a cross-cultural study of 'made in' concepts

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A Cross-Cultural Study of "Made in" ConceptsAuthor(s): Philippe Cattin, Alain Jolibert and Colleen LohnesSource: Journal of International Business Studies, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Winter, 1982), pp. 131-141Published by: Palgrave Macmillan JournalsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/154470.

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A CROSS-CULTURALTUDYOF MADE N CONCEPTSPHILIPPECATTIN*Universityof ConnecticutALAIN OLIBERT**Universit6 des Sciences Sociales de GrenobleCOLLEENLOHNES***General Foods CorporationAbstract. Cross-culturalstudies of the perceptions of countries of origin by industrial usershave been few, but they are importantbecause of their managerial implications for multi-national firms. This study uses data obtained from Americanand French Directors of Pur-chasing of major ndustrial irmsconcerningtheirperceptionsof 5 major madein concepts.After the data were corrected for response bias, results show both how the respondentsperceive the made in concepts and the differences between the American and Frenchperceptions.* Consumers categorize or evaluate brands and products based on various attri-butes, but when they do not know much about a product, their evaluations mayrely on substitute or surrogate indicators; for example, price may be used to eval-uate the quality of a new syrup.1 This surrogate indicators phenomenon is dis-cussed in several textbooks;2 it has also been called stereotyping. 3According to research studies undertaken during the last 15 years, a product'scountry of manufacture is one such surrogate indicator that the consumer haslearned to use when there are missing cues. These research studies can be clas-sified into four groups depending upon whether the studies have been done onconsumers or industrial users and whether they involved specific products or not.Schooler,4 Reierson,5 and Anderson and Cunningham6 have been concerned withthe perception of the made in concept, in general, by consumers. On the otherhand, Etzel and Walker,7 Peterson and Jolibert,8 and Baumgartner and Jolibert9have investigated the perception of specific foreign products by consumers,whereas Gaedeke10 investigated the perception of the made in concept by con-sumers, both in general and in conjunction with specific products. Last, Naga-shima11 and White12 have been concerned with the perception of the made inconcept in general by industrial users, while White and Cundiff13 and Hakanssonand Woots14 studied the perception of the country of manufacture on specificproducts by industrial users.Two conclusions can be drawn based on published work. First, if one finding ofall these studies is that the made in concept influences perception, very few ofthem investigated the importance of this indicator upon purchasing behavior.One exception is the work of Hakansson and Woots,15 who presented evidenceon the importance of this indicator in industrial purchasing behavior, justifying

INTRODUCTION

*PhilippeCattin is an Associate Professor of Marketing n the School of Business Adminis-tration at the Universityof Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut. He has writtenextensively onmarketingand related subjects, mostly concerning modeling and methodological issues.**AlainJolibert is a Professor at and Directorof the Institute des Etudes Commerciales ofthe Universite des Sciences Sociales, Grenoble, France. He has published extensively inmarketingand related literaturein France and in the U.S.***Colleen R. Lohnes is currentlyemployed by the GeneralFoods Corporationas an Assis-tant Products Managerin the company's breakfast foods division. Ms. Lohnes received herMBA n marketingand internationalbusiness fromthe WhartonSchool in 1982. Herexperi-ence includes marketingresearch for the General Electric Companyand Gino's, Inc.

Journal of International Business Studies, Winter 1982 131

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further the importance of the made in concept in the area of industrial marketing.Second, all but 2 studies have used data collected in the U.S. or within one cul-ture.16Nevertheless, cross-cultural studies are of interest because of their man-agerial implications for multinational firms.This article reportsthe results of a cross-culturalstudy concerning the stereotypesthat exist in the mind of American and French industrialbuyers as they considerindustrial products manufactured in selected developed nations. As indicated byWhite, knowledge of the purchasing managers' perceptions is of prime interest inunderstanding their influence upon purchasing behavior.This study can be con-sidered as a replication and extension of the studies done by Nagashima andWhite in a different cross-cultural context.17

