The Influence of Country of origin on Co
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
ScienceDirect
Procedia Economics and Finance 37 (2016) 343 – 349
FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MARKETING AND RETAILING (5TH
INCOMaR) 2015
The Influence of Country-of-origin on Consumer Purchase
Intention:
The Mobile Phones Brand from China
Nor Sara Nadia Muhamad Yunusa*, Wan Edura Wan Rashidb
a
Faculty of Business and Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Bandar Puncak Alam, 42300, Selangor, Malaysia
b
Institute of Business Excellence, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, 40450, Selangor, Malaysia
Abstract
In modern and competitive era which global marketing is growing day by day, consumer perceptions towards product country-oforigin has changed from one to other new perspective. The new perception might results in both possibilities either in favourable
or unfavourable dimensions, not excluded products from China. Growth of electronic devices in China such as mobile phones is
among relevant to be studied. Thus, this study aims to investigate the determinant factors of country-of-origin that consumer
considers in purchasing mobile phones brand that originated from China. Country image, perceived product quality and brand
familiarity have been used as pre-determined factors in measuring consumer’s purchase intention. A total of 200 set of
questionnaires were distributed randomly in Klang Valley. The hypotheses which were tested using Pearson Correlation have
revealed that all pre-determined variables are significant and highly correlated in influencing consumer purchase intention
towards mobile phones brand from China. Other than providing a remarkable change of people perceptions towards mobile
phone brand from China, the findings would also be very useful to consumers and marketers especially who involve directly and
indirectly with the country of China as their product and service providers’ origin.
© 2016
by Elsevier
B.V.
is anB.V.
open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
©
2016 Published
The Authors.
Published
byThis
Elsevier
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review
under responsibility of Faculty of Business Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA.
Peer-review under responsibility of Faculty of Business Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA
Keywords: Country-of-origin; country image; perceived quality; brand familiarity; purchase intention
*
Corresponding Author . Tel : +603 3258 4476, fax: +603 3258 5000
E-mail adress: norsara2711@salam.uitm.edu.my
2212-5671 © 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of Faculty of Business Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA
doi:10.1016/S2212-5671(16)30135-6
344
Nor Sara Nadia Muhamad Yunus and Wan Edura Wan Rashid / Procedia Economics and Finance 37 (2016) 343 – 349
1. Introduction
‘Made in China’ is seen everywhere in the international market. However, China still has a long way to go to
gain consumers’ confidence and trust. Previously, the reputation of the ‘Made in China’ is not that positive in
consumers’ mind (Ahmed, Johnson, Xia & Chen, 2004). In fact, even the country had started the positive growth as
a leading manufacturer in the world but the quality of the products is still being perceived as likely low (Lew &
Sulaiman, 2013).
However, nowadays researchers had assumed that the scenario had changed to the other way around. Being the
second largest economy after US, China has ventured into many product developments to compete with the
international giants (Kerbouche, Adouka, Belminoun & Guenouni, 2012). As the market growth over time, the
quality and the product brand should also grow. Therefore, China should also have outstanding image perceptions
for each of their product brands. The emergence of those quality brands are expected to change the previous
negative stereotype perception that consumers have in their mind. Today, products originated from China such as
Lenovo and Haier have already gained world class reputation. This includes mobile phone brands from China such
as Huawei, Oppo and Xiaomi. Consistent with what has been suggested by Phau and Prendergast (2000), countryof-origin study should also include high involvement products, therefore researchers had decided to focus on mobile
phones brand originated from China.________________
Apart from that, mobile phone adoption is considered as among the highest in Malaysia. Based on previous
research findings (Batra, Ramaswamy, Alden, Steenkamp & Ramachander, 2000), it can be inferred that consumers
in developing countries such as Malaysia is considered to be very sensitive to COO effects. Thus it is predicted that,
the influence of country-of-origin on purchase intention tends to be stronger. Apart from that, other than product
quality, the past research does not include variables such as country image and brand familiarity to be studied in
their research (Lew & Sulaiman, 2013).
Therefore, in this study researchers are interested to find out today’s perceptions of Malaysian consumers
towards mobile phone brands from China using country image, perceived product quality and brand familiarity as
the independent variables that represent country-of-origin and its influence on their purchase intention.
