One country, multiple country-related effects: An international comparative analysis among emerging countries on Italian fashion products

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to understand whether the impact of\ud country image and product-specific country-of-origin over the\ud willingness to pay premium prices is different among consumers from\ud different emerging countries. After a review of the literature shedding\ud light on the heterogeneity of country-related cues, the paper provides\ud first empirical evidence of a cross-national analysis based on data\ud gathered from 2364 consumers belonging to 4 emerging countries\ud (China, India, Thailand and Brazil) and the domestic country (Italy).\ud The data-set was used to verify whether country image (i.e. the image\ud consumers have of Italy as a country) and product-specific country-oforigin\ud image (i.e. the image consumers have of “Made in Italy” fashion\ud products) impact in a different way on the willingness to pay premium\ud prices for Italian fashion products. Results show that country image\ud and product-specific country of origin are country-specific, presenting\ud different roles in the countries considered. Country-related cues in\ud marketing strategies are still an important factor affecting consumer\ud behaviour, especially for certain products. This paper sheds light\ud on how country-related effects for fashion products differ across\ud countries, with implications for both practitioners and researchers

Guest editorial

“…Kim and Park (2010) suggest a need for a better understanding of how various COO dimensions (e.g. country of manufacture vs country of brand) affect evaluations and consumer behavior (Aiello et al, 2015;Kim et al, 2015;Pucci, et al, 2017). Moreover, comparing the impact of various COO dimensions as well as analyzing new individual psychological characteristics, such as product involvement and ethnocentrism, may help international marketing researchers to better understand the factors underlying the formation of COO evaluations.…”

The influence of changes in brand origin and country of manufacture on willingness to pay for a brand: an experimental study with Brazilian consumers

“…However, it only addresses the relative importance of the country of origin opposed to other pieces of information, as said by Coskun and Burnaz (2016) Among these statistical methods, Verlegh and Steenkamp (1999) suggested correlation analysis as a measurement alternative, which have been also used by Roth and Romeo (1992). Giraldi and Carvalho (2009), Giraldi (2016), Giraldi and Oliveira (2017), Guina and Giraldi (2014), Hu and Wang (2010), Mostafa (2015) and Pucci et al (2017) for example, employed regression analysis and the R 2 (coefficient of determination) in order to find the extent of the effect.…”

“…One group, named country of origin image (COI), has been more generally adopted (Maheswaran et al, 2013) and considers "the total of all descriptive, inferential and informational beliefs one has about a particular country" (Martin & Eroglu, 1993, p. 193), regardless of a product category (Carneiro & Faria, 2016;Pucci et al, 2017). It includes beliefs about the country's economic and technological development stages, as well as affective assessments of its social and political systems (Wang, Li, Barnes, & Ahn, 2012).…”

“…Overall, COO literature highlighting price results is still scarce and it has focused either on country of manufacture (Drozdenko & Jensen 2009;Hu & Baldin, 2018;Hulland, Todino, & Lecraw, 1996;Johansson & Nebenzahl, 1986;Koschate-Fischer et al, 2012;Lee et al, 2018;Pucci, Casprini, Guercini, & Zanni, 2017) or on brand origin (Aichner, Forza, &Trentin, 2016;Agrawal & Kamakura, 1999;Saridakis & Baltas, 2016;Siew, Minor, & Felix, 2018;Thanasuta, Patoomsuwan, Chaimahawong & Chiaravutthi, 2009), showing in general a positive effect of these cues on prices. Nonetheless, the effect of both brand origin (BO) and country of manufacture (COM) on price and how changes in these cues can provoke distinct price dispositions has been not observed before, even considering that these cues interact and are mutually relevant to consumers (Ha-Brookshire & Yoon, 2012;Ho, Brodowsky, & Lee, 2018).…”

“…Although there have been some attempts to measure willingness to pay (WTP) in COO studies (Aichner et al, 2016;Drozdenko & Jensen, 2009;Hu & Wang, 2010;Johansson & Nebenzahl 1986;Koschate-Fischer et al, 2012;Lee et al, 2018;Pucci et al, 2017;Siew et al, 2018), they were based on only one direct question to the consumers or auction methods (price bids). Compared to these approaches, the PSM technique, based on four open-ended queries, is promising because it offers more realistic results than single questions methods, it allows the estimation of individual WTP (Desmet, 2016) and it is closer to a real purchase situation, particularly when compared to auction methods such as Becker, DeGroot and Marschak's (1964) procedure (BDM).…”