METHODOLOGYAND DATAANALYSISThe Data

CountryofManufactureInfluences thePurchasingDecision

The study reported in this article makes use of the questionnaire developed byNagashima.18 Using data collected in 1965 from 70 Minnesota businessmen, Na-gashima compared the American and Japanese perceptions of products thatwere made in England,France, West Germany,Japan, and the U.S. Data were col-lected again in 1975 by Nagashima on a sample of 120 Tokyobusinessmen to as-sess the changes in the Japanese perceptions about foreign products from 1967to 1975.The respondents selected for this study were the Directors of Purchasing of the350 largest American industrial firms (the first 350 firms in the Fortune 500 list ofIndustrialCorporations)and the 425 firms cited in Europe's Largest Companies[see Noyes Data Corporation 1972] from which only the responses of industrialfirms were kept (95 percent of them). Hence, this study used a narrowlydefinedpopulation: Directors of Purchasing of Industrial Firms, a limitation which en-sures that the samples were comparable across cultures. This population is simi-lar to the population selected by White Whoalso used many of the dimensionsused by Nagashima and by the authors of this study.The questionnaire consists of 20 bipolar dimensions, as did Nagashima's ques-tionnaire, including pricing, reliability, workmanship, technicality, and perfor-mance. (For the remaining dimensions, see Tables 2 and 4.) The respondent isasked to evaluate the made in England, France, West Germany, Japan, and theU.S. concepts on a 7-point semantic differential scale for each of the 20 dimen-sions. The order of presentation of the 20 dimensions was random,and the posi-tive end of each scale was rotated from left to right from one dimension to thenext so that respondent grooving would not occur. The English questionnairewas translated carefully into French, using the process of back translation tominimize the translation bias. Inaddition, the respondent was asked for his most,second, and least preferred country of origin, given that each of the 5 countrieshad an item equal in price, quality, and styling.The English questionnaire was mailed in the U.S. with an American returnenve-lope, while the French questionnaire was mailed in France with a French returnenvelope. On the American side, 123 questionnaires were returned for a responserate of 35 percent, while 97 French questionnaires were received for a responserate of 23 percent. The analysis and results concerning the respondents' prefer-ence for a countryof origin are reportedfirst followed by the analysis and resultsof the semantic differential data.

Table 1 shows the percentage of respondents selecting each countryas their first,second, and last choice among the 5 countries of interest (assuming each coun-try had an item equal in other respects). The results show that both American andFrench respondents prefer local products and then select West Germanproductsas their second choice. This preference confirms the findings of Hakansson and

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TABLE 1QUESTION:Supposing that England, France, West Germany,Japan, and theUSA had an item equal in price, quality, and styling. Which country's productwould you select 1st, 2nd, and last?

American ample %) FrenchSample %)MadeInConcept 1st 2nd Last 1st 2nd LastU.S. 92 6 1 1 1 21France 0 1 62 93 4 0WestGermany 6 48 8 6 73 12England 1 18 17 0 9 41Japan 1 27 12 0 3 26

Woots and of Nagashima obtained with Scandinavian and Japanese respondents,respectively.19

Before analyzing the semantic differential data (and especially before comparingthe results obtained with the American and French respondents), we must checkthe data to find out whether there is any response bias--that is, any systematicdifference in the use of the scales by the American and Frenchrespondents-andthen adjust the data if such bias is found. To this end, the authors computed firstthe mean rating across the 5 made in concepts for each respondent and on eachscale (after assigning a 1 to one end and a 7 to the other end of each scale). Themean of these mean ratings was then computed across respondents for eachscale within each sample of (Americanand French)respondents. The t-value cor-responding to the difference between these means was also computed. Twelve ofthe 20 t-values were significant at the 5 percent level, and 10 at the 1 percent level.This is much morethan expected by chance. The significant differences are shownin Table 2. The 4.73 and 4.18 values obtained for the American and French respon-dents, respectively, on the inexpensive-expensive dimension (row1 of Table 2) in-dicates that the American respondents did use the expensive end of the scalemore than the French respondents.Hence, there is a response bias even though care was taken in selecting the sam-ples and in the translation. Itis likelyto have resulted fromsome other biases thatwere not eliminated (nonresponse or cultural differences). American and Frenchrespondents, even though they are comparable, may have used different evokedsets of products or of made in concepts. In addition, it is noteworthy that theAmerican respondents perceive the 5 made in concepts as a whole as more ex-pensive, unreasonably priced, and luxurious than did the French respondents.Consequently, it seems appropriateto adjust the raw data before comparing theAmerican and French data. The mean rating across the 5 made in concepts wascomputed for each scale and each respondent. It was then subtracted from theraw ratings, and the resulting (corrected) ratings are the ratings used in the re-mainder of this paper. The data were not corrected for differences in standarddeviation (if any). Because of the fact that the more differences a respondent per-ceives across made in concepts on a dimension, the more likely she/he is tospread the concepts on a scale, the differences on standard deviations can, andare likely, to be real, and it seems appropriate to keep these differences in thedata base.20

