인도는 인구 대국으로서 4차 산업혁명시대를 맞아 갈수록 중요도를 더해가고 있는 주요 신흥 시장이다. 한국으로서는 대중국 의존도를 줄이기 위한 대체시장으로서 전략적 중요도가 점점 더 높아지고 있는 국가이다. 하지만 선진국들이나 중국, 일본의 소비자 구매의도에 대한 연구들에 비해, 인도의 소비자 구매의도에 미치는 요인에 관한 연구는 양적으로나 질적으로나 아직 미미한 수준이다. 특히 인도 시장에 관한 기존 단독 연구들은 타겟(BOP시장 또는 프리미엄시장)을 바탕으로 한 현지화 등 단순한 시장 진출전략 위주의 연구들이 주를 이루어 왔다. 따라서 본 논문은 인도 시장에서 국가이미지가 품질지각을 통해 인도 중산층 소비자의 구매의도에 어떠한 영향을 주는지 살펴보고자 한다. 본 연구를 위해 한국과 일본의 가전제품을 구입했거나 충분히 구매할 수 있는 인도 중산층 이상 계층의 소비자를 연구대상으로 삼았다. 연구에 설정된 가설 검증을 위해서 독립변수, 매개변수, 종속변수 각각의 요인에 대해 리커트 5점 척도(Likert 5-scale) 문항 설문조사를 실시하였다. 이후 SPSS와 AMOS 통계프로그램을 통해 구조방정식 모형(Structural Equation Modeling, SEM)을 설정하고 한국과 일본의 연구모형 경로를 각각 분석하였다. 본 논문의 연구결과는 다음과 같다. 첫째, 인도 소비자의 품질지각에 있어서 국가이미지는 통계적으로 유의한 영향을 미쳤다. 둘째, 한국과 일본 연구 모형 모두 품질지각이 구매의도에 정(+)의 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타나 두 모형의 세부가설 3-1, 3-2 모두 채택되었다. 본 연구의 학술적 시사점은 중국이나 개도국, 브릭스(BRICS) 국가들로 묶지 않고 인도 단일 시장만을 대상으로 연구하였으며, 인도 중산층 소비자들이 인식하고 있는 한국 국가이미지에 대해 실증적으로 분석하였다는 점이다. 뿐만 아니라 한국과 일본 양 국가의 국가이미지 비교분석을 통해 결론을 도출하여, 향후 인도 시장으로 초기 진출하고자 하는 기업들의 마케팅 전략 측면에서 도움이 될 수 있을 것이라고 사료된다. 분석 결과 한국의 국가이미지 중 정치/관계적 요인이 거의 영향력이 없으며, 제대로 형성되지 않았음을 알 수 있다. 이를 바탕으로 인도와의 정치/관계적 요인 강화가 필요하다는 정책적 시사점 또한 제시한다.
India, as a population giant, is a major emerging market that is increasingly important in the era of the fourth industrial revolution. Until the early 2000s, the Indian market was recognized that real purchasing power was insufficient as 60% of the population was poor. Therefore, the price factor was the top consideration for Indian consumers’ purchase intention. However, with India’s economic growth and the middle-class ratio and disposable income increasing, there have been changes in spending patterns. Recent studies show that various factors other than price such as national image are affecting the purchase intention of the middle-class in India. On the other hand, compared to research on developed countries or Chinese markets, the impact of those factors in the Indian market are still insignificant both in quality and in quantity. Prior studies on the Indian market have mainly focused on market entry strategies including localization based on targeting the BOP market or Premium market. Against this backdrop, this study aims to examine how national image affect the purchase intention of middle-class consumers through quality perception in the Indian market. In order to achieve the purpose of the study, the participants were selected from middle-class consumers in India on the basis of their experience of purchasing Korean or Japanese corporation’s electronics or their likelihood of buying these products. Participants were asked to respond using a 5-point Likert scale that was designed to confirm dependent and independent variables. Data management and analysis were performed using SPSS and AMOS that draw Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to conduct path analysis of the two countries. The analysis revealed the national image of Korea and Japan in the Indian market, quality perception and purchase intention. The research findings of the present study were: 1) It was found that national image had a statistically significant effect on the quality perception of Indian consumers. In the case of the Korean model, economic/technical and social/cultural factors among others had a positive effect on product and service factors in quality perception respectively, adopting hypotheses 1-2 and 1-5. The political/relational factors were found to have a negative effect, so the hypothesis 1-4 was rejected. Meanwhile, only economic/technical factors among national images had a positive effect on the quality perception in the case of the Japanese research model adapting hypothesis 1-5. 2) Both Korean and Japanese models showed that quality perception had a positive effect on purchase intention adapting hypotheses 2-1 and 2-2 respectively. In both models, the product factor coefficient value of quality perception was higher than that of service factor, indicating that product factors had a greater influence on purchase intention during quality perception. The findings from this study make several contributions to the field. First, the findings in this study provide an understanding of a new tendency that middle-class consumers’ spending patterns have changed with their growth and spending has increased due to the influence of national images and not just the price. The data suggests that national image have an effect on purchase intention with perceived quality in India. Second, the findings of this investigation complement those of earlier studies. In particular, the present study provides an empirical investigation focusing on the Indian market, unlike other studies which group it with China, developing countries, and BRICS. Lastly, the result of this research suggests that political/relational factors between Korea and India should be reinforced as the empirical analysis shows that political/relational factors of Korean national image have little influence. The relationship between Korea and India needs to come to the fore in Korean policy to strengthen the relationship and promote substantial cooperation.