A STUDY OF COUNTRY OF ORIGIN EFFECTS AND CONSUMER KNOWLEDGE AMOUNG TAIWANESE BEER CONSUMERS

David Mc Guinness

PURPOSE

The purpose of this study is to explore various dimensions of consumer knowledge as it relates to country of origin effects and then investigate how these dimensions of knowledge affect a consumers’ use of country of origin cues when purchasing beer and to test it with Taiwanese consumers.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Various factors can influence Country of Origin (COO) effects, one of these factors is Consumer Knowledge

Earlier studies have not illustrated between the different dimensions of consumer knowledge and how these are connected with COE

Previous COO studies mostly used durable, complex and high financial risk products, such as automobiles and electronic appliances. Very few studies investigated solely non-durable products such as beer

LITERATURE REVIEW Various factors are reviewed, such as

Country-of-origin effectCOO effects as a product cueCountry of Origin ImageThe role of country image in product evaluationConsumer ethnocentrismOther Extrinsic Cues

Dimensions of consumer knowledgeBrand FamiliarityPriceObjective product class knowledgeSubjective product class knowledgeThe influence of product knowledge on information search behaviourBrand’s country-of-origin image and brand equity

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES AND HYPOTHESES

Brand Familiarity H1: When making a purchasing decision, if a consumers

only available information cues are a products COO and brand, they will depend more on COO than brand if the brand is unknown to the consumer

H2: If a consumer has had direct experience with a certain brand, the consumer’s reliance on COO will decrease further as opposed to a customer who is just familiar with the brand.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES AND HYPOTHESES

Objective product-country knowledge H3: Consumers with higher levels of objective product-

country knowledge will be more likely to depend on COO when evaluating low involvement products than consumers with lower levels of product-country knowledge

Subjective product class knowledge H4: Consumers with higher levels of subjective product

class knowledge will be more likely to depend on COO when evaluating products, especially those with an unknown brand, than consumers with lower levels of subjective product knowledge.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES AND HYPOTHESES

Objective product-country knowledge H3: Consumers with higher levels of objective product-

country knowledge will be more likely to depend on COO when evaluating low involvement products than consumers with lower levels of product-country knowledge

Subjective product class knowledge H4: Consumers with higher levels of subjective product

class knowledge will be more likely to depend on COO when evaluating products, especially those with an unknown brand, than consumers with lower levels of subjective product knowledge.

METHODOLOGY

Questionnaire was chosen

The countries of origin used Australia, Germany, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, China, Japan, United States, Philippines and Mexico. These countries were chosen as it reflects the current market of the beer industry.

The three product attributes chosen were all extrinsic cues: brand, value and COO.

RESULTS AND FINDINGS

Includes a summary of respondents’ ratings of products on the basis of country of origin alone and brand name and country of origin

This will give a broad view to the results regarding consumer knowledge and country of origin effects and help to understand the final results.

After the summary of ratings it will be evaluated if there is any proof of country of origin effects in the data in general before examining if there is any impact of consumer knowledge.