Relationship amongst cultural openness, world-mindedness, product-country image and purchase intention of Korean and Chinese smartphone products: A case study of the South African consumers

Abstract

The tireless efforts of international market mechanisms such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) to promote global fair trade have resulted in a greater number of commercial institutions to internationalise than ever before (Nuruzzaman, Gaur, & Sambharya, 2021). However, as firms strive to expand their market share away from domestic markets, the institutional-based framework (proposed by Peng, Sun, Pinkham, & Chen, 2009) suggests that various socio-cultural and informal institutional factors associated with the destination countries provide additional barriers to firm’s success (Boddewyn & Peng, 2021). A factor of particular importance observed in marketing literature that is associated with firm’s success during the process of internationalisation is the country-of-origin effect (COO) (Diamantopoulos, Kalajdzicb, & Moschikc, 2020; Lee & Robb, 2019). The COO refers to the affective or cognitive images related to a country or the products emanating from the country by foreign consumers (Roth & Diamantopoulos, 2009). It has been observed in past literature that the COO associated with a particular country by a consumer from another country has the potential to drastically impact a firm’s performance (Gammoh, Koh, & Okoroafo, 2020). The image held against a country or foreign product by the consumers of a host nation, therefore, remains an important research area (Diamantopoulos, Matarazzo, Montanari, & Petrychenko, 2021). Whilst research in COO continues to expand, seminal research into the country and product image literature has particularly focused on Purpose: This study examines the relationships between cultural openness, world-mindedness (WMD), product-country image (PCI) and the purchase intentions of South African consumers situated in the South African marketplace. In addition, distinctions between PCI and the purchasing intention (PI) concerning smartphones made-in South Korea and China are analysed and discussed as in relation to the South African consumers.