Country Image Effects Research Articles

How differently do cognitive and affective country image affect brand loyalty

Purpose This paper aims to examine how differently cognitive and affective country image affects brand loyalty of smartphone brands from two developed countries in Vietnam and how product image mediates these effects. Design/methodology/approach This research used the cross-sectional design. Data was collected via questionnaires and 517 responses were left after refining. The confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were applied to analyze the collected data. Findings The effects of the cognitive country image on brand loyalty are totally transmitted through product image. The effects of affective country image on brand loyalty are divided into direct and indirect effects transmitted through product image. Research limitations/implications Affective country image and product image have complementary effects, whereas cognitive country image and product image have substituting effects on brand loyalty. Practical implications International companies from countries with unfavorable country images should concentrate more on improving their product images to improve brand loyalty in foreign markets. Originality/value The findings support previous studies, which have shown that cognitive and affective country images are distinctive dimensions of country image and affect consumer cognition and responses toward products/brands through different mechanisms.

How do online reviews moderate effects of country image on product image and purchase intention: cases of Korean and US products in Vietnam

PurposeThis paper examines the moderating effects of online reviews on the relationship between country image, product image, and purchase intention of products from two developed countries in Vietnam.Design/methodology/approachThis current research used a cross-sectional design. Data was collected via questionnaires, and 305 responses were left after refining. The collected data were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modeling, and multi-group analysis methods.FindingsAffective country images do not directly affect purchase intention when online review quality and positivity are high. Cognitive country images still directly affect purchase intention when online review positiveness is low. However, online review quantity does not moderate the effects of country images on product images and purchase intention.Research limitations/implicationsCognitive country image consistently affects purchase intention through the central route independent of online reviews. In contrast, the affective country image will likely affect purchase intention through the peripheral route when online reviews are insufficient for customers.Practical implicationsFirms can mitigate the adverse effects of country image, especially cognitive country image, in foreign markets by improving online review quality and positiveness.Originality/valueOur study extended existing literature by providing a better understanding of the nature of country image and the roles of country image dimensions in shaping product image and purchase intention in the context of the increasing popularity of online reviews.

The Celebrity Influencer: Delineating the Effect of Tourism-Oriented Short Video Marketing on International Tourist Conation

This quantitative deductive study explores the influence of celebrity social media influencer-based short video marketing on tourist conation. The study also explores the intervening effects of trust, safety perception, and country image as underlying psychological mechanisms in tourist decision-making. Using a sample of 601 potential American tourists, the partial least squares—structural equation model results indicate that celebrity influence via short video marketing positively augments tourists’ leisure tourism-oriented conation—furthermore, trust, safety perception, and country image as internalized psychological mechanisms nuance this nexus. The findings enhance our understanding of the proliferation of celebrity-based social media influencing and short video marketing as conduits for destination marketing.

Explaining consumer willingness to pay for country‐of‐origin labeling with ethnocentrism, country image, and product image: Examples from China's beef market

AbstractChinese beef imports have been increasing in recent years. At the same time, Chinese public sentiment toward foreign countries, including those who export beef to China, has been changing. Therefore, this research uses a discrete choice experiment (DCE) to investigate the role of ethnocentrism, country image, and product image on consumer willingness to pay for country‐of‐origin labeled beef. Results indicate, on average, Chinese consumers prefer domestic beef most, and value beef from Australia and the US somewhat similarly. Their willingness to pay varies based on their perceived image of the country that the beef originates from and based on their perception of the safety of the beef, that is, product image. The more ethnocentric consumers are, the more they prefer domestic beef and discount foreign beef. Importantly, the effects of ethnocentrism, country image, and product image are stronger on the willingness to pay for domestic beef than for imported beef. More generally, findings indicate that controlling for ethnocentrism, country image, and product image contributes to understanding consumer willingness to pay for products originating from foreign countries. Overall, findings suggest that stronger ethnocentric tendencies lead to lower willingness to pay for imported beef (with some exceptions), and positive country image and product image increase the willingness to pay for imported beef. Thus, it is important to consider these constructs when estimating consumer willingness to pay for imported products, especially for countries where public sentiment toward exporting countries may be prone to change in a dynamic global environment.

