What factors are influencing domestic purchasers in their purchase of imported low-involvement products due to the products' country-of-origin? : - A case study of a natural stones importer

• Main Author: Logardt, Ulrika
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Umeå universitet, Företagsekonomi 2014
• Subjects: COO-effects; coo; effect; effects; country-of-origin; import; purchaser; purchase; Sweden; ethnocentrism; CETSCALE; low-involvement; low-involvement products; low; involvement; natural stones; stone; swedish; case study; COO-effekter; effekt; effekter; ursprungsland; tillverkningsland; inköpare; inköp; Sverige; etnocentrism; natursten; sten; svensk; fallstudie
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-97832

The author has applied an abductive research design and performed a case study which includes a survey and e-mail interviews of workers within the construction industry. The purpose of the survey and the interviews is to investigate what factors may be the most influential for individuals in establishing their apprehension of natural stones. The research has been made on commission of the case firm which is a natural stones importer located in Sweden and the survey is based on the 17-point CETSCALE originally created by Shimp and Sharma in 1987. The survey was sent to workers with different occupations (architects, contractors and purchasers) within the construction industry who encounter natural stones in their work. Therefore, the theoretical purpose of this study is to contribute to increase the knowledge of country-of-origin effects of imported low-involvement products. The research gap this study aims to fill is to outline what factors are influencing consumers' purchasing behavior on purchasing low-involvement products. The practical purpose of this study is to provide the case firm with more knowledge of the phenomenon of negative COO-effects. Theories on ethnocentrism have been included since ethnocentric tendencies among customers have been considered by previous researchers as one of the contributing factors of fostering negative country-of-origin perceptions. The case firm can implement this knowledge in creating a more effective marketing strategy and thereby develop their operation domestically as they wish to do. Empirical findings of this study demonstrate that cognitive influence is the factor with the largest influence on country-of-origin effects while factors such as familiarity and environmental concerns are less influencing. The author recommends future researchers to further investigate this phenomenon, especially to investigate its connection to cognitive- and other psychosocial factors in order to gain a more solid understanding for why problems related to this phenomenon arise and how they may be encountered. Since Corporate Social Responsibility was demonstrated to be the most influencing factor in consumers’ purchasing decisions of this study, it is suggested to future researchers to investigate the phenomenon of country-of-origin in relation to ethical- and moral standards of individuals.