Product-, corporate-, and country-image dimensions and purchase behavior: A multicountry analysis

This research focuses on consumer perceptions that are developed on the basis of a firm’s advertising appeals as well as other factors. In conceptualizing brand-image perceptions, the authors extend the frequent use of productrelated images to include corporate and country images attached to brands. The authors report findings based on secondary economic and cultural data at the macro level and the results of a global brand-image survey conducted in the top 20 international automobile markets at the individual level. The findings suggest that while consumers’ attitudes toward corporate image and country image exert main effects on their brand purchase behavior, the effects of certain product-image appeals are moderated by sociodemographics and national cultural characteristics. The empirical results are broadly supportive of the proposed hypotheses and provide a consumer-based extension of Roth’s work on global brand image. Ming-Huei Hsieh (hmh@saturn.yzu.edu.tw), Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of International Business, Yuan Ze University, Taiwan. She has obtained her Ph.D degree (2002) from Warwick Business school of the University of Warwick, United Kingdom. Prior to her Ph.D. study, she conducted several market research projects for major multinationals, including General Motors, Procter & Gamble, Bayer, Johnson & Johnson, and Prudential in Taiwan. She is currently studying a variety of topics in cross-national consumer research. Specifically, she is exploring topics in brand management. She is also interested in the areas of Internet marketing and customer relationship management (CRM). She has articles published in theJournal of International Marketing, theJournal of Product and Brand Management, and theJournal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce. Shan-Ling Pan (pansl@comp.nus.edu.sg), Ph.D., is an assistant professor and the coordinator of the Knowledge Management Laboratory (http://kmlab.comp.nus.edu.sg) in the Department of Information Systems of the School of computing at the National University of Singapore. He received his MBA degree (1993) from the University of Texas at San Antonio, his MA degree (1996) from the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), and his Ph.D. degree (2000) from the University of Warwick, United Kingdom. His primary research focuses on the recursive interaction of organizations and information technology (enterprise systems), with particular emphasis on organizational issues such as work practices, cultures, structures, decision making, change, and strategy implementation. His research work has been published inInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Transaction on Engineering Management, theJournal of the American Society for Information Systems and Technology Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery, Information and Organization, theJournal of Strategic Information Systems, theEuropean Journal of Information Systems, andDecision Support Systems. Rudy Setiono (rudys@comp.nus.edu.sg) received his Bachelor of Science degree from Eastern Michigan University and M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1984, 1986, and 1990, respectively. He has been with the National University of Singapore since 1990 and he is currently an associate professor in the School of Computing. His research interests include linear programming, nonlinear optimization, and neural networks. He is a senior member of IEEE and serves as an associate editor ofIEEE Transactions on Neural Networks. His publications have appeared in theSIAM Journal on Control and Optimization, theEuropean Journal of Operational Research, theJournal of Optimization Theory and Applications, IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, IEEE Transactions on Data and Knowledge Engineering, IEEE Transactions on Systems Man and Cybernetics, Neural Computation, Neurocomputing, Connection Science, Management Science, and many other reputable journals.