Revisiting Country of Origin Research: TCCM and BERT Driven Review

This review paper synthesizes existing country-of-origin knowledge to provide a holistic understanding and address the fragmentation in prior research. The study conducted a systematic literature review of 626 Scopus-indexed, ABDC-ranked articles published between 1969 and 2025, using the theories, characteristics, context, and methodology (TCCM) framework, the scientific procedures and rationales for systematic literature reviews (SPAR-4-SLR) protocol, and the bidirectional encoder representations from transformers (BERT) analysis. TCCM analysis reveals cue utilization as the most prominent theory, electronics as the dominant sector, and the USA as the primary research context. Key determinants include country-specific image, product-specific image, partitioned country image, and cognitive/affective/normative image. Perceived quality and product image frequently act as mediators, while involvement level and product category emerge as major moderators. Purchase intention and purchase evaluation are the most examined outcomes. Methodologically, the field is dominated by student respondents, convenience sampling, quantitative methods, descriptive and experimental designs, and techniques such as structural equation modeling (SEM) and analysis of variance (ANOVA). BERT analysis further clusters the literature into three themes: (i) micro-level demand, reflecting consumer-centric perceptions; (ii) meso-level supply, capturing product and firm-related factors; and (iii) macro-level country, addressing broader national, technological, and contemporary issues.