earticle

영어

Recently lots of korean companies are entering into chinese market, but few companies are making successful business establishments. One of the biggest reasons of this result may be due to the lack of understanding about chinese consumers. Therefore this study analyzed how country image and product image play an role in buying decision of chinese consumers in the competitive chinese automotive market. When consumers buy a product, country image and product image may play a very important role. From this perspective, this study analyzed whether country image and product image have an effect on product evaluation. For the purpose of empirical testing, chinese consumers in local market were surveyed and the analysis and test of research hypothesis was made through structural equation model. The test results of the hypothesis are as follows. in the case of South Korea, the economic image and the political image had a positive (+) effect on the functional image but the cultural image did not have a positive (+) effect on the functional image. The economic image and the cultural image had a positive (+) effect on the symbolic image but the political image did not have a positive (+) effect on the symbolic image. In the case of Japan, the economic image, the political image and the cultural image had a positive (+) effect on the functional image. The economic image and the cultural image had a positive (+) effect on the symbolic image but the political image did not have a positive (+) effect on the symbolic image. In addition, the functional image and the symbolic image in Korea and Japan both had a positive (+) effect on the product evaluation. Finally, we discussed the results of this study and the theoretical and managerial implications, and presented the limitations of the study and future research directions.