2. Literature review
Consumer purchase intention refers to the “possibility of consumers’ willingness of purchasing some specific
products” (Dodds, Monroe & Grewal, 1991). Many consumer models are used to define the consumer purchase
intentions and one of the well-known theory is the theory of planned behaviour (TPB). The Theory of Planned
Behavior (Ajzen, 1991) deals with the antecedents of attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control and
the intention itself. These elements are used in an attempt to understand people’s intention to involve directly or
indirectly in a number of activities such as willingness to vote, giving and buying decision (Hrubes, Ajzen& Daigle,
2001). In the perspective of this study, the influence of country of origin on product evaluation and purchase
intention has become the main highlighted issue. Hsieh (2004) believed that the customer attitude of the product’s
origin of has a relationship to purchase intention. This is supported by Zeugner and Diamantopoulos (2010) that the
history of the literature about country of origin goes 40 years before until now. It explores whether or not the
country-of-origin of a product has an effect or influence on consumer purchase intention.
Country-of-origin (COO) can be defined as any influence that the country of manufacturer has on a consumer’s
positive or negative perception of a product (Cateora & Graham, 1999). In detail, Anwar, Yasin, Iqbal and Sajid
(2013) stated that COO is being viewed like different brands belongs to the different countries. Those owning
countries are called country-of-origin. Example given by Anwar et.al, (2013) is Dell. Dell is an American brand,
thus America is country-of-origin for Dell. Same goes to Lenovo and Huawei which known as the Chinese brands.
Due to that reason, China is the products’ country-of-origin.
Based on literature investigation, researchers also found out that country-of-origin image play a significant role
Nor Sara Nadia Muhamad Yunus and Wan Edura Wan Rashid / Procedia Economics and Finance 37 (2016) 343 – 349
in consumer’s perceptions towards products and brands from any given country (Hanzaee & Khosrozadeh, 2011).
Past study shows that people care about which country the product came from and where they were made
(Parkvithee & Miranda 2012). According to Martin and Eroglu (1993), country image is referred to the total of all
descriptive, inferential and informational belief about a particular country. The previous study of the country-oforigin effect has shown how country image has a direct effect on purchase intention (Rezvani et. al, 2012).Other
than that, Pappu, Quester and Cooksey (2006) perceived country-of-origin has also reflects a different and varies
level of perceived product quality. In their study, perceived quality of a brand from Finland is likely higher than the
perceived quality level of a brand from Mexico or Hungary. In addition, Aaker (1991) had pointed out that
perceived quality is actually an overall or superiority of the product and brand with respect to its intended purpose
such as buying purpose. Other than the perceived quality of a product, higher country’s brand familiarity has also
been found to influence consumer attitudes, preferences and choice. The relation of product familiarity and countryof-origin depends on the theory that scholars create according to how consumer rely on the country-of-origin for
purchase intention (Rezvani et. al, 2012). Indeed, Lin (2012) in his study supported that there is a direct linkage
between brand familiarity and the overall product purchase evaluation.
As an overall, country-of-origin is obviously the extent to which the manufacturing place effects the consumer
evaluations of the product (Elliot & Cameron, 1994). Therefore, country of origin is among the important factors
that might influence the consumer purchase intention. Therefore, based on the above discussion, a proposed
theoretical framework as below (fig.1) was developed in order to investigate the association between country-oforigin and consumer purchase intention towards mobile phones brand from China specifically in the setting of
Malaysian consumer. The three (3) factors namely as; country image (CI), Perceived Quality (PQ) and Brand
Familiarity (BF) are served as independent variables in finding the relationships with consumer purchase intention
(PI).
Based on the above framework, several hypotheses are tested as follow:
H1: There is a significant relationship between country Image (CI) and consumer purchase intention (PI)
towards mobile phones brand from China.
H2: There is a significant relationship between product perceived quality (PQ) and consumer purchase
intention (PI) towards mobile phones brand from China.
H3: There is a significant relationship between brand familiarity (BF) and consumer purchase intention (PI)
towards mobile phones brand from China.
