Résumé
An interesting result emerging from the COO literature (Han, 1989), is that perceived congruity between brand (or product category) and origin can have a positive impact on consumer evaluation (Gurhan-Canli and Maheswaran 2000; Häubl and Elrod 1999), and the extent of this effect might be greater than the effects of brand, or origin. This result underlines that prime importance in COO management could be more the branded product by country of origin interaction than the corresponding principal effects of attitude toward the origin. However, there are theoretical and methodological limitations to this result: i) the congruity concept has been diversely conceptualized and measured; ii) experimental designs do not control at the same time for product category, brand, origin attitudes and their respective perceived congruity with, as a consequence, potential confounds effects; iii) measurement error is generally not taken into account, with negative consequences on theory testing. In this perspective, we propose to analyze and compare the effects of attitude toward the product category, the brand, the geographical origin and the corresponding perceived congruity factors (product category x origin, brand x origin, product category x brand) on the evaluation (intention to purchase) of a branded product of origin. Measurement error will be taken into account by means of a multi-item measurement process and structural equation modeling.