The Effects of Brand Globalness and Manufacturing Country Image on Consumer Attitudes and Purchase Intentions

Recent trend of globalization of markets and production results in production of global brands in developing countries having negative country images. As a result, consumers are facing products with global brands but manufactured in developing countries. They are affected by both brand globalness and manufacturing country images with different effects in forming their attitudes and purchase intentions. However, past studies have researched brand globaness and country-of-origin effects separately and not integrated the two constructs in researching their effects on consumer attitudes and purchase intentions. Thus, this study aims to examine how and to what degree globalness of a brand and manufacturing country image affect consumers in evaluating products and forming attitudes and purchase intentions on the case of Korean consumers. We selected students as a sample and notebook computer and casual shirt as target products in the study. Notebooks represent a durable and high-involvement consumer product, while shirts are a nondurable and medium-involvement product. The notebook has two brands, Sony (a global brand) and TG Sambo (a local brand), while shirt has Polo as a global brand and Bean Pole as a local brand. Also, every product has two manufacturing countries, developed country and developing country. The analysis results show that manufacturing country image affects consumer’s evaluation of product quality more significantly than perceived brand globalness, while brand globalness of a product influences consumer’s perception about its price and brand reputation more strongly than its manufacturing country image. In addition, the finding shows that perceived globalness of a brand plays a greater role in determining consumer’s attitude toward than it manufacturing country image. It also shows that perceived brand globalness affects consumer’s purchase intention more strongly than manufacturing country image.