Do country‐of‐manufacture and country‐of‐design matter to industrial brand equity?

Abstract

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the effects of country‐of‐manufacture (COM) and country‐of‐design (COD) on industrial brand equity.Design/methodology/approach – A conceptual framework to assess how international buyers evaluate industrial brand equity when confronted with a single cue and multiple cues is proposed. Data for testing the hypotheses are collected through fax, e‐mail, and online surveys of managers from 102 industrial buyers of Taiwanese fasteners. A quantitative study is undertaken of 64 respondents using PLS analysis.Findings – The main finding is that the single‐cue framework produces more statistically significant COM and COD effects on industrial brand equity than does the multiple‐cue framework. The current results confirm previous findings that the country‐of‐origin effects based on single‐cue and multiple‐cue studies produce conflicting and inconclusive results.Research limitations/implications – These findings underscore the findings that the impacts of COM and COD on indust...