Crossing the chasm of made-in image

Abstract

In the midst of the global financial crisis that devastated the majority of the leading economies, a handful of countries largely characterized as the newly emerging economics not only survived the shock but also continued to perform an unprecedented rate of economic growth. Ensuring the sustained growth of these countries is essential, as it holds the key to revitalize the global economy by opening new doors to the already saturated market. Hence, it is imperative to generate a policy measure that would promote these countries’ largest industry of manufacturing sector by overcoming the Country of Origin (COO) effects through an analysis on the determinants of the COO effects. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to propose a policy recommendation regarding which product categories should the manufacturing industries of these countries focus in effort to ensure the sustained growth of their economies. In addition the research question of “what are the determinant factors of the COO effects considering the moderating role of the product categories?” for study 1 of this paper, therefore, the study 2 examines the effect of the COO and the product categories on consumer satisfaction, while controlling the effects of a covariate of attitude. In order to conduct the analysis, this study collects 200 responses through a survey collected through both the online and offline channels. By conducting the empirical analyses that utilize the methodology of the factorial Multivariate Analysis of Variance (factorial MANOVA) for study 1 and the factorial Analysis of Covariance (factorial ANCOVA) for study 2, this study conducts a series of factor analysis for the perceived acquisition value (PAV) and the perceived transaction value (PTV) to measure the COO effects across the product categories for study 1, while adopting the consumer satisfaction for the dependent variable for study 2. The results of this study illustrates that there exists a significant difference across the effects of the four individual product categories of i) utilitarian & high risk, ii) utilitarian & low risk, iii) hedonic & high risk, and iv) hedonic & low risk products on the COO effects measured in terms of PAV and PTV for study 1. For study 2, the empirical analysis also confirms a significant impact of the COO and the product categories on consumer satisfaction. As the ranking of the magnitude of the product category effects on the PAV and the PTV differs than the hypothesized order, this study produces a policy implication against the conventional norm that the newly industrializing countries should maneuver its policy direction from developing the utilitarian & low risk products to producing the utilitarian & high risk products and the hedonic & low risk product. Moreover, this study concludes with a managerial implication in that the policy makers of these countries should investigate in minimizing the display of the COO information on these products to benefit from greater value added from manufacturing products from such categories, given the intersection between the products with no COO information and the products from a developed country in study 2 indicating that the undetermined order of consumer satisfaction resulting from the COO effects