.

In order to be eligible, all participants had to be males over 18 years of age. This wasdone because panel survey results indicate that in Taiwan husbands have moreinfluence than wives in the purchase of durable products like computers andtelevisions (Panel Study of Family Dynamics, 2004). Because of cultural and religiousconstraints, the collection of data from male subjects is recommended by Kaynak et al.(2000) in patriarchic Islamic countries like Morocco. Canadian data were also collectedfrom male subjects in order to maintain consistency with Taiwan and Morocco.

Results and discussionSample descriptionThe mean age of Canadian participants was 41 years. The sample included moremarried or cohabiting people (74 per cent) than singles (26 per cent). About 12 per centhad high school or less education, 24 per cent some post-secondary education,18 per cent some university education, 39 per cent completed university and 7 per centhad post-graduate education. Thus, the sample is somewhat more educated than theaverage Canadian population. The mean age of Taiwanese participants was 34 years.

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The sample included as many married people (50 per cent) as singles (50 per cent). About5 per cent had high school or less education, 15 per cent some post-secondary education,58 per cent completed university and 22 per cent had post-graduate education. TheTaiwanese sample is somewhat younger but much more highly educated than the

average population. The mean age of Moroccan participants was 30 years, 31 per centwere married and 69 per cent were single or divorced. In terms of education, 9 per centhad secondary education, 76 per cent had some university education and 15 per cent hadsome post-secondary education. The Moroccan sample therefore is older and very highlyeducated in comparison with the average population of this country. In terms of inter-country differences, the Moroccan sample is the youngest and the most educated.The age and educational profiles of the Taiwanese sample fall in between those of theMoroccan and Canadian samples.

Manipulation checksAs expected, respondents felt that buying a computer is more important, more difficultand requires a greater extent of information search than buying a television. Alldifferences are statistically significant ( p , 0.001).

Factor analysisTo confirm the a priori country groupings into HICs, LACs and EACs, the evaluationsof the countries as COO were factor analyzed. These evaluations included theevaluations of TC and TS products on COD and COA processes for each respondent.A principal components analysis followed by a varimax rotation was performed. Asshown in Table I, three factors clearly emerged using both the eigenvalue . 1 andscree plot criteria for extracting factors. The three factors explained 63 per cent of thecommon variance. The results presented on Table I clearly indicate that Germany,England, France, the USA and Canada load most heavily on Factor 1 (which can be

interpreted as HICs) with factor loadings ranging from 0.66 for Japan to 0.79 forGermany. Chili, Argentina and Mexico load most heavily on Factor 2 (LACs), with

Factor loadingsCountries Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3

Japan 0.66 20.22 0.28USA 0.74 20.08 0.17England 0.76 0.34 0.08Canada 0.68 0.45 0.03Germany 0.79 20.03 0.07France 0.74 0.09 0.11Argentina 0.07 0.83 0.21

Chile 0.03 0.85 0.21Mexico 0.01 0.80 0.16China 0.07 0.24 0.62 Thailand 0.06 0.41 0.65 Taiwan 0.11 20.03 0.78 Singapore 0.16 0.27 0.68 South Korea 0.22 0.06 0.76

Note: Mean scale values range from 1 (low) to 9 (high)

Table I.Factor structure

matrix based on COOevaluations


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factor loadings of 0.83 for Argentina, 0.85 for Chile and 0.80 for Mexico. Finally,Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand and China load most heavily on Factor 3(EACs). The individual factor loadings for EACs vary from a low of 0.62 for China to ahigh of 0.78 for Taiwan. Thus, the factor analysis results confirmed the initial country

grouping.

Psychological variablesTwo four-item scales were used to measure the participants’ technologicalsophistication and innovativeness as previous research has shown that these twovariables moderate COO perceptions (Ahmed et al., 2002a, b). Cronbach’s a fortechnological sophistication was equal to 0.79 and that for innovativeness was 0.85.These levels of reliability were deemed satisfactory for carrying out further analyseswith these two scales.

Country familiarity and perceptions

Disaggregated results covering the Canadian, Taiwanese and Moroccan respondentsare presented in Table II for familiarity and for the four individual COO characteristics,namely COD and COA processes and TC and TS products in Table III. To simplify thepresentation, results of the tests of statistical significance for differences betweenvariables are only reported for familiarity. All the differences in country evaluationsdiscussed in this paper are statistically significant at p , 0.05.

StatisticsType of country Canada Taiwan Morocco F -value p value

Highly industrialized countries

Japan 7.8 7.7 8.0 0.7 – USA 8.0 7.6 7.5 3.4 0.04England 5.0 4.7 4.9 0.6 – Canada 8.1 4.4 4.3 170.8 0.0001Germany 6.2 6.7 6.4 2.7 0.07France 5.9 5.1 7.5 52.5 0.0001Mean HIC 6.8 6.1 6.4Excluding Canada 6.5 6.4 6.8

Latin American countriesArgentina 2.8 2.2 1.9 12.7 0.0001Chile 3.5 2.1 1.8 52.6 0.0001Mexico 4.3 1.8 1.5 152.2 0.0001Mean LAC 3.5 2.0 1.7 96.8 0.0001

East Asian countries

China 5.5 4.4 6.1 27.7 0.0001Thailand 4.4 2.8 5.0 50.8 0.0001Taiwan 5.8 7.9 6.3 57.6 0.0001Singapore 3.8 5.0 4.1 11.2 0.0001South Korea 4.6 5.7 5.4 10.4 0.0001Mean EAC 4.8 5.2 5.3Excluding Taiwan 4.6 4.5 5.0

