PurposeExtensive research has shown that country‐of‐origin (COO) information significantly affects product evaluations and buying behavior. Yet recently, a competing perspective has emerged suggesting that COO effects have been inflated in prior research and even that the COO concept has become irrelevant. The purpose of this paper is to reconcile these two competing perspectives by examining the effects of individual brand origin perceptions.Design/methodology/approachThe conceptual framework is grounded in consumers’ learning. Empirically, the authors’ hypotheses are tested using hierarchical linear modeling on a sample of 4,047 brand evaluations by 544 consumers.FindingsThe results provide strong evidence that product country image of the consumer's perceived brand origin strongly affects brand attitudes, and this happens regardless of the perceptions’ objective accuracy. The authors also find evidence that educating consumers about brands’ true COO can contribute to changes in brand attitudes.Practical implicationsIt is concluded that suggestions that COO has become an irrelevant construct in international marketing may be premature. The study offers meaningful insights for managers in understanding how brands’ country associations affect brand attitudes.Originality/valueThis study aims to reconcile tensions in the current COO literature and does so by demonstrating that although consumer knowledge of brand origin is often mis‐calibrated, consumers’ perceptions of brand origin still matter.

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Country-of-origin research has primarily held the view that country-level beliefs influence product-level beliefs. In this study, the authors investigate whether the relationship may also move in the opposite direction. Grounded in prototype theory and schema change theory, this study examines shifts in consumer attitudes toward a country as a result of a brand transgression. The authors confirm the conceptual framework using experimental methods. The results offer evidence of a relationship in which product-level beliefs affect country-level beliefs, a finding that contrasts with the majority of country-of-origin research. The effects of brand transgressions are moderated by the degree of prototypicality of the transgressing brand and the level of development of the transgressing brand's home country.

This study examines how export manager cultural intelligence (CQ) affects the relationship between marketing-mix adaptation and export performance. From a resource-advantage theory perspective, the authors posit that export managers’ motivational and metacognitive CQ are intangible but valuable resources that influence marketing strategy and export performance. According to survey data from 153 U.S. exporting firms, export managers’ metacognitive CQ positively moderates the relationship between marketing-mix adaptations and export performance. Furthermore, export managers’ motivational CQ positively moderates the relationship between environmental differences and marketing-mix adaptations. The study adds to the theoretical understanding of the adaptation–performance relationship and provides valuable guidelines for exporting firms in the recruitment, training, and promotion of export managers.