Stereotypes and Country Image Attitude Model: A Study of the Perception of China and India Among American Consumers

摘要

The impact of country of origin (COO) on purchase behav-ior is well documented in international marketing research (Pharr, 2005). Researchers have focused on explaining the magnitude of differences between preferences for one coun-try over the other. Image based conceptualization of COO focuses on two broad categories of COO image; the general macro image and the product related micro image. The pur-pose of this paper is to investigate the stereotype based for-mation of macro image and how the internal dimensions of the macro image work. Country image (COI) can be concep-tualized as an attitude (Roth and Diamantopoulos, 2009). Under this conceptualization country image consists of three attitude components; cognitive, affective and behavioral. Therefore, country image functions through cognitive beliefs people have about a country leading to affective feel-ings towards the country leading to a willingness to buy products from that country.