UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business LE THI MUI FACTORS INFLUENCING QUALITY OF LIFE A STUDY OF BRAND COMMUNITIES IN VIET NAM MASTER OF BUSINESS (HONOURS) Ho Chi Mi[.]
UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business LE THI MUI FACTORS INFLUENCING QUALITY OF LIFE: A STUDY OF BRAND COMMUNITIES IN VIET NAM MASTER OF BUSINESS (HONOURS) Ho Chi Minh City – 2018 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business LE THI MUI FACTORS INFLUENCING QUALITY OF LIFE: A STUDY OF BRAND COMMUNITIES IN VIET NAM MASTER OF BUSINESS (HONOURS) SUPERVISOR: Assoc Prof Nguyen Thi Mai Trang Ho Chi Minh City - 2018 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF CONTENTS List of tables List of figures .3 Introduction Literature review Brand community Value co-creation practices and brand relationship quality Brand relationship quality and consumer hope 12 Consumer hope and quality of life 14 Methodology 16 Design and Sample 16 Measurement .18 Data analysis and results 18 Testing the measurement model 18 Testing the hypothesis model 24 Discuss and implications 25 Limitations and direction for future research 29 Conclusion 30 Appendix 31 References 52 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com List of tables Table 1: The profile of respondents in the study Table 2: Cronbach’s Alpha for all constructs Table 3: Pattern Matrix in EFA analysis Table 4: Standardized CFA loadings of items Table 5: Correlations of items Table 6: Regression Weights in SEM analysis Table 7: A again qualitative survey report LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com List of figures Figure 1: Proposed research Model LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Abstract This research investigates the impact of value co-creation practices in online brand community on quality of life by the mediating of brand relationship quality and consumer hope The research was designed for the sample size about 250 respondents in online brand communities such as Apple brand community for Iphone fans, Channel brand community for perfume fans, 38 Degree flowers brand community for flower fans and SamSung brand community for the fans of Galaxy lines The results indicate that it can be said that the existence of relationship between two elements of value co-creation practices in online brand community including impression management, brand use and brand relationship quality as well as the presence of the relationship in series from brand relationship quality to consumer hope and then quality of life Finally, some implications are discussed to gain point of view objectively about research results LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Introduction The fourth industrial revolution has had a dramatically booming stage in recent years and seems breaking most of traditional industries in every country because the fact that the remarkable number of global online retail sales was to increase from US$236 billion to US$521 billion over five years, from 2007 to 2012, was estimated to reach $1248.7 billion in 2017 (Verma et al., 2016) Consumer have had awareness of benefits of this channel such as great price and flexible time by the significant increase in e-commerce platforms global (Denegri‐Knott, 2006; Nedergaard & GyrdJones, 2013) The fact that it has changed significant marketing industry, leading to a creatively online marketing stage thanks to the unique aspect of social media and its huge spread for revolutionizing marketing process (Hanna, Rohm, &Crittenden, 2011) and consumer behavior from absorbing information for making purchase online (Mangold & Faulds, 2009; Powers, Advincula, Austin, & Graiko, 2012) Otherwise, compared with the online ones, the other benefits of social media based brand communities are the lower cost of initiating these communities, higher reward, and the number of greater reach because of normally using free the platforms (LaPointe,2012) Accordingly, the rapidly popularizing of social networking technologies has generated ideal circumstance including a new platform and opportunities to retain existing members and attract new customers for brand community (Kietzmann, Hermkens, McCarthy, & Silvestre, 2011) LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Specifically, the concept of brand community is taken into as one of main considerations in marketing field recently (Muniz & O’Guinn, 2001) When researchers study initial about brand communities, online brand communities are deemed as tools in order to build relationships between consumers and brands thanks to corresponding internet condition (Schultz& Bailey, 2000) The brands and consumers are provided many values such as sharing knowledge and engaging supportive consumers by brand communities (Andersen, 2005), making strong impression to customers on the brand features and stimulating their loyalty (Andersen, 2005; McAlexander et al., 2002), gaining valuable market data for development and research (Von Hippel, 2005), and co-creating benefits with consumers (Schau, Muñiz, & Arnould, 2009) Moreover, the brand community on social media help new customers stimulate purchase intention by joining and participating in brand clubs and associates (Algesheimer et al., 2005; McAlexander & Schouten, 1998) In conclusion, it may be argued that brand community helps value co-creation practices to be more convenient and efficient Customer- brand relationship that customers can create an active relationship with brand is like building relationship with friends, which means brands are considered as customer’s partners (Hudson et al., 2015) A study of individual relationships in social psychology as well as personality presents the metaphor of brand relationship (Breivik & Thorbjornsen, 2008; Smit et al., 2007) Customers participate in brand relationships because of benefits from the meanings they gain into their life, not only possessing well good brand with its function and utilitarianism but also more LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com psychological and emotional (Fournier, 1998) Thus, it possibly be claimed that brand relationship quality interrelated obviously to brand community Although many previous researches point out that value co-creation practices have an important influence on enhancing brand loyal (McAlexander et al., 2002; Muniz & O’Guinn, 2001; Muniz & Schau, 2005; Habibi, Laroche, & Richard 2016), and demonstrate how value co-creation practices influence brand relationships quality in brand communities (Luo et al, 2015) However, individual quality of life concept have not been mentioned while the previous studies present value co-creation practices in brand community concept, moreover, those have not demonstrated the influence of value co-creation practices on quality of life with the mediating of consumer hope Therefore, it may be extremely virtual to address the gap recognizing the worth of consumer hope for mediating role because of providing insights into customer’s perceptions as well as feeling in an online brand communities context (Raggio, Walz, Godbole, & Folse, 2014) The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of value co-creation practices in online brand community on quality of life by the mediating of consumer hope and then it is suggested suitable recommendations The paper is organized with the next section is literature review based on foundation of previous research models tested in the research and followed by the right methodology, next sections, the data analysis and results, and discussion and implications will be indicated Finally, the paper rounds off with limitation and direction for future research and conclusions LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Literature review Brand community Brand community is defined as a “specialized, non-geographically bound community and based on a structured set of social relations among admirers of a brand” (Muniz & O’Guinn, 2001, p 412), covering a huge community entire from virtual (Adjei, Noble,& Noble, 2010) to undersized brand communities (Schouten,McAlexander, & Koenig, 2007) In addition, brand communities are conducive to sharing of benefits including information and experience; enhancing the band values (Muniz& O’Guinn, 2001), resulting in “co-creation and negotiation of meaning” (McAlexander et al., 2002) That valuable knowledge make individual connect feeling insights among members intje brand community (Kuo & Feng, 2013) On the other hand, shared features are representative of communication that maintain meanings and cultural norms, finally, obligations to society are a felt sense of responsibilities for the member in community (Kuo & Feng, 2013) Value co-creation practices and brand relationship quality The co-creation of member benefits and community potential by variety activities within a brand community is considered as value co-creation practices while members in brand community create worthy thing for the brand or others in the community (Schau et al., 2009) Furthermore, value co-creation practices is supported favorably to implement by the platform of social network and make members and other elements of a brand community obtain a high-context interaction, leading to reinforce LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ...UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business LE THI MUI FACTORS INFLUENCING QUALITY OF LIFE: A STUDY OF BRAND COMMUNITIES IN VIET NAM MASTER OF BUSINESS... platform of social network and make members and other elements of a brand community obtain a high-context interaction, leading to reinforce LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com... Laroche, Richard, 2016) Social networking Social networking including such practices as “welcoming, empathizing, and governing” pertains to “creating, maintaining, and cementing ties” among brand community