Note: Scale values range from 1(low) to 9 (high)

Table II.Consumer familiaritywith countries of origin

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The order of data presentation was guided by Keller (2003), who points out that brandfamiliarity precedes brand evaluation. As can be seen in Table II, respondents weremost familiar with products made in HICs and least familiar with products made inLACs. The smallest level of cross-national differences was obtained with HICs. Thecross-national differences were substantial and statistically significant only in the case

of Canada and France. Canadian respondents were the most familiar with HICproducts, followed by the Moroccans and the Taiwanese. In comparison withMoroccan and Taiwanese respondents, Canadians showed a much greater familiaritywith products made in LACs. On the other hand, Moroccans and Taiwanese displayeda somewhat greater familiarity with products made in EACs than did the Canadians.Unsurprisingly, Canadian respondents were much more familiar with products madein Canada than were the Taiwanese and the Moroccans. Similarly, Taiwanese weremore familiar with products made in Taiwan than Canadians and Moroccans.

COD COA

Complexproducts

(TC)

Simpleproducts

(TS)

Complexproducts

(TC)

Simpleproducts

(TS)

Number of COD versus

COA and TCversus TSdifferences

CA TA MO CA TA MO CA TA MO CA TA MO CA TA MO

Highly industrialized countries Japan 7.9 8.2 8.2 7.5 7.2 8.1 8.0 8.1 8.0 7.9 7.4 8.2 2 2 – USA 7,6 7.8 8.0 7.8 6.8 7.4 7.6 7.7 7.8 7.7 7.1 7.6 – 2 – England 6.4 6.2 6.2 6.9 5.8 5.9 6.9 6.5 6.2 7.1 6.0 6.0 2 2Canada 7.3 5.7 6.0 7.6 5.4 5.9 7.6 6.0 5.9 7.8 5.7 5.8 – 1 – Germany 7.7 7.8 7.2 7.6 6.7 7.0 7.5 7.7 7.1 7.5 7.0 7.2 – 2 – France 6.6 6.4 7.0 7.0 5.8 7.5 6.8 6.6 7.2 7.1 6.0 7.5 1 2 – Mean HIC 7.2 7.0 7.1 7.4 6.3 7.0 7.4 7.1 7.0 7.5 6.5 7.0Excluding Canada 7.2 7.3 7.3 7.4 6.5 7.2 7.4 7.3 7.2 7.4 6.7 7.2

Total – HIC 5 11 – Latin American countriesArgentina 3.5 3.1 2.6 4.3 3.6 2.8 4.7 3.6 3.5 5.2 3.9 3.3 4 3 2Chile 3.5 3.1 2.8 4.3 3.6 2.8 4.8 3.4 3.4 5.3 3.9 3.3 4 2 2Mexico 3.1 2.5 2.0 4,3 3.4 2.5 4.8 3.0 2.8 5.9 3.7 2.9 4 3 3Mean LAC 3.4 2.9 2.5 4.3 3.5 2.7 4.8 3.3 3.2 5.5 3.8 3.2Total – LAC 12 8 7

East Asian countriesChina 4.7 3.9 6.3 5.4 4.8 6.4 5.8 4.4 6.7 6.3 4.8 7.0 4 3 2Thailand 3.9 3.2 5.1 4.6 4.1 5.3 5.2 3.7 5.9 5.8 4.2 5.9 4 3 2Taiwan 4.6 7.0 5.8 5.3 6.9 6.2 5.8 7.2 6.4 6.2 6.9 6.6 4 – 3Singapore 4.2 5.7 4.5 4.9 5.6 4.9 5.3 6.1 5.5 5.7 5.8 5.5 4 1 3South Korea 4.8 5.7 5.8 5.4 5.6 6.0 5.7 5.9 6.6 6.1 5.8 6.6 4 – 2Mean EAC 4.4 5.1 5.5 5.1 5.4 5.8 5.6 5.5 6.2 6.0 5.5 6.3

Excluding Taiwan 4.4 4.6 5.4 5.0 5.0 5.7 5.6 5.1 6.4 6.0 5.2 6.2Total-EAC 20 7 12Grand total 35 26 19

Notes: Mean scale values range from 1 (low) to 9 (high); statistical significance at p , 0.05;CA – Canada; TA – Taiwan; MO – Morocco

Table III.Disaggregated

evaluations of countriesof origin by Canadian,

Taiwanese and Moroccanconsumers and number ofstatistically significant

differences betweenCOD versus COA and

TC versus TS evaluations


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Moroccan respondents were more familiar with products made in France, China andThailand than were the Canadians and the Taiwanese. This greater familiarity may beexplained by Morocco’s past political relationship with France, the predominance of imports from France in the consumer market and its geographical closeness to France.

The greater familiarity displayed by Moroccans with products made in China andThailand in comparison with the Taiwanese is counterintuitive because these twocountries are socio-culturally very different and geographically very far from Morocco.On the other hand, Taiwan is closer to China and Thailand both socio-culturally andgeographically. Therefore, one explanation for the greater familiarity of the Moroccanswith Chinese and Thai products may lie in the much lower per capita income of theMoroccans in comparison with the Taiwanese. The lower one’s income, one maysurmise, the greater one’s tendency to purchase low-price products that come fromlow-wage countries like China and Thailand. On a regional level, all respondents weremuch more familiar with the products made in HICs (average familiarity ¼ 6.4) thanin LACs (average familiarity ¼ 2.4) and in EACs (average familiarity ¼ 5.1).