ResponseBiasandAdjustmentof the SemanticDifferential ata




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TABLE 2Mean Raw Ratings of American and French Respondents Across All Made

American French T-ValueofDimension Sample Sample Difference

Inexpensive 4.73 4.18 5.92bReasonably priced 4.17 3.76 4.52bReliable 3.16 3.41 2.12CLuxurytems 3.45 4.31 8.92bTechnicallyadvanced 2.55 2.81 2.75bMass produced 2.88 2.43 3.96bWorld-widedistribution 3.24 2.77 4.50bInventive 3.43 3.23 2.29CPrideof ownership 3.19 3.62 3.48bMore concerned with outward

appearance 4.37 4.65 2.86bClever use of color 3.42 3.75 3.10bMore for young people 3.98 3.55 4.40baA one was assigned to the end of each scale shown on the left side of the table and a 7 to the end shobSignificantat the 1% level.CSignificantat the 5% level.

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The semantic differential data can be analyzed in different ways to determine theperception of the made in concepts. Ratherthan do a profile analysis like Na-gashima's,21 the authors selected 5 dimensions (out of the 20) that seem a prioriand have been found to be importantfactors in industrial purchasing decisions.22These dimensions are pricing, reliability, workmanship, technicality, and perfor-mance. It should be noted that the addition of other dimensions does not changesubstantially the results. The purpose was to show the strengths and weaknessesof each made in on these 5 dimensions and to obtain an aggregate score indicat-ing the degree of favorableness toward each made in; thus, the favorable endof each scale was assigned the positive end (and the unfavorable end the nega-tive end).The mean ratings obtained for each made in on each scale are shown inTable 3 along with the aggregate mean ratings across the 5 scales. The aggregateresults indicate that made in Germany,although not considered as reasonablypriced, is perceived as the best concept by both American and French respon-dents. This is consistent with both Nagashima's and White's results. Inaddition,the made in France and made in Englandconcepts are not perceived favorably.Table 3 also shows that there are differences between American and French per-ceptions. T-tests could be done to determine the significant differences; however,5 two-group(Americanvs. French)discriminant analyses (one for each made in)can be performedalso where the predictorvariables are the 20 dimensions. Table4 shows the discriminant analysis results rather than the t-tests. The purposeswere to find the strength and significance (if any) of the difference between theAmerican and French stereotypes of the 5 made in concepts (based on the 20 di-mensions at once) and to determine the dimensions that discriminate the mostand significantly between American and French stereotypes. Whereas univariatet-tests give the significance of each dimension (separately), a discriminant analy-sis shows not only the significance of each dimension, but also the contributionof each dimension to the discrimination and the overall strength and significanceof all dimensions at once.Ifthere is no multicollinearityat all, a discriminant analysis and univariate t-testsproduce the same significant dimensions. In the data collected for this study,there is not much multicollinearity. Most correlations between pairs of dimen-sions are low. As a supplementary check, 5 principal component analyses wereperformed,one for each of the 5 countries. The largest eigen value is between 2.5and 4.0 (and the smallest between .2 and .5),so that the first principal componentexplains only between 12.5 and 20.0 percent of the total variance.23Hence, thereis no majorset of factors that explains the 20 dimensions. As a result, the dimen-sions that discriminate significantly between American and French perceptionsare similar to those obtained by t-tests. Across all 5 discriminant analyses thereare only 5 variables that do not have significant t-values (at the .05 level) and thatare significant in the discriminantanalyses (based on the .05 level partial F-value).Moreover, the partial F-values corresponding to these variables are not highlysignificant.These results differ fromthe results obtained byWhitewho found 3 majorfactorsexplaining 70.7 percent of the variance in 12 dimensions (using data obtained fromAmerican purchasing managers).24(These factors were labelled product quality,marketing characteristics, and price.) A major reason for this discrepancy is inthe difference in the dimensions. Among the 12 dimensions used by White, 9 areidentical or very similar to 9 of the 20 dimensions used in this study (expensive,reasonably priced, technically advanced, good workmanship, inventive, largechoice of size and model, highly advertised and promoted, high reliability, andrecognized brand names). The other 3 are different (quality,service, and durabil-ity),and it turns out that manyof White's high correlations (4of the 5 correlationsabove .7) were obtained between these 3 dimensions or between these 3 and theother 9. Hence, without these 3 additional dimensions, the first 3 factors would

Analysisof theSemanticDifferentialData




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TABLE 3Mean Corrected Ratings of American and French Respondents on 5 Dimensions a

