Effect of country image and materialism on the quality evaluation of Korean products: Empirical findings from four countries with varying economic development status

Purpose: It is critical to understand how global consumers evaluate the quality of Asian products while marketing Asian products in the global marketplaces. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of Korea’s macro and micro country image and global consumers’ materialism level on the quality evaluation of Korean cosmetics among consumers in four countries. Design/methodology/approach: Data from 900 participants were collected from consumers aged 20 or older living in economically developed countries (the USA and France) and economically developing countries (China and Vietnam) via professional online survey firms. Multiple regression analyses were used to analyze the data. Findings: Along with the direct effect of macro and micro country image and materialism on product quality evaluation, a moderating effect of materialism and the respective country was discovered. Subsequently, the effect of macro country image on quality evaluation was found to be only significant in the USA and France and not in China and Vietnam. In contrast, the impact of micro country image was robust across all four countries. Furthermore, the effect of materialism on product quality was significant only in Vietnam. This implies that materialistic consumers in emerging markets might have favorable perceptions regarding the quality of Korean cosmetics. Originality/value: This study advances country image research by providing new theoretical and managerial implications for countries whose image is less distinctive with respect to the effective marketing of products by the destination countries’ development status and consumers’ familiarity.