Country Image (CI)
Product Quality (PQ)
Purchase Intention
Brand Familiarity (BF)
Independent Variables
Dependent Variable
Fig. 1. Theoretical framework
3. Methodology
A descriptive and correlational study was undertaken in order to test proposed variables that have been used as
the predictors of the dependent variable. Using convenient sampling, 200 respondents as suggested by Salkind
(2010) were chosen from different locations in Klang Valley area. Convenience sampling is a kind of non-
345
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Nor Sara Nadia Muhamad Yunus and Wan Edura Wan Rashid / Procedia Economics and Finance 37 (2016) 343 – 349
probability or nonrandom sampling in which members of the target population, as Dornyei (2007) mentions, are
selected for the purpose of the study. If respondents meet certain practical criteria, such as geographical proximity,
availability at a certain time, easy accessibility, or the willingness to volunteer, thus it is enough to verify the
potential respondent’s eligibility to answer.
In conducting this study, a fully structured questionnaire was used as an instrument in order to gather
information from the respondents. It consists of the closed-ended multiple choice questions and Likert-scale
questions which enable respondents to express their level of agreement and select the best answer that suits them
best. The researcher’s set of questionnaire is divided into five major sections including Section C which represents
respondent’s demographic information. The reliability of the variables used in this study was tested and the result
shows that all items are good (Hair et al., 2003) and highly reliable. The source of instruments and the reliability of
the constructs are presented in Table 1 as below:
Table 1. Source of instrument and alpha coefficient
Variables
No. of Item
Source
Alpha Value
Sec B (i) : Country Image
7
Hanzee & Khosrozadeh, 2011
0.886
Sec B (ii) : Perceived Quality
6
Aaker, 1991
0.910
Sec B (iii): Brand Familiarity
6
Lin, 2012
0.834
Sec C
18
Lim et al., 2010
0.952
: Purchase intention
4. Findings and Discussion
4.1 Profile of respondents
The analysis of the respondents background covered gender, age, level of education, occupation and
respondents’ average monthly income. The demographic background for the total number of 200 respondents is
presented in the following table (Table 2) :
Table 2. Profile of respondents
Characteristic
Percentage %
Gender
Male
Female
44.5
55.5
Age
18 – 25
26 – 35
36 – 45
46 above
10
28.5
57.5
4
Income
RM1000 below
RM1001-RM2000
RM2001-RM3000
RM3001 above
(n=200)
4.2 Descriptive Results
3.5
12
52
32.5
Characteristic
Percentage %
Level of Education
SPM
STPM/Diploma
Degree
Master
PHD
2
25
58.5
18.5
5
Occupation
Students
Housewife
Government
Private
Others
3.5
9.0
43
41
3.5
Nor Sara Nadia Muhamad Yunus and Wan Edura Wan Rashid / Procedia Economics and Finance 37 (2016) 343 – 349
Table 3 shows the findings of the mean for all variables used to represent country-of-origin. Based on this
descriptive results, country image (CI) has the highest score with M=3.65. Under the construct of country image
(CI), majority of the respondents agreed with the statement that China has a positive economic and country’s
development. This is consistent with Rezvani et. al, 2012 in which they found that technological and economic
development level of a country can be cognitive country image in evaluating product’s country-of-origin. The next
scores are followed by brand familiarity and perceived quality with M=3.39 and M=3.35 respectively. Since the
average score for the overall variables that constitute country-of-origin is 3.46 which is close to the scale 4 of a
Likert scale, it can be considered that majority of the respondents agreed with all positive statements on China as a
product’s country-of-origin. In general, respondents agreed that China has a positive country image, good quality of
product and most of the respondents are familiar with mobile phones brand originated from China.
Other than that, the results also shows that the mean for purchase intention is M=3.30. This value indicates that
majority of the respondents have an intention to buy mobile phones brand from China. Among the highest or
considered as a push factor that lead to the intention to purchase is actually due to the positive reviews from the
popular press about mobile phones brand from China (M=3.66).
