Linda S. Showers

The Effects of Alternative Measures of Country of Origin on Objective Product Quality

Describes an effort to explore the relationship between objective measures of product quality and country of origin. Consumers Union ratings of automobile maintenance performance are used as objective quality measures. Effects were examined when considering three different functions: location of headquarters, origin of parts and place of assembly. Price‐quality relationships were estimated and compared. Finally, a subjective measure of automobiles (owner satisfaction) was compared with the objective measure, across all cases and by country of origin. Results revealed objective quality comparisons differed. Both the price‐objective quality relationships and differences in objective versus subjective quality ratings varied between foreign and US vehicles. Examining the objective quality – country of origin relationship via different country of origin measures offers marketers insight in understanding the basis for apparent preferences found in some perceptual studies.

AN INVESTIGATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SELF-EFFICACY AND THE COMMUNICATION EFFECTIVENESS OF PRODUCT MANUAL FORMATS

Product manuals have been virtually ignored in published research despite their relevance to consumer satisfaction and marketplace safety. This study examines self-efficacy (perceptions of capabilities related to operating a product) and how it influences the effectiveness of and is also influenced by three safety message formats commonly used in product manuals (i.e., 1. safety messages presented in list format at the front of the manual; 2; safety messages presented by semantic similarity interspersed throughout the manual—“chunked” format, and 3. safety messages presented in a combined format—both list and chunked). As anticipated, pre-exposure self-efficacy was a significant covariate which was found to be positively related to post-exposure self-efficacy and negatively related to information evaluation. Further, controlling for pre-exposure self-efficacy, post-exposure self-efficacy was significantly lower in the combined (list plus chunked) condition. Findings of this research have important implications for the practice of repeating safety warnings and future research in the consumer information domain.

An Expanded Research Agenda for Examining Country of Origin Effects

The authors propose a research agenda which moves beyond the perceptual studies which dominate the country of origin literature. Three areas are discussed which warrant investigation: 1) examining the objective quality-country of origin relationship, 2) measuring consumer awareness of and search behavior with respect to country of origin, and 3) estimating elasticities of substitution via product demand functions. This stream of research will offer researchers a more complete context within which to understand country of origin effects.