300 Table 5.16
New Items and Dimensions of Country Image for Services
Study Country Image New Items Production & Marketing Image
Dimensions Focus Group Interviews by Shaiful
(2010)
The country is a moderate Islamic country.
The country is a progressive and dynamic Islamic country.
The country is a pragmatic Islamic country.
‘Halal’ food is easily obtainable in the country.
Places of worship are conveniently located and available to any religion in the country.
The Islamic dress code is common in the country.
Everybody is free to practice whatever beliefs they wish in the country.
Religious/Islamic education facilities for children are easily available in the country.
Social
Ease of Practising Religion
Discussion with experts (2010) The crime rate in the country is low The country’s government respects individual rights
Corruption/bribery is not a common practice in the country
Conflict/Law & Order
Discussion with experts (2010) The country has a good public transport system
The country has world class facilities and infrastructure
Environment
301 cues such as price and brand name (Wall, Liefeld & Heslop, 1991). Moreover, these results have been replicated across studies that vary in terms of study cues (Lim, Darley
& Summers, 1994), respondent characteristics, types of country, types of product, stimulus context, and study context (Peterson & Jolibert, 1995).
The importance of the country image construct in influencing product evaluations and behavior has spawned a number of scales to measure country image (e.g., Agarwal & Sikri, 1996; Martin & Eroglu, 1993). Unfortunately, there is a lack of agreement between these scales. The differences exist at a conceptual, structural, and item level. This presents a big gap in the literature which other researchers can work on in order to fill the void in that particular area. At the conceptual level, scales differ based on whether they are viewed as a halo or a summary construct (Han, 1989).
Structural differences arise from the number and type of dimensions identified. Finally, item-level differences exist because of differences in the way country image is conceptualized and the literature from which items were drawn.
Research on developing scales to measure country image dates back almost as far as academic research in this area. Yet there is considerable disagreement on a suitable scale. Much of this disagreement stems from the manner in which country image is conceptualized, the dimensional structure of the scale, and the specific items included.
Country image scales differ based on whether country image is conceptualized as a “halo” or a “summary construct” or some combination of the two (Han, 1989).
Scales that treat country image as halo measure characteristics of the country (e.g., Martin & Eroglu, 1993), while scales that view country image as a summary construct measure characteristics of the products from the country (Agarwal & Sikri, 1996;
Loeffler, 2001). The key distinction between the two approaches hinges on consumers’
302 familiarity with products made in the foreign country. Thus, when consumers do not know about products from a foreign country, they rely on their general knowledge of the country (halo); but when they do know about products from the foreign country, they rely on these product beliefs (summary construct). Different sets of scales exist based on whether country image is conceptualized as a halo (Martin & Eroglu, 1993), a summary construct (Agarwal & Sikri, 1996) or a combination of the two (Parameswaran & Pisharodi, 2002). See the lists in Table 5.17 below:
Table 5.17
Scale on Country Image Based on Halo, Summary or Combination
Country Characteristics (Halo)
Product Characteristics (Summary Construct)
Product and Country Characteristics (Halo and Summary Construct) Martin & Eroglu, 1993
Haubl, 1996
Nagashima, 1970, 1977 Cattin, Jolibert, & Lohnes, 1982 Jaffe & Nebenzahl, 1984 Han & Terpstra, 1988 Roth & Romeo, 1992 Agarwal & Sikri, 1996
Parameswaran & Yaprak, 1987 Heslop & Papadopoulos, 1993 Parameswaran & Pisharodi, 1994 Lee & Ganesh, 1999
Knight & Calantone, 2000 Parameswaran & Pisharodi, 2002 Pereira, Hsu & Kundu, 2005
Because a summary construct measure relies on the image of products from a foreign country to infer the image of the country, it is a rather roundabout way of measuring country image. Besides, such a measure conflicts with the definition of country image:
“the total of all descriptive, inferential, and informational beliefs one has about a particular country” (Martin & Eroglu, 1993). Finally, this measure is limited to countries about which the consumer has prior product knowledge. With the current trend toward globalization and outsourcing to many developing countries and the practice of sourcing/manufacturing different modules of a product in different countries, it is likely that consumers from developed countries have little knowledge about the products made by many foreign countries. However, in the service sector the situation is perhaps quite different from products. This is due to the fact that the time spent in the host country to get the certificate is much longer than buying the product.
Thus, we focus our attention on the characteristics of the foreign country (e.g., economic conditions, political structure) rather than on the knowledge consumers have of products made by the foreign country.
303 Most previous literature has either assumed or demonstrated country image to be a multidimensional construct. However, while there is a general agreement on the existence of multiple dimensions (Cattin, Jolibert, & Lohnes, 1982; Han & Terpstra, 1988; Haubl, 1996; Jaffe & Nebenzahl, 1984; Nagashima, 1970, 1977; Parameswaran
& Pisharodi, 1994), there is little agreement about the number of dimensions or the nature of the dimensions for country image. For example, Jaffe and Nebenzahl (1984) found two dimensions for country image: product-technology and price-value; Han and Terpstra (1988) found five dimensions: technical advancedness, prestige, service, workmanship, and economy; Martin and Eroglu (1993) found three dimensions:
political, economic, and technological. While it is reasonable to expect different dimensions based on whether country image is conceptualized as a halo or a summary construct, the dimensions uncovered in prior research seem to vary even within the same conceptualization. Moreover, it is difficult to have faith in the dimensional structure of any one scale because that dimensional structure was not subjected to rigorous tests of validity.
Almost all country image scales have been developed either by modifying existing items or by generating items from marketing literature. (See Heslop and Papadopoulos (1993) and Martin and Eroglu (1993) for exceptions). Therefore, there are concerns about whether these scales tap the complete domain of the country image construct. Literature from nonmarketing disciplines might help capture a previously untapped domain of country image.
Despite the large body of research on COO effects, however, only a limited number of COI scales can be found in the literature (Papadopoulos & Heslop, 2003).
According to Roth, Diamantopoulos & Montesinos (2008), there is room for improvements for the scales used in country image. Moreover, most of these scales
304 have been criticized for two reasons: First, from a conceptual perspective, many extant scales (e.g. Nagashima, 1970; Johansson & Nebenzahl, 1986; Han, 1989; Roth &
Romeo, 1992) confound the image of a country with the image of products from that country (Martin & Eroglu, 1993; Papadopoulos & Heslop, 2003). Second, many scales have not been tested for their psychometric properties (e.g. Wang & Lamb 1983;
Papadopoulos, Heslop & Beracs, 1990; Ger, 1991), thus challenging the methodological soundness of these scales. Once again, to the best of the author’s knowledge, no study exists so far that has empirically tested the impact of country image and university reputation on the intention to study.
5.12 A REVIEW OF CI AND CI RELATED SCALE DEVELOPMENTS IN THE