The results show that attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioral positively affect the intention to buy counterfeit goods, while ethics is supported as a negative impact.. Four
INTRODUCTION
Research motivation
Counterfeiting began in the 1970s and became an important international economic issue as a result of globalization and the elimination of trade barriers in international transactions (Huynh & Wilson, 2014) Lai & Zaichowsky (1999) defined counterfeit is product with the same legal brand and logo name to authentic one but without the copyright owner's permission According to Global Brand Counterfeiting Report
(2018), it is estimated that online counterfeiting created a loss worth of 323 billion USD in the year of 2017 and in that same year, luxury brand also suffered a loss of 30.3 billion USD via counterfeiting online With the rapid growth of counterfeit, countries around the world and their economies have faced a high crisis Counterfeit goods are also increasingly spreading in all kinds of consumer goods, in markets and products of luxury brands, such as electronics, auto parts, drugs, clothes, cosmetics and watches (Amine & Magnusson., 2007) Recognizing the economic losses that increasing fraudulent transactions can bring, researches has been conducted to determine the motivations for purchasers to consume counterfeits However, most of them are studied in major markets such as China, USA, UK and Australia, leaving a gap for the minor markets of less developing and developing countries (e.g Vietnam)
On the other hand, Chiu & Leng (2016) argued that consumer behavior related to buying fake goods varies from country to country Vietnam is ranked fifty-three globally for counterfeit market size and is flagged as an emerging market to follow (Cheng, et al., 2011) In recent years, the production and sales of counterfeits have grown more and more sophisticated and most of the high-quality products with high sales are counterfeited Counterfeit can appear everywhere from supermarkets to small shops, from big cities to small towns across the country In addition, when it comes to distribution channels, counterfeit can be found in street vendors as well as sold legally in stores In addition, many stores selling counterfeit products have been well organized and imitated to set up a store like selling authentic products On the other hand, social networks and internet are growing, making counterfeit products increasingly accessible to consumers and misunderstanding them about buying authentic products at discounted prices Authentic business organizations have lost billions of dollars and reduced their brand reputation due to counterfeiting A typical example is LG Vina's case, this company lost about 25-30% of its expected revenue in
2010 because of counterfeits (Nguyen, 2011) The government's battle to reduce counterfeits is becoming more and more difficult and challenged by their increasingly sophisticated production technology and consumer awareness of counterfeits becoming increasingly lower Vietnam Government has discovered more than 13,101 cases of contraband goods, fined up to 53 billion VND in 2012
For a fundamental economic reason, if there is no demand, the supply will automatically disappear Therefore, consumers are important participants in the consumption and selling of counterfeit goods (Bian & Moutinho, 2009) Consumers counterfeit products vary and depend demand However, previous researches pointed that young people tend to purchase counterfeit product more than any ages (Moores and Chang, 2006; Chiu and Leng, 2016; Nguyen & Nguyen 2017) and focus on luxury items (Gamble, 2011) Research’s result of Fan et al (2013) showed that teenagers in Taiwan buy counterfeit as they had financing problems but still wanted to satisfy themselves and got higher status position in society Dinh (2012) studied the factors that influence the behavior of buying fake products, focusing on factors that determine the attitude and suitability of luxury counterfeits Another research of Nguyen and Tran (2013) in Vietnam concluded that besides finance factor, Vietnamese consumers chose counterfeit because it’s easy to get access to counterfeit in the market Recent studies of ethics in the buying and selling process only mentioned and blamed manufacturers, distributors and government's lax policy without mentioning consumers - demand for counterfeits (Kozar & Marcketti, 2011) Weel at el., (1995) researched on the role of consumers in the development of commercial copyright infringement or Cordell et al., (1996) discovered three factors that promote the use of counterfeit: a status symbolizing brands, distribution channels and prices
