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Article

The Effects of China’s Country-of-Origin Image on Uzbekistani Consumers’ Food Purchase Intentions

by
Abulizi Bulibuli
1,
Shalamujiang Maitiniyazi
1,* and
Narboy Karimov
2
1
College of Economic Management, Xinjiang Agricultural University, No. 311 Nongdadong Road, Urumqi 830052, China
2
Department of Economics, Tashkent State University of Economics, 49, Uzbekistan Street, Tashkent 100003, Uzbekistan
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2022, 14(19), 12406; https://doi.org/10.3390/su141912406
Submission received: 26 August 2022 / Revised: 22 September 2022 / Accepted: 23 September 2022 / Published: 29 September 2022
(This article belongs to the Section Sustainable Food)

Abstract

:
Country of origin (COO) is one of the key extrinsic factors to consumers in their decision-making process. This research evaluates the effects of COO image on food purchase intentions in terms of Chinese processed foods among Uzbekistani customers, and there are four dimensions of COO image: product, economic, people, and international relationships. A questionnaire was distributed to consumers in the city of Tashkent, and a total of 287 valid samples were collected. The collated data were analyzed using frequency distribution and charts in addition to Cronbach’s alpha, which was utilized to determine the reliability of the variables. In addition, definitions and explanations were provided with the aid of means and standard deviations, percentages, correlation, and regression. The results showed that product image and people’s perception of COO image influence customers’ food purchase intentions, but there is no significant correlation between economic image or international relationship image and customer purchase intentions inclined towards foods manufactured in China based on the view of Uzbekistani consumers. Furthermore, the outcomes indicated that the effect of COO image would vary based on the nationality of the consumer.

1. Introduction

With extensive globalization, the study of global marketing has become more vital than before. The globalization of trade and importation of foods for production has substantially molded the economic marketplace and made the world smaller [1]. Based on the cue utilization theory, customers create their notions in terms of the class of good in accordance with several indications, such as price, color, packaging, source, or manufacturing [2]. Consumers have different perceptions of the countries where the products are manufactured; the “Made in” notion has gradually become one of the major issues in worldwide marketing. A positive (or negative) image of a country is likely to aid (or inhibit) the rapid recognition of a product, as well as yielding effects on attitudes, preferences, intentions to purchase, and willingness to pay (WTP) in overseas markets [3]. COO is one of the key extrinsic factors to consumers in the decision-making process. It has a greater impact on product evaluation when consumers are less motivated to process available information—for example, when involvement is low, as in food products [4]. The COO is the “nationality” of food when it goes through customs in a foreign country, and is similar to a “brand” that may be designed with a national flag when the food is for sale in a foreign market [5], and it is always linked to quality or safety in the same way as the brand, product label, and general reputation of the nation. Consumers presumably assess the food in terms of the labels linked with the source country and past reviews on the other food of that nation when purchasing. Hence, COO has caught the interest of many scholars in the field of global marketing research for many years [6,7,8]. Both scholars and managers have been finding ways to determine how the COO of a merchandise can influence customers’ food assessments and, furthermore, how much it can affect their decisions when buying [9]. The impact of COO on merchandise assessment may possibly be altered with regard to the nation in which the consumers reside [10]. This is under the consideration that the same country may be regarded in a different manner around the world, and that the COO is accepted as one of the external aspects that impact consumers’ assessment of products [11]. Ultimately, this may contribute to the features of triumph or defeat in a firm’s globalization plan.
Our empirical study investigates the effects of COO image from four perspectives (i.e., product, economic, people, and international relationships) on Uzbekistani customers’ purchase intentions for Chinese food based on 287 valid samples. This research will be valuable to academics, policymakers, and food suppliers for developing marketing strategies.