As one would expect, in general, the HICs were better evaluated by consumers thanthe NICs. Among the NICs, the EACs were better evaluated than the LACs. Anexamination of the results for specific HICs reveals that Japan, the USA and Germanywere evaluated somewhat more favourably than Canada, England and France. Amongthe EACs, Taiwan and South Korea were evaluated substantially more positively thanThailand whereas Singapore and China fell in between. There was not much differencein the evaluation of the three LACs, namely, Chile, Argentina and Mexico. The overallnegative perception of NICs observed in the data conforms to the existing literatureand provides support for P 1a.

In support of P 2 , the HICs were perceived somewhat more favourably than the NICsas regards complex products. This superiority of the HICs was evident even morestrongly in the case of country perceptions regarding the design and engineering of products, i.e. COD. According to Li and Monroe (1992), differences in perceived productquality between HICs and NICs are due to consumer beliefs that HICs’ workers aremore technologically sophisticated than NICs’ workers and consequently more capableof making TC products. It appears that Canadian, Taiwanese and Moroccan consumersshare the views held by US consumers.

The evaluation differences between the HICs and NICs were larger in the case of design capabilities than they were with respect to assembly. Whereas, the HICs wereevaluated quite similarly on all COO dimensions, the NICs were evaluatedmore positively as COAs than they were as CODs. This observation of a largerdifference between the HICs and NICs on product design and engineering than onassembly is consistent with previous research (Ahmed and d’Astous, 2001, 2002) and

supports P 1b. The function of product design is more creative and complex thanmanufacturing and assembly, thus requiring a higher level of worker sophistication.

As proposed ( P 3a ), nationality was related to COO evaluation. Moroccans evaluatedproducts made in France, Thailand and China much more favorably than did theCanadians and the Taiwanese. Moroccans were, in general, more positive towardsproducts made in EACs. Canadians were the least negative towards products made inLACs and Moroccans the most negative. Among the three nationalities, Taiwaneserespondents evaluated products assembled in HICs the least favourably.

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More specifically, Canadian and Taiwanese respondents evaluated products madein their own country more positively than did the respondents from other countries, aresult which is consistent with P 3b. It is interesting to note that Taiwanese respondentswere less favourable toward TS products designed or assembled in HICs than were

Canadians and Moroccans. In fact, they perceived Taiwan to be as good as the HICs interms of both COD and COA for TC and TS products, and in fact superior to countrieslike Canada and England. Ahmed and d’Astous (2003) had found that Mexicans alsoevaluated their own country to be as good as an average HIC, superior to countries likeBelgium and equal to Canada, France and Italy. This may reflect a higher level of self-confidence that comes from rapid industrialization and the fact that prestigiousbrand name products are manufactured and assembled in their own country. It shouldbe noted that except for a higher level familiarity with France among Moroccans, therewere no differences in the familiarity with HICs between Moroccans and Taiwanese.

China was quite favourably perceived by Moroccans, both as a COD and COA forTC and TS products. Canadians perceived China somewhat favourably as a COD andCOA for TS products and neither favorably or unfavorably as a COD and a COA forTC products. On the other hand, China was perceived unfavorably both as a COD andCOA for TC and TS products by Taiwanese. These large differences in perceptionswith respect to China raise the question: do Taiwanese consumers hold animositytowards the Chinese because of the perceived political threat of future annexation of Taiwan into China? Or, is it simply the result of the somewhat lower familiarity of Taiwanese with products made in China compared to Morocco and Canada asindicated in Table II?

To test P 3c, we compared the number of times Canadians, Taiwanese andMoroccans made different product/country evaluations based on manufacturingprocess (i.e. COD versus COA) and product technological complexity (i.e. TC versusTS). The results are presented in Table III. In the case of HICs, there are 24 possible

occasions (6 countries £ 2 process dimensions £ 2 technology dimensions) where themean differences in product/country evaluations of Moroccans can be statisticallysignificant. As seen in the table, none of the differences was significant. This compareswith five significant differences among Canadians and 11 among Taiwanese. Withrespect to LACs, out of 12 possible occasions, Canadian evaluations were different inall the cases, Taiwanese evaluations were different in nine cases and Moroccans in sixcases. With respect to EACs, out of 20 possible occasions, Canadian evaluations weredifferent in all 20 cases, Taiwanese evaluations were different in seven cases andMoroccan evaluations were different in 12 cases. Thus, in total, out of 56 possibleoccasions, Canadians’ product/country evaluations were influenced by themanufacturing process and/or product technological complexity in 35 cases, those of Taiwanese in 26 cases and those of Moroccans in 19 cases. The differences observed in

these proportions across the three groups are statistically significant ( x 2 ¼ 9.21, 2 df, p , 0.01), which gives empirical support to P 3c. As pointed out earlier, thesedifferences in evaluations may not be attributed to familiarity with products of acountry. For example, although Moroccans were most familiar with the HICs, theirevaluations were not influenced by manufacturing process and product complexity.

It is interesting to note that as a COO, China (per capita income $5,600) wasevaluated much more positively than Singapore by the Canadians and the Moroccans.Apparently, the actual education and sophistication of the work force in Singapore


89



(per capita income $27,800) does not seem to impact on the respondents’ evaluation of Singapore as a COO. On the other hand, Taiwanese consumers gave much betterevaluations of COO Singapore than the Canadians and Moroccans. Taiwan is close toSingapore, both socio-culturally and geographically. The mean level of familiarity with

products made in Singapore was 4.2 for the Canadians, 4.5 for the Moroccans and 5.7for the Taiwanese. Thus, one may conclude that Taiwanese are more knowledgeableabout Singapore and have had more positive experiences with products made in thiscountry. The mean familiarity with China’s products was 4.7 among Canadians, 6.7among Moroccans and only 3.9 among Taiwanese. Thus, these results are consistentwith those of Leonidou et al. (1999) who found that 41 per cent of their Bulgarianrespondents had a positive attitude towards products made in India, but that thisnumber dropped to 28 per cent for products made in Singapore.

