A Holistic Approach to Investigate Consumer’s Attitude toward Foreign Products: Role of Country Personality, Self-Congruity, Product Image and Ethnocentrism

Abstract

Consumers’ evaluation of foreign products depends on various factors including their country perceptions, and ethnocentrism etc. This study introduces an integrated model incorporating the impact of country personality (CP), self-congruity (SC), product image (PPI), and ethnocentrism on consumers’ product attitude (GPA). The research was carried out on 358 Turkish consumers to evaluate and compare products with three different country origins (US, Japan, and China). The results revealed that interrelationships between the aforementioned constructs vary for subject countries, highlighting country-wise differences in consumers’ perceptions. The findings suggest that marketers should avoid “one size fits all marketing strategies” but instead focusing on the inherited country-specific strengths and weaknesses when they operate in international markets.

Keywords:

• Ethnocentrism
• country personality
• product image
• self-congruity
• product attitude