Search results

This paper aims to investigate the impacts of country-of-origin (COO) cues, country-related affect (CRA) and country-related product associations (CRPA) on consumers’ intention to purchase hotel services.

A survey of 305 respondents was conducted. Mediation and conditional process tests were performed to examine the proposed theoretical framework.

The results suggest that CRA is positively correlated with consumer trust, which, in turn, affects purchase intention. For consumers with a high (vs low) level of consumer ethnocentrism (CE), the effect of CRA on trust is weaker. CRPA is positively correlated with both consumer trust and price perception, which, in turn, affect purchase intention. For consumers with rich subjective knowledge (SK) of hotel services, the effect of CRPA on price perception is weaker. The effects of COO stereotypes and the moderation effects of CE and SK hold after controlling for consumers’ age, gender, income, education and objective knowledge.

Hospitality practitioners can make use of different types of country-related information to communicate effectively with consumers in a global environment.

This research is the first to discover the different mechanisms underlying different types of COO and the boundary conditions on these effects.

The purpose of this paper is to present a rejoinder. The rejoinder is written in response to the commentaries provided by Saeed Samiee and Jean‐Claude Usunier on the authors’ original research piece: “‘What? I thought Samsung was Japanese’: accurate or not, perceived country of origin matters”.

The rejoinder is organized into three separate sections. The first section identifies areas of agreement between the authors, and Samiee and Usunier. The second section responds directly to the empirical and conceptual criticisms levied by Samiee and Usunier and clarifies the authors’ contribution. The rejoinder concludes by identifying areas of future research that may help further advance the field.

In addition to responding directly to the criticism of the original study, perhaps more importantly, the authors note several areas of common ground. First, there is agreement that future country‐of‐origin (COO) research designs must be careful to not artificially expose subjects to country cues that the consumer otherwise may not have considered. Second, in a globalizing world, brand origin perception appears to be more important than “made in” labels.

The authors do not consider the COO field outdated or irrelevant, but rather that it is a vibrant field of considerable interest to both practitioners and researchers. There is much still to be learned, and the authors hope the original research study and the ensuing debate have sparked fresh ideas and will lead to a continued effort in this interesting research field.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of brand origin (BO) misperception (hereafter BOM) or non-identification on brand equity. Besides, the current study investigates the moderating role of brand strength in the relationship between BOM and brand equity.

The current study adopted a 4 (BO identification: favorable BOM vs adverse BOM vs non-identification vs correct identification) × 2 (brand strength: strong vs weak) between-subjects design. A total number of 547 participants performed assessments on the automotive brand. The current study selected three strong brands and three weak brands for tests. In the experiment, respondents had to associate the brand with its country of origin. The assignment of BO conditions was based upon respondents' natural responses provided. ANOVA was used for data analysis.

The results indicate that as compared to correct BO identification, BOM (either adverse or favorable) or non-identification exerts a more negative impact on brand equity. Moreover, the study demonstrates that brand strength moderates the effect of perceived BO on brand equity.

This study provides empirical support to the notion that BOM is detrimental to brand equity. Specifically, when adverse BOM occurs, a strong brand suffers more from the negative consequences resulted than a weak brand does. Conversely, when consumers misattribute the BO to a country with a stronger image than its real origin (i.e. favorable BOM), the resulting negative effect is reversed. Moreover, the non-identification of BO hurts the brand equity of both strong and weak brands.

Many future research proposals of Lean Manufacturing (LM) are presented in the literature. The purpose of this paper is to determine these future research proposals of LM which are country-related and classify them.

A systematic literature review (SLR) of peer-reviewed journal articles in LM was conducted. A total of 145 articles published in 34 journals during 2010–2020 were collected from four major management science publishers namely, Emerald Online, Elsevier/Science Direct, Springer Link and Taylor and Francis. The country-related future research proposals of LM identified in the literature were classified according to, firstly, the continent of the country of reference, and secondly, some form of natural affinity of these proposals creating meaningful themes. The quality tool “affinity diagram” was applied to classify the country-related future research proposals of LM.

The country-related future research proposals of LM, which are increasing in the literature over time, refer mostly to studies to be conducted in several continents/countries and to multinational studies. Conducting studies specifically in Asia, Europe, South and North America, Africa and Australia–New Zealand is also suggested. The plethora of the country-related future research proposals of LM were classified, based on the affinity of their content, into 18 meaningful themes. These themes were also classified based on their affinity into two broad categories, namely “themes concerning the LM approach itself” and “themes concerning factors outside the LM approach”.

The restricted number of the databases searched and the subjectivity of classifying the large number of the country-related future research proposals into themes are the main limitations of the present SLR. Based on these limitations, future literature review studies can be carried out.

Useful proposals are provided to researchers of several countries for conducting original and country-specific research studies which can enrich the knowledge of the implementation of LM under the specific circumstances of a country for the benefit of practitioners.

This study goes beyond previous literature review studies on LM by focusing exclusively on the LM future research agenda which is country related. The analytical presentation of the country-related future research proposals as well as the formulation of clusters of these proposals make the present SLR study substantially different from those carried out worldwide so far.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how brand origin (BO) cues affect the consumer’s association of a new brand with BO learning and the subsequent effects on brand image (BO semiotics). An integrative theoretical framework is proposed that includes both processes.

The proposed model is based on analogical learning theory and triadic semiotic theory.

