Leonidou et al. 2006 EJM.pdf

(1) the external environment (e.g. economy, culture, legal matters, etc.) of the UKshares more or less similar characteristics with the US, but has very differentcharacteristics from that of China;(2) British consumers have more associations and are more familiar with the USthan with China, as a result of the long history of Anglo-American traderelations; and(3) British consumers are more aware of and knowledgeable about US products, asopposed to Chinese products, because the latter have only recently made theirappearance in international markets.US versusChinese goods811Summary and conclusionsOne summary conclusion to be derived from the findings of this study is that consumerevaluations of country-of-origin are very complex and sophisticated, since they maydiffer across different levels of analysis, different product attributes, and differentcountries. With regard to the level of analysis, our study has shown that at the country,industry, and product levels, consumer evaluations are more or less the same, probablybecause of limited differentiation in the chunks of information used by consumers.However, when it comes to brand, it has a serious moderating role to play, eitherpositive or negative, on country of origin evaluations. This is because, unlike fictitiousor vague brands, every known brand has certain equity determined by its popularity,reputation, and associated beliefs in the minds of consumers, thereby providing moreprecise information. In the present case, the high brand equity possessed by Whirpoolwas responsible for elevating further the already positive image that British consumershave of US goods, while the low brand equity of Haier was conducive to underminingfurther the already low image of products made in China. However, our study has alsoshown that brand equity may play a secondary role in country-of-origin evaluations,when consumers are confronted with an actual model of a specific brand. In this case,their judgments can become more accurate and to the point, because of the availabilityof real, hands-on information about the model. The processing of this information byconsumers may result in more favorable (e.g. Haier) or unfavorable (e.g. Whirpool)evaluations, depending on the nature and content of the information provided.Our study also reaffirmed that the country-of-origin construct consists of manydifferent cues (pertaining to product and marketing issues), each of which may beevaluated differently by consumers. This is in direct contrast to studies that have usedcountry-of-origin as a single cue in their analyses, thus producing misleading results.The evaluation of “promotional issues” for US goods, more favorably compared toother categories of cues, is indicative of the long-held, strong marketing andadvertising practices of US firms on a worldwide scale, whereas their low evaluationon “pricing considerations” reflects problems associated with the high cost ofproducing goods in industrialized countries. An inverse picture was obtained for goodsmade in China: the lowest ratings received for “promotional issues” denote handicapsin the marketing and selling abilities of Chinese firms, while the relatively highevaluations obtained for “pricing considerations” stress the low-cost productionpossibilities available in less-developed countries. These findings are consistent withthe evaluations received by the remaining cues, in the sense that US goods consistentlyreceived higher scores, denoting better design, quality, distribution, service, and so on,as opposed to Chinese goods, which received lower evaluations. As a result of this