L’INFLUENZA DEL PAESE DI ORIGINE SULLE SCELTE DEI CONSUMATORI ITALIANI: UN’ANALISI MULTI-GRUPPO

The paper analyses the Country of Origin (COO) effect on Italian consumer buying behavior regarding a specific product - namely shoes - and various country of origins – that is: Italy, Spain, China and Russia. To this aim we propose a research model in which the constituting dimensions of COO are distinguished in three components - namely: overall Country Image (CI), Product Country Image (CPI) and Country Related Product Image (CRPI) – influencing the consumer intention to buy a product (shoes), verifying the level of consistency (FIT) between the product category investigated and the country in which this product originates. 626 structured questionnaires, divided by the specific countries observed, duly validated, were collected on Italian consumers. The COO and buying behaviour structures will be modelled by applying a structural equations model with latent variables (Lisrel 8.3).Results show the significance of all the relationships within latent variables, apart from the relationship CI-CRPI in the China context. Subsequent scientific and managerial implications are derived.