An Inquiry Into The Effects Of Country-of-origin Image On Consumer Purchase Behavior Of Agricultural Products

In recent years, country-of-origin image has been considered as a new source of anenterprise’s competitiveness. Research on country-of-origin image has become a hot topicin the field of marketing. A distinctive country-of-origin image differentiates the productfrom others, which improves the competitiveness of the agricultural product in the market.Therefore, the study of the country-of-origin image is significant in promoting consumerevaluation and the market sales of the products.This paper focuses on the effects of country-of-origin image on consumer purchasebehavior, analyzing the relationships between the three dimensions of country-of-originimage (the scale of the industry, natural resources and the humanistic environment) andconsumer perceived value and purchasing behavior, as well as the mediating effect ofconsumer perceived value. The main research questions are as follows:(1) Therelationships between the three dimensions of country-of-origin image and the purchasebehavior;(2) The relationships between the three dimensions of country-of-origin imageand the customer perceived value;(3) The relationship between customer perceived valueand the purchase behavior;(4) The mediating effect of customer perceived value on theinfluence of the three dimensions of country-of-origin image on the purchase behavior.This paper systematically browsed papers on country-of-origin image and consumerpurchasing behavior, comprehensively analyzed existing scales and models, and thenconstructed an operational model for this study. Data were collected through questionnaires.402consumers participated in the survey by fulfilling the hardcopy or the electronic formof the questionnaire. Structural equation modeling shows that all the three dimensions ofcountry-of-origin image have positive and significant influence on consumer perceivedvalue. The dimensions of natural resources and humanistic environment have direct andsignificant influence on customer purchase behavior, while the scale of the industry hasonly indirect influence on customer purchase behavior. Enterprises and the governmentshould try to improve the country-of-origin image from three perspectives: the scale of theindustry, natural resources and the humanistic environment, so as to promote the selling ofthe agricultural products and the development of other industries inside the region.