The reciprocal effects of country-of-origin on product evaluation : An empirical examination of four countries

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the country-of-origin (COO) effect on product evaluation to determine the different effects of COO in Asian nations. Design/methodology/approach – The authors focus on automobiles as the target product category and conduct consumer surveys in three Asian countries – China, Japan, and South Korea – and the USA. Since these four countries are the major global production bases and consumption markets, the authors can examine the reciprocal effects of COO across countries. The authors propose a hierarchical conjoint analysis and estimate parameters. For the attributes of conjoint analysis, the authors incorporate both the COO of products and other functional aspects such as price and fuel consumption to compare their effects on consumer evaluation. Findings – The authors find different tendencies in each country’s COO effect. Further, the authors discuss the factors affecting consumer evaluation in each country based on the country’s culture and general product images. Originality/value – The authors’ contributions to the literature are as follows. First, in the research design, the authors incorporate COO information as an attribute of automobiles. This enables us to compare the COO effect with the effects of other functional aspects. The authors find that the COO effect is substantially the same as the effect of other functional attributes. Second, the authors assume a hierarchical structure in the conjoint analysis and discuss the different preferences in each country. This hierarchical structure enables to extract the reciprocal effects of COO across countries.