Table 3. Descriptive Results
Variables
Mean
Country Image
3.65
Standard Deviation
0.7944
Perceived Quality
3.35
0.7096
Brand Familiarity
3.39
0.7806
Purchase Intention
3.30
0.7849
4.3 Correlational Analysis
Table 4 shows the summary of correlational analysis and hypothesis testing for all variables. Firstly, the value
indicates a significant and highly correlated relationship between country image and purchase intention withr =
0.727, p < 0.01). These results lead to the acceptance of H1 with the 99% confidence level which indicates that
there is a relationship between country image and intention to purchase mobile phones brand from China.A very
high correlated relationship is noticed between product ingredients and brand familiarity towards puchase intention
variables with r = 0.864 and r = 0.848 respectively. These two variables were also significant with p < 0.01. These
results lead to the acceptance of H2 and H3 which were accepted at the 99% confidence level. Thus it indicates the
significant relationship of perceived quality and brand familiarity towards the intention to purchase mobile phones
brand from China. Therefore all the results signifies the acceptance of all pre-determined hypothesis. In terms of the
strength of the relationship, the Guilford’s rule of thumb (1956) has been used in justifying the results.
Table 4. Summary of correlational analysis and hypothesis testing
Result
Hypothesis
r-value
Strength
H1: Country Image (CI)Æ Purchase intention (PI)
0.727**
Highly Correlated
Accepted
H2: Perceived Quality (PQ)Æ Purchase intention (PI)
0.864**
Very High Correlated
Accepted
H3: Brand Familiarity (BF)Æ Purchase intention (PI)
0.848**
Very High Correlated
Accepted
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)
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Nor Sara Nadia Muhamad Yunus and Wan Edura Wan Rashid / Procedia Economics and Finance 37 (2016) 343 – 349
The overall findings therefore shows a support for a positive relationship between H1, H2 and H3. The positive
relationship between country image and purchase intention is consistent with the study conducted by Hanzaee and
Khosrozadeh (2011). On the other hand, a significant relationship that exists between perceived product quality and
purchase intention is also consistent with Lim, Darley and Summers (1994) which stated that in investigating the
influence of country-of-origin on consumer purchase decision, perceived quality is considered to be one that mostly
affected. Other than that, a very highly positive correlated relationship between brand familiarity with purchase
intention is also consistent with O’Cass and Lim (2002) study. The product familiarity has been found to be a
predictor of how well consumers are able to classify products and brands in terms of their respective origins that
lead to consumer purchase intention.
5. Conclusion and Recommendations
The main objective of this study is to investigate the perceptions of Malaysian consumers towards mobile phone
brands from China and its influence on their purchase intention. In details, it also looks at how country-of-origin
factors; country image, perceived product quality and brand familiarity contributes to the intention of Malaysian in
decision making for purchases. Descriptively, majority of the respondents highly agreed with most of the statements
that represent all variables. It means the respondents have positive perceptions towards mobile phones brand from
China. At the same time, it also shows that there is an intention among Malaysian consumer to purchase mobile
phones brand from China. Apart from that, based on the results of the study, researchers could see that all three
independent variables of the country-of-origin do influence consumer purchase intention towards mobile phones
brand from China. Hence, it’s proven that researchers had successfully answered the objective of the study.
Apart from that, the results also show a change in consumer perceptions towards product originated from China
based on the past researchers findings. As predicted earlier, the growing of economy and country’s effort in
technological and economic development seems highly influence how consumer started to have favourable
perceptions towards China’s country image, product quality and its brand familiarity. A researcher hopes that this
study to be very useful to consumers and marketers especially who involve directly and indirectly with the country
of China as a product and service origins, regardless of the business purposes; whether in trading, manufacturing or
even in product invention and innovation. Lastly, researchers recommended that wider deeper research and
discussion on its concepts should be undertaken by future research as to strengthen the areas of this study.
References
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Ahmed, Z. U, Johnson, J. P., Xia, Y., and Chen, K. F. (2014). Does Country of Origin Matter for Low-Involvement Products?,International
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Consumer Attitudes in Developing Countries, Journal of Consumer Psychology, 9(2), 83-95.
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Hanzaee, K.H., and Khosrozadeh, S. (2011). The Effect of the Country-of-origin Image, Product Knowledge and Product Involvement on
Information Search and Purchase Intention. Middle-East Journal of Scientific, 8(3), 625-636.
