Country‐of‐origin contingencies: their joint influence on consumer behaviour

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to clarify the three‐way interaction among product‐country image, product‐origin congruency and product involvement on consumers' product‐related evaluations and purchase intentions. Design/methodology/approach – Data were gathered from 388 consumers in Australia across four different product classes. Data analysis was conducted using hierarchical regression analysis with three‐way interactions and a novel post hoc slope analysis is introduced to the marketing area. Findings – Overall, the study findings suggest that the importance that consumers place on country‐of‐origin (COO) image when they evaluate products is contingent on the product context. Specifically, the study findings show that product‐country image, product‐origin congruency and product involvement interact on product evaluations and intentions such that product‐origin congruency plays a differentiating role for consumers in a low involvement situation, but a neutral role for consumers in a high involvement situation. Therefore, when a company deals with less‐involved customers, the COO image and the congruency of the product origins are particularly important issues. Conversely, when a company deals with more product‐involved customers, product‐origin congruency has no differential influence on their product evaluations and behavioural intentions to purchase. Originality/value – An important extension to past research in the area is to provide analyses of the joint effects which may be different from their roles when investigated separately. The present paper represents the first empirical investigation of the three‐way interaction of product‐origin image, product‐origin congruency and product involvement on consumers' product‐related evaluations and behavioural intentions. Furthermore, the paper presents the first application in marketing research of a novel method for analysing three‐way interaction slopes.