Young Australian consumers and the country-of-origin effect: investigation of the moderating roles of product involvement and perceived product-origin congruency
The effect that consumers’ country-related images have on their purchase decisions is known as the
country-of-origin effect. Marketing researchers have thoroughly investigated COO effects in a range of
contexts since the mid-1960s. However, since the 1980s it has been thought (e.g., Levitt, 1983; Ohmae,
1995) that consumer needs and wants are converging and that nation states are artificial and superficial
entities of little value as quality indicators. The argument is that since the world is changing and because
young consumers are used to seeing products from a variety of countries they do not have the country
biases that the COO effect stipulates. Indeed, a recent study (Wong et al., 2008) on young Chinese consumers
and the COO effect seems to confirm that young consumers no longer are influenced by the
COO effect. The aim of this research is to investigate if and how the relationship between young Australian
consumers’ product-country image and their product evaluations is influenced by two contextual
variables: their product involvement and their perceived product-origin congruency. The research
reports the results and relevant implications for research and practice