Country-of-origin and branding in a B2B context.

摘要

This dissertation examines the relative importance of country of manufacturing and country-of-brand versus the functional attributes for industrial products. The study examines country of origin, country-of-brand origin, and how they affect the purchasing team, or what is referred to in this study as the decision-making unit, when purchasing commercial refrigeration compressors.The literature reveals that the international marketing community has been looking at the country-of-origin and what effect it has on the purchasing decision-making process. Even though the world seems to be becoming smaller, purchasing people may still be valuing the country or brand effect before making final purchasing decisions.A conjoint analysis experiment was performed with a group of people who have purchased commercial refrigeration compressors in the past 5 years. The QuestionPro web page was used to collect the data from global users, where they were asked to rank the 36 conjoint analysis cards and a questionnaire which was to determine the respondents' demographic characteristics.