Thus, it appears that respondents, especially the Taiwanese and the Moroccans,have a very biased view of LACs. Similarly, Canadians and Moroccans have a biasedview of Singapore. This view seems to be rooted to a certain extent in the overallunfamiliarity with products made in these countries. Unfamiliarity with a country’sproducts, however, does seem to have a less important impact on the evaluation of products made in HICs. For example, COO England with an average familiarity of 4.9was rated higher than COO China with an average familiarity of 5.3. Thus, it seemsthat the enormous progress made in the industrial capacity of such sophisticatedeconomies as Singapore (Gavin and Wilson, 2002) has been largely unnoticed by theCanadians and Moroccans.

Analyses of variance of country perceptionsIn order to ascertain whether the dimensions, antecedents and moderators of COO arerelated to country perceptions and to examine the other research propositions, therespondents’ COO perceptions were subjected to analyses of variance using as

independent variables the COO manufacturing dimensions (i.e. COD versus COA),product complexity (i.e. TS versus complex) and various COO antecedents. In order tofurther explore the possible predictors of COO effects, the ANOVA models includedinteractions between COO manufacturing dimensions, product complexity andnationality. The adjusted R 2 for the analysis of variance models and F -values of individual variables are presented in Table IV for the HICs, Table V for the LACs andTable VI for the EACs. Only the F -values of statistically significant independentvariables ( p , 0.05) are reported in the tables.

The results indicate that the independent variables are strongly related to theevaluation of the COOs, especially in the case of LACs and EACs. The adjusted R 2

associated with these relationships range from very low in the case of Japan( R 2 ¼ 0.09), the USA ( R 2 ¼ 0.06), England ( R 2 ¼ 0.07) and Germany ( R 2 ¼ 0.06) to

high for Canada ( R 2 ¼ 0.36), France ( R 2 ¼ 0.32), all the LACs ( R 2 ranging from 0.25for Mexico to 0.29 for Argentina) and all the EACs ( R 2 ranging from 0.24 for China to0.34 for South Korea). The strongest COO manufacturing dimension impact isobserved with Mexico followed by Thailand. The strongest impact of productcomplexity is associated with Argentina followed by Mexico. With 11 entries and anaverage F -value of 58, the COO manufacturing dimension factor is more stronglyrelated to COO perceptions than product complexity (11 entries, average F -value ¼ 20). This is particularly true in the case of EACs where, with six entries

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and an average F -value of 66, COO manufacturing dimensions performed much morestrongly than product complexity with four entries and an average F -value of 18. Thus,

these results conform to the disaggregated results reported earlier and provide furtherinsight into the level of the contribution of COO manufacturing and productcomplexity dimensions.

Looking at the effects of nationality and product familiarity, two highlyinter-correlated antecedents of COO influence, it can be seen that familiarity had agreater overall impact in terms of magnitude of explained variance, but thatnationality’s impact was across a greater number of countries. The proportion of explained variance in the evaluations of four countries, namely Japan, the USA, England

HICs’ ANOVAstatistics F -values

Variables

Numberof

entriesAverage

size Japan USA England Canada Germany France

COO dimensionsManufact. process (PRO) 2 6 6 6Tech. complexity (TEC) 5 17 27 28 6 19 7COO antecedentsNationality (NAT) 4 13 4 30 13 5

Psychological Technologicalsophistication (TS) 2 8 5 11Technologicalinnovativeness (TI) 1 13 13

Demographics

Age 2 18 27 10Marital status 1 6 6Children 2 10 13 8Family income 1 5 5Education – – COO moderatorsFamiliarity (FAM) 2 543 457 629Shopping behaviour Ease of purchase – computer (PEC) 3 8 11 5 7Ease of purchase – TV(PETV) 2 10 11 9Search – computer (ISC) 3 9 10 10 8Search – TV (ISTV) 2 12 17 6

Own – computer (OC) 2 9 12 6Own – TV (OTV)Involvement computer (IC) 6 33 67 40 35 15 32 6Involvement TV (ITV) 2 10 11 9

InteractionsNAT £ TEC 6 13 18 18 9 7 13 13NAT £ PROTEC £ PRO 1 4 4Adjusted R 2 6 0.16 0.09 0.06 0.07 0.36 0.06 0.32

Table IV. F -values based on

ANOVAs involving HICs


91



and Germany was quite low. This may be attributed to their lack of significantrelationship with familiarity and the relatively weak relationship with nationality. Thestrongest performance of nationality was observed with LACs with an entry into allthree analyses of variance models and an average F -value of 117, followed by EACs withfive entries and an average F -value of 51. Nationality performed somewhat poorly withHICs with four entries and an average F -value of 13. These results based on aggregatedmultivariate analyses confirm the disaggregated results reported earlier.

With four entries and an average F -value of 524, familiarity performed the best withEACs, followed by two entries and an average F -value of 352 for LACs. With only twoout of six possible entries (Canada and France) and a high-average F -value of 543, theperformance of familiarity in the case of HICs was unequal. Among the NICs,familiarity did not enter into the Mexico and China models. This may be attributed to astrong correlation between nationality and familiarity, with the nationality effect beingstronger than familiarity in these two cases. These results delineate the very importantrole of product familiarity in explaining the variance contained in COO evaluations.

