Effects of country of origin and importers’ innovativeness in new product trials

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study is to seek to investigate whether and how country of origin (COO) cues – category-country image (CCI) and typicality – and importers’ domain-specific innovativeness (DSI) influence importers’ propensity to the trial new value and premium products. Moreover, it aims to understand whether and how the relationship between the COO effect and industrial purchase intentions is moderated by importers’ propensity to innovate (DSI). Design/methodology/approach International importers completed a quantitative online survey. Factor analysis was used to summarize the latent constructs into orthogonal scores. General linear modeling was applied to the scores to test the hypotheses. Findings The results indicate that importers’ propensity to trial value products is directly influenced by CCI and importers’ DSI. For premium products, typicality has a positive effect on their propensity to trial. Also, CCI and DSI have positive effects on the trial of value products, and the effect is more pronounced than for premium products. Importers’ DSI positively moderates CCI in premium product trials, while it negatively moderates typicality in value products. Practical implications This research provides important managerial implications for practitioners seeking to increase foreign sales, strengthening importers’ product perceived value through COO cues. Exporters should distinguish between value and premium products and, in the selection of international channel partners, they must be attentive to importers’ personal characteristics, such as their propensity to innovate. Exporters selling value products should communicate CCI more clearly and, when targeting innovative importers, opt for atypical products instead of traditional ones. For premium products, which require more complex decisions, exporters should especially underscore product typicality and, with innovative importers, emphasize positive CCI. Originality/value By focusing on the two critical issues of product selection and price levels, this study’s original contribution is to emphasize that, for the same product category, in industrial purchasing decisions of value versus premium products, the COO effect can be different. It also highlights the importance of investigating the COO effect by concentrating on industrial buyers’ personal characteristics, here the DSI of importers, as moderating variables.

How consumer uncertainty intervene country of origin image and consumer purchase intention? The moderating role of brand image

“…However, in the case of consumers' perception about country of origin, the products' quality is evaluated based on risk (uncertainty) that determines their final purchase behaviour (Nakra, 2015). According to Pegan et al (2022), country of origin biases influences the products of developed and emerging countries such that the products from less advanced countries are associated with more risk and less quality. It can be inferred that risk (uncertainty) is an important aspect that consumers consider while making purchase decisions (Ashoer and Said, 2016).…”

Sectoral brand management: a social constructionist approach in the business-to-business market

“…Stereotypes of nations may affect consumer attitudes regarding the country’s products and services; this phenomenon is known as the country-of-origin effect (Pegan et al , 2022; Pharr, 2005) and significantly impacts the international business-to-business (B2B) market (Chen and Su, 2012; Uddin et al , 2021). Due to this effect, nations started to develop sectoral brands [1], which in the branding literature are defined as umbrella brands created to represent and promote a group of several companies that sell products from the same country’s productive sector to other enterprises in the foreign market (Aparecida Castro et al , 2018; Capellaro et al , 2019; Espinoza and Torre, 2019).…”