Abstract

Aiming to investigate the outcome of firms’ cross-border outsourcing practice from a bottom-up (customer-centered) approach, this research project leveraged on Mandler (1982, 1983)’s schema (in)congruity theory to examine young Montréalers’ reaction to products which had various design and manufacturing origins. With respect to scholars’ previous work, this research proposed that congruity between a product’s country of design and country of manufacture (Haubl & Elrod, 1999), consumer ethnocentric tendency (Shimp & Sharma, 1987) and product function (Voss, Spangenberg, & Grohmann, 2003; Wilcox, Kim, & Sen, 2009), respectively, would have positive impacts on consumers’ product evaluation. According to the questionnaire responses of 278 undergraduate students at Concordia University, no evidence could suggest that consumer evaluation of branded products were affected by the country-of-manufacture cue. Moreover, country-of-design effects and consumer ethnocentric tendency were showed to have different manifestations across product categories. Furthermore, product function was found to be not only positively related to consumer evaluation but also was an imperative mediator in consumers’ attitude toward, quality perception and purchase intention of branded products. Overall, the present study contributed to international business research and consumer behavior study by adding empirical evidence to support scholars’ viewpoint that country-of-origin effects on consumers’ product evaluation may be varied across product categories and by establishing a link between the construct of product function and country-of-origin effects. The importance of product function in end users’ evaluation of branded products shall also shed light on firms’ managerial implications.