Decision support for global marketing strategies: the effect of country of origin on product evaluation
| Pages | 49-64 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/10610429510103827 |
| Date | 01 December 1995 |
| Published date | 01 December 1995 |
| Author | Masood A. Badri,Donald L. Davis,Donna F. Davis |
| Subject Matter | Marketing |
JOURNAL OF PRODUCT & BRAND MANAGEMENT VOL. 4 NO. 5 1995 pp. 49-64 © MCB UNIVERSITY PRESS 1061-0421 49
Introduction
The Gulf States (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab
Emirates and Oman) market has evolved into an attractive target not only for
industrialized countries but, significantly, for many developing nations as
well. This trend has important implications for the marketer, as management
must be sensitive to local consumer perceptions of those products when
formulating appropriate strategies for their exports.
Consumer attitudes toward the products of a particular nation are of major
importance in determining international marketing strategies. For example,
Gulf States consumers have an unfavorable perception of products from
certain nations (Badri, 1992, 1994). Obviously, it would be beneficial to all,
including Gulf State distributors of foreign products, to understand
consumer attitudes toward their products.
The importance of variables such as price, promotional messages and
distribution policy in influencing consumer perceptions and attitudes toward
products is well established (Hong and Wyer, 1990; Lee and Miller, 1992;
Monroe, 1976; Wall et al., 1991; White and Cundiff, 1978). However, the
impact of the additional information provided by “made in …” has attracted
little research attention in the Gulf States; a fact which, in view of the
increasing orientation toward this market in international trade, suggests a
need for this course of inquiry for those involved in Gulf State markets.
Both empirical observations and experiments suggest that country of origin
has a considerable influence on the quality perceptions of a product. Because
these quality perceptions are a reality and are not easily overcome, it is
suggested that, in the short run, the best hope for successful counteraction
lies in inquiry, understanding, and imagination directed toward the
formulation of marketing strategies which will accommodate, avoid, or
circumvent the resulting bias. This article presents the results of a study
conducted among Gulf States businesspeople concerning their attitudes
toward products made in the USA, Japan, Germany, the UK, France, Italy,
and Taiwan. The majority of the imports into the Gulf States originate in
these countries (Badri, 1992, 1994). The attitudes reported herein should
provide support for those decision makers developing a strategy for
marketing products in the Gulf States.
With the increasing emphasis by companies on international markets, a
major determinant of multinational success will be multicultural consumer
analyses (Monroe, 1976; Schooler, 1971; Tse and Gorn, 1993; Watson,
Decision support for global
marketing strategies: the effect
of country of origin on product
evaluation
Masood A. Badri, Donald L. Davis and Donna F. Davis
Understanding consumer
attitudes
Quality perceptions
The authors wish to thank Professors Khalid Al Khaja and Abdullah Al-Bannai of the
United Arab Emirates University (Foreign Language Department).
50 JOURNAL OF PRODUCT & BRAND MANAGEMENT VOL. 4 NO. 5 1995
1976). This has led the authors to conduct this study using a modification of
the Nagashima (1970, 1977) research design to identify the attitudes of Gulf
States firms toward aggregate images of products with “made in” labels
from the six countries listed above.
Previous investigation
Considerable research has been done to examine the effect of country of
origin on product evaluation. Reierson (1966, 1967) conducted one of the
earliest studies addressing the topic with a survey of college students.
Students were asked to indicate their general opinion of products from ten
countries, three classes of products from ten countries, and a variety of
specific products from four countries. He found that students ranked US
products first and Japanese products last in every category. Other early
studies by Schooler (1965, 1971) found perceptions to be significantly
affected by the product’s country of origin as well as by sociodemographic
characteristics of the consumers.
Gaedeke (1973) extended the scope of studies concerning the “made in”
concept to cover US consumers’ attitudes toward products from developing
countries. He found that, in some instances, the information “made in …”
caused substantial revision, upward and downward, of quality ratings for
branded products where country of origin information was not previously
known by the respondents. He concluded that, with regard to imports from
developing countries, customers may have a much higher product quality
image of such imports than have generally been assumed or acknowledged.
In general, he found US products to be ranked first in all product categories.
Nagashima (1970, 1977) surveyed both US and Japanese businesspeople’s
attitudes toward foreign products, thus providing cross-cultural comparisons.
These studies attacked the problem of defining product “quality” by
identifying its components as price, value, design, style, service and
engineering. He concluded that Americans unanimously favored products
produced in the USA, while Japanese businessmen preferred US products
only in the categories of automobiles and food.
Anderson and Engledow (1977), in a cross-cultural study of US and German
consumers, found the Germans to be less influenced than those in the USA
by advertising, branding, reputation and, presumably, country of origin.
Bannister and Saunders (1978) employed a sample of UK consumers and
found imported products to be highly regarded by the UK consumer. Wang
and Lamb (1980) found that consumers’ attitudes toward foreign products
were influenced by their perceptions of the economic and political
environments in the country of origin. Other research has found the “made
in” bias to exist in the business market as well (Cattin and Jolibert, 1979;
Cattin et al., 1982; Chasin and Jaffe, 1979; Crawford and Lamb, 1981;
Greer, 1971; Niffenegger, 1980; Niffenegger et al., 1980).
Dornoff et al. (1974), and Festervand et al. (1985) extended Reierson’s
(1966) studies by comparing the generalized attitudes toward product quality
and specific comparisons by product category. In general, they noted that,
while Japanese products were viewed as being of high quality and generally
comparable with those in the USA, they were not considered superior to US
products overall.
The “made-in …” bias
Less influenced
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