KOREASCHOLAR

Country image is a construct with far-reaching commercial implications (Kotler and Gertner, 2002). It is often held up as an antecedent condition of attitude formation towards products (Verlegh and Steenkamp, 1999; Laroche et al., 2005; Zeugner-Roth and Diamantopolous, 2009), as a determinant of visiting intentions for tourist destinations (Nadeau et al., 2008; Martínez and Alvarez, 2010) or even as a source of political power (van Ham, 2001; Nye, 2004; Wang, 2008). However, the way in which country image is approached in the literatures dealing with it various venues of relevance almost exclusively threat the construct as a source of some exerted effect and rarely venture into the issue of how country image is formed and how it various venues of its commercial relevance interact. Some exceptions to this general rule can be found in White (2012) who explored how product image exerts a formative effect on country image, a country-of-origin effect in the inverse. Also, Nadeau et al. (2008) observed that country image as it pertains to destination image as well as to exports intersect in an interesting way and that the two areas of commercial relevance indeed are not completely separate. In the present study we postulate that the meaning attributed to a particular country’s image is the result of an oscillation of meaning between that attributed to objects (such as for instance products, destinations or people) associated to the country and the country image itself. I.e. a product perceived as being associated to a country would derive its meaning from the country image but also exert a feedback of meaning towards the country image. Any association is not only a determinant of meaning towards one of the objects in an association dyad (cf. Keller, 1993) but this meaning also, through association, transfer in the inverse direction as well. This suggests that any venue of meaning attribution to a country could potentially exert an effect on any situation in which the country in turn exerts a formative influence. For example, a product image of a product associated to a country could potentially exert an influence on the countries attractiveness as a tourist destination through a mediated influence through country image. In order to put this mechanism to the test 500 respondents from the USA (311 female, x age 46.5, respondents of Korean origin excluded) were recruited through an online panel and subjected to a psychometric test-series featuring items pertaining to the image of South Korea, the image of South Korean products and various factors pertaining to the respondent’s attitude towards South Korea as a tourist destination. The resulting data was subjected to statistical analysis using a covariance-based structural equation model approach. The results of the data analysis suggest that attitudes and notions directed to products from South Korea exert a statistically significant effect on the image of the country as a whole. This image in turn exerts an effect on the whether consumers express interest in visiting the country in their capacity as potential tourists. These results are in support of White (2012) in that they demonstrate that attitudes towards products from a particular country contribute to the attitude towards a country as a whole. The results also support Nadeau et al. (2008) in their finding that country image as it pertains to inferring the degree of quality of exports and the attractiveness of a place as a tourist destination should not be compartmentalized, but rather treated as a facets of the same construct. In the present study the case of South Korea was used with a particular goal in mind. The rather unusual historical particularities of the transition of South Koreas economy makes it highly interesting as an example for several reasons. Not only did South Koreas transition take place in a highly compressed timeframe, but it also took a route which runs counter to the notion that tourism often serves as the starting point of economic transition (Dieke, 2003; Dritsakis, 2004; Oh, 2005; Mishra et al., 2006; Kaplan and Celik, 2008) as the rise of South Korea can be said to have been driven by industrial development and exports, prior to the country becoming a popular tourist destination. The particularities of this path to a greater degree of economic development arguably shed new light on the issue of how country image can form and how it pertains to highly variable commercial contexts and how the effect the country image construct exert transect across these various venues of commercial activity.

• Jay Sang Ryu(Texas Christian University)
• Mikael Andéhn(Stockholm Business School)
• Patrick L’Espoir-Decosta(Stockholm Business School)