EXPRESS: Country Image Evaluations, Eco-Labels, and Consumer Willingness to Pay: Does Perceived Sustainability Matter?

Extant research on how country-of-origin (COO) and sustainability cues jointly influence consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) paints a highly contradictory picture. Drawing on cue utilization, signaling, and attribution theories, we develop a conceptual model to explain how WTP for a branded product is affected by consumers’ country image evaluations and exposure to sustainability information provided by eco-labels. We test our model in three studies – two in an advanced market (Italy) and one in an emerging market (Türkiye) – covering two different product categories (Study 1 ITALY : microwave ovens, N=612; Study 2 ITALY : chocolate, N=597; Study 3 TÜRKIYE : chocolate, N=416). The results, across all three studies, reveal that (1) country image evaluations and eco-labels have positive, additive effects on consumer perceptions of product sustainability, (2) consumer skepticism adversely affects product sustainability perceptions, and (3) country image directly and positively impacts consumer WTP. Furthermore, perceptions of product sustainability mediate the effects of country image, eco-labels, and consumer skepticism on WTP but only in an advanced market setting. Finally, consumer attributions of responsibility for carrying the costs of sustainability moderate the effect of perceptions of product sustainability on WTP but only for high value products. Implications of the findings for theory and practice are considered and avenues for further research identified.