IT'S NICE TO BE IMPORTANT, BUT IT'S MORE IMPORTANT TO BE NICE: COUNTRY-OF-ORIGIN EFFECTS IN PRODUCT FAILURES

摘要

Extant COO literature largely focuses on how an origin country's competence across board or in a specific industry shapes perceptions of its products (e.g., Hong and Wyer 1989). Country competence refers to degrees of economic and technological development and the resultant power and influence in the global society. This parallels Fiske's definition of perceived people competency: "Out-groups are perceived as more competent to the extent that they are perceived as powerful and high status" (Fiske et al. 2002). German luxury cars, Japanese gadgets, and Swiss watches all rub off the origin country's reputation of being generally competent and advanced. Relative to the competence dimension, the warmth perception of an origin country is seldom examined. Similar to how Fiske et al. (2002) define people warmth, we define country warmth perception as how much an individual sees a foreign country as well-intentioned, friendly, warm, and cooperative. This perception may derive from one's understanding of past and current political and economic relationship between the foreign country and one's own country. Even though the contents of country images seem diverse and arbitrary, Fiske et al. (2002) contend that the images of out-groups can be reduced to two dimensions: competence and warmth. When people meet other individuals, they want to know: (1) what the other's goals will be in relation to the self or in-group and (2) how effectively the other will pursue those goals. These two dimensions can be orthogonal to each other. In the context of origin country perceptions, four quadrants result from these two dimensions. Some countries enjoy an overall image of being both competent and warm. Some are perceived as strong and competent, but not particularly friendly or warm. Some countries come across as warm, though not particularly competent. Yet some are seen as low on both.