Moderating Effect of Country Familiarity and Country Image on Product Purchase Intention in South Africa

Country-of-origin (COO) effect has fast become a significant phenomenon in international business studies. Despite this fact, very little research conducted in the past has looked at how the COO effect has influenced consumers in South Africa. This study investigates the COO effect on South African consumers' willingness to purchase products from northeast Asian countries, with the use of various product categories as cues. For this purpose, four hypotheses were developed, and data collected from 103 consumers in South Africa were analyzed with SPSS 20.0. The results are as follows: (1) country image had a positive relationship with intention to purchase some product categories; and (2) the interaction between country image and country familiarity had no significant effects on the intention to purchase a product. This indicates that even though maintaining a good country image and increasing familiarity with a country would promote the intention to purchase a product, their importance and influence vary depending on the product category. The findings of this study offers important theoretical and practical implications surrounding the mechanics of country image and the impact on purchase intention, which are extracted from this study along with directions for future research