Effects of Country-of-Origin on Buying Behavior: A Study of the Attitudes of United States Consumers to Chinese-brand Automobiles

摘要

In spite of its three decades of sustained high economic growth rates with $3.42 trillion GDP in 2007, China has an image and reputation of a low cost producer in the global marketplace. Yet, China faces a marketing challenge to sell Chinese brand products due to its country and product images. This article evaluates, empirically, the attitude of US consumers toward Chinese-brand automobiles made in nine different countries. The sample of this study comprised 345 consumers from Sacramento, California and that the data were collected by means of a specially-developed questionnaire. We employed logistic regression to analyze the effects of a set of hypothesized independent variables on customers attitudes to Chinese brand automobiles. The findings of this research indicate that US consumers are rational buyers who focus on the perceived product quality rather than emotional factors such as ethnocentrism and ethnicity. Thus, they are more receptive to products made in the most advanced countries, such as Japan, Germany, and the US, than those from advanced countries, such as South Korea and China, and that they are the least receptive to those from developing countries. Statistical results also show that Chinese automakers gain the most benefit from quality image improvements by producing automobiles in advanced countries, such as South Korea and China, than in the most advanced countries.