2. Literature Review

Given the impact of COO image on purchase intentions, it has been studied in many nations. Recent research presented in [12] examined whether the animosity and consumer ethnocentrism models that work in the Western world could be applied to a developing market, and whether these relationships were moderated by country of origin. They reported that consumers’ willingness to buy is impacted by animosity and consumer ethnocentrism. Jin et al., in [13], explored the impact of Korea’s macro (i.e., overall country level) and micro (i.e., product-category-specific level) country image on the quality evaluation of Korean cosmetics among consumers in four countries. The results indicated that the impact of micro country image on consumers was robust across all four countries; however, the effect of macro country image was not significant in China and Vietnam. One study investigated the effects of country-of-origin image from three perspectives (i.e., economic, technological, and human/social) on Italian consumers’ purchase intentions for fruits, home appliances, and clothes imported from France and Brazil [14]. A discrete choice experiment was conducted in [15] to estimate marginal utilities and willingness to pay for different product attributes, focusing on food certification and the country of origin. The results showed that German consumers are price-sensitive and prefer fish produced in Germany over fish farmed in either Bangladesh or Vietnam. According to [16], the level of consumer ethnocentrism among US consumers influences the preference for US-labelled cheese and the visual attention to origin labeling; higher consumer ethnocentrism leads to a greater preference for US cheese as compared to Irish cheese. Based on a large-scale consumer survey conducted in China, Wang et al. [17] examined the different impacts of cognitive country image and affective country image on product image and purchase intention. The results demonstrated that cognitive country image influences purchase through product image, while affective country image has a direct influence independent of product image. Another study [18] sought to advance the theoretical understanding of country-of-origin effects in a crisis management context, via decomposition of the country-of-origin construct into a country image and country–people image at both the cognitive and affective levels. According to [19], China’s country image has a positive influence on Korean consumers’ purchase intentions—both directly (i.e., culture image) and indirectly (i.e., people, politics, and evolution image)—through their product evaluations when purchasing Chinese clothing, food, electric home appliances, and toys. Another study [20] investigated the effects of country image from four perspectives (i.e., economic, political, people, and international relationship image) on Korean consumers’ purchase intentions for Chinese products. They reported that China’s country-of-origin image had different effects on consumers’ perceived value and purchase intentions.
In summary, current research in the field of COO’s effects on consumers’ behavior focus mostly on European, USA, Chinese, and Australian markets [5,8,21,22,23,24], and pay little attention to other geographical markets; in particular, the Central Asian market has been ignored. Global food demand is predicted to increase steeply over the next several decades, particularly in developing countries where rapid population growth and dietary changes may significantly affect the demand for different types of foods [25]. In Central Asia, countries have undergone remarkable gross domestic product growth during the last decade, averaging around 5% per year, and the urban population has grown from 25 million to more than 35.5 million people between 2000 and 2019, the latter representing almost half of the total Central Asian population [26,27]. A transitional economy, Uzbekistan, is the most populous (33.5 million in 2020) in Central Asia and the only one bordering (and, thus, likely to influence) all of the others [28,29,30]. The fast growth of Uzbekistani food markets offers new potential for deeper investigation of the subject. However, very few studies have focused on the COO. One exception is a qualitative study that was carried out in Tashkent [28]. In this study, four focus groups were conducted on consumers’ attitudes towards 12 industrial products manufactured in 12 different countries. They found that whilst consumer stills perceive products from advanced countries to have higher quality, quality perceptions in relation to country-of-origin information are dynamic, and transitional countries can improve the perceptions of consumers towards their national brands. However, it is still essential to explore the impact of country-of-origin on consumer food choices in Uzbekistan.
To the best of our knowledge, nobody has studied the effects of food origins on consumer purchasing decisions in Uzbekistan. In light of this, this study could fill the research gap. The objective of this study is to determine the effects of China’s COO image on Uzbekistani consumers’ purchase intentions under China’s “the Belt and Road” initiative and Uzbekistan’s open economic model. This research contributes to the literature from two important perspectives: First, we contribute to the limited number of recent studies that focus on Uzbekistani consumer food choices. Second, unlike most previous studies, we examine whether a direct correlation exists between the people image and international relationship image of the source country and the consumers’ purchase intentions.