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Hsieh, M.H. (2004). An Investigation of Country-of-origin effect using Correspondence Analysis, A Cross-national Context, International
Journal of Marketing Research, 46(3), 267-295.
Kerbouche, M., Adouka, L., Belminoun. A. and Guenouni, H. (2012). The Country of Origin and the Consumer Behavior: How to Improve
Chinese Products Brands?.Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 3, 551-552.
Lew, S. and Sulaiman, Z. (2013). Consumer Purchase Intention towards Products Made in Malaysia vs. Made in China: A Conceptual Paper,
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Lim, J.S., Darley, W.K., and Summers,J.O. (1994). An Assessment of Country-of-origin Effects under Alternative Presentation Formats, Journal
of the Academy of Marketing Science, 22(3), 274-282.
Lin, Y.C. (2012). Evaluation of Co-branded Hotel in the Taiwanese Market: The Role of Brand Familiarity and Brand Fit. Journal of
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349
ScienceDirect
Procedia Economics and Finance 37 (2016) 343 – 349
FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MARKETING AND RETAILING (5TH
INCOMaR) 2015
The Influence of Country-of-origin on Consumer Purchase
Intention:
The Mobile Phones Brand from China
Nor Sara Nadia Muhamad Yunusa*, Wan Edura Wan Rashidb
a
Faculty of Business and Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Bandar Puncak Alam, 42300, Selangor, Malaysia
b
Institute of Business Excellence, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, 40450, Selangor, Malaysia
Abstract
In modern and competitive era which global marketing is growing day by day, consumer perceptions towards product country-oforigin has changed from one to other new perspective. The new perception might results in both possibilities either in favourable
or unfavourable dimensions, not excluded products from China. Growth of electronic devices in China such as mobile phones is
among relevant to be studied. Thus, this study aims to investigate the determinant factors of country-of-origin that consumer
considers in purchasing mobile phones brand that originated from China. Country image, perceived product quality and brand
familiarity have been used as pre-determined factors in measuring consumer’s purchase intention. A total of 200 set of
questionnaires were distributed randomly in Klang Valley. The hypotheses which were tested using Pearson Correlation have
revealed that all pre-determined variables are significant and highly correlated in influencing consumer purchase intention
towards mobile phones brand from China. Other than providing a remarkable change of people perceptions towards mobile
phone brand from China, the findings would also be very useful to consumers and marketers especially who involve directly and
indirectly with the country of China as their product and service providers’ origin.
© 2016
by Elsevier
B.V.
is anB.V.
open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
©
2016 Published
The Authors.
Published
byThis
Elsevier
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review
under responsibility of Faculty of Business Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA.
Peer-review under responsibility of Faculty of Business Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA
Keywords: Country-of-origin; country image; perceived quality; brand familiarity; purchase intention
*
Corresponding Author . Tel : +603 3258 4476, fax: +603 3258 5000
E-mail adress: norsara2711@salam.uitm.edu.my
2212-5671 © 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of Faculty of Business Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA
doi:10.1016/S2212-5671(16)30135-6
344
Nor Sara Nadia Muhamad Yunus and Wan Edura Wan Rashid / Procedia Economics and Finance 37 (2016) 343 – 349
1. Introduction
‘Made in China’ is seen everywhere in the international market. However, China still has a long way to go to
gain consumers’ confidence and trust. Previously, the reputation of the ‘Made in China’ is not that positive in
consumers’ mind (Ahmed, Johnson, Xia & Chen, 2004). In fact, even the country had started the positive growth as
a leading manufacturer in the world but the quality of the products is still being perceived as likely low (Lew &
Sulaiman, 2013).
