Antecedents of Country-of-Origin Image and Its Effect on Behavioral Intentions

The effects of country-of-origin image (COI) on product preferences/ evaluation and purchase intention have been long examined under different contexts. However, literature lacks when it comes to identifying antecedents of COI. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to (1) identify a set of antecedents of COI and (2) test the validity of two-dimensional COI construct composed of cognition and affect. In this study four possible socio-psychological antecedents of COI were determined from the literature. Using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), the research model is tested based on the data collected in Turkey and Germany. In this context, the effects of four socio-psychological constructs on COI were tested and significant effects of psychic distance, cosmopolitanism, xenocentrism and ethnocentrism were identified. Moreover, it was determined that COI has been conceptually misevaluated in the literature to the extent of a theoretical myopia. Although some authors pointed out this theoretical gap and tabulated studies based on how COI was measured to reveal the problem, they did not produce a clear solution. This study collected items from the literature to measure affective and cognitive dimensions of COI and found a good fit to the data. Conation/ behavioral dimension is placed in the model as an outcome of COI, not as a dimension that forms the construct of COI. Furthermore, strong associations between COI and behavioral intentions were identified across four brands and two different samples.