When studying the factors affecting intention of consumers to buy counterfeits, the theory of planned behavior (TPB) has been widely used by previous researchers to explain consumer intent and behavior The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) is one step ahead of the theory of action because it is concerned with the initial model limit to deal with non-will correction control (Ajzen, 1991) In TPB, there are three independent variables that are critical to behaviour including the attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control (PBC) (Ajzen, 1991) In this research will apply TPB added ethics factor to explain and predict consumer intention to buying counterfeits First of all, attitude factor According to Fazio (1989), attitudes are psychological assessments of consumers for a product and similarly, attitudes are also defined as the tendency of action to be informed by the necessary beliefs when the brain is in ready state (Ajzen, 1991) An individual will have a positive attitude towards counterfeiting if they believe that behavior will lead to positive results primarily (Ilham & Nik Kamariah, 2012) When it comes to consumer attitudes towards the purchase of counterfeit goods, Nill and Shultz (1996), uncovered a syndrome called Robin Hood syndrome that surveyed consumers who purchased counterfeit goods to oppose the monopoly of products from genuine brands Hydiyat and Diwasasri (2013) also believe that finding novelty is one of the factors affecting customer attitudes Viot, Kremer and Roux, (2014) said that some customers blame the product for being too expensive, so they bought fake goods Similarly, another research said that customers always want to try new products but get photos heavily influenced by expensive goods (Nguyen and Huynh, 2015) When it comes to subjective norms factor, according to Ajzen (1987), subjective norms is one of the main factors that affected directly to the behaviour of individuals as it described how the belief of a group can altered and control the belief of individual that interact with that group The study made by Al-Swidi, Hafeez and Shariff (2014) and as well as study of Utami (2017) also suggested the same idea Based on those discussion, the researcher decided to conclude subjective norms as one of the main variables that affect the buying counterfeit behaviour of young people In term of perceived behaviour fator, it is considered of the main factors that also affected directly to individual behaviour due to the fact it showed how an individual’s ability to perform a certain factor (Ajzen, 1987) Kim and Karpova (2010) also suggested idea as well as the study made by Patiro and Sihombing (2016), both of the study mentioned about the ease of individuals to perform any action based on their resources and ability Combined those discussions, the researcher decided to include perceived behaviour control as one of main variables that impact the buying counterfeit behaviour of young people
As for ethical factor, previous research has proved the relationship between ethics and purchasing counterfeit products Jiang et al (2019) mentioned important of ethics in making decision of customers Ethics also mentioned in law aspect in purchasing products (Perez et al., 2010, Basu et al., 2015; Jaeger, 2016) As for purchasing counterfeit products, the relationship between ethics and purchasing intention was found in the research of Lee (2009) In aspect of young customers, most previous research didn’t prove ethics effect on purchase intention (Ha and Lennon, 2006; Cuno, 2008; Frerichs, 2008; Aril et al., 2017) However, Teil et al (2013) proved ethics effect lightly on purchase intention in context of Malaysia’s students It’s can be clearly seen that Ehics still was not clearly in effecting on purchase intention counterfeit products which make conflictions between articles Therefore, Ethics is gap of this research and we expected that Ethics will effect significantly on purchase counterfeit product intention
There are two circumstances that consumers purchase counterfeit This research focuses on counterfeit goods that are not deceptive as consumers have been aware that they are fake but because of certain personal needs they still buy and use it (Bian & Moutinho, 2009) It is to differentiate with the case that consumers who believe they have bought an authentic product when in fact it is a fake product and they are deceived Counterfeits do not deceive consumers, on the other hand it indicates situations when consumers fully know that they are buying counterfeit products at the time of purchase (Grossman & Shapiro, 1998)
Derived from above motivation, this study is to apply extended TPB model with ethics variables to investigate the determinants that influence the intention of young consumers Vietnamese and their behavior towards non-deceptive counterfeit products Four factors that significantly affect consumers' intention to buy counterfeit goods are proposed: (1) attitude, (2) subjective norms, (3) perceived behavioral control and (4) ethics.
Research questions
Our research questions are following:
