Summary: | In the globalized economy of today, countries compete among each other for tourists, investors or shares in export markets. In order to achieve their goals, they must carefully build and maintain their reputations internationally, much like commercial brands do. This study evaluates the country image of Taiwan in the Czech Republic, and its effect on perception of Made-in-Taiwan products by Czech consumers. For comparative purposes, images and product perceptions of Japan and China are also included in the study. Extra focus is also placed on the impact of consumers’ knowledge of the country on their perception of country image and country products. The data was gathered through an online survey (252 respondents) and the research reveals several important findings.
First, the country and product perceptions of Taiwan in the Czech Republic are on average slightly positive to positive, dismissing the negative assessment of the Made-in-Taiwan product label. Second, the knowledge of the Czech people about Taiwan is extremely limited. Third, perception of Taiwan’s country image shows a strong positive correlation with consumers’ subjective and objective knowledge of Taiwan. Fourth, the stereotypical positive image of Japanese products and negative image of Chinese products is confirmed here.
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