Analyzing the Direct Effect of Multidimensional Country Image on Purchase Intention: A Preliminary Study on Foreign Student in Turkiye

The study examined direct effect of country image on purchase intention of Turkish product or service in the sample of foreign students. The questionnaire was developed by measures in literature and research was conducted by convenience sampling with foreign students living in Izmir City. In findings, multidimensional country image was confirmed and its seven dimensions were obtained. It was found out that country image explained 19.9% of variance in purchase intention. This study filled the gap by confirming multidimensional structure of Turkiye’s country image and showed direct effects of country image on purchase intention in the foreign student sample.

The effect of country image, brand image, and warranty knowledge on car purchase intentions: a comparison of use situations

The effect of country image, brand image, and warranty knowledge on car purchase intentions: a comparison of use situations

Examining the moderating effect of host country image on the relationship between tourists’ motivation and their intention to visit mega sporting events in India

This study uses the self-determination theory of motivation to examine the impact of tourists’ motivations on their intention to attend mega sporting events held in a developing nation such as India. The present study utilized partial least square-based structural equation modeling to examine the proposed hypotheses. The data for this study were collected from a sample of 348 international visitors who visited India in January 2023 to attend the fifteenth edition of the Hockey World Cup. The results of this study have validated that the two elements of extrinsic motivation, specifically perceived benefit and perceived risk, exert a substantial influence on visitors’ propensity to visit India. Similarly, the intrinsic travel motivation elements of cultural experience and self-accomplishment are found to positively influence the visit intention of international tourists seeking to partake in the Hockey World Cup in India. On the other hand, the cosmopolitanism dimension of intrinsic drive does not have a statistically significant impact on the intention of these tourists to visit India. This study additionally verified that the perception of a country strongly influences the relationship between extrinsic and intrinsic motivational factors and the tourist’s intention to visit India.

The object of my desire! Exploring the antecedents of long-haul travel intentions in an era of uncertainty

ABSTRACT In an increasingly uncertain global tourism environment characterised by health, safety and security, energy, economic and climate change-related pressures, there is an impetus for research into and analyses of adjustments in future travel behaviour. Taking South Africa as a long-haul destination, the study explores the conditional mediation of the relationship between country image (CI) and the long-haul travel intentions of international tourists by the interaction of intrinsic travel motives and distance desire. Data were generated from a deductive study from an online panel sample of 2021 German citizens. Two models based on country image dimensions emerged from the first data analysis stage. Both models were subjected to conditional mediation testing using PROCESS Macro's Model 58. The conditional mediation results confirmed the catalytic effect of distance desire, as it positively moderated the effect of aesthetic country image and travel motives in the mediated relationship between aesthetic CI and travel intention. The results also confirm partial conditional effects of distance desire in the normative-functional CI–travel intention nexus. The study offers tourism practitioners and destination marketing organisations novel insights into the emerging role of destination desire as an underlying mechanism in evaluative and interpretative frameworks for long-haul tourist behaviour during crisis-induced uncertainty.