ConceptMade in Made in Made inDimension Sample U.S. France West GermanyReasonably priced American + .161 - .764 - .481French + .544 - .523 - .700Reliable American + .346 -1.093 +1.305

French + .301 + .196 + .880Careful and meticulous American - .248 - .903 +1.326

workmanship French - .100 - .158 + .932Technically advanced American +1.058 -1.511 + .943French +1.011 - .276 + .508More concerned with American - .861 - .732 +1.635

performance French + .283 - .373 +1.106Summated scoreb American + .456 - 5.003 + 4.728French + .951 -1.134 +2.726aThe more negative the ratingthe more the corresponding concept is perceived as possessing the dimebEach summated score is obtained by adding up the 5 scores above.

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TABLE 4Discriminant Analysis Results Showing the Dimensions that DiscriminateBetween American and French Perceptionsa

Made in U.S. France W.Germany England JapanInexpensive .326 .346 - .339(5.52) (6.20) (4.07)ReliableLuxury temsExclusiveHeavyindustry productTechnicallyadvancedInventivePrideof ownershipRecognizable brandnamesLargechoice of sizeand modelMore concerned withoutwardappearanceClever use of colorMore for men

.614(25.30)-.468(18.14)

- .287(6.43)- .334(8.71).385(13.47)

- .252(5.05).284(6.75).339(9.45).225(4.10).250(5.35)

- .706(21.81)-.399(7.73).322(4.46).385(6.81)

- .426(16.72)

- .390(6.77)

- .334(4.69)- .239(5.03) - .297(4.29)

.373(4.54)-.414(6.54).474(9.21)

.324(4.21)

Upperclass -.389(6.07)&d2b .628 .652 .405 .370 .353Significance Level


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have explained much less than 70.7 percent of the variance, and our results wouldhave been more in line with White's.25All 5 discriminant analyses are significant at the 0.001 level (Table 4), which indi-cates that the Americanand Frenchperceptions of the strengths and weaknessesof each made in differ significantly. Moreover, he a2 (a measure of discriminatingpower)obtained for the made in U.S.A. and for the made in France conceptsare (.638 and .652 respectively) substantially greater than for the other made inconcepts.26 Hence, the American and French perceptions of the made in U.S. andof the made in France concepts differ more than for the other concepts and so re-flect nationalist biases.The standardized discriminant function coefficients that are significant at the5 percent level based on their partial F-value(presented between parentheses be-low each coefficient) are included in Table 4.27A positive coefficient indicatesthat the French respondents feel that the corresponding concept possessesmore of the right extreme of the dimension, and that the American respondentsfeel that the concept possesses more the left extreme (andvice versa for a nega-tive coefficient). If we take the made in Japan concept as an illustration, Frenchand American respondents differ in their perception along 5 dimensions. The(-.339) coefficient indicates that the French respondents perceive the Japaneseproducts as being more inexpensive than the American respondents. The (.373)coefficient shows that the French respondents perceive these products as moreunreliable than the American respondents. The (-.414) coefficient indicates thatthe French respondents perceive the Japanese products as more exclusive thanthe American respondents. The (.474)and (.324)coefficients reveal that made inJapan is perceived as more technically backward and as having a more limitedchoice of size and model more often by the French respondents than by theAmerican respondents. Moreover, he greater a coefficient relative to others, themore the dimension contributes to the overall discrimination; for instance, withregardto the made in Englanddesignation, the difference between AmericanandFrench respondents originates mostly from the luxury-necessary items dimen-sion. The (-.706) coefficient is by far the highest of the discriminant function andshows that the French respondents perceive British products as a greater luxurythan do the American respondents.28

Discussionof the First, as indicated earlier, the made in West Germany concept is most favorablyResults and the made in France and England concepts least favorably perceived by bothAmerican and French respondents; however, there are differences between theperceptions of the American and French respondents.Japanese products appear to have a less favorable stereotype among the Frenchpurchasing managers than among the U.S. purchasing managers. They are per-ceived, for example, as more unreliable and more technically backward by theFrench than by the American purchasing managers.Made in England appears to be more favorably perceived by the French purchas-ing managers than by the American. It is perceived as more luxurious and moreinventive among the French purchasing managers.Made in Germany does not appear as valuable among the French purchasingmanagers as among the American because it is perceived by the formeras moreexpensive, more heavy industry-oriented, ess technically advanced, and subjectto less pride of ownership.The French and American made in concepts appear the most contrasted ste-reotypes. The type of items (luxuryvs. necessary), the product exclusiveness, itsavailability, the use of color (clever or not), are attributes that are significant inboth discriminantanalyses. Most of these findings are simply national biases -for example, American products are less exclusive in the U.S. and French prod-

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ucts less exclusive in France. From the point of view of specific differences, it ap-pears that American products are perceived as more expensive, as having moreunrecognizable brand names, and as more concerned with performance by theFrench purchasing managers than by the American ones. On the other hand,French products are perceived as less reliable and more imitative by the Ameri-can purchasing managers than by the French.

