The role of country of origin in supporting export consortia in emerging markets

This paper investigates the role of country of origin (COO) effects in facilitating export consortia market penetration efforts in emerging markets. Thus far export consortia have received limited attention in the academic literature. Moreover, the role of COO in export consortia thus far has been neglected and more generally the theme of COO has been investigated widely with regard to its impact on customers, but to a lesser extent as a strategic option to be actively exploited by firms. The research methodology is qualitative and is based on the case-study analysis of Alpha, an Italian export consortium active in the food market in India. The case of Alpha shows that the strategic use of COO could provide advantages – in terms of image and market penetration - to export consortia, notably in new and complex markets as India, even though various hurdles – in terms of consortium structure and functioning – have to be faced