'We Don’t All See It the Same Way': The Biasing Effects of Country-Of-Origin and Preference Reversals on Product Evaluation

Purpose - Country-of-origin (COO) effects on product evaluations have been widely applied in international marketing, albeit with mixed results. One stream of research values its importance in decision making whereas another stream posits that COO has little effect when compared to the greater diagnosticity of other product attributes. This suggests that how and along what other attributes (extrinsic or intrinsic) COO is presented plays an important role in its relative impact. The authors apply one such framing perspective based on evaluation mode (i.e. separate versus joint evaluation) and preference reversals and their biasing effects to a study of COO and willingness to pay (WTP) for a product. Methodology - A 2(COO) × 2(Evaluation Mode) experimental design was employed to assess whether evaluation mode moderated COO effects on product evaluations. Findings - Similar results are mirrored across two/three countries. When evaluated separately, consumers a value an inferior domestic-made cellphone more than a superior foreign-made one. However, when the domestic and foreign-made phones are presented in joint evaluations, the better foreign-made product is favored. Originality / Value – This paper provides insights on the diagnosticity of COO when presented alongside other intrinsic attributes and the role of evaluation mode in shaping consumers’ preferences. This paper suggests COO has different effects in different evaluation mode thus explaining some of the mixed results in literature regarding its importance. On one hand, COO has a decisive effect on product evaluations when products are presented separately. On the other hand, COO effect is overridden by intrinsic cues, which become more salient and apparent when products are presented jointly.