| The study of country of origin effects on consumer evaluation of products is an important area of research in consumer behavior and international marketing. This dissertation studies the relation between country of origin-based consumer evaluations of the hedonic and utilitarian dimensions of product attitudes and the two dimensions of national stereotype contents---perceived warmth and perceived competence.; The first contribution of this dissertation lies in the theory-driven adoption of a partitioned national stereotypes construct in country of origin research. The second contribution extends important concepts and theories from consumer behavior---such as the utilitarian and hedonic dimensions of product attitude---to a novel context, that of national stereotypes. Specifically, the conceptual model proposes that the perceived competence dimension interacts with the utilitarian dimension, while the perceived warmth dimension interacts with the hedonic dimension, to produce a stronger effect on product evaluation. Consumer familiarity with a country's products and involvement are hypothesized to be moderator variables, while product familiarity is predicted to be a covariate.; A between-subjects experimental study was used to test the conceptual model. The empirical results support the proposed interaction between perceived competence and utilitarian attitudes, but not between perceived warmth and hedonic attitudes. Furthermore, familiarity with a country's products was observed to have an independent, rather than moderating, effect on product evaluation. The predicted moderating role of involvement was not empirically observed. Finally, product familiarity was found to be a significant covariate. An array of theoretical and managerial implications stemming from the conceptual model and empirical findings are discussed in addition to limitations and directions for future research. |