F -valuesLACs’ ANOVA statistics

Variables Number of entries Average size Argentina Chile Mexico

COO dimensionsManufact. process (PRO) 3 70 4 83 124Technological complexity (TEC) 2 82 84 77COO antecedentsNationality (NAT) 3 117 80 63 209

Psychological Technological sophistication (TS) – – Technological innovativeness (TI) – –

DemographicsAge 2 27 21 33Marital status – – Children – – Family income 2 7 5 9

Education 1 5 5 ModeratorsFamiliarity (FAM) 2 352 382 323Shopping behaviour Ease of purchase – computers (PEC) – – Ease of purchase TV (PETV) – – Search – computers (ISC) 2 28 17 40Search – TV (ISTV) – – Own – computer (OC) 1 15 15Own – TV (OTV) 3 5 5 5 6Involvement computer (IC) – – Involvement TV (ITV) 1 17 17

InteractionsNAT £ TEC 3 12 14 15 8

NAT £ PRO 3 14 8 13 21TEC £ PRO 2 4 5 4Adjusted R 2 3 0.27 0.29 0.28 0.25

Table V.

F -values based onANOVAs involvingLACs

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Our results also support the earlier findings of Insch and McBride (2004) who foundthat familiarity moderates the impact of other independent variables on the evaluationof a COO.

The results related to the interaction effects of manufacturing dimensions, productcomplexity and nationality seem to indicate that, with a significant entry into 13 out of 14 analysis of variance models, the nationality £ product complexity interactionperformed the strongest among the three independent variable interaction effects.With only three entries, the product complexity £ manufacturing dimension interactionwas marginal in the analysis of variance models. Nationality £ manufacturing

F -valuesEACs’ ANOVA

statistics

VariablesNumber of

entriesAverage

size China Thailand Taiwan SingaporeSouthKorea

COO dimensionsManufact. process (PRO) 6 66 52 90 59 67 60Technological complexity(TEC) 4 18 32 14 19 5COO antecedentsNationality (NAT) 5 51 110 62 46 32 3

Psychological Technologicalsophistication (TS) 3 14 21 10 11Technologicalinnovativeness (TI) 2 20 28 13

DemographicsAge 3 12 8 13 15Marital status – – Children – – Family income 3 10 15 10 4Education 1 6 6

ModeratorsFamiliarity (FAM) 2 524 268 470 530 829Shopping behaviour Ease of purchase – computers (PEC) – – Ease of purchase TV(PETV) – – Search – computers (ISC) 2 28 17 40

Search – TV (ISTV) – – Own – computer (OC) 1 15 15Own – TV (OTV) 3 5 5 5 6Involvement computer (IC) – – Involvement TV (ITV) 1 17 17

InteractionsNAT £ TEC 4 8 6 3 8 6NAT £ PRO 5 9 6 11 12 7 8TEX £ PRO – Adjusted R 2 5 0.30 0.24 0.30 0.30 0.29 0.34

Table VI. F -values based on

ANOVAs involvingEACs


93



dimension effects were present in the case of LACs and EACs, but not in the case of HICs. The sizes of the F -values for the interaction effects were rather small. Thus,although product complexity and, to a lesser degree, manufacturing dimensionalityinteracted significantly with nationality, these effects were not substantial.

The results related to shopping behaviour indicate that with 20 out of 48 possibleentries into the multivariate models, the strongest relationship were observedamong HICs. With six entries and an average F -value of 33, computer involvementwas the strongest predictor for the HICs. All the other variables, except theownership of computers, showed some significant relationships among HICs,ranging from three entries with an F -value of 9 in the case of information search forcomputers to two entries with an F -value of 9 in the case of ownership of computers. With seven out of 28 possible relationships for the LACs and 11 out of 40 possible entries for the EACs, the contribution of the shopping variables inexplaining the COO evaluations of LACs and EACs were more modest. With twoentries and an average F -value of 28, search for information about computers wasthe strongest shopping variable for the LACs. In the case of EACs, with four entriesand an average F -value of only 7, purchase ease with computers was related to thelargest number of COO evaluations, but with only two entries and an average F -value of 23, involvement with computers showed the strongest relationships. Ingeneral, shopping variables related to shopping behaviour for computers showedstronger relationships with COO evaluations. Although our results in generalsupport P 5 , the empirical evidence appears to be weak and sketchy.

Among the psychological variables, technological sophistication andinnovativeness did not enter into any of the LAC models. Their relationship withthe evaluation of HICs was also quite weak (only two marginal F -value entries fortechnological sophistication and one for technological innovativeness). Technologicalinnovativeness performed much better with the EACs with three entries and an

average F -value of 14, followed by technological innovativeness with two entries andan average F -value of 20. Therefore, there is some weak empirical support in support of our research propositions.

With only six out of 40 possible entries for the HICs, five out of 15 possible entriesfor the LACs and seven out of 35 possible entries for the EACs, demographic variableswere the weakest predictors of COO evaluations among the four groups of antecedents. P 8 is therefore very marginally supported. Among the demographic variables, withtwo entries for the HICs (average F -value ¼ 28), 2 entries for the LACs (average F -value ¼ 27) and three entries for the EACs (average F -value ¼ 12), age performedthe best. With only one entry with respect to the HICs, having children was the variablehaving the worst performance.

