Abstract
The purpose of this study is to examine the Irish country-‐of-‐origin effect and its
impact on Irish consumers’ decision-‐making when it comes to purchasing grocery products. There are many apposing theories on the topic, but research suggests the country-‐of-‐origin is an important cue to the decision-‐making process. The effectiveness and processing of the cue, however, depends on various other factors, such as: if it is set as part of multiple cues or a single cue, the time interval of presenting the information, product knowledge, country knowledge, level of ethnocentrism, demographic variables etc. The outcome of this research paper is that when it comes to low-‐involvement purchasing decisions, taking the country-‐of-‐origin into account, Irish
consumers tend to be more likely to purchase products with an Irish country-‐of-‐origin. Furthermore, research has shown that those respondents that are more likely to purchase the product with country-‐of-‐origin being Ireland, are also generally more willing to pay more for these products. Limitations of this research paper include the fact that this research paper merely focuses on low-‐ involvement purchasing decisions, specifically when it comes to purchasing grocery products. Another research limitation is that as this research paper focuses on the Irish market, it cannot be applied to generalize about other cultures and markets. As a practical implication, marketing practitioners, wanting to validate the use of country-‐of-‐origin cue, can utilize this research, as the impact of voluntary logos facilitate in an increased likelihood to purchase the product amongst Irish consumers. This paper is the first paper that looks into the country-‐of-‐origin of Ireland specifically, and its effectiveness related to the purchase of low-‐involvement products. Author Keywords: Country-‐of-‐origin, Consumer decision-‐making process, Ethnocentrism, Irish consumers, Low-‐involvement purchasing decisions
