The Theory of Planned Behavior in Country Image Structure: An Evaluation of Service Industry in Arab Setting

The last 20 years witnessed researchers focus on developing an integrative theory on the structure of origin-country image (OCI) in consumer evaluation of products. Effects of country-of-origin (COO) on product evaluation have been studied by a plethora of previous research with a focus on manufactured goods. The role of product county image is theorised as halo and summary construct models. Nevertheless, subsequent studies merged the two models to describe the OCI structure but without a full consideration of relationships inherent in each model. It is hence crucial to extend on investigating both the effect and structure of country image in product evaluation. Earlier findings assert that consumer familiarity with a country s products is not a strong predictor that influences the order of the cognitive relationship between country image, product beliefs, and product evaluations. On these grounds, consumers situational involvement with a behavioural decision given various familiarity levels is theorised to predict the relationships inherent in the structure of country image. Hence, this proposed project attempts to extend research on the cognitive structure of OCI through utilisation of the theory of planned behavior (TPB)(Ajzen, 1988, 1991).The focus will be on the service industry; namely tourism and fashion design. The hypotheses related to the proposed subject will be empirically tested in Oman.