Country-of-Origin Effects

Country-of-origin effects concern perceptions about a country and how they influence consumers’ evaluations of products, brands, or services from that country. Differences between locations are central to the study of international business, and characteristics associated with the location of a company’s headquarters have been shown to influence firm operations when companies invest in foreign countries. However, most relevant to the corporate reputation literature, a significant portion of country-of-origin research is not concerned primarily with the directly observable characteristics of a company or its products but rather with perceptions related to the company’s home country. Accordingly, this entry explores country-of-origin effects as they pertain specifically to corporate reputation, while examining how country-of-origin effects closely align with concepts such as country reputation and country brands.

Parallel to the ...