An Empirical Study on the Impact of Country of Origin Effect on Young Lithuanian Consumers’ Attitude towards Products

Abstract

The country-of-origin (COO) effect is one of the most controversial areas of scientific marketing research because some studies results lead to different conclusions about the COO and its impact on consumer attitude and behavior. The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of COO effect on consumer’s attitude to a product and how it depends on COO effect’s moderators in the Lithuanian market. Theoretical analysis reveals that COO effect on consumer’s attitude to a product depends on moderating effects of consumer experience and product knowledge, consumer ethnocentricity, consumer product involvement, consumer perceived product risk and a product brand. Three moderators like consumer ethnocentricity, product knowledge, and product involvement were chosen for our empirical research, as they were not deeply explored in previous empirical studies. Findings showed that a consumer's attitude to a product is strongly influenced by COO effect. A consumer's attitude to a product is also influenced by COO effect moderators, which are product knowledge and product involvement. Analyzing the results of empirical research it is also noticed that in this research case, when respondents evaluated their attitude to products made in foreign countries, one of COO effect moderators analyzed in theory, a consumer's ethnocentricity, did not have influence on a consumer's attitude to a product. The original contribution of this article, the study investigates moderating effects of consumer ethnocentricity, product involvement, and product knowledge to the relationship between COO effect and consumer‘s attitude to a product in an emerging market.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ee.28.4.17535