Two types of BO knowledge form BO meanings in consumer minds: country-related categories and exemplar brands, which have a classification and/or inferential role. The brand cues (indexes or icons) used by consumers to identify BO generate one or the other type of BO knowledge. Indexes trigger the classification function of country-related categories while icons trigger the inferential role of country-related categories and exemplar brands. BO knowledge informs the meaning transfer when consumers interpret the meaning of a new brand, leading to either a transfer of relations or a transfer of attributes to the new brand.

Marketers should monitor BO exemplar brands that consumers use as meaning sources and carefully select the signs used in their communications to evoke BO.

The proposed framework contrasts with dominant categorisation perspectives, re-establishing the dual role of categories and emphasising the relevance of brand cues in BO identification and BO exemplar brands in the BO meaning transfer process. A meaning-centred perspective is adopted to integrate BO identification and the related transfer mechanisms.

Building upon previous research on country-of-origin. This study aims to investigate whether the effects of country-of-origin extend to the hotel industry, based on associative network and signaling theories.

Based on a self-administered survey with tourists in China, this paper investigates antecedents and outcomes of hotel brand image and the moderating role of a hotel’s brand origin.

Results reveal country, city and industry images positively influence hotel brand image. Hotel brand image then influences price perception, quality perception and overall satisfaction.

Country-of-operation image remains a relevant, powerful predictor of brand image; thus, hotels need to carefully manage country-of-operation image.

This paper incorporates and establishes the role of country-of-operation image on hotel brand image.

This study examines how brand‐ and country‐related intangible assets influence the market shares of brands and their marketing effectiveness (particularly price effectiveness). Using the case of the small car segment, seems to provide some interesting implications for brand management in global markets where the intangible assets associated with brand and country names are important. Found that a country name (e.g. Japanese name) produces positive value to brands originating from particular countries. Documents that long‐term popularity positively influences brands′ short‐term market shares and marketing effectiveness. Also discovers that a brand can generate positive brand‐specific assets, i.e. brand popularity, without a positive country name equity. Discusses managerial implications and recommendations, within the context of global competition.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an understanding of the country-of-origin (COO) effect on overseas distributors’ behaviour in international marketing channels. Integrating the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) and the concepts of country-induced biases, the current study develops an empirically testable model that explains and predicts overseas distributors’ behaviour in international marketing channels.

Hypotheses were tested using primary data stemmed from a survey of channel relationships between exporters and their overseas distributors. Data were collected from 103 distributors in the USA.

Empirical evidence shows that attitude towards foreign brands, social valuation of the origin of brands, and perceived behavioural control affect overseas distributors’ intention to place foreign brands. In addition, country-induced bias factors – buyer animosity and country-related affect to the origin of manufacture – are considered to be the antecedents of attitude towards foreign brands.

Because this study adopted a cross-sectional design, the limitations of this method can be applied to the study. In addition, because of the research context, the results of the present research may lack generalizability. This manuscript, however, integrated the TPB and the concepts of country-induced biases and addressed the calls for research on the COO effects on overseas distributors’ decision in international marketing channels.

The manuscript suggests that to build positive attitudes towards foreign brands, a firm should focus on promotions through various media in international markets to lower animosity and the perceived risk to the origin of manufacture. In addition, firms with foreign brands need to identify and target a segment that feels comfortable about spending their resources on those brands. Finally, international marketers should focus on creating positive attitudes towards foreign brand goods and proper pricing strategies.

This manuscript fills the knowledge gap of the COO effect on organizational buyer behaviour in international marketing channels.

To date, country-of-origin research has commonly explored structural relationships among country image (CI) constructs, together with attitudinal constructs, using a variety of halo, summary construct and flexible models, drawing on consumer samples. There has been no previous attempt to examine or synthesize these three models with respect to business-to-business (B2B) buying behavior. To fill this gap, this study reconceptualized these three models with B2B constructs using multi-cue settings and tested on B2B samples. This study aims to examine and estimate the relative impact of company- and country-specific images on B2B buyers’ evaluations of suppliers, and the direction of structural relationships with mediation among the constructs.

Data collection was administered through a web-based structured questionnaire. The final sample consisted of 276 purchasing managers. Structural equation modeling was used to test the study’s hypotheses.

Company image is significantly influenced by product country image (PCI) but not by overall CI. The existence of a significant relationship between PCI and perceived supplier performance in a multi-cue setting is an important new finding. In addition, company image significantly influences supplier performance and mediates the relationship between PCI and supplier performance. Among the three models that test structural relationships among CI and other constructs, the reconceptualized halo model fits the data best.

The study results revealed the contribution of company and country-related facets on B2B buyers’ perceptions of supplier performance while purchasing intermediate goods internationally. The significance of PCI on supplier performance emphasizes the strength of the industry sector within a country that may enable an industry to build a product-specific CI in international marketing.

This study advances the country-of-origin issue and debate concerning the strength of the country influence in the academic literature by addressing B2B buyers’ international purchasing behavior of intermediate goods. Additionally, the examination of multiple country facets, multi-cue settings and the CI influence structure in a single study, from a B2B perspective, offers a novel dimension to CI studies.

Purpose – Extensive research in the area of consumer behavior has documented the “Country of Origin Effect,” which identifies country of origin as an important decision variable in evaluating products and services. Past research has mostly assumed that country of origin effect is driven by the performance of the products originating in that country. However, consumers can also form opinions about countries based on exposure to information that is unrelated to the product and may have roots in macro factors such as history, culture, and politics. These emotions, while extraneous to the product, can also influence product evaluations along with performance-related country information.Design/methodology/approach – This review examines research addressing both performance and emotional perceptions related to country of origin.Findings – This review presents an integrating framework termed “Nation Equity” to systematically understand and examine the influence of various dimensions of country of origin on consumer decision making.