Understanding how consumers view different countries around the world
A think tank of academics and business professionals working in the area of global business strategy. The major focus is on understanding how consumers view different countries around the world. With the advent of globalization,the decrease of trade barriers, and the digitization of the world economy, consumers now have access to products from around the world. Research has shown that consumers often associate product quality with country of origin, for example, 'Norwegian Salmon is of good quality' (Maheswaran 1994). This is referred to as the 'Nation Equity effect' in the marketing literature. Nation equity is defined as the 'goodwill associated with a country' derived from product performance as well as associations that transcend product efficacy. These non product performance related associations may be positive or negative and have origins in culture, politics, economic development, religion and other macro factors (Maheswaran and Chen 2006; 2009). Thus, viewing countries as having equity associated with them that has both cognitive and affective components would enable companies and policy makers to gain a better understanding of the impact of country of origin on business operations as well as facilitate a more comprehensive study of country of origin in the academic domain. Nation Equity Research features research that integrates the diverse dimensions of country perceptions that influence the use of country of origin information in consumer decision making related to products and services.The unique feature of our research is the "Nation Equity Index" that measures relative preferences of consumers for products and services across countries based on real-time data collected from young consumers around the world. Our target segment is the "Young consumer" in the 18-25 years age group. The young consumers are targeted because they are more aware of the various product choices, hold flexible attitudes and are open to new information.
Singapore Management University - Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Singapore
University of Washington - Foster School of Business, USA
Villanova School of Business, USA
Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Administration of Chulalongkorn University, Thailand
National University of Singapore - NUS Business School, Singapore
Norwegian school of Economics (NHH), Norway
SNF - Institute for Research in Economics and Business Administration, Norway