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This study aims to examine the country‐of‐origin's impact on consumer purchase behavior post‐acquisition, especially when the acquirer‐dominant business is afflicted by a low country‐of‐origin image and the acquired business enjoys a high country‐of‐origin image. This study also aims to examine brand redeployment strategy impacts on consumer purchase intentions.

Data are collected from an online questionnaire in Taiwan. A total of 325 usable questionnaires are returned. Data analysis is conducted using regress analysis and ANOVA.

These results indicate that general country attributes and general product attributes have a positive effect on purchase intentions. In addition, general product attributes play a mediating role between general country attributes and purchase intentions. These results further show that target‐dominant redeployment strategy is the most powerful to purchase intentions. A company which wants to use M&A to increase market share must seriously consider general country attributes, general product attributes and brand redeployment strategy because these three constructs affect purchase intentions, and consequently maintain consumer loyalty and attract new customers.

There were seldom studies which investigated country‐of‐image effect and M&A from marketing perspective. The major contributions of the study were investigating consumers' perception of the effects on country‐of‐origin image and the redeployment strategy on an acquired brand.

Examines consumer attitudes towards foreign products and the associated marketing practices in Saudi Arabia, one of the biggest consumers of foreign goods with a per capita gross national product surpassing every African and Latin American country and which was exceeded in Asia only by Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong. Assesses the attitudes of Saudi consumers towards the products and marketing practices of the top six exporters to Saudi Arabia, namely, the USA, Japan, Germany, Italy, UK and France. Utilizes a number of general product attributes, marketing activities and buying and using preference indicators to explain the general attitudes of Saudi consumers towards products and marketing practices of these countries. Findings indicate that Saudi consumers have the most positive attitudinal response to the products and marketing practices of the US and Japan. Among the four Western European competitors, German products and marketing practices were pereived more favourably by Saudi consumers. The relative position of these countries varies depending on the specific product or marketing attribute in question. Saudi consumers did not make any substantial distinctions among the products and marketing practices of Italy, UK and France.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the country-of-origin (COO) effect on product evaluation to determine the different effects of COO in Asian nations.

The authors focus on automobiles as the target product category and conduct consumer surveys in three Asian countries – China, Japan, and South Korea – and the USA. Since these four countries are the major global production bases and consumption markets, the authors can examine the reciprocal effects of COO across countries. The authors propose a hierarchical conjoint analysis and estimate parameters. For the attributes of conjoint analysis, the authors incorporate both the COO of products and other functional aspects such as price and fuel consumption to compare their effects on consumer evaluation.

The authors find different tendencies in each country’s COO effect. Further, the authors discuss the factors affecting consumer evaluation in each country based on the country’s culture and general product images.

The authors’ contributions to the literature are as follows. First, in the research design, the authors incorporate COO information as an attribute of automobiles. This enables us to compare the COO effect with the effects of other functional aspects. The authors find that the COO effect is substantially the same as the effect of other functional attributes. Second, the authors assume a hierarchical structure in the conjoint analysis and discuss the different preferences in each country. This hierarchical structure enables to extract the reciprocal effects of COO across countries.

The purpose of this research is to differentiate and examine how country image (cognitive and affective image) has different impacts on product judgment and purchase intention in rational versus experiential purchases.

A large-scale survey involving over 1,200 consumers was conducted in China. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data and test hypotheses.

Empirical results show that the impact of country image on consumer purchase intention is mediated by general and category product image. In particular, the impact of cognitive country image on category product image is fully mediated by general product image in both rational and experiential purchases, whereas the affective country image has a direct impact on category product image in experiential but not in rational purchases.

This research extends the extant country-of-origin literature and shows that the product image dimension of the country-of-origin construct mediates the effect of the country image dimension of the country-of-origin construct on consumer purchase intention, and demonstrates the different effect of affective country image on product image in rational versus experiential purchases.

The findings of this research can help multinational marketers, exporters and retailers to better decide when to benefit from their positive country image and avoid the potential pitfalls associated with negative country image.

This study differentiates between cognitive and affective country image and between general and category product image. Thus, it provides insight to further understand how country image can influence consumer product judgment and purchase intention differently in rational and experiential purchases.

