N/A

The Honduran car market preferences have evolved in the past decades due to several factors, perhaps the most noticeable are the economic and political atmosphere, which have created the need to own a personal car while at the same time, forcing consumers to seek alternatives that adjust to their financial conditions. The purpose of this study is to identify whether certain attributes mediated through the application of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), can predict the consumer’s preferences in order to identify a potential business in the Honduran market. The three external product attributes studied in this research were - country of origin image, brand image, and price. The model was tested using Structural Equation modeling based on a sample size of 204 respondents from Honduras. Our results indicate that the three elements of the TPB - attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control, all have significant positive influences on the purchase intention of Taiwanese car brands. Furthermore, only country of origin image had a positive effect on purchase intention through attitude and perceived behavioral control, but not through subjective norms. Moreover, price, without mediation from the elements of the TPD, was also positively related to purchase intention. Furthermore, findings from this study can be used by investors or firms to perform an initial research on the feasibility of penetrating the market with a certain brand, based on the three main external product attributes.

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