The Effect of Country of Origin on Judgments of Multinational Organizations Involved in a Crisis

Abstract

Country-of-origin effects research has shown that consumers tend to form impressions of countries and their major exports over time. These general evaluations can serve as stereotypes or judgment shortcuts invoked by consumers when they consider a product purchase or their attitude toward a given product. The current study used an experimental design to examine the effect of country of origin and outgroup status on how fictitious multinational organizations were evaluated by American and Chinese citizens after a crisis situation. Specifically, participants were asked to make an attribution for a product crisis associated with an organization based in China, Japan, Mexico, or the United States. The study found that evaluations of the organization and its behavior were based more on overall evaluations of the country in which the organization was headquartered than on simple outgroup status.

Key Words:

• Corporate image
• country of origin
• crisis management
• research