EVALUATION OF THE EFFECT OF COUNTRY-OF-ORIGIN IMAGE, PRODUCT KNOWLEDGE AND PRODUCT INVOLVEMENT ON CONSUMER PURCHASE DECISIONS

Consumer behavior involves many activities. Each consumer has thoughts, feelings, plans, decisions and purchases. An observer who looks only at the act of purchase is likely to miss many of the relevant activities. Marketers should find how consumers can gather information about different choices and how they apply such information in selecting competitor’s products, how consumers decide to purchase and why the purchase process and purchase reasons of different consumers are varied. Relative information about consumer’s behavior will be used in predicting and recognizing their activities in the market. Therefore, it is necessary to have complete information about factors affected on buyer’s behavior and their relation with purchase decision. The present research aimed at evaluation of the effect of country-of-origin image, product knowledge and product involvement on consumer purchase decisions. The research model is based on the research model of Lin and Chen 2006 and the main variables were the followings: Country-of-origin Image Product knowledge Product Involvement Consumer Purchase Decisions Information Search Intention  Purchase Intention Samples were collected from the students of the Islamic Azad University (Tehran Science and Research Branch) and the selective product was cell phone. Sample size was 379 respondents and multiple regression analysis was used to test 9 hypotheses. The result showed that the country of origin image, product knowledge and product involvement all have a significantly positive effect on consumer purchase decision.