However, nowadays researchers had assumed that the scenario had changed to the other way around. Being the
second largest economy after US, China has ventured into many product developments to compete with the
international giants (Kerbouche, Adouka, Belminoun & Guenouni, 2012). As the market growth over time, the
quality and the product brand should also grow. Therefore, China should also have outstanding image perceptions
for each of their product brands. The emergence of those quality brands are expected to change the previous
negative stereotype perception that consumers have in their mind. Today, products originated from China such as
Lenovo and Haier have already gained world class reputation. This includes mobile phone brands from China such
as Huawei, Oppo and Xiaomi. Consistent with what has been suggested by Phau and Prendergast (2000), countryof-origin study should also include high involvement products, therefore researchers had decided to focus on mobile
phones brand originated from China.________________
Apart from that, mobile phone adoption is considered as among the highest in Malaysia. Based on previous
research findings (Batra, Ramaswamy, Alden, Steenkamp & Ramachander, 2000), it can be inferred that consumers
in developing countries such as Malaysia is considered to be very sensitive to COO effects. Thus it is predicted that,
the influence of country-of-origin on purchase intention tends to be stronger. Apart from that, other than product
quality, the past research does not include variables such as country image and brand familiarity to be studied in
their research (Lew & Sulaiman, 2013).
Therefore, in this study researchers are interested to find out today’s perceptions of Malaysian consumers
towards mobile phone brands from China using country image, perceived product quality and brand familiarity as
the independent variables that represent country-of-origin and its influence on their purchase intention.
2. Literature review
Consumer purchase intention refers to the “possibility of consumers’ willingness of purchasing some specific
products” (Dodds, Monroe & Grewal, 1991). Many consumer models are used to define the consumer purchase
intentions and one of the well-known theory is the theory of planned behaviour (TPB). The Theory of Planned
Behavior (Ajzen, 1991) deals with the antecedents of attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control and
the intention itself. These elements are used in an attempt to understand people’s intention to involve directly or
indirectly in a number of activities such as willingness to vote, giving and buying decision (Hrubes, Ajzen& Daigle,
2001). In the perspective of this study, the influence of country of origin on product evaluation and purchase
intention has become the main highlighted issue. Hsieh (2004) believed that the customer attitude of the product’s
origin of has a relationship to purchase intention. This is supported by Zeugner and Diamantopoulos (2010) that the
history of the literature about country of origin goes 40 years before until now. It explores whether or not the
country-of-origin of a product has an effect or influence on consumer purchase intention.
Country-of-origin (COO) can be defined as any influence that the country of manufacturer has on a consumer’s
positive or negative perception of a product (Cateora & Graham, 1999). In detail, Anwar, Yasin, Iqbal and Sajid
(2013) stated that COO is being viewed like different brands belongs to the different countries. Those owning
countries are called country-of-origin. Example given by Anwar et.al, (2013) is Dell. Dell is an American brand,
thus America is country-of-origin for Dell. Same goes to Lenovo and Huawei which known as the Chinese brands.
Due to that reason, China is the products’ country-of-origin.
Based on literature investigation, researchers also found out that country-of-origin image play a significant role
Nor Sara Nadia Muhamad Yunus and Wan Edura Wan Rashid / Procedia Economics and Finance 37 (2016) 343 – 349
in consumer’s perceptions towards products and brands from any given country (Hanzaee & Khosrozadeh, 2011).
Past study shows that people care about which country the product came from and where they were made
(Parkvithee & Miranda 2012). According to Martin and Eroglu (1993), country image is referred to the total of all
descriptive, inferential and informational belief about a particular country. The previous study of the country-oforigin effect has shown how country image has a direct effect on purchase intention (Rezvani et. al, 2012).Other
than that, Pappu, Quester and Cooksey (2006) perceived country-of-origin has also reflects a different and varies
level of perceived product quality. In their study, perceived quality of a brand from Finland is likely higher than the
perceived quality level of a brand from Mexico or Hungary. In addition, Aaker (1991) had pointed out that
perceived quality is actually an overall or superiority of the product and brand with respect to its intended purpose
such as buying purpose. Other than the perceived quality of a product, higher country’s brand familiarity has also
been found to influence consumer attitudes, preferences and choice. The relation of product familiarity and countryof-origin depends on the theory that scholars create according to how consumer rely on the country-of-origin for
purchase intention (Rezvani et. al, 2012). Indeed, Lin (2012) in his study supported that there is a direct linkage
between brand familiarity and the overall product purchase evaluation.
