Country image determinants: Canada’s image in the Republic of Croatia

Country image has been a challenging area of interest to scientists and marketing professionals for years. Results of a number of comprehensive research projects support assumptions on the importance of the impact that country image has on the decisions of consumers and businessmen with respect to the choice of products, services, business partners, markets, as well as tourist and foreign investment destinations. Knowledge of the determinants of the country image construct, their nature, intensity, direction and of the possibilities of their effective management is necessary indeed for strategic marketing reflection and action. The first part of the paper provides an overview of some international and local theoretical contributions. It was compiled in the chronological order to include the most interesting of such contributions, in the authors’ opinion, in which research objectives focus predominantly on identifying the source, nature, content, number and interdependence of different country image construct determinants. The second part describes research on Canada’s image that was conducted among the student population. Canada’s overall image was assessed on the basis of applied methodology. The estimated values of individual dimensions of Canada’s image were also determined in comparison to the estimated importance of individual country image dimensions in general. The level of the respondents’ active knowledge of Canada was analyzed by examining the content of their associations. Two hypotheses were tested. Despite limitations, results support the findings of previous research that had proven the multidimensionality of the country image construct, and the dependence of the value of its dimensions on the level of consumers’ and businessmen’s knowledge on and experience of a specific country.