1 What are the factors influencing consumers’ intention to purchase counterfeit?
2 What is the relationship between consumers’ purchase intention and their actual behavior?
There are several factors which influence consumers to buy counterfeit products Nowadays, any product is vulnerable to this crime which can become a threat to all manufacturers Fake products is created to trick consumer that they are buying authentic goods Therefore, counterfeits usually resemble the original product or brand-name and generic products Counterfeits are a real and looming threat to all manufacturers Counterfeit policing measures are yet to mature and become omnipresent
This study objective is to provides further insight into consumer motives behind the purchase of counterfeits Four primary factors that influence counterfeit purchase have been identified these factors are attitude , subjective norm, perceived behavioral control and ethics There are researches argued that people purchase intention can be effected by the attitude toward the behavior regarding the cost, price, and quality effectiveness of counterfeit products (Vida et al., 2012) In another study, Vitell and Paolillo (2003) indicated that people attitude could affect personal opinion to buy goods Again, it was also suggested that individual tend to support what they feel or think better about which reflected in their behavior (Forsyth et al., 2008)
Subjective norms and ethics have weaker direct links with purchase intention In another study, according to Casidy et al (2016), perceived behavioral control can also directly influence the behavior or people intention The popularity of counterfeit is the obvious factor which greatly effects the attitudes, subjective norms, perceive behavioral control and intentions of purchasing counterfeit in Hanoi In a word, the objective of this research is to find the attitudes, subjective norms, ethics and perceived behavioral control of purchase intention toward buying counterfeits based on the TPB by questionnaire study in Hanoi Consumers’ purchase intention crucial because it will determine their intention to buy and consume the products Subsequently, this will lead to the actual behavior of purchasing the product For this research, consumers’ intention of purchasing counterfeit product it is necessary to explore how their behavioral intention and actual purchase behavior towards the product According to Brown (2003), consumer with intentions to buy certain product will exhibit higher actual buying rates than those customers who demonstrate that they have no intention of buying Meaning, consumer’s intention of purchasing counterfeits is the first step in developing purchase behavior toward buying counterfeits Since there are few researchers investigating the actual purchase behavior in the context of counterfeits problem it is necessary to research the consumer actual purchasing behavior toward buying counterfeit in this study
This research was carried out at Hanoi and take 210 samples at the age of 18 – 22 from different university This research only study about five factors that impact purchase behavior including attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, ethics and purchase intention
Looking at Vietnam’ context as developing country, Vietnam are facing huge problems about counterfeit products consumptions Le (2008) pointed that with the favorable trade position location between countries as well as lacking awareness of people about authenticity and intellectual property, counterfeit products will become difficult problems to deal with it Therefore, by understanding factors affecting young customers’ intentions and behavior towards buying counterfeit products will bring about the managerial implication for government, companies when it comes to the need of controlling counterfeit and protecting brand value In addition, this study also aims at enriching the literature review of counterfeit when focusing on the application of TPB model with the extension of ethics variable as another factor affecting consumer’s intention to purchase
Among the limitations of this research, the usage of convenient sampling method leads to less representative of the respondents as other method such as stratified Due to that reason, the researcher need to increase the sample size in order to make the data collected to be valid as well as reliable and this will cost lots of time as well as resources The research takes student for the representation of young customer to study their purchase intention so that the data collected might be bias or not fully correct
Furthermore, the research consisted a variable called ethics but due to the fact there isn’t a lot of previous study about ethics impact on the counterfeit purchase intention of young people, the researcher will have much difficult to find valid source for literature review.
Research limitation
Counterfeit products are defined as copying version of original products which is exist already on market with higher quality than counterfeit products (Patiro and Sihombing,
2014) Agree with this statement, Adhikari and Biswakarma (2017) added that counterfeit products are illegal products that have the same commons with original products but, reliability or durability was not as the original What counterfeits have in commons with legitimate products are: labeling, packaging weight height, trademarks that counterfeit products try to copy from original products (Hussain, Kofinas and
Win, 2017) It is easier to make a copy than to produce an authentic product for it does not take time and money in research and development or manufacturing (Ququab et al., 2017) Therefore, the rage of categories of products were counterfeit increased dramatically such as clothes, cosmetics, technologies, consumption, and recently software from internet such as DVDs or printed goods (Quoquab et al., 2017) There are two types of counterfeit: deceptive and non-deceptive counterfeit products
Deceptive counterfeit as products that customer purchase without unawareness and still believe that it is original By contrast, deceptive counterfeit as customers intentionally purchase counterfeit products instead of original (Teik et al., 2013) This study will focus on non-deceptive products
Economists warned manufacturing or using counterfeit products will harm to economy Recently, counterfeit is a worldwide problem, costing more than $500 billion and almost 7% world trade (Wang Y, 2013) Imports of counterfeit and pirated goods are worth nearly half a trillion dollars a year, or around 2.5% of global imports, with US, Italian and French brands the hardest hit and many of the proceeds going to organized crime, according to a new report by the OECD and the EU’s Intellectual