As an overall, country-of-origin is obviously the extent to which the manufacturing place effects the consumer
evaluations of the product (Elliot & Cameron, 1994). Therefore, country of origin is among the important factors
that might influence the consumer purchase intention. Therefore, based on the above discussion, a proposed
theoretical framework as below (fig.1) was developed in order to investigate the association between country-oforigin and consumer purchase intention towards mobile phones brand from China specifically in the setting of
Malaysian consumer. The three (3) factors namely as; country image (CI), Perceived Quality (PQ) and Brand
Familiarity (BF) are served as independent variables in finding the relationships with consumer purchase intention
(PI).
Based on the above framework, several hypotheses are tested as follow:
H1: There is a significant relationship between country Image (CI) and consumer purchase intention (PI)
towards mobile phones brand from China.
H2: There is a significant relationship between product perceived quality (PQ) and consumer purchase
intention (PI) towards mobile phones brand from China.
H3: There is a significant relationship between brand familiarity (BF) and consumer purchase intention (PI)
towards mobile phones brand from China.
Country Image (CI)
Product Quality (PQ)
Purchase Intention
Brand Familiarity (BF)
Independent Variables
Dependent Variable
Fig. 1. Theoretical framework
3. Methodology
A descriptive and correlational study was undertaken in order to test proposed variables that have been used as
the predictors of the dependent variable. Using convenient sampling, 200 respondents as suggested by Salkind
(2010) were chosen from different locations in Klang Valley area. Convenience sampling is a kind of non-
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probability or nonrandom sampling in which members of the target population, as Dornyei (2007) mentions, are
selected for the purpose of the study. If respondents meet certain practical criteria, such as geographical proximity,
availability at a certain time, easy accessibility, or the willingness to volunteer, thus it is enough to verify the
potential respondent’s eligibility to answer.
In conducting this study, a fully structured questionnaire was used as an instrument in order to gather
information from the respondents. It consists of the closed-ended multiple choice questions and Likert-scale
questions which enable respondents to express their level of agreement and select the best answer that suits them
best. The researcher’s set of questionnaire is divided into five major sections including Section C which represents
respondent’s demographic information. The reliability of the variables used in this study was tested and the result
shows that all items are good (Hair et al., 2003) and highly reliable. The source of instruments and the reliability of
the constructs are presented in Table 1 as below:
Table 1. Source of instrument and alpha coefficient
Variables
No. of Item
Source
Alpha Value
Sec B (i) : Country Image
7
Hanzee & Khosrozadeh, 2011
0.886
Sec B (ii) : Perceived Quality
6
Aaker, 1991
0.910
Sec B (iii): Brand Familiarity
6
Lin, 2012
0.834
Sec C
18
Lim et al., 2010
0.952
: Purchase intention
4. Findings and Discussion
4.1 Profile of respondents
The analysis of the respondents background covered gender, age, level of education, occupation and
respondents’ average monthly income. The demographic background for the total number of 200 respondents is
presented in the following table (Table 2) :
Table 2. Profile of respondents
Characteristic
Percentage %
Gender
Male
Female
44.5
55.5
Age
18 – 25
26 – 35
36 – 45
46 above
10
28.5
57.5
4
Income
RM1000 below
RM1001-RM2000
RM2001-RM3000
RM3001 above
(n=200)
4.2 Descriptive Results
3.5
12
52
32.5
Characteristic
Percentage %
Level of Education
SPM
STPM/Diploma
Degree
Master
PHD
2
25
58.5
18.5
5
Occupation
Students
Housewife
Government
Private
Others
3.5
9.0
43
41
3.5
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Table 3 shows the findings of the mean for all variables used to represent country-of-origin. Based on this
descriptive results, country image (CI) has the highest score with M=3.65. Under the construct of country image
(CI), majority of the respondents agreed with the statement that China has a positive economic and country’s
development. This is consistent with Rezvani et. al, 2012 in which they found that technological and economic
development level of a country can be cognitive country image in evaluating product’s country-of-origin. The next
scores are followed by brand familiarity and perceived quality with M=3.39 and M=3.35 respectively. Since the
average score for the overall variables that constitute country-of-origin is 3.46 which is close to the scale 4 of a
Likert scale, it can be considered that majority of the respondents agreed with all positive statements on China as a
product’s country-of-origin. In general, respondents agreed that China has a positive country image, good quality of
product and most of the respondents are familiar with mobile phones brand originated from China.
