Experimentation Critique

The article 'Effects of Consumer Preferences for Foreign Sourced Products" (Cordell, Victor V., 1992) the author sought to examine the effect a country of origin has on perception of a product by U.S. consumers. The study conducted was to evaluate four different hypotheses.

* "Consumers prefer consumer shopping goods from industrialized countries to those from less developed countries."

* Consumers' quality evaluations of consumer shopping goods are more consistent across products for less developed countries than for industrialized countries.

* Branding interacts with country of origin such that evaluation derogation associated with less developed countries is lower on consumer shopping goods with well-known brand names than those with unfamiliar brand names

* Performance risk interacts with country of origin such that evaluation derogation associated with a less developed country of origin rises as product performance risk rises (Cordell, Victor V. 1992).

The experiment participants were randomly adults. The participants were at random form systematic sampling of a telephone book of a large southwester U.S. city in 1987 (Cordell, Victor V. 1992).

Choosing the participants for the study in this manager caused some issues. The process started by selecting 660 listings out of the phone book. Of these 660 listings, it was found that 280 of the numbers were for businesses, disconnected phone numbers or numbers in which the person did not answer. Of the remaining 380 households, after a screening process, only 199 were useable.

This type of selection process is not only time consuming, but also takes considerable amount of manpower to obtain enough information. Less than a 3rd of the original list was useable at the end. A better way of selecting the participants could have been chosen. There could have been a service available that could have provided a better list in which businesses, non-working numbers and those people who have not consented to surveys in the past. With the new Do not Call lists, it would have been easy to weed out these non-participants. An updated list from the phone company could have been purchased that would have taken out non-working numbers and limited the numbers to residential numbers versus business numbers.

The participants were randomly assigned to one of four different groups and these groups contained the same three sets of questions:

* Country Differences Set

* Product Differences Set

* Product Choice Set (Cordell, Victor V. 1992).

The country differences set asked groups one and two to evaluate their thoughts regarding quality of wrist watches made in 14 different countries. Groups three and four were asked to evaluate the quality of shoes. The 14 different countries were made up of seven industrialized and seven less developed countries. The list of countries was developed by the list generated by the World Bank.

The product differences set asked all participants to rate the ability of countries to produce quality products in eight different product categories. The group was asked to evaluate the quality of each country to provide quality of each product.

The product choice set was broken out into several groups. One group would assess the quality of watches produced by West Germany and Pakistan with the brand names of Timex and Tempomax. Another group would assess quality of shoes with the brand names of Thom McAn and Pfister produced by West German and Pakistan. This type of breakout is a 2x2x2 design.

Of the sets used, it was interesting to break the participants into so many different groups. The results of the study showed that there was a fluctuation of perceived level of quality from industrialized countries rather than less industrialized counties. The level of quality went from high to low and was dependent on the brand name of the product and the country the product was made in. On the other hand, it was shown that less industrialized countries had a more stable level of quality, independent from the product produced. The level of quality was less than what was perceived by industrialized countries.

In the country differences set, the perceived level of quality was higher in industrialized countries and in lesser industrialized countries. The variance of quality measures varied in the industrialized countries depending if the country were viewed as a specialist in creating such a product. An example would be, shoes from Italy would be perceived of high quality and low in Germany, even though Germany is known for quality. However, Germany could receive high marks for watches although Italy received low ratings. The perception that one country is better at producing a specific product is shown to occur. Less industrialized counties had a more standard perception of quality by the product. This is because the product doesn't matter much in quality perceptions. If a country is viewed