'New perspectives welcome’: a case for alternative approaches to country of origin effect research

Mikael Andéhn, Patrick L'Espoir Decosta

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

Abstract

The country of origin effect (COO) is a well-researched genre within international marketing (Tan and Farley, 1987; Usunier, 2006), but the theoretical advances in understanding this phenomenon have not been proportional to the significant interest in better circumscribing and understanding it (Bloemer et al., 2009; Samiee, 2011). Yet the significant influence of country image on buyer behaviour has been documented and confirmed repeatedly in numerous studies, thus making the phenomenon of significant interest in both theory and practice. Consequently, there is an immediate need for new perspectives on COO for the advancement of knowledge in this research stream, and there are numerous recent contributions towards this end. Andéhn and L’Espoir Decosta (2018) outline a range of research priorities that could potentially serve to address the tendency of COO research to be “atheoretical”(see Samiee, 2011) and provide new avenues for understanding COO, while also attempting to redefine the central tenets of this marketing phenomenon. Similarly, Papadopoulos et al.(2018) list a variety of “consumer dispositions” that, when taken together, form a typology of how place-images can influence consumer attitude formation, and by extrapolation, purchase decisions, adding to the foundation from which new knowledge about COO can emerge. This chapter builds upon an integration of the objectives of these two studies and uses them as examples to propose alternative means to study COO, as well as to provide clarity on the virtues of these approaches.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationMarketing Countries, Places, and Place-associated Brands: Identity and Image
PublisherEdward Elgar
Chapter9
Pages158-173
Number of pages15
Publication statusPublished - 14 Sept 2021

Cite this