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Reflective versus unreflective country images: How ruminating on reasons for buying a country’s products alters country image

Balabanis, G. & Lopez-Jaramillo, C. (2022). Reflective versus unreflective country images: How ruminating on reasons for buying a country’s products alters country image. International Business Review, 31(5), article number 102024. doi: 10.1016/j.ibusrev.2022.102024

Abstract

Based on the excitation-transfer model, this study considers how pondering on reasons for buying a particular country’s products influences country image (CI). We use an experimental approach to test our hypotheses and check for differences between unreflective/ad lib CI and reflective/reasoned CI measurements. The findings indicate differences between reflective and unreflective CI perceptions. These differences are more prominent for CI measurements relating to less well-known countries. Only a minority of consumers seem to knowingly buy a country’s products because of its reputation. Our research extends existing approaches to CI based only on country knowledge activation by incorporating the concept of motivational relevance and the applicability of activated knowledge. We also propose a segmentation scheme based on the motivational relevance of CI.

Publication Type: Article
Additional Information: © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Publisher Keywords: Country image, Attitudinal measures, Familiarity, Buying reasoning
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory
Departments: Bayes Business School > Management
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