來源國形象、本國中心主義對外國品牌購買意願之影響－以Samsung為例

Abstract

Fuelled by the development of the communications industry and mobile Internet technology, the smartphone market in Taiwan has been growing rapidly. In 2011, there were successful annual rates of 700 million units being sold. The Taiwanese domestic brand, hTC, has been receiving many design awards overseas. In the highly competitive domestic market, they have stood as the leading brand position for many years. However, in the third quarter of 2011, Samsung Electronics, based in South Korea, developed the Galaxy Series in their smartphone industry causing hTC to hand over the position of market leader. Over the years, the majority of people in Taiwan have rejected Korean products due to allegiance to domestic products and historical reasons. It will be discussed in this research whether this allegiance will affect the willingness of domestic consumers to maintain country-of-origin from purchasing foreign brands. In addition, in the recent years, due to the development of professional forums and community media on the Internet, consumers often use the Internet to search for information regarding other user experiences and comments as a reference during the purchase decision-making process. When purchasing high-valued communication products, it is common to search the Internet for widespread views. Whether this type of behavior will affect consumer's brand attitude is another subject of discussion in this study. The purpose of this study, other than exploring whether consumer ethnocentrism will affect country-of-origin on purchase intentions.This study used paper and Internet surveys to collect information from smartphone users. A total number of 261 surveys were collected and hierarchy regression was used to verify the hypothesis. The results were country-of-origin had a positive affect on purchase intention for foreign brands, consumer ethnocentrism had no influence on country-of-origin and purchase intention for foreign brands. Lastly, this research provides managerial implications, as a reference for companies when designing a strategy for selling smartphones.