Country-of-origin image and consumer brand evaluation: a meta-analytic review

PurposeThis study aims to draw on cue utilization and irradiation theories to: determine the extent to which country-of-origin image and its sub-dimensions exert an aggregate and relative influence on consumer brand evaluations; and identify the contextual and methodological factors that account for between-study variance in the focal relationship.Design/methodology/approachA random-effects model was used to examine 166 empirical articles encompassing 499,563 observations, and 282 effect sizes from 1984 to 2020 using Comprehensive Meta-Analysis software.FindingsResults show that country-of-origin image has a positive, moderate effect on consumer brand evaluations. Moreover, findings reveal that each dimension of country-of-origin image – general country image, general product country image, specific product country image and partitioned country image – significantly influences consumer brand evaluation, but the effect of general product country image is the largest. What’s more, the aggregate impacts of country-of-origin image on consumer brand evaluation – brand commitment, brand-specific associations and general brand impressions – show that the effect on brand commitment is the largest. Finally, findings show that contextual factors (brand source, product sector, culture [individualism vs collectivism], brand origin continents and respondents’ continent) and methodological factors (cues, sampling unit, publication year and sample size) significantly account for between-study variance.Originality/valueThis study provides the first meta-analytic review of the relationship between country-of-origin image and consumer brand evaluation to help clarify mixed findings and balance out the literature, which has only seen quantitative reviews on product evaluation and purchase decisions.

The Influence of Seller Reputation and Trust in Streamers on Live Stream Shopping Purchase Intention: The Moderation Effect of Country Image

Purpose - Live streaming e-commerce continues to increase Chinese consumer enthusiasm for purchasing foreign products. The current research focus in the field of live streaming e-commerce is on exploring the impact of various factors on consumer purchase attitudes and intentions. This study aims to investigate the effects of seller reputation in traditional e-commerce and trust in streamers in live streaming e-commerce on consumer purchase intentions. Additionally, it aims to analyze how the country image of Korea moderates the effects of seller reputation and trust in streamers on purchase intentions.
 Design/Methodology/Approach - This study used the SmartPLS statistical software package to analyze a sample of 341 respondents. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to conduct path analysis and moderation effect analysis
 Findings - This study found that in live streaming e-commerce, seller reputation and trust in streamer significantly influence consumer purchase attitudes. Country image plays a moderating role in the relationship between seller reputation and attitude. However, country image does not moderate the relationship between trust in streamer and attitude. These findings contribute to our understanding of the factors that shape consumer attitudes, and illuminate the role of the country image as a moderator in e-commerce.
 Research Implications - This study has found that product country image plays a moderating role in the relationship between seller reputation and consumer purchase attitudes. It makes a theoretical contribution to existing e-commerce research, and explores the positive impact of product country image in cross-border e-commerce.

The Impact of Cultural Values on Attitude Formation toward Cultural Products: Mediating Effects of Country Image

This study aimed to explore the influence of cultural values on the development of attitudes toward cultural products and purchase intentions while considering country image as a mediating variable in this relationship. Cultural dimensions were categorized into five groups: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, masculinity, and long-term orientation. A web-based questionnaire was distributed to 974 Asian consumers who had purchased and used foreign cultural products. Data analysis was conducted in two stages: exploratory factor analysis (EFA) using SPSS, and structural equation modelling (SEM) using EQS 6.4. The results revealed that power distance, individualism and collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, and masculinity had significant positive impacts on attitudes toward cultural products, whereas long-term orientation did not. Positive attitudes toward cultural products are linked to high purchase intent. Country image was identified as a mediator in the relationship between attitudes toward cultural products and purchase intention. This study contributes to the literature by identifying and explaining the relationship between cultural values and consumer behavior, and selecting and consuming these consumers’ rational, emotional, and reasonable cultural products. It is necessary to increase explanatory power by developing various cultural values and introducing additional variables, as in Hofstede’s theory of cultural value. The practical and theoretical implications of this study are outlined in the conclusion.

The Role of Country Perceived Image And Review of Beauty Vlogger on Consumer Purchase Intention of Cosmetic Products

