Not All Image the Same: Institutional Antecedents and Brand Implication of Country Image

The effect of distance on a consumer’s perception of a foreign country is yet to be concluded. Although country image, or country of origin, has been a hot topic in the fields of international business and marketing for several decades, scant attention has been paid to its institutional antecedents. By introducing institutional distance as an antecedent of country image, this paper differentiate the three dimensions of country image and find that technological country image is negatively related to institutional distance, that economical country image is not related to institutional distance, and that political distance is positively related to institutional distance. The same patterns of results are seen in three dimensions relationships with brand recognition. Beyond these interesting findings, we further discuss the conditional effect of global identity and product involvement on the relationship between institutional distance and country image. Both global identity and product involvement are found to negatively moderate the magnitude of institutional distance’s effect on country image. Further discussion and research direction are provided.