ABSTRACT
Since Dichter’s (1962) mention and Schooler’s (1965) empirical observation of country-of-origin effect, country-of-origin effect has been examined in numerous consumer studies across many countries. Many reviews and meta-analysis on country of origin research found generalizable supporting evidence for the effect of country of origin on product evaluations (Bilkey & Nes, 1982; Perterson & Jolibert, 1995; Verlegh & Steenkamp, 1999). It has been found that consumers display a preference toward the products from developed countries more than those from developing countries. However, with the recent increased offshore manufacturing and global sourcing, product-country association is no longer just a single-country phenomenon. It is becoming common for firms to source products or components from different parts of the world. It is achieved by assigning firms in various countries to different specialized tasks in the production process, such as key component production, product marketing, product design, and final assembly. For example, a Sony television set carrying a Japanese brand name but manufactured in Malaysia and equipped with a China-made picture tube is an example of a hybrid product. Consumers cannot tell with certainty which specific country the television is tied to. Considering this situation, some researchers argued that previous findings that
are largely based on uninational origin could not be applicable to many products today, which are more likely to be hybrids that involve binational or multinational production (Ahmed & d’Astous, 1996; Chao, 1993, 2001; Cordell, 1993; Han & Terpstra, 1988; Tse & Lee, 1993).
