Collective Goods, Free Riding and Country Brands: The Chinese Experience
研究了国家品牌作为集体物品的特性，分析企业如何搭便车损害品牌信誉，并以中国品牌为例探讨政府等机构如何应对，对研究品牌管理和发展中国家营销的学者有参考价值。
Company brands signify a message to consumers about the quality and value of a product. Countries can also be branded. However, unlike the brands of individual firms, country brands are collective goods. The nature of country brands creates the possibility of free riding, where individual firms benefit – in terms of price or access – from the promise made by a country brand but deliver at a level lower than what is promised by the brand. Such free riding threatens the stability of what the country brand represents unless legal, governmental, or other institutions engage in activities to reduce these adverse effects. In this paper, we investigate the Chinese brand – once standing for average quality at a low price – in the light of recent recalls. We examine how country brands emerge and the incentives that firms operating in a country have to either support or not support a country brand. We also explore the implications of diese incentives for the role of various institutions, including the government, in developing, maintaining and changing a country brand and in developing and enforcing the policies, such as protection of intellectual property, necessary to support firms' efforts toward reinforcing a trusted country brand.