Property Office (OECD, 2016) Mantos (2007) pointed that most of counterfeit products will be transacted in grey market which not control by Government, thereby, customer and buyer will not pay any tax to Government According to Radio the Voice of Vietnam (VOV), in the year 2018, Vietnam had nearly 80,000 cases of violations in the field of goods, counterfeit goods, intellectual property infringement discovered by the industry, increasing by 7% over the same period in 2017 with a total amount of
LITERATURE REVIEW
Counterfeits
Counterfeit products are defined as copying version of original products which is exist already on market with higher quality than counterfeit products (Patiro and Sihombing,
2014) Agree with this statement, Adhikari and Biswakarma (2017) added that counterfeit products are illegal products that have the same commons with original products but, reliability or durability was not as the original What counterfeits have in commons with legitimate products are: labeling, packaging weight height, trademarks that counterfeit products try to copy from original products (Hussain, Kofinas and
Win, 2017) It is easier to make a copy than to produce an authentic product for it does not take time and money in research and development or manufacturing (Ququab et al., 2017) Therefore, the rage of categories of products were counterfeit increased dramatically such as clothes, cosmetics, technologies, consumption, and recently software from internet such as DVDs or printed goods (Quoquab et al., 2017) There are two types of counterfeit: deceptive and non-deceptive counterfeit products
Deceptive counterfeit as products that customer purchase without unawareness and still believe that it is original By contrast, deceptive counterfeit as customers intentionally purchase counterfeit products instead of original (Teik et al., 2013) This study will focus on non-deceptive products
Economists warned manufacturing or using counterfeit products will harm to economy Recently, counterfeit is a worldwide problem, costing more than $500 billion and almost 7% world trade (Wang Y, 2013) Imports of counterfeit and pirated goods are worth nearly half a trillion dollars a year, or around 2.5% of global imports, with US, Italian and French brands the hardest hit and many of the proceeds going to organized crime, according to a new report by the OECD and the EU’s Intellectual
Property Office (OECD, 2016) Mantos (2007) pointed that most of counterfeit products will be transacted in grey market which not control by Government, thereby, customer and buyer will not pay any tax to Government According to Radio the Voice of Vietnam (VOV), in the year 2018, Vietnam had nearly 80,000 cases of violations in the field of goods, counterfeit goods, intellectual property infringement discovered by the industry, increasing by 7% over the same period in 2017 with a total amount of
Formatted: Font: Bold money fined and confiscated goods worth more than VND 1,000 billion Particularly, from the beginning of 2018 Vietnam market management force has discovered and handled over 100,000 violations, paying nearly 400 billion to the budget This shows that the nature and extent of violations in making counterfeit goods, counterfeit goods, and trademark duplication are increasingly sophisticated and complicated According to the Survey of E-Commerce Association, Vietnam buyers on e-commerce site reached 49.8 million, officially reaching the top 6/10 of the world's largest e- commerce market in 2018 Most notably, Vietnam Digital Economy (Ministry of Industry and Trade, 2018) also showed that in the percentage of purchases through Facebook reached 70%
According to the Chamber of Commerce of US (2016), Vietnam have a total share of global physical counterfeiting worth more than 1.5 billion USD which show that how much counterfeit products is costing Vietnamese goods as well as the consumer benefits Another research mentioned about the motorcycle industry in Vietnam where counterfeit is being sold in the market without any prevention and retailer doesn’t even care about the quality of the products but rather just selling them (Domon and Yoshida, 2012) Furthermore, the research also suggested that the lowest quality products often imported from China where detail as well as information about them are unattainable but due to the fact that products from China are so cheap compared with products imported from Japan and Taiwan that low quality products from China already took hold a large share of Vietnamese market (Domon and Yoshida, 2012) Another research about counterfeit drugs stated that 7 percent of the 25,000 samples collected from 20 provinces in Vietnam were found to be counterfeit and to make the situation worse, a report from Vietnam Business Network confirmed that pharmacies and pharmacists in Vietnam doesn’t have certificates and the pharmacy market is suffering the increase of counterfeit drugs (Kuanpoth, 2017) Counterfeit products also damaged the fashion market in Vietnam as a study stated that counterfeit products have created a considerable amount of damage in the Vietnamese market that the government had to enact decree 8/2013 which said that any act of selling or manufacturing counterfeit products are consider against the law and will be fined (Nguyen and Tran, 2013)
Therefore, studying on counterfeit has become important in recent year Reasons for buying and using counterfeits have attracted attention of researchers worldwide Most of the researchers believed that customer demand to be the reason why counterfeit products appear in market Specifically, Tang et al (2014) indicated that reasons classifying such as attitude (attitude toward to original brand name), culture values or subjective norms, or other reasons as lower social status of the consumers (Jiang and Cova, 2012) Sequeira (2009 found that young people tend to value image characteristics and look to gain the status image without having to sacrifice a significant amount of money for it Therefore, buyers of counterfeits are commonly known as people without the financial resources to afford the genuine product Jiang and Cove (2012) mentioned that culture in different countries will effect on buying counterfeit products Price also mention in research of Ang et al (2001) but they highlighted that Asia especially India where did consider counterfeit was illegal which lead increasing of counterfeit purchase every day Chaundhry and Stumpf (2011) pointed that customer especially young people intent to buy counterfeit products because lacking ethical concern as well as want to try new adventure and gain satisfaction from illegal act Wilcox et al (2009) believed that because of the influence from original products, young people intent to buy counterfeits from luxury brands without caring about ethical or quality of products.
