| 초록2 |
A favorable country-of-origin image has a considerable impact on consumers evaluation of products originating from different countries and therefore influences their subsequent buying decisions. Numerous articles published in the business press underline the importance of this effect. This body of research shows that a products national origin acts as a signal of product quality and also affects perceived risk and value as well as likelihood of purchase. Conventional country-of-origin studies allow researchers to analyze if consumers prefer products or brands from one country in comparison to another. However, deficiencies in the definition and measurement of its facets have contributed to ineffective and infrequent use of country-of-origin image as a competitive tool. Despite the acknowledged importance of the construct, literature has reached no consensus on how to conceptualize and operationalize country-of-origin. Indeed, no systematic analysis of extant conceptualizations and associated measurement scales of the country-of-origin construct exists, leaving researchers with little guidance on how to best operationalize the construct in empirical efforts. The present study addresses this gap by undertaking a state-of-the-art review of current conceptualizations and operationalizations of the country-of-origin construct, proposes an approach to derive a robust multi-dimensional scale of the construct, and highlights important areas for future research. For the research purpose, this paper investigates the effect of aggregation of survey data on reliability and validity of the scale of country image. Based on a review of marketing and non-marketing literature and the factor analyses (EFA and CFA), for the purpose, this paper derives the three (economic, relational, and cultural image) and applies them to the four countries (U.S.A, Japan, Australia, and China). The reliability and validity of the scale are tested based on the data sets of which aggregation level is various: each of the four country data sets, possible pairs of the four country data set, possible trios of the four countries, and the aggregated data set of four countries. The results showed that the derived scale of country image has low convergent validity and discriminant validity when it is applied to each of the four data sets whereas it has high ones when it is applied to the aggregated data of more than two countries. The proposed approach, which derive a robust scale of the country-origin construct with aggregation of survey data, has a few limitations. However, it provides implications for achieving further progress in the field and the framework will assist researchers in overcoming the problem of previous scales. |