The results observed with demographic variables are consistent with those reported

by Balabanis et al. (2002) who found that demographic variables had little effect on theevaluation of COO Germany in their Czech and Turkish samples. Samiee et al. (2005)also reported a small contribution of demographic variables in explaining COOperceptions. The findings reported here extend their results to not one but 14 COOs in athree-nation study. It is worth noting that previous strong relationships between COOevaluations and three COO correlates, namely shopping behaviour (Insch and McBride,2004), psychological variables (Ahmed et al., 2002a, b) and demographics (Ahmed andd’Astous, 2002; Insch and McBride, 2004) were obtained by means of univariate,

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one-country-at-a-time analyses. In contrast, these effects were not observed in thisresearch using multivariate analyses and data from three nations. This suggeststhat because of their inter-correlations and very strong relationship with familiarityand nationality, individual variables that perform well in univariate settings may not

perform substantially in multivariate settings.Insch and McBride (2004) used product familiarity measures that bear similarity to

our shopping behaviour variables as a proxy for country familiarity. They found thatthe relationship between their measure of familiarity and COO perception was not verystrong. The results of the present study indicate that a generalized country-specificproduct familiarity measure appear to perform much better than the measure of familiarity with specific products used by Insch and McBride (2004). Therefore, itseems that the predictive strength of a familiarity measure in COO studies depends onthe degree to which the measure is country-specific.

Limitations, theoretical and managerial implications and future research

LimitationsThe results presented in this paper should be interpreted with care. This researchconsidered only a limited number of COOs and sample sites, was conducted in a singlelocation in the data collection countries with a sample composed uniquely of males andused a limited number of product stimuli and a somewhat limited sample size. Giventhe large size and geographical dispersion of Canada and the existence of two languagegroups, French- and English-speaking Canadians, our data are more representative of French-speaking Canadians than English-speaking Canadians living in the easternpart of Canada. To maintain equivalency with the Moroccan and Taiwanese samples,the Canadian sample should have included younger respondents. In addition, withrespect to product stimuli, the use of television to represent a TS product mayhave, perhaps, confused some respondents, especially in Canada and Taiwan where

expensive flat screen televisions are beginning to significantly increase theirmarket share.

Theoretical implicationsIn this study, we have examined how familiarity and purchase behaviour factorsmoderate the effect of endogenous and exogenous factors on COO evaluations. Ourframework incorporates manufacturing dimensions of COO (design and assembly) andtechnological product dimensions (simple versus complex). The inclusion of exogenousfactors like nationality, endogenous factors like demographics and psychologicalvariables and moderators like purchase behavior and familiarity in a predictormodel enhances the validity and practical utility of the results. It also providesadditional evidence of individual differences in COO evaluations, thus adding to the

present body of theory associated with COO. It seems evident that nationality andproduct-country familiarity strongly affect country evaluation. However, few studieshave considered various COO evaluation sources in a single framework. Also, there is aneed to bring both manufacturing and product technological dimensions of COOtogether and to consider both individual and national-level factors in a single study toglobally enhance research validity. This is what this study tried to accomplish. We havetested our research propositions across three nations and have used reasonable samplesizes of male consumers, which gives some empirical generalizability to our findings.


95



In general, these findings have added the following new conclusions to the current COOliterature:

. nationality is related to a consumer’s propensity to differentially evaluate COOson the basis of their manufacturing (COD and COA) and product technology(TS and TC) dimensions;

. Taiwanese respondents’ evaluation of China as a COO appears to reflect someanimosity towards China;

. Taiwanese respondents tend to perceive products assembled in Taiwan to beequal to or better than products assembled in HIC COOs; and

. familiarity has a significant and substantial impact on COO evaluations.

The results of this study also indicate that whereas HICs are evaluated morefavourably than LACs and EACs on all COO characteristics, this favourable perceptionis strongest in the case of COD judgements and for TC products. HICs’ COO perceivedsuperiority is greater when the comparison is made with LACs than when it is madewith EACs. Among the two COO evaluative dimensions, manufacturing process (i.e.design versus assembly) was more strongly related to country evaluations thanproduct complexity. Both COO dimensions had a stronger impact on COO evaluationsin the case of LACs and EACs than in the case of HICs.

An examination of the impact of various explanatory independent variablesindicates that product-country familiarity (a country-specific moderator variable) andto a lesser extent nationality (an exogenous antecedent) were strong predictors of COOevaluations. Specifically, nationality was strongly related to the evaluation of all theLACs and all the EACs, except South Korea. Product-country familiarity was verystrongly related to the evaluation of two HICs, namely Canada and England, two LACs,namely Argentina and Chile and all the EACs, except China. The LACs were evaluated

more favorably by the Canadians and the EACs by the Taiwanese and the Moroccans.As for the remaining three groups of explanatory variables, namely, psychologicalvariables, demographics and shopping behaviour, they did not perform well in thecontext of the estimated multivariate models.

An interesting point emerging from this study is that the effect of animosity inproduct-country evaluation appears to be evident not only in countries like China,where past cruelties committed by Japanese during World War II provoked hatredtowards Japan (Klein et al., 1998) but also in countries like Taiwan where no suchcruelties were committed by China. Accordingly, we suggest that global firms continueto engage in research activities that may help to uncover such animosities held byconsumers towards a COO in the country-markets they serve and take necessarymarketing actions to attenuate their impact.

