Abstract
An extensive body of research on the effects of country-of-origin has emerged in the international marketing and business literature streams. Nonetheless, extant studies do not satisfactorily demonstrate whether and how a foreign firm's choice of market entry mode influences consumers' purchase intentions of its product in country-related affect contexts. Using a survey and an experimental design, we aimed to provide evidence of the effects of the choice on consumers' evaluation and attitude of its product in an animosity context and in a national image context. Through the survey, we collected data regarding consumer animosity, national image, product evaluation, and product attitude from 185 university students and tested the hypotheses that consumer animosity and national image have effects on foreign product evaluation and attitude. The results of the survey research show that personal animosity has a negative effect on consumers' evaluation of foreign products and that a country's image regarding economics has positive effects on consumers' attitude toward foreign products as well as consumers' evaluation of foreign products. In the experimental design, we divided subjects into four groups and exposed them to several descriptions of hypothetical purchase situations. Conducting a 2 (market entry modes)${\times}2$ (country-of-origin) ANOVA, we tested the hypothesis that a market entry mode influences foreign product evaluation and attitude. The results of the experimental study reveal that in a high country-related product association (Germany), market entry modes have insignificant effects on foreign product evaluation and attitude. In addition, in a low country-related product association (China), international partnership has more positive effects on foreign product evaluation and attitude than does exporting.
