The importance of "Country Of Origin" in purchasing industrial products: the case of Iran steam utilities industry

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Buyers often make judgments about products on the basis of extrinsic cues, particularly when it is not easy to assess the intrinsic value of a product. This is why Country of Origin (COO), an extrinsic cue, is often used by buyers to judge foreign products. COO effects have been studied extensively in the consumer behavior literature but the effects of country- of-origin have remained relatively unexplored within the particular setting of industrial or business-to-business marketing: however evidence shows that such effects do exist: Moreover, the importance of COO in the presence of other cues, especially by using Conjoint Analysis, has not been so much investigated. Our research is unique in its attempt to combine the buying behavior and COO literatures. Our aim was to gain a better understanding of the importance of the Country of Origin as a product`s supplier selection criteria within steam utilities industry in Iran. Owing to its exploratory nature, the research was conducted in two separate stages: the first stage was qualitative and aimed at deriving the variables needed for use in the second stage of data collection. The most salient attributes found to be COO, brand, price, warranty, and the reputation of retailer or importing company (for foreign made products) in the first stage of study. For the second stage, data was gathered through a survey by means of conjoint questionnaires which were sent to the consulting engineers, the key role players in customer`s DMU in Iran steam utilities buyers. The findings of this study indicated the country of origin is an important attribute in preference evaluation, with an average weighting of 24 per cent: however brand name was more important with the average of 31%. Since consumers make decisions on the basis of only a few att...