The theory associated with the role of information processing mode on informationabsorption (Thompson and Hamilton, 2006) suggests that in countries like Morocco, itmakes sense not to emphasize COD versus COA as well as TS versus TC distinctionswhen providing COO information to consumers, in order to make it easier for them toretrieve the information from memory. On the other hand, such complex informationshould be provided to Canadians.

As for the moderating effect of familiarity, our findings extend Balabanis et al.’s(2002) work, which suggests that the greater the level of direct contact with a country

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or its products, the more objective are consumer product perceptions. The presentresearch provides additional and substantive evidence of the explanatory power of familiarity in explaining COO evaluations. Research on consumer ethnocentrism(Shimp and Sharma, 1987) and national loyalty indicates that attitudes are affected by

one’s sense of loyalty to the nation and to other macro-oriented groupings one belongsto (Bruning, 1997). Our findings corroborate these conclusions by providing evidencebased on Taiwanese data and extend this theoretical statement by showing thatconsumers in a very fast growing NIC like Taiwan consider products assembled intheir own country to be equal to and even superior to HIC products.

Managerial implicationsThe results of this research suggest that a multinational firm that chooses tomanufacture its products, especially TC ones, in an EAC in order to reduce productioncosts may find better acceptance of its products in countries like Taiwan and Moroccothan in countries like Canada. On the other hand, products manufactured in LACs

should find lesser acceptance in Taiwan and Morocco, and products made in Chinawould find much lesser acceptance in Taiwan and much greater in Morocco.The negative LAC COO effect may be much more difficult to overcome for

more complex products. An international LAC corporation that wishes to enter theglobal market would face the impact of both a negative COD and COA perception.Various options are open to such corporations. They may choose to assemble theirLAC products in a HIC for the North American market or in an EAC for the EastAsian market and profit from a positive COA effect and/or they may choose toadopt a foreign sounding brand name that creates a favourable product image(Leclerc et al., 1994) and leave an impression with consumers that the productmay indeed be associated with a more prestigious country. In a rapidlyindustrializing country like Taiwan, where there is great national pride in the

country’s assembly capacity, having the product assembled in a HIC or EAC maynot have a positive effect. These strategies may involve a very heavy investmentin production or promotional programme. A less costly strategy would be toassociate LAC products with a well known HIC or EAC retail chain store and usethe already established chain brand name to convey both brand image and qualityassurance.

Among the EACs, Singapore which on the basis of its per capita GNP of $27,300resembles a HIC, suffers from a relatively poor COO image in Canada and Morocco.This result is not very surprising. Because of low-product familiarity, Singapore isperhaps associated with other less developed countries in the South East Asian region.Although COO Singapore is viewed just as favourably as COO Canada in Taiwan, thisprestige does not appear to be directly transferable to the North American and North

African consumer markets. Because of the small size of this country and the relativeunavailability of made-in Singapore consumer products in the North American andNorth African markets, this negative image may not be easily overcome. The answermay be to export Singapore-made products to countries such as Taiwan that alreadyhave a positive opinion of this country.

In spite of its much lower per capita income of $5,000, in comparison withother EACs, China enjoys a more positive COO image among Canadians andMoroccans. This image may be attributed to Canadian and Moroccan consumers’


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high level of familiarity with Chinese products. China is indeed a major exporterof consumer products to North America and North Africa. Therefore, theseconsumers are likely to have had direct experience with the products made there.Such products often carry very prestigious foreign brand names. Thus, the

positive brand image may well be carried over to the country where the productwas manufactured. In addition, China is often billed as a super power, thusprojecting an image of modernity that goes far beyond its present technologicalsophistication. Thus, for global corporations that are looking for an EAC locationfor manufacturing parts or assembling products, China can provide not only aneconomically favourable location but also a less negative COA image in marketslike Canada and Morocco. For sophisticated NICs, such as Singapore, whichmanufacture products in China to export to North American and North Africanmarkets, there may be a lesson to be learnt. By exporting products made in Chinathat may have been designed in and whose parts are sourced from moresophisticated NICs, the positive product experience is transferred to China whereas

the parent country remains relatively unknown to consumers, especially if thebrand name is not associated with the COD. Perhaps, such products shouldprominently feature the source of design in order to build up a positive parentcountry image. For companies located in LACs, which because of their present orfuture free trade relationship with the USA and Canada are planning to exporttheir products designed and assembled in these countries, it makes sense to beginthe process with less complex products. Over time, as the familiarity with LACproducts increases and country reputation improves, highly complex productsmade by them may then be introduced in North America. In order to get theirproducts accepted in the North African and East Asian markets, LACs have tofind ways of increasing consumer familiarity with their products.

For multinational corporations that market their TC products originating fromLACs or EACs at competitive prices to HICs, there is some evidence that suggests thatit will be more profitable to target such products to consumers who demonstrate a highlevel of involvement in the purchase decision. Consumers who are highly involved inthe purchase of complex products are more likely to be informed about thetechnologically advanced manufacturing capacity of more developed LACs and EACsand thus, may be able to appreciate the favourable price-quality relationship providedby products made in these countries.

Given the very low level of consumer familiarity with products made in LACs in theTaiwanese and Moroccan markets, it is recommended that country brand promotionefforts by LACs in such markets begin by a selection of appropriate target segments. Inthis research, it was found that younger respondents are less prejudiced towards LAC

products than older ones. Therefore, this segment can be an appropriate target marketfor country brand promotion.

We found that Canadians were most likely to distinguish product-country offeringson the basis of their manufacturing and technological dimensions and Moroccans wereleast likely to do so. Therefore, country-brand marketers will be well advised toprovide, through their advertising programme, detailed information about theircountry’s products in countries like Canada and more global and holistic information incountries like Morocco.