A cross-cultural response bias was found in the semantic differential data col-lected for this study even though care was taken in the translation-a reminderthat it is indeed important that cross-cultural data be checked and adjusted ifsystematic differences are found.Manyof the authors' empirical findings are consistent with those of Nagashimaand White. Inparticular,West Germanproducts are enjoying a veryfavorable per-ception among Americanand French respondents. As far as differences betweenthe perceptions of the American and French Directors of Purchasing, it appearsthat the Japanese and West Germanmade in concepts are perceived more favor-ably by the American than by the French, while the made in England concept ismore favorably perceived by the French respondents.Because the made in concept plays an important role in the perception processof purchasing managers, in particular n the assessment of the qualityof the prod-uct,29 and because it is also an important criterion in the decision process ofthese managers,30the preceding findings have practical implications for multina-tional corporations, at least those that market industrial goods. Such corpora-tions should be cautious in their use of made in. If a made in designation is notfavorably perceived, two main strategies can be used. The first one relies upon acommunication campaign oriented towardthe improvementof the national image;however, such a strategy cannot be undertaken by one company alone becauseof the cost involved. It can only be a concerted action by several firms with sup-port from the national authorities. The second strategy involves the associationof the corporation with local institutions (and little or no promotion about thecountry of origin).This may be achieved by using well-known local distributors,31or by the domestication of the firmthrough subsidiaries or joint ventures.The findings raise also two theoretical questions. One is related to the variableswhich explain how directors of purchasing acquire an image of product made in aforeign country. Several variables may be influential, such as, cultural, organiza-tion, personality, social, environmental.Some of these variables have been inves-tigated in the context of consumer purchasing (forexample: personality variablesby Anderson and Cunningham32),providingexplanations of the perception pro-cess. Moreresearch of this type needs to be performed n the context of industrialpurchasing. The second question relates to the made in concept itself. Itappearsas a multidimensional concept whose dimensions can vary depending upon thecontext and, therefore, needs to be clarified.

1. R. A. Peterson, ThePrice-PerceivedualityRelationship:xperimentalvidence, our-nal of MarketingResearch, November1970, pp. 525-532.2. See K. E. Runyon,Consumer Behavior(Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. MerrillPublishing,1977),pp.303;or J. F. Engel,D. T. Kollat,and R. D. Blackwell,ConsumerBehavior NewYork:Holt, Rinehartand Winston, 1968), p. 433.3. P. D. Whiteand W. E.Cundiff, Assessing the Qualityof IndustrialProducts, JournalofMarketing,January 1978, pp. 80-86; P. D. White, Attitudes of U.S. Purchasing ManagersTowardIndustrialProducts Manufactured n Selected Western EuropeanNations, Journalof InternationalBusiness Studies, Spring-Summer 1979, pp. 81-90.4. R. Schooler, ProductBias in the Central American Common Market, Journal of Mar-keting Research, November1965, pp. 394-397.

