Does Environmental, Social, and Governance Performance Moderate the Effects of Country-of-Origin on Brand Awareness: A Focus on Managerial Guidelines for Exporters

Purpose - A brand’s country-of-origin (COO) could influence a behavior of consumers in a country. Nevertheless, there have been few studies of how exporters overcome the barrier of a negative COO effect and what can be a useful strategy for an exporter to alleviate the effect on consumer behavior. Against this background, it is essential to present a factor moderating the effect on consumers’ brand awareness. Therefore, suggesting that environmental, social, and governance (ESG) management would be such a factor, we attempted to develop a model showing that the management could moderate the relationship between the COO effects and consumers’ recall and evaluation toward a foreign brand. Design/methodology/approach - Using the stakeholder theory, the categorization, and the attribution theory as underlying theories, our study developed an empirically testable model that explains and predicts consumers’ behaviors. Findings - We posited that positive ESG information influences consumers’ brand recall and evaluation. In addition, we posited that positive ESG information moderates the COO effects on consumers’ brand recall. Finally, we posited that positive ESG information moderates the COO effects on consumers’ brand evaluation. Research implications or Originality - This manuscript filled a knowledge gap of none of alternative strategy toward COO effects in export marketing and provided implications regarding exporters’ branding strategy in a foreign country.