Young Australian consumers and the country-of-origin effect: Investigation of the moderating roles of product involvement and perceived product-origin congruency

The effect that consumers’ country-related images have on their purchase decisions is known as the country-of-origin effect. Marketing researchers have thoroughly investigated COO effects in a range of contexts since the mid-1960s. However, since the 1980s it has been thought (e.g., Levitt, 1983 and Ohmae, 1995) that consumer needs and wants are converging and that nation states are artificial and superficial entities of little value as quality indicators. The argument is that since the world is changing and because young consumers are used to seeing products from a variety of countries they do not have the country biases that the COO effect stipulates. Indeed, a recent study (Wong et al., 2008) on young Chinese consumers and the COO effect seems to confirm that young consumers no longer are influenced by the COO effect. The aim of this research is to investigate if and how the relationship between young Australian consumers’ product-country image and their product evaluations is influenced by two contextual variables: their product involvement and their perceived product-origin congruency. The research reports the results and relevant implications for research and practice.