A STUDY OF COUNTRY OF ORIGIN EFFECTS AND CONSUMER KNOWLEDGE AMOUNG TAIWANESE BEER CONSUMERS David Mc Guinness

PURPOSE The purpose of this study is to explore various dimensions of consumer knowledge as it relates to country of origin effects and then investigate how these dimensions of knowledge affect a consumers’ use of country of origin cues when purchasing beer and to test it with Taiwanese consumers.

LITERATURE REVIEW Various factors can influence Country of Origin (COO) effects, one of these factors is Consumer Knowledge Earlier studies have not illustrated between the different dimensions of consumer knowledge and how these are connected with COE Previous COO studies mostly used durable, complex and high financial risk products, such as automobiles and electronic appliances. Very few studies investigated solely non-durable products such as beer

LITERATURE REVIEW Various factors are reviewed, such as Country-of-origin effect COO effects as a product cue Country of Origin Image The role of country image in product evaluation Consumer ethnocentrism Other Extrinsic Cues Dimensions of consumer knowledge Brand Familiarity Price Objective product class knowledge Subjective product class knowledge The influence of product knowledge on information search behaviour Brand’s country-of-origin image and brand equity

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES AND HYPOTHESES Brand Familiarity H1: When making a purchasing decision, if a consumers only available information cues are a products COO and brand, they will depend more on COO than brand if the brand is unknown to the consumer H2: If a consumer has had direct experience with a certain brand, the consumer’s reliance on COO will decrease further as opposed to a customer who is just familiar with the brand.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES AND HYPOTHESES Objective product-country knowledge H3: Consumers with higher levels of objective product- country knowledge will be more likely to depend on COO when evaluating low involvement products than consumers with lower levels of product-country knowledge Subjective product class knowledge H4: Consumers with higher levels of subjective product class knowledge will be more likely to depend on COO when evaluating products, especially those with an unknown brand, than consumers with lower levels of subjective product knowledge.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES AND HYPOTHESES Objective product-country knowledge H3: Consumers with higher levels of objective product- country knowledge will be more likely to depend on COO when evaluating low involvement products than consumers with lower levels of product-country knowledge Subjective product class knowledge H4: Consumers with higher levels of subjective product class knowledge will be more likely to depend on COO when evaluating products, especially those with an unknown brand, than consumers with lower levels of subjective product knowledge.

METHODOLOGY Questionnaire was chosen The countries of origin used Australia, Germany, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, China, Japan, United States, Philippines and Mexico. These countries were chosen as it reflects the current market of the beer industry. The three product attributes chosen were all extrinsic cues: brand, value and COO.

RESULTS AND FINDINGS Includes a summary of respondents’ ratings of products on the basis of country of origin alone and brand name and country of origin This will give a broad view to the results regarding consumer knowledge and country of origin effects and help to understand the final results. After the summary of ratings it will be evaluated if there is any proof of country of origin effects in the data in general before examining if there is any impact of consumer knowledge.