The purpose of this study is to analyze the effect of country image and beauty vlogger reviews on purchase intention, analyze whether beauty vlogger reviews have an effect on purchase intention and analyze whether country image and beauty vlogger reviews have an effect on purchase intention. This research will be conducted to analyze the effect of country image and Beauty vlogger review on Purchase Intention of Korean cosmetics consumers on the Althea.kr website. The survey will be shared via the comments column on Veronica Ong's video channel. Using a web survey via Google form. In recent years, web surveys have been used to collect respondent data for academic research as well as authors sharing surveys online on forums discussing the Althea.kr site, researchers posting survey messages in the comments column by providing a link to beauty vlogger Veronica Ong's video. The conclusion from this study is that country image has a significant effect on purchase intention, beauty vlogger reviews have a significant effect on purchase intention and together country image and beauty vlogger review have a significant effect on purchase intention of Korean cosmetic products. In terms of country image, in this study country image shows significant results on the purchase intention of cosmetic products from South Korea. Here Althea.kr has described products from South Korea and reflects the characteristics of South Korea as a developed country in the field of cosmetics.

The Impact of Country Image on Firms’ Exports: Evidence from China

ABSTRACT This study examines the impact of China’s perceived country image on its firms’ exports based on highly disaggregated data from 2002 to 2016. Using a composite indicator that accounts for historical wars as an instrument of country image, we find that the improvement in China’s perceived image significantly increases firms’ exports, and this effect on developing destinations is approximately 3.4 times that on developed destinations. Further analysis shows that exports from foreign-owned and privately owned domestic firms are more sensitive to China’s perceived image. The effect of country image on exports is stronger for neighboring countries and has a greater impact on consumer goods. We identify two channels through which country image affects exports, one by enhancing consumer preferences and the other by reducing trade barriers.

The mediating role of investment image in the effect of country image on investment intention: an empirical study on Egypt

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the effect of country image on investment intention and the role of investment image as a mediating factor. Both cognitive and affective country image dimensions were addressed to assess the functional and emotional aspects of the country image and their effects on investment intention. The current study targeted Egypt, as one of the developing countries, from the point of view of Nordic investors.Design/methodology/approachPartial least squares structural equation modeling was used to test the proposed model using data collected from 124 top managers of different companies in the clean energy sector in Nordic countries.FindingsThe results showed that cognitive and affective country images are positively related to the investment image, and that investment image is positively correlated with the investment intention. The investment image has a full mediating role in the relationship between cognitive and affective country images and investment intention.Originality/valueThe past few decades have witnessed a growing interest in country image research; however, limited studies have investigated the impact of country image on foreign investment intention. This study adds to the understanding for the potential contribution of the investment image of developing countries in the decision-making process for the foreign direct investment.

Country image effects after the Brexit crisis. A cross-cultural comparison

PurposeIn the context of Brexit, this study aims to analyse whether the worsening of the UK’s image might have triggered: worse feelings towards the tourism workers and a decrease in the final intention to travel to the UK. This paper compares responses from high and low-context tourists to identify at which target the reactions are more intense.Design/methodology/approachHypotheses were formulated in a general model based on the theory of reasoned action applied to Country Image in the tourism sector, comparing the model in high (150 responses) versus low-context (406 responses) scenarios. Structural equation modelling methodology was used.FindingsThe intention to travel to the UK worsens when two out of the three dimensions of country image worsen (aesthetical and functional) and also when feelings towards workers in this country worsen. Related to cross-cultural differences, the main effect on feelings towards workers comes from the normative dimension of the UK’s image, together with the aesthetic perception. Moreover, travellers’ intentions are influenced by functional and aesthetic perceptions of the country as well as feelings towards workers. High-context cultures showed a significantly stronger effect of the aesthetic dimension of the country on feelings towards workers.Originality/valueThis paper tries to advance the understanding of how feelings towards employees in the UK can determine future visits to this destination. In addition, some cultural differences may explain why low-context cultures are more affected by the worsening of the UK’s image after Brexit.