3. Conceptual Framework and Methods

3.1. Theoretical Framework and Hypotheses

A customer’s impression of a country can be created in terms of the quality of the goods or amenities sourced in that location [12,31,32,33]. According to the consumer’s experience with specific merchandise, they may form a good or bad notion of a country which, consequently, affects an individual’s intent to buy from a certain nation [7,34,35,36]. For instance, most customers worldwide opine that several countries have a greater edge in various product groups, e.g., Germany when it comes to automobiles, South Korea is known for beauty products, and France is famous for its exquisite red wine. Under these considerations, we hypothesize in this study that:
Hypothesis 1 (H1):
There is a positive correlation between the product image and consumer purchase intentions.
Moreover, by evaluating the several aspects of the image of a nation, Ref [37] indicated that it involves many dimensions in addition to the quality of specific merchandise—particularly, the insight towards the citizens and their culture, awareness of environmental preservation, and work practices as well as culture in the workplaces of the country. Buying goods from other nations that are at the same time linked with unfavorable political activities is regarded as ethically dubious, as it supports a country financially by buying its goods and services [7,35,38]. With this in mind, a survey was conducted among consumers who either support or are against purchasing foods from a nation in terms of the politics, economy, and social activities of its authorities [39]. The results revealed the substantial influence of various aspects on the customers’ views regarding a country’s image and, hence, their effects on the intent to buy from those nations [34]. Eventually, this influence leads to the motivation to procure foods from a given country, or vice versa [34]. With regards to the aforementioned considerations, and by considering the findings of [20] on the effects of COO image, for this study, we hypothesize the following:
Hypothesis 2 (H2):
There is a positive correlation between economic image and consumer purchase intentions.
Hypothesis 3 (H3):
There is a positive correlation between people’s image and consumer purchase intentions.
Hypothesis 4 (H4):
There is a positive correlation between international relationship image and consumer purchase intentions.
This study aims to identify the effects of COO image on consumer selection or in their decision-making processes (see Figure 1).

3.2. Methodology

3.2.1. Survey by Questionnaire

To test the hypotheses, a questionnaire survey was carried out. Specifically, a quantifiable survey, which concentrated on the influences of China’s COO image on Uzbekistani consumers’ purchase intentions, was regarded as an appropriate research approach for data collection and obtaining inclusive, statistically significant data. In Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, the survey was conducted as we were visiting scholars at Tashkent National Economic University in 2018. There were a total of 400 respondents, of whom 287 responded, representing a 72% response rate. The data on the demographic profile of the participants are presented in Table 1.

3.2.2. Measures

When the situation allowed, we utilized a validated and dependable measurement basis in accordance with the measures of associated concepts in the literature. To test H1 and the other three hypotheses, we referred to previous studies [11,20,38] defining factors of country image and product image, which argue that these variables will affect the buying intention. Respondents were requested to identify to what extent they envision procuring Chinese foods. Their responses were to be based only on their personal view of China’s COO image, including product, economic, people, and international relationship image. Here, once more, [20] provided the method of measuring the purchase intention as well as the product, economic, people, and international relationship image. Subjects provided their answers on a five-point scale from 1 = “Strongly Disagree” to 5 = “Strongly agree”.

4. Data Analysis

The responses from participants were coded into the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS, version 28.0, IBM, Chicago, IL, USA) software for analysis. Meanwhile, frequency distribution and charts together with Cronbach’s alpha were adopted to ascertain how reliable the variables were. Table 2 summarizes the commonly accepted rule for describing internal consistency using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient, as presented in [40]. Meanings and interpretations were discussed using means and standard deviation, percentages, correlation, and regression. The key variables’ descriptive statistics, as well as the Cronbach’s alphas, are provided in Table 3.
Table 3 shows our Cronbach’s alpha results for each construct. It depicts a Cronbach’s alpha (α) range from 0.744 to 0.909, which is more than the suggested limit of 0.70 [41], showing the internal dependability of the variables. We can see that the Cronbach’s alpha score is above 0.7 for each our five constructs. This is generally accepted as meaning that the reliability of our subscale scores is good (see Table 2).
The Pearson coefficient is a measure of the strength of the association between two continuous variables. It is a type of correlation coefficient that represents the relationship between two variables that are measured on the same interval or ratio scale [4,42]. Table 4 illustrates the correlations between variables, which were within the projected directions and consistent with theoretical assumptions, signifying their suitability for additional evaluation.
Regression analysis is a reliable method in statistics to determine whether a certain variable is influenced by certain other(s). The other great thing about regression is that there could be multiple variables influencing the variable of interest. Regression analysis can be used for prediction. The results of the regression analysis conducted to examine our hypotheses are presented in Table 5 and Figure 2.
As mentioned above, H1 was intended to assess the correlation between product image and customer purchase intentions. The results indicate that the former was substantially and positively linked with the latter (b = 0.340; p < 0.01), as predicted.
H3, associated with people’s image and consumer purchase intentions, was also supported (b = 0.168, p < 0.01), as expected, showing that a greater image of people indicates higher intent to buy.
Nonetheless, H2 and H4 were rejected (b = 0.038, p > 0.05; b = 0.073, p > 0.05), contradicting the positive link predicted between economic image/international relationship image and consumer purchase intentions.

