The purpose of this paper is to facilitate and clarify the perceptions of Spanish consumers towards China, its people, and its products, while outlining the overall contemporary Chinese product-country image (PCI) within the Spanish market.
A 52-item construct was adapted from former PCI scales from cross-cultural equivalence, including “country image”, “personal image”, “product image”, “general knowledge about China”, and “personal data”. Overall, 215 valid structured questionnaires were gathered.
The current study provides: a PCI literature review; hypotheses results concerning Spanish citizens’ views of Chinese products’ price, quality, technicality, inventiveness, and known brands concepts; descriptive statistics and results graphs for each of the PCI sections; and correlations of other variables with the five product image variables within the construct.
Implementing standardized, longitudinal consumer studies that facilitate better comprehension of PCI evolution within a specific market emerged as a future research agenda.
The data informed both the Chinese public and private organizations’ managers of the importance of adapting to the market and non-market environments within Spain to avoid the liability of country of origin effect.
