关键词: 品牌评价, 来源国效应, 自我激活, 发展中国家

Abstract: The current study examines, among consumers in developing countries, diverse modes of consumers′ evaluations toward local/nonlocal brands with different types of self-activation. To achieve this goal, brand and category familiarity, and prior experience of consumers with brand were controlled; and a 3 (self-activations: self-affirmation vs. self-threat vs. neutral self) × 2 (countries of origin: local vs. nonlocal) between subject design was used. The result shows a significant interaction between self-activations and countries of origin, which indicates inconsistent preferences of local/nonlocal brands among different types of self-activation. Particularly, individuals in the self-affirmation group tend to perform a superior evaluation of local brands to nonlocal brands, whereas individuals in the self-threatening group and neutral self group tend to perform a superior evaluation of nonlocal brands to local brands. These results could be explained by ethnic identity, nonlocal brands as status symbols in developing countries, and national stereotyping. This study gives further implications of consumer behaviors in developing countries, which helps us to learn more about the influence of mental factors in country-of-origin effect.

Key words: brand evaluation, country-of-origin effect, self-activation, developing country