5. Results and Discussion

Our findings suggested that the product image was substantially and positively linked with the consumers’ purchase intentions. Our results were broadly consistent with the findings of a previous empirical study [43] that was conducted in Australia, which found that when a strong favorable match exists between country and product image the COO will positively influence the product evaluation and willingness to buy. Conversely, when an unfavorable mismatch is evident, COO would negatively influence consumers’ product evaluations and willingness to buy. Another study also showed that when consumers have a clear product image (e.g., high workmanship), it serves as an information cue to infer product quality and facilitate purchasing decisions directly. In such situations, cognitive country image may influence purchase intentions indirectly through its impact on product image [17], but this is not consistent with the findings of other quantitative studies [20]. This is evidence that although several researchers contend that, in a Korean setting, product impression has no vital impact on buyers’ procurement intentions, in Uzbekistan, the customers’ buying behavior is still affected by product image. Thus, the major issues for Uzbekistani buyers are dependability, design and color, value for money, good customer service, skill, and the technological development of the nation wherein the goods were produced.
The results of the present study show that the greater the image of Chinese people in Uzbekistani consumers’ perception, the greater the purchasing intention of the latter for Chinese food. These findings are consistent with the findings of an empirical study [44] that was conducted in China, which reported that people’s image has a positive effect on consumers’ intentions to purchase mobile phones. Chinese consumers’ purchase intentions for cars, mobile phones, and sportswear imported from Germany, America, Korea, and Japan was effected by people’s image [45]. Ref. [18] sought decomposition of the country-of-origin construct into a country image (CI) and a country people image (CPI) at both the cognitive and affective levels, and the results of the study highlighted that they had effects on consumers’ purchase behavior. Another study [19] showed different results, where China’s country image had a positive influence on the product purchase intentions both directly (culture image) and indirectly (people, politics, and evolution image) through the product evaluations. Another study conducted in China [46] showed different results, where the effect of the people’s image on consumer purchase intentions varied between different product categories. In general, these different results may indicate that people’s image has different effects on consumer purchase intentions for different products.
In our study, H2 and H4 were rejected, contradicting the positive link assumed between economic image/international relationship image and consumer purchase intentions. To a certain extent, this result is contradictory to the findings of other studies. Four focus groups were conducted in the UK in [47], and reported that, overall, national foods were viewed as being of a higher quality than imported foods and were most often purchased by consumers. This is similar to the findings of a study in the USA, where American consumers preferred domestic organic broccoli to imported organic broccoli [48]. Ref. [49] examined Korean consumers’ preferences between US and Uzbekistani cherries. The results showed that consumers had more price perception, brand familiarity, and food safety confidence with regard to Uzbekistani cherries, and that their willingness to purchase was high; however, consumers who checked the country of origin were less likely to purchase Uzbekistani cherries. These findings indicated that, overall, consumers prefer products from more economically developed countries to products from less developed countries [21,50]. In contrast to the above findings, Uzbekistani consumers’ purchase intentions were not affected by China’s economic image in the present study. This may indicate something different in the Uzbekistani context—that economic image is not the most important factor to consumers when purchasing food. One possible explanation might be that, as mentioned in the previous study, consumers with strong ethnocentric tendencies may not necessarily perceive domestic products as being of higher quality than imports, even though they reject foreign products on moral grounds [16,51]. A plausible explanation could be that Uzbekistani consumers have more empathy for domestic farmers and concern for their livelihoods compared to foreign farmers.
With respect to international relationships, our results were consistent with the findings of a previous empirical study [20] that was conducted in Korea, which found that the international relationship image had no significant effect on consumers’ purchase intentions. A probable reason for this is that the international relationship image of the country of origin entails too many “Macro factors” for consumers—they are more concerned about micro factors such as product and people image. However, no more literature was found regarding international relationship image in the field of COO’s effects, and more research is needed to draw conclusions in this regard.

