The impact of technological complexity on consumers’ perceptions of products made in highly and newly industrialised countries

Abstract

This article reports the results of a survey of 151 Canadian male consumers. In this study, consumer judgements of products varying in their level of technological complexity made in both highly and newly industrialised countries (NICs) were obtained in a multi‐attribute and multi‐dimensional context. The results show that the country‐of‐origin image of NICs is less negative for technologically simpler products (i.e. television) than for technologically complex products (i.e. computers). In addition, NICs are perceived more negatively as countries of design than as countries of assembly, especially for technologically complex products, but their negative image may be attenuated by making consumers more familiar with products made in these countries and/or by providing them with other product‐related information such as brand name and warranty. Three personal variables namely, computer involvement, technological sophistication and technological innovativeness were found to moderate the perceptions of countries of origin. The more technologically sophisticated a consumer was, the more favourable he/she was towards products made in more technologically advanced NICs.