Files
Abstract
The present study attempts to assess the impact of the COO effect on the
evaluation of specific food products by Greek consumers. This issue has been examined
exhaustively in the international literature, albeit very few studies concern food
products. A particular effort is geared towards measuring consumers' ethnocentric
tendency as antecedent to the appearance of the COO effect and examining the level at
which the latter is activated (product or attribute- specific). In this respect, consumer
attitude (dis)similarities towards product types are analysed with exploratory and
confirmatory factor analyses. Data were collected though personal interviews with a
sample of 274 respondents, which compared two food products of Greek origin (ham
and yellow cheese) to their counterparts from Italy and the Netherlands. Results
indicate that respondents exhibit a marginally ethnocentric tendency. Overall, although
the present study reveals the existence of COO effect activated at the product - level, a
more thorough analysis justified only minor differences between the competing
products at the attribute level.