Consumer Receptivity of Foreign Products: The Roles of Country-of-Origin Image, Consumer Ethnocentrism and Animosity

In business, the survival of a manufacturing firm is dependent upon the consumer\u27s acceptance and purchase of its products. Globalization and the accessibility of markets worldwide have expanded the potential customer base from purely domestic to include international customers. It is imperative for marketing managers to accurately assess consumer product perceptions to forecast foreign market entry acceptance and develop some form of competitive advantage that will be sustainable over the long run. Despite the apparent relevance and importance of analyzing consumer product perceptions, there is a lack of research in modeling the relationships between primary antecedents that influence consumers\u27 receptivity toward foreign products. The purpose of this dissertation is three-fold. The first objective is to carry out a thorough review of the extant literature by identifying, prioritizing and categorizing main determinants of consumer perceptions of and willingness to buy foreign products. The second goal is to develop and test a main effects model of these determinants This objective will serve as a replication of past research to provide additional validation of their findings and as an aggregate effort to test these constructs within a complex model. The third objective is to contribute to the understanding of moderated relationships among these determinants by investigating potential interactions that influence consumer perceptions and willingness to buy foreign products. Five main effects and ten interaction effects hypotheses are tested through the use of SEM measurement, path and multiple group analyses. A structural model of effects was developed to explain the consumer\u27s receptivity of foreign products and tested for goodness-of-fit. Upon its validation, the direct and moderated effects proposed by the study were tested within the model. This dissertation contributes to the marketing discipline by examining the nature of the relationships between key determinants affecting foreign product purchase and establishes order effects among these variables. It offers alternative perspectives toward the unique influences of three country-related variables, namely country-of-origin image, consumer ethnocentrism and international animosity. Instead of researching a single country of origin, this study expands the generalizability of its results by providing U.S. consumers\u27 perceptions toward products from three Asian countries that currently differ with regards to their levels of economic development