Consumers’ product evaluations are often influenced by information contained in their memories. Prior to product evaluations, consumers are often exposed to data that permits them to judge the covariation relationships among different product attributes. However, these attribute covariance perceptions may lead to biased product evaluations. Using an experimental design, this study examines the accuracy of consumers’ product attribute covariance beliefs as a function of their product experience and the relevancy of product information to which they are exposed prior to evaluating product performances. The results indicate that even limited product information affects consumers’ beliefs about product performances on attributes for which no information is available. In other words, specific product information may serve as a cue or indicator for other product characteristics via attribute covariance inferences. The accuracy of these inferences appears to be, at least partly, the function of the consumers’ product experience. Consumers with high levels of product experience are more effective at encoding and retrieving product attribute performance information. Implications of the findings are discussed and suggestions for future research are provided.

While consumer preferences for sporting goods have been widely researched within sport management, literature is lacking on aspects of social and environmental sustainability. Accordingly, this study aims to investigate the role of social and environmental sustainability for purchase decisions of sportswear and compares them to the role of price and functionality.

Based on a conjoint analysis among 1,012 Europeans, the authors conducted a two-step cluster analysis. First, the authors investigated the number of segments via Ward’s method. Second, the authors ran a k-means analysis based on part-worth utilities from the conjoint analysis.

The authors identified four segments which differ in terms of preferred product attributes, willingness to pay, and sociodemographic, behavioral, and psychographic characteristics: undecided, sustainable, price-focused and function-oriented consumers. Based on this segmentation, the authors found that the importance of social and environmental sustainability is growing, but not among all consumers.

The generalizability of the study is limited since it is not built on a sample representative for the included European countries, it focuses on a single product, and participants are potentially subject to a social desirability bias.

The consumer analysis comprises the uptake of attributes related to social and environmental sustainability. The authors thereby address a literature gap as previous research (thematizing sporting goods) in the sport management field has often neglected sustainability elements despite their rapidly growing importance within the sport sector.

The processes of consumer perception and decision making remain relatively complex phenomena despite the depth of research undertaken in the area. One way in which these processes may be influenced is through the explicit mentioning of product attributes in advertising. This study investigates consumer perceptions of mentioned product attributes in magazine advertising for a specific product category. Results confirm a clear relationship between attributes specifically mentioned in advertising for the three selected brands and respondents’ rating of those attributes against evaluative criteria for the product category. Factor analyses of respondents’ ratings indicate a clear convergence of factors extracted and the mentioned attributes for each brand.

Purpose – Counterfeiting has become a significant economic phenomenon. Increased demand for counterfeit branded products (CBPs) makes the study of determinants of consumers CBPs purchase behaviour more worthwhile than ever before. Existing studies have largely neglected brand influence on consumer purchase behaviour of CBPs. This research seeks to examine the impact of perceived brand image, direct and indirect effects (mediator and moderator effects) of product involvement and product knowledge on consumer purchase intention of counterfeits in the context of non‐deceptive counterfeiting. Design/methodology/approach – The current study tests the conceptual model and hypotheses developed based on the existing literature. Four focus groups (ranging from six to eight participants in each group) are used to construct the research instrument. The conceptual model and hypothesis are tested using hierarchical regression analyses with survey data from 321 consumers in the UK. Findings – This research is the first in the literature on counterfeits to establish that perceived brand personality plays a more dominant role in explaining consumers' purchase intention of CBP than other influential factors (e.g. benefit and product attribute). Involvement/knowledge has no significant influence on counterfeit purchase intention. Evidence of involvement as a moderator does not exist. Brand image is not a mediator of the effects of involvement/knowledge on purchase intention. Research limitations/implications – This research only investigates one brand of one product category (watches) in the context of non‐deceptive counterfeiting, although this has not prevented the emergence of significant results. Practical implications – The results of this study hold important implications for both practitioners and academics. They help to alert practitioners to the factors that truly affect consumer proneness of CBPs, for example, brand personality. For academics, they demonstrate that brand influence should not be further ignored in the study of consumer behaviour in relation to CBPs. Originality/value – This research is one of the few which investigate CBP not only as a product but, more importantly, also as a brand – a counterfeit brand.

