Are consumers' minds or hearts guiding country of origin effects? Conditioning roles of need for cognition and need for affect

Abstract

Contributing to research on consumer segmentation in the context of country-of-origin (COO) effects, the current study focuses on the need for cognition (NFC) and need for affect (NFA) as conditioning variables on the links between country image and attitude towards the country on the one hand and consumers' product-country image (PCI) assessments on the other. We conduct two studies: one in a highly developed, EU-member country (Austria, N = 203) and one in a developing CEE country (Bosnia & Herzegovina, N = 195). Our findings show that NFC and NFA have opposing influences on the aforementioned relationships in Austria. In contrast, in Bosnia & Herzegovina we find no significant interaction effects as well as a non-significant relationship between attitude towards the country and PCI. Overall, our results indicate that the utility of NFC and NFA as segmentation variables is country-specific and reveal cross-country differences in the operation of COO effects.