diff --git a/numpy/_core/src/multiarray/stringdtype/dtype.c b/numpy/_core/src/multiarray/stringdtype/dtype.c
index 81a846bf6d96..cb8265dd3d7a 100644
--- a/numpy/_core/src/multiarray/stringdtype/dtype.c
+++ b/numpy/_core/src/multiarray/stringdtype/dtype.c
@@ -270,6 +270,15 @@ as_pystring(PyObject *scalar, int coerce)
                         "string coercion is disabled.");
         return NULL;
     }
+    else if (scalar_type == &PyBytes_Type) {
+        // assume UTF-8 encoding
+        char *buffer;
+        Py_ssize_t length;
+        if (PyBytes_AsStringAndSize(scalar, &buffer, &length) < 0) {
+            return NULL;
+        }
+        return PyUnicode_FromStringAndSize(buffer, length);
+    }
     else {
         // attempt to coerce to str
         scalar = PyObject_Str(scalar);
diff --git a/numpy/_core/tests/test_stringdtype.py b/numpy/_core/tests/test_stringdtype.py
index ad4276f40a3e..29b52b27afe8 100644
--- a/numpy/_core/tests/test_stringdtype.py
+++ b/numpy/_core/tests/test_stringdtype.py
@@ -190,10 +190,14 @@ def test_array_creation_utf8(dtype, data):
     ],
 )
 def test_scalars_string_conversion(data, dtype):
+    try:
+        str_vals = [str(d.decode('utf-8')) for d in data]
+    except AttributeError:
+        str_vals = [str(d) for d in data]
     if dtype.coerce:
         assert_array_equal(
             np.array(data, dtype=dtype),
-            np.array([str(d) for d in data], dtype=dtype),
+            np.array(str_vals, dtype=dtype),
         )
     else:
         with pytest.raises(ValueError):
@@ -284,6 +288,14 @@ def test_bytes_casts(self, dtype, strings):
             barr = np.array(utf8_bytes, dtype=bytes_dtype)
             assert_array_equal(barr, sarr.astype(bytes_dtype))
             assert_array_equal(barr.astype(dtype), sarr)
+            if dtype.coerce:
+                barr = np.array(utf8_bytes, dtype=dtype)
+                assert_array_equal(barr, sarr)
+                barr = np.array(utf8_bytes, dtype="O")
+                assert_array_equal(barr.astype(dtype), sarr)
+            else:
+                with pytest.raises(ValueError):
+                    np.array(utf8_bytes, dtype=dtype)
         except UnicodeEncodeError:
             with pytest.raises(UnicodeEncodeError):
                 sarr.astype("S20")