6. Conclusions

This research was intended to evaluate the effects of COO image on customers’ food purchase intentions. Through a general assessment of previous studies, several aspects that affect consumers’ intent to purchase were determined. With this, economic and international relationship image were the two major features of country image recognized in modern research performed by academics in the area of COO image. Generally, our study showed that product image influenced customers’ purchase intentions towards foods manufactured in China based on the Uzbekistani buyers’ views. Furthermore, the outcomes indicate that the effect of COO image will vary depending on the nationality of the consumer.
The contributions of this study are as follows: Firstly, it involves an intensive evaluation of the several dimensions of COO image, which is a rarely studied field. This combined assessment of the multiple dimensions of COO image could offer a strong guiding principle when it comes to the concept of COO image, primarily in the background of a growing, diverse Central Asian country. Secondly, the research revealed an uncommon feature of COO image by highlighting the manner in which views vary depending on the nationality of the buyers. Past studies on COO image have analyzed the overall effect of COO image—including the constructs of the economic image, political image, people image, and international relationship image—on purchase intentions, without considering the influence of these dimensions separately. However, in these studies, the samples utilized were similar; thus, the contrasts were grounded on the changes in customers’ purchase intentions between “Made in a Foreign Country” vs. “Made in the Home Country”. Considering that the present study’s respondents comprised costumers from developing nations, although all participants were Asian, it is conceivable to assess how the impression towards an overseas-processed product would change in terms of the customers’ nationalities.
In this study, customers considered all aspects of the foods, including quality, health, nutrition, taste, brand, reputation, food packaging, value for money, service, and views unrelated with the merchandise—such as their subjective perceptions about the citizens in the receiving country, their welcoming behavior to foreigners or their countrymen, their honesty, and their hardworking culture. Additionally, the outcomes show the essence of both product and people image in purchasing decisions, and there was no significant correlation of economic image and international relationship image with Uzbekistani consumers’ purchase intentions. These results provide important information for food enterprises that are preparing to enter the Uzbekistani market—or even Central Asia more generally.

7. Limitations and Future Research

This study has some limitations; nevertheless, the research itself and its results have significance, as mentioned above. Primarily, this study considered Uzbekistani consumers’ impressions of China. Still, in the majority of the previous studies in the field of COO image, several nations were considered, and the customers’ views on foods coming from various countries were differentiated. However, in the present study, because the focus was on assessing the many dimensions of COO image, only one nation was studied. Hence, in the future, more studies evaluating the influence of this matter on foods imported from several locations will be necessary, which would help develop the capacity to contrast consumers’ views on several countries along with the various dimensions of COO image. Furthermore, the present research assesses the Uzbekistani customers’ impressions when it comes to the foods processed in China as a whole. Nonetheless, in previous research in this field of study, the focus was on certain product classifications only. Thus, the results acquired from this study may differ if another product group is considered. Consequently, various dimensions of COO image must be evaluated in the future with regards to particular merchandise and amenities.

Author Contributions

Data Curation, A.B. and N.K.; Methodology, A.B. and S.M.; Project Administration, A.B.; Resources, A.B.; Writing—Original Draft, A.B. and S.M. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

The study was supported by the Scientific Research Project of Xinjiang Minority Scientific and Technological Talents Special Training Plan (project 2022D03024), China.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Not applicable.

