Abstract

This study examines the socio-psychological determinants of country of origin image, namely country of brand (COB) and country of manufacture (COM) images, for products from developed versus developing countries. It also investigates the effects of COB-COM congruence and incongruence on consumers’ purchase intention and product trial. Research was conducted in Bangkok, Thailand with 400 consumers of personal-care products using a survey questionnaire and a field experiment. The four socio-psychological constructs measured were consumer ethnocentrism, cosmopolitanism, materialism, and value-consciousness. We found that cosmopolitanism and materialism positively affected both COB and COM, but only when the origin was a developed country. Value-consciousness, however, positively affected both COB and COM regardless of the country of origin. The effect of COB-COM congruence and incongruence were not found. Nevertheless, when COB and COM were congruent, purchase intention and product trial were significantly different between developed and developing country of origin.