Home Country Image and Nonmarket Political Strategy Effects on Foreign Lcation Choice of EMNEs

While the literature has generated impressive insights on why emerging market multinationals enterprises (EMNEs) select certain foreign locations over others, we still lack an understanding of how the home country institutional image creates barriers to EMNEs’ foreign location choices and the mechanisms through which EMNEs overcome this effect. In this study, we investigate how the home country institutional image affects EMNEs’ foreign location choices and how EMNEs can use home country nonmarket political strategy to overcome the effect. We argue that EMNEs struggle with poor home country institutional images that are carried over in host countries and create barriers when EMNEs enter into developed or more institutionally distant markets from their home country. Specifically, we suggest that EMNEs are more likely to choose institutionally similar countries as their foreign direct investment (FDI) targets to help them offset the additional liability they carry. While nonmarket political strategy can serve as a response to such disadvantages, it will not completely nullify the home country institutional image effect. This strategy can provide proximity to nonmarket elements and help EMNEs overcome the barriers created by poor home country institutional image on foreign location choice. We test and find support for our theoretical framework using a longitudinal dataset from 2002 to 2017 of outward FDI (OFDI) by Brazilian firms.

A longitudinal analysis of country image and brand origin effects

PurposeThe objective of this study is to offer a longitudinal examination of country image, consumers’ brand origin recognition accuracy, and how their effects on brand evaluations have evolved over the last decade.Design/methodology/approachThe authors compare data gathered in 2020 against data gathered in 2008. Each data set consists of more than 500 American consumers evaluating approximately 12 different brands from three separate industries (i.e. auto, television, and fashion).FindingsThe findings indicate that country image can evolve over time and that its effect on brand evaluation persists even when inaccurate brand origin associations are made. The study offers meaningful insights for managers in understanding how brands’ country associations affect corresponding brand attitudes.Originality/valueSignificant research attention has been focused on the effects of country image. However, longitudinal analysis of the same research questions has been rare. This study offers a valuable comparison of how several important country-image related issues have evolved over time.

ECONOMIC-DEMOGRAPHIC ANTECEDENTS AND CONSEQUENCES OF CONSUMER ETHNOCENTRISM: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

The study aimed at empirically examine the role of various economic and demographic antecedents to consumer ethnocentrism and in turn, its impact on purchase intention of consumers towards domestic products. The study also explored the mediating effect of home product country image. Primary research was directed in India and a total of 900 responses were collected. The analysis using PLS-SEM was executed to test the model empirically. It is found that both economic antecedents have significant impact on degree of consumer ethnocentrism tendency, however, only education from demographic antecedents has significant relationship. Home product country image also significantly mediated the relationship between consumer ethnocentrism and purchase intention.

Americans' intention to visit Cuba as a medical tourism destination: A destination and country image perspective

This study focuses on Americans' perceptions of and intentional behaviors toward Cuba as a medical tourism destination. Using a survey-based quantitative method, the study examined the effects of Cuba's country image and destination image as well as the perceived cost and quality of its medical tourism services on intention to visit Cuba. The results showed that country image and perceived quality of medical tourism services had the greatest positive influence on Americans' intention to travel to Cuba for medical purposes. The study also supported the positive effect of destination image and the negative effect of perceived costs of medical tourism services on intention to visit Cuba. Lastly, the study findings revealed that the better the country and destination image of Cuba, the lower the perceived cost and the higher the perceived quality of its medical tourism services would be.

A Study on the Effect of Country Image on Korean Consumers’ Intention to Purchase Foreign Products: A Comparative Study of the United States and China

Purpose - This study analyzes the impact of the country image on Korean consumers’ intention to purchase foreign products with the U.S. and China, and aims to use the analysis results to satisfy the needs of foreign consumers and increase their utility at the national or corporate level. Design/Methodology/Approach - National images were studied in subdimensions of political and legal, socio cultural, technical, relational images, and regression analysis was performed based on a total of 125 survey data. Findings - Analysis shows that in both China and the United States, political, legal and social and cultural images have no significant impact on purchase intent, while technical and relational images have a positive (+) effect on purchase intention to foreign product. Research Implications - Based on the analysis results, in order to increase a lot of overseas demand for Korean electronic products, it is important to conduct active research and development and to conduct marketing that emphasizes technology, and to build favorable relationship at the national or corporate level.