Effects of production location on perceived automobile values

Effects of production location on perceived automobile values Article

Seaton, FB, Laskey, HA. (1999). Effects of production location on perceived automobile values . 13(1), 71-85. 10.1300/J042v13n01_05

The factors contributing to a positive brand image and the impact of a lower cost production location have typically been treated as independent. In the international arena, two streams of literature have developed around these two issues. The so-called Country-of- Origin (COO) literature has dealt primarily with consumer perceptions and evaluations of foreign-made products, while the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) literature has focused on the determinants of investments by firms operating in foreign countries. We believe that a major reason for the lack of influence of COO studies on FDI is the typical format of the results of COO research, which tend to involve average values on various psychometric-type measurement scales. This paper demonstrates a method for generating monetary values in COO research via conjoint analysis. One such result, reported herein, is that a change in the production location of a $17,000 automobile from the USA to Mexico results in a change in value of $1,952 among a particular group of consumers. Hopefully, this type of result will be more meaningful to FDI researchers and practitioners than scaled items, and lead to their consideration of the relatively consistent findings of the COO literature in the future. © 1999 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.