Data Availability Statement

The data presented in this study are available upon request from the corresponding author.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Figure 1. Conceptual framework.
Figure 1. Conceptual framework.
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Figure 2. Regression weights. Notes: *** p ≤ 0.01.
Figure 2. Regression weights. Notes: *** p ≤ 0.01.
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Table 1. Demographic profile of the participants.
Table 1. Demographic profile of the participants.
VariableFrequencyPercentage
Gender
Male18765.2
Female10034.2
Age
Below 20 years3612.5
20–29 years19567.9
30–39 years289.8
40–49 years144.9
50 and above144.9
Educational qualification
Compulsory education103.5
Senior school or technical secondary school8830.7
Bachelor’s or master’s degree17159.6
Associate PhD134.5
Doctor41.4
Marriage status
Married9031.4
Single19768.6
Monthly purchase frequency of Chinese products
Not once3110.8
1–3 times12342.9
4–10 times8931
11–20 times248.4
Over 20 times207.0
Table 2. Cronbach’s alpha score levels.
Table 2. Cronbach’s alpha score levels.
Cronbach’s AlphaInternal Consistency
α ≥ 0.9Excellent
0.7 ≤ α < 0.9Good
0.6 ≤ α < 0.7Acceptable
0.5 ≤ α < 0.6Poor
α < 0.5Unacceptable
Table 3. Key statistics for the study constructs.
Table 3. Key statistics for the study constructs.
AttributesFactorsMean (M)Standard Deviation (SD)Cronbach’s Alpha
Product imageGood quality3.1291.1890.895
(M = 3.48; SD = 1.08)Good level3.6380.997
Delicate and meticulous3.2021.107
Excellent technology 3.6201.034
Durable and made of good raw materials 3.0561.178
Good reputation 3.3901.068
Highly advertised3.5161.096
Good branding3.3171.141
Good after-sale service 3.2791.090
Good design 3.5851.074
Highly innovative in design 3.6411.061
There are some products I like made in China 3.8820.946
Feel satisfied with the products made in China overall 3.3661.138
Economic imageChina has a high level of industrialization 3.9761.1110.838
(M = 3.93; SD = 1.05)China’s industrial production is very high 4.1780.877
China is a country with good economic development 4.0171.056
China has high technology 4.1011.014
China contributes to science and technology innovation 3.9091.041
China’s economic environment is stable 3.6521.118
China is a modern country 3.8991.078
China is a rich country 3.7071.118
People imageThe Chinese are kind 3.5710.9650.744
(M = 3.64; SD = 0.99)The Chinese are honest 3.2681.001
The Chinese are friendly to foreigners 3.5741.060
The Chinese are hardworking 4.1600.932
International relationship imageChina is a globalized nation 3.8560.9420.790
(M = 3.80; SD = 0.96)China has a friendly relationship with other countries 3.7881.007
China strives to maintain international peace and stability 3.7490.927
Consumer purchase intentionI may consider buying Chinese food3.1531.2110.909
(M = 3.09; SD = 1.24)I will probably buy Chinese food3.1811.250
I may want Chinese food2.9341.271
Table 4. Pearson’s correlation coefficients.
Table 4. Pearson’s correlation coefficients.
Variables (Number of Items)1234
Product image (14)----
Economic image (8)0.441 **---
People image (4)0.487 **0.342 **--
International relationship image (3)0.414 **0.398 **0.415 **-
Purchase intention (3)0.469 **0.275 **0.377 **0.299 **
Note: N = 287 (number of items in parentheses), ** p ≤ 0.01 (two-tailed).
Table 5. Results of regression analysis and hypothesis testing.
Table 5. Results of regression analysis and hypothesis testing.
Hypothesis: VariablesConsumer Purchase IntentionResult
bStd. Errort
H1: Product image0.3400.1035.357 ***Accepted
H2: Economic image0.0380.0950.641Not accepted
H3: People image0.1680.0942.739 ***Accepted
H4: International relationship image0.0730.0861.208Not accepted
Constant−0.999
R20.255
Adj. R20.245
F stat24.170 ***
Note: N = 287, t: t-values, *** p ≤ 0.01; b: standardized estimate; Std. Error: standard error.
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Bulibuli, A.; Maitiniyazi, S.; Karimov, N. The Effects of China’s Country-of-Origin Image on Uzbekistani Consumers’ Food Purchase Intentions. Sustainability 2022, 14, 12406. https://doi.org/10.3390/su141912406

AMA Style

Bulibuli A, Maitiniyazi S, Karimov N. The Effects of China’s Country-of-Origin Image on Uzbekistani Consumers’ Food Purchase Intentions. Sustainability. 2022; 14(19):12406. https://doi.org/10.3390/su141912406

Chicago/Turabian Style

Bulibuli, Abulizi, Shalamujiang Maitiniyazi, and Narboy Karimov. 2022. "The Effects of China’s Country-of-Origin Image on Uzbekistani Consumers’ Food Purchase Intentions" Sustainability 14, no. 19: 12406. https://doi.org/10.3390/su141912406

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