Other than that, the results also shows that the mean for purchase intention is M=3.30. This value indicates that
majority of the respondents have an intention to buy mobile phones brand from China. Among the highest or
considered as a push factor that lead to the intention to purchase is actually due to the positive reviews from the
popular press about mobile phones brand from China (M=3.66).
Table 3. Descriptive Results
Variables
Mean
Country Image
3.65
Standard Deviation
0.7944
Perceived Quality
3.35
0.7096
Brand Familiarity
3.39
0.7806
Purchase Intention
3.30
0.7849
4.3 Correlational Analysis
Table 4 shows the summary of correlational analysis and hypothesis testing for all variables. Firstly, the value
indicates a significant and highly correlated relationship between country image and purchase intention withr =
0.727, p < 0.01). These results lead to the acceptance of H1 with the 99% confidence level which indicates that
there is a relationship between country image and intention to purchase mobile phones brand from China.A very
high correlated relationship is noticed between product ingredients and brand familiarity towards puchase intention
variables with r = 0.864 and r = 0.848 respectively. These two variables were also significant with p < 0.01. These
results lead to the acceptance of H2 and H3 which were accepted at the 99% confidence level. Thus it indicates the
significant relationship of perceived quality and brand familiarity towards the intention to purchase mobile phones
brand from China. Therefore all the results signifies the acceptance of all pre-determined hypothesis. In terms of the
strength of the relationship, the Guilford’s rule of thumb (1956) has been used in justifying the results.
Table 4. Summary of correlational analysis and hypothesis testing
Result
Hypothesis
r-value
Strength
H1: Country Image (CI)Æ Purchase intention (PI)
0.727**
Highly Correlated
Accepted
H2: Perceived Quality (PQ)Æ Purchase intention (PI)
0.864**
Very High Correlated
Accepted
H3: Brand Familiarity (BF)Æ Purchase intention (PI)
0.848**
Very High Correlated
Accepted
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)
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The overall findings therefore shows a support for a positive relationship between H1, H2 and H3. The positive
relationship between country image and purchase intention is consistent with the study conducted by Hanzaee and
Khosrozadeh (2011). On the other hand, a significant relationship that exists between perceived product quality and
purchase intention is also consistent with Lim, Darley and Summers (1994) which stated that in investigating the
influence of country-of-origin on consumer purchase decision, perceived quality is considered to be one that mostly
affected. Other than that, a very highly positive correlated relationship between brand familiarity with purchase
intention is also consistent with O’Cass and Lim (2002) study. The product familiarity has been found to be a
predictor of how well consumers are able to classify products and brands in terms of their respective origins that
lead to consumer purchase intention.
5. Conclusion and Recommendations
The main objective of this study is to investigate the perceptions of Malaysian consumers towards mobile phone
brands from China and its influence on their purchase intention. In details, it also looks at how country-of-origin
factors; country image, perceived product quality and brand familiarity contributes to the intention of Malaysian in
decision making for purchases. Descriptively, majority of the respondents highly agreed with most of the statements
that represent all variables. It means the respondents have positive perceptions towards mobile phones brand from
China. At the same time, it also shows that there is an intention among Malaysian consumer to purchase mobile
phones brand from China. Apart from that, based on the results of the study, researchers could see that all three
independent variables of the country-of-origin do influence consumer purchase intention towards mobile phones
brand from China. Hence, it’s proven that researchers had successfully answered the objective of the study.
Apart from that, the results also show a change in consumer perceptions towards product originated from China
based on the past researchers findings. As predicted earlier, the growing of economy and country’s effort in
technological and economic development seems highly influence how consumer started to have favourable
perceptions towards China’s country image, product quality and its brand familiarity. A researcher hopes that this
study to be very useful to consumers and marketers especially who involve directly and indirectly with the country
of China as a product and service origins, regardless of the business purposes; whether in trading, manufacturing or
even in product invention and innovation. Lastly, researchers recommended that wider deeper research and
discussion on its concepts should be undertaken by future research as to strengthen the areas of this study.
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