Internationalisation is a pervasive force in business today and the marketing manager must understand the needs of consumers in various markets. This study explores the general attitudes of Finnish consumers to products made in England, France, West Germany, Japan and the US. Following up earlier surveys of 1975 and 1980 the 1985 data show most positive responses towards products of West Germany and Japan, also highlighting ways in which product attributes and marketing practices can be improved.

The purpose of this study is to critically review consumer knowledge in marketing and propose a future research agenda. Despite the many works that have examined this variable, given its strong influence on behaviour, it has generally been studied in association with other constructs, and no studies have focused on it in a specific way. Its definition, measurement and approaches to its role and usefulness are superficial and underdeveloped. After structuring and analysing the existing literature, the authors establish, (I) which aspects are of little use to the discipline, and (II) which research lines have the most potential and should be developed and studied in greater depth, to advance and complete the existing consumer knowledge framework.

A search was undertaken for documents in the main databases in which the term “consumer knowledge” appears in a marketing or consumer context, and a critical and reflexive approach was taken to analyse the main contributions and to structure them by content blocks.

Five main content blocks were identified. A set of research gaps were detected, mainly related to the lax conceptualisation of the topic, measurement problems and the scarcity of more useful works connected with business management, and several research lines are proposed that complement the existing framework to make it more complete and operational.

This paper offers a critical review and proposes a research agenda for one of the most used but little studied variables in the field of marketing, which may help academics and professionals in the discipline to continue developing useful theories and models.

El objetivo de este trabajo es revisar críticamente el conocimiento del consumidor en marketing y proponer una agenda de investigación futura. A pesar de los numerosos trabajos que han examinado esta variable, dada su fuerte influencia en el comportamiento, generalmente se ha estudiado en asociación con otros constructos, y ningún estudio se ha centrado en ella de manera específica. Su definición, medición y aproximaciones sobre su papel y utilidad son superficiales y poco desarrollados. Después de estructurar y analizar la literatura existente, establecemos (I) qué aspectos tienen poco uso para la disciplina y (II) qué líneas de investigación tienen más potencial y deben ser desarrolladas y estudiadas con mayor profundidad; para avanzar y completar el marco existente sobre conocimiento del consumidor.

Se realizó una búsqueda de documentos en las principales bases de datos en las que aparece el término “conocimiento del consumidor” en un contexto de marketing o consumo, y se adoptó un enfoque crítico y reflexivo para analizar las principales contribuciones y estructurarlas por bloques de contenido.

Se identificaron cinco bloques principales de contenido. Se detectó un conjunto de huecos de investigación, principalmente relacionados con la laxa conceptualización del tema, problemas de medición y la escasez de trabajos más útiles conectados con la gestión empresarial; y se proponen varias líneas de investigación que complementan el marco existente para hacerlo más completo y operativo.

Este documento ofrece una revisión crítica y propone una agenda de investigación para una de las variables más utilizadas pero poco estudiadas en el campo del marketing, lo que puede ayudar a académicos y profesionales en la disciplina a continuar desarrollando teorías y modelos útiles.

本文旨在对市场营销中的消费者知识进行批判性审视, 并提出未来的研究议程。虽然已有许多研究检验了该变量, 但由于其对行为产生强大影响, 通常会与其他结构变量一起研究, 而没有以特定方式专注于该变量。对其定义、测量以及其作用和用途的方法仍旧存在研究空白。通过对现有文献进行结构化分析后, 确定了以下两个方面：（I）哪些方面对该学科意义不大, （II）哪些研究方向最具研究潜力, 并且应该进一步深入发展和研究, 以推进和完善现有的消费者知识框架。

通过主要数据库检索市场营销或消费者背景下涉及“消费者知识”一词的文献, 采取批判性和反思性方法来分析其主要贡献, 并通过内容块对其进行结构化。

识别了五个主要内容块, 并发现存在一定程度的研究空白, 主要涉及该主题的概念松散化、测量问题以及与商业管理相关的有效研究的稀缺性。此外, 本文提出了几个研究线索, 这些线索为现有框架补充了信息, 使其更加完整且具备更强的操作性。

本文对市场营销领域中广泛使用但研究较少的变量进行了批判性评述, 并提出了相关研究议程。这一工作有助于学术界和专业人士继续发展实用的理论和模型。