CONCLUSIONSANDIMPLICATIONS

FOOTNOTES

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5. C. Reierson, Attitude Change Toward Foreign Products, Journal of Marketing Re-search, November1967, pp. 385-387.6. W. Anderson and W. Cunningham, Gauging Foreign Product Promotion, Journal ofAdvertisingResearch, February1972, pp. 29-34.7. M.Etzel and B.Walker, AdvertisingStrategy for ForeignProducts, Journal of Advertis-ing Research, June 1974, pp. 41-44.8. R. A. Peterson and A. Jolibert, A Cross-National Investigation of Price and Brand asDeterminants of Perceived Product Quality, Journal of Applied Psychology 61 (1976),pp.533-536.9. G. Baumgartnerand A. Jolibert, The Perception of Foreign Products in France, inH. K.Hunt,ed., Advances in Consumer Research 5 (1978),pp. 603-605.10. R. Gaedeke, ConsumerAttitudes Towards Products 'Made In'Developing Countries,Journal of Retailing,Summer 1973, pp. 13-24.11. A. Nagashima, AComparison of Japanese and U.S. Attitudes Towards Foreign Prod-ucts, Journal of Marketing,January 1970, pp. 68-74; A. Nagashima, A Comparison of'Made In' Product Image: Survey Among Japanese Businessmen, Journal of Marketing,July 1977, pp. 95-100.12. White, Attitudes of U.S. Purchasing Managers Toward IndustrialProducts Manufac-tured in Selected Western EuropeanNations.13. White and Cundiff, Assessing the Qualityof IndustrialProducts.14. H. Hakansson and B. Woots, SupplierSelection in an International Environment-AnExperimentalStudy, Journal of MarketingResearch, February1975, pp. 46-54.15. Ibid.16. The only two cross-cultural studies are those of Nagashima (U.S. and Japan) and ofPeterson and Jolibert (U.S.and France).17. Nagashima, AComparisonof Japanese and U.S.AttitudesTowardsForeignProducts,and A Comparison of 'Made In' Product Image:Survey Among Japanese Businessmen ;White, Attitudes of U.S. Purchasing Managers TowardIndustrial Products Manufacturedin Selected Western EuropeanNations.18. Nagashima, AComparisonof Japanese and U.S.Attitudes TowardsForeignProducts.19. Hakansson and Woots, SupplierSelection in an International Environment-An Ex-perimental Study.20. I.Cunningham,W. Cunningham,and R. T. Green, TheIpsative Process to Reduce Re-sponse Set Bias, Public Opinion Quarterly,Fall 1977, suggest that data in cross-culturalstudies be ipsatized, that is, adjusted for differences not only in means, but also in stan-dard deviations. The authors just argued, on the one hand, that differences in means arelikely to be due to some response biases, and on the other, that differences in standarddeviations are likelyto be real. Hence, it is appropriate'to adjust the data for differences inmeans, but not for differences in standard deviations.21. Nagashima, A Comparison of Japanese and U.S. Attitudes Towards Foreign Prod-ucts, Figures 1 and 2.22. See G. W. Dickson, AnAnalysis of Vendor Selection Systems and Decisions, Journalof Purchasing, February1966, pp. 5-17.23. For instance, the largest eigen value obtained with the made in Japan data was 3.38,and the lowest .36. The first 3 components explained 34.8 percent of the variance. Similarresults were obtained (a)with the data from each of the 4 other made in concepts, or (b)bypooling the data from the 5 made in concepts into one data base, or (c) after separatingthe Americandata from the Frenchdata. For instance, pooling the American data obtainedon all 5 made in concepts produceda high eigen value of 3.30 and a low of .40.24. White, Attitudes of U.S. Purchasing Managers Toward Industrial Products Manufac-tured in Selected Western EuropeanNations, pp. 85 and 86.25. Inour questionnaire, the positive end of each scale was rotated from left to rightfromone dimension to the next (as indicated earlier).If this is not done, respondent groovingcan occur, which would increase the correlations obtained between dimensions.26. The total variabilityof a discriminant function attributableto groupdifferences can beestimated with w2.In the 2-groupcase it can be defined as follows:

NC~2 1 - (N - K)(1 + X)+ 1where N is the total sample size;

k is the numberof groups; andX is the eigen value found in computing the discriminant function.

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See M.Tatsuoka, Selected Topics in AdvancedStatistics, An ElementaryApproach(Cham-paign, IL: nstitute for Personality and AbilityTesting, 1970),p. 48. formula(6.50).27. A partialF-value measures the discriminationintroducedby a variableafter taking intoaccount the discriminationachieved by all the other(19)variables.This method is also calledthe conditional deletion method. See R. A. Eisenbeis, Pitfalls in the Application of Dis-criminantAnalysis in Business, Finance, and Economics, Journal of Finance, June 1977,pp. 882-885.28. It is worth mentioning that the discriminant analysis results obtained without correct-ing the data for response bias are quite different fromthe results in Table4. Thea2are .672,.526, .474, .310, and .425 for the made in U.S., France,West Germany,England,and Japan,respectively. Moreover,the dimensions that have a significant coefficient are differentfromthose in Table 4. For instance, there are 7 significant coefficients for the made in En-gland concept including only one of the 4 in Table 4.29. White and Cundiff, Assessing the Qualityof IndustrialProducts.30. Hakansson and Woots, SupplierSelection in an InternationalEnvironment-An Ex-perimental Study.31. Reierson, AttitudeChange TowardForeign Products.32. Anderson and Cunningham, Gauging Foreign Product Promotion.


a cross-cultural study of 'made in' concepts

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