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Future researchThis research presents opportunities for further research, including:

. replicating this study using a wider range of manufacturing process dimensionsand product technology dimensions, more appropriate product examples toillustrate product technology, the inclusion of female respondents and the use of larger sample sizes;

. a more in-depth examination of consumers’ propensity to differentiate betweenCOOs on the basis of manufacturing process and product complexity;

. a more in-depth examination of the COO perceptions of Taiwanese consumers;and

. constructing a valid scale to measure product-country familiarity.

In our study, we have only dealt with two dimensions of the manufacturing process,namely design and assembly. Future studies may add a third dimension, namely parts(Chao, 1998).

Similarly, we have used two product-complexity dimensions (simple versuscomplex). Future studies may consider the inclusion of low involvement such as coffee,bread (Ahmed et al., 2004a, b). We sampled only male respondents and therefore futurestudies should include female respondents as well. Given the rapid changes that haveoccurred in television technology recently, future studies may pay greater attention toselecting examples of low- or high-technology products. Future studies should also beconducted in a greater number of countries and regions within a country and choosemore appropriate products for each country to illustrate product complexity.

Our results indicate that the consumer propensity to differentiate betweendimensions of COOs and product types varies across nations. We proposed that thiscan be attributed to differences in cultural values (Hofstede, 2001) and greater

experience with product purchase due to product availability and variety in the marketplace. Future studies may find that this tendency is explained by national differencesin cognitive style (Riding and Rayner, 2001). If this was the case, these findings mayhave managerial implications also for multi-cultural nations like the USA.

Given the strong role played in this research by product-country familiarity as amoderating variable in explaining the variance contained in COO evaluations, onequestion that must be asked is how can one more effectively and efficiently increaseconsumers’ familiarity with a COO? In order to provide an answer to this importantquestion, a better measure of product-country familiarity than the one that was used inthis study must be developed. It must be recognized that there are multiple dimensionsof product-country familiarity as well as multiple sources or means to createproduct-country familiarity. This familiarity may be based on tangible, product-related

information or intangibles like a halo effect (Han, 1989), or both. In addition, countrymarketing can create dimensions which in turn affect consumer response. One needs toknow the antecedents and consequences of product-country familiarity. Therefore, theconstruction of a multi-item scale to measure product-country familiarity is apre-requisite to being able to take appropriate country-branding actions.

Some surprising results came out from the analysis of the Taiwanese data. First,Taiwanese respondents gave an unfavourable evaluation of COO China. Given thatTaiwanese and Chinese share the same racial and cultural heritage and that Taiwan is


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one of the most important investor in China in the manufacturing sector (Zhang, 2003),this result is particularly surprising. We have attributed it to a possible animositytowards China because of China’s expressed desire to annex Taiwan. Second, we foundthat the Taiwanese consider their country’s assembly capacity to be equal to or

superior to that of HICs. We have attributed this phenomenon to an extension of ethnocentrism (Shimp and Sharma, 1987). It is conceivable that these two surprisingresults are linked in some way and that there may be other explanations. A qualitativestudy directed at examining in depth why these COO beliefs are being held may clearup this matter. It may examine whether the home country bias is rooted in a greaterfamiliarity with locally-made products, allowing more informed judgments regardingtheir quality. Similarly, the lack of familiarity with foreign products may perhapsexplain the less positive appreciation of their true qualities.

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Appendix. Description of variables included in the study ProcessThe products we often buy come from foreign countries. When we talk about the origin of aproduct, it is important to distinguish two things:

(1) The design, the conception or the engineering: for example, the design and engineering of a computer might have been done in the USA.

(2) The assembly: for example, the assembly of the same computer might have been done in Japan.

Technological complexitySome of the products that we buy, for example computers, are technologically more complexthan others, such as televisions. The products that are TC evolve rapidly. Therefore, computersare quickly surpassed when new and more refined models are born. Other products, those thatare simple, do not alter much, which is why televisions have changed little in the past 20 years.

Country evaluation

Please evaluate the following countries with reference to the conception, the design and theengineering (or assembly) of TC (or TS) products. Circle the number that mostly corresponds toyour opinion:

Country (e.g. the USA) Very poor 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Excellent

Product-country familiarityPlease indicate your level of familiarity with TC (or TS) products made in the followingcountries. Circle the number that mostly corresponds to your opinion:

Country (e.g. the USA) Not familiar at all 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Veryfamiliar

Shopping behaviour When you shop for a computer (or a TV),

.

Do you consider the purchase as being:Not important 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Very important

. Do you search for:Very little information 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A lot of information

. Do you feel:Not very involved 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Highly involved

. Is it a purchase that is:Very easy 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Very difficult


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Technological sophistication. In general, I feel uncomfortable with technologically sophisticated products (i.e. bank

teller machines, video cassettes, computers).. I can say that I do not experience difficulty in understanding the functions of

technologically sophisticated products that I usually utilize.. I often feel incapable of operating an appliance whose technology seems complex.. I do not like to find myself in a situation where I have to use a technologically

sophisticated product.

Technological innovativeness. In general, I can say that I am very interested in new features associated with

technologically sophisticated products (cameras, computers. . . ).. When I hear about a new high-tech product, I take advantage of the very first occasion to

find out more about it..

I like to buy new technologically-sophisticated products introduced in the market.. When it comes to buying a technologically-sophisticated product, I prefer to buy new

rather than existing products.

Corresponding authorSadrudin A. Ahmed can be contacted at: [email protected]

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