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Explaining the Product-Specificityof Country-of-Origin Effects
By
Ting-Hsiang Tseng, Feng Chia University
George Balabanis, City University London
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Rationale of the Study
Existing studies can not well explain the
phenomenon of product-specificity of COO
effects.
Peterson and Jolibert (1995) : a meta-
analysis of 69 independent COO studies
Verlegh and Steenkamp (1999) : a meta-
analysis of COO studies in the period from
1980 -1996
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Rationale of the Study
Balabanis & Diamantopoulos (2004) :
..instead of examining general country image
attributes, the focus should be onhow
consumers perceive different countries andtheir industries
The concept of Product Typicality provides
an opportunity to fill the gap.
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Hypotheses Development
Typicality - the degree to which an item is
perceived to represent a category (Loken
& Ward, 1990).
Positive relationships between typicality
and consumer attitudes (Loken & Ward,
1987; Nedungadi & Hutchinson, 1985).
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Hypotheses Development
Ethnic typicality:
The typicality of a countrys product in theglobal market of its product category (i.e.,
how typical is a Japanese camera in thecamera product category?)
Country typicality:
Representativeness of a product category ofa whole countrys products (i.e., how typicalare cameras as a Japanese product?)
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Hypotheses Development
H1:
Ethnically typical products receive stronger
consumer attitudes than do other products.
H2:
Country-typical products receive stronger
consumer attitudes than do other products.
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Hypotheses DevelopmentPrototype theory (Margolis & Laurence, 1999)
COO image of a product is the picture, thereputation, the stereotype that businessmen and
consumers attach to products of a specificcountry (Nagashima, 1970, p. 68).
Favourable COO images would be those which
possess the attributes more similar to theprototypical product in the category (i.e., thetypical product).
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Hypotheses Development
H3:
The COO images of ethnically typical products
are stronger than those of other products.
H4:
The COO images of country- typical products
are stronger than those of other products.
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Hypotheses Development
Variety seeking is more evident to hedonicproducts (Ratner, Kahn, & Kahneman, 1999) ,which may displace the importance of typicalityfrom the formation of a consideration set as
atypical (less main stream or unusual) productsbecome more attractive.
H5:The hedonic nature of products will negativelymoderate the effects of ethnic/country typicality onconsumer attitudes.
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Hypotheses DevelopmentMore subordinate categories may be more concrete andmentally representable as share more commonattributes than those in super-ordinate categories(Goldberg, 1986; Rosch, Simpson, & Miller, 1976; Sujan& Deklava, 1987).
As shared (common) attributes are linked to higherlevels of typicality, it is expected that consumer attitudesfor typical products will be more positive for subordinatethan for superordinate categories.
H6:The effects of ethnic/country typicality on consumer attitudes willbe stronger for subordinate than for superordinate products.
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Research Framework
COO images:
Ethnic typicality
Country typicalityTypicality Consumer Attitudes
Product type
Product Category level
H1
H3, H4
H5
H6
H2
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Experiment Design
416 Taiwanese College Students participated in
Mixed between- and within- subjects experiment
design
Participants randomly assigned to the conditionsin a balanced way
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Experiment Design
TABLE 1
The Four-Cell Experiment of This Study
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Instrumentation
Product typicality: Loken and Ward (1990)Explicit attitudes: Engel et al. (1995)
COO image: Nebenzahl et al. (2003)
Product category level: Loken et al. (1990)
Product type: Voss et al. (2003)
7- point Likert scales were applied
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Hypotheses Tests: ANOVA
COO images:
Ethnic typicality
Country typicality Typicality Consumer Attitudes
Product type
Product Category level
H1:
Accepted
H3, H4: Accepted
H5: Rejected
H6: Accepted
H2:Accepted
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Findings
Typicality can account for the discrepancies ofCOO effects across products of a country andacross COOs of a product.
Typical products of a country, no matterhedonic or utilitarian, both receive similarattitudes of consumers.
Typical subordinate products attract morefavourable attitudes than typical super-ordinateproducts.
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Implications
Towards the development of a generaltheory of COO capable of incorporatingand explaining product based differencesof COO effects.
Researchers need to take into accountthe product category level in their study.
For practitioner, the benefits of the studyare less visible.
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Thank you very much!