eThesis - School of Business electronic theses

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Quality has been an important focus for researchers across the marketing field. In more recent years, studies have moved from only examining the objective physical attribute s of products and services, to attempting to understand how the subjective perception of quality by the consumers is formed and how it affects their behavior in the market. Their perception is not only affected by the products physical and visual attributes, but by a variety of issues such as situational factors, personal attributes and ultimately culture.

In examining the relationship between the concept of quality perception and culture, previous studies have been mainly focused on the far ends of the cultural spectrum, where nations without strong cultural drivers have been left out. Additionally, previous research suggests that a particular nation's culture does not make large fluctuations in relation to others even in the long-run, which has not been studied for transitional economies in Eastern-Europe.

Ultimately this study finds that the cultural factors identified by previous research as well as their relevance to quality perception are evident. However, there can also be evidenced a clear evolvement of these factors, which has not been taken into consideration in earlier studies. The findings for the imported baby foods market, bring out important issues concerning the perception of quality in the Bulgarian market, which may be utilized by a variety of imported goods and their marketing.