Theory of Reasonable Action (TRA)
Reasonable action theory (TRA) was built in 1967 and revised over time from the early 1970s by Ajzen and Fishbein (1980) TRA model shows that consumption trend is the best predictor of consumer behavior To be more concerned about the factors contributing to the buying trend, consider two factors: the attitude and subjective standards of customers In the TRA model, attitudes are measured by perceptions of product attributes Consumers will pay attention to the attributes that bring the necessary benefits and vary in importance If the weights of those attributes are known, it is possible to predict near the consumer selection results (Madden, 2011) Standard subjective factors can be measured through people who related to consumers (such as family, friends, colleagues, ) people whether like or dislike them purchasing goods The impact of the subjective factor on consumer buying trends depends on: people support level / objection to consumer purchases and consumer motivation according to the wishes of influential people The degree of influence of people involved in consumer behavior trends and motivating consumers to follow relevant people are two basic factors for evaluating subjective standards The stronger the degree of intimacy of the people involved is the greater the influence on their decision to buy (Carron, 1997) The greater the confidence of consumers in related people, the greater their tendency to choose to buy The intention of consumers to buy will be affected by these people with different levels of strong influence
Figure 11 T heory of reasonable action
2.3 Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB)
The Theory of Planned Behavior model is considered more optimal than TRA model in predicting and interpreting consumer behavior in the same content and research context Because the TPB model overcomes the disadvantages of TRA model by adding a perceived behavioral control factor Because TRA model cannot handle cases where behaviors that individuals have inadequate will control Specifically, TPB is one step ahead of the theory of action because it is concerned with the initial model limit to deal with non-will correction control (Ajzen, 1991) In TPB, there are three independent variables that are critical to behaviour including the attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control (PBC) (Ajzen, 1991) Compared with TRA, TBP has another independent variable that perceived behavioral control (PBC), which factor helps control cognitive behavior to capture factors beyond personal control over achieving behavioral goals In other words, it is also the major of the TPB model and is understood as the expectation of ease or difficulty in implementing a certain behavior of consumers Proposed behavioral theory (TPB) (Ajzen, 1991), developed from rational action theory (TRA; Ajzen & Fishbein, 1975), assumes that a behavior can be predicted or explained by behavioral tendency to perform that behavior Behavioral is assumed to include motivational factors that affect behavior, and are defined as the level of effort that people try to perform that behavior (Ajzen, 1991) Behavioral is a function of three factors First, attitudes are deified as positive or negative evaluations of performance behavior The second factor is the social impact that refers to the perceived social pressure to perform or not to perform the behavior Finally, Ajzen's theory of TPB (Theory of Planned Behavior) adding perceived behavioral control to the TRA model Behavioral control components reflect easy or difficult behavior (Lee, 2010) This depends on the availability of resources and opportunities for behavior Ajzen suggested that the behavioral control factor directly affects the tendency of behavior, and if the person is accurate in the perception of his level of control, it also can also predict actual behavior
Figure 2: Theory of planned behavior
Previous researches with the application of TPB
There are many different researches applied TPB, most of them are to explain behaviors of customers who have the ability to exert self-control By reviewing and evaluating others researches, we are convinced that TPB is a suitable method to predict and explain Vietnam young people behaviors and intentions in buying counterfeits Following table is the summary of researches that used TPB in many different categories and customer of purchasing counterfeits including research methods, types of counterfeits, determinants of purchasing intention and dependent variable
Table 1: Summary of researches applying TPB
Potential predictors of customer purchase intention of counterfeit products
Factors that influence the purchase of counterfeit products
Value consciousness and past behavior
Predict purchase intention of counterfeit products
Zhu Li-wei et al.,
Beijing, and a total of 175 drivers
Drink Driving Behavior of Drivers
Self-reported drink driving and Past drink driving experience
Attitudes, subjective norms, perceive behavioral control and intentions of the drink driving
Respondents were 350 of which 58.6 percent (205) was female
About 62.3 percent (218) of the respondents were between
Predicting Intention to Purchase Counterfeit Products
Past behavior and Value consciousness
Predicting Intention to Purchase Counterfeit Products
25 and 44 years old, 24.5 percent between 45 and above, and
400 subjects were given a questionnaire to fill out in
A total of 328 questionnaires were returned
Examining Customer Purchase Intentions for Counterfeit
Perceived financial control, rising living standard
Attitude toward purchasing counterfeits, subjective norms, perceived behavior control, perceived financial control, and intention of purchasing counterfeits
Survey, All of them had used email and IM before The average age of the participants were 23 The sample consisted of
Punctuatio n usage in instant messaging
Language convention, normative usage and control usage,
Bledsoe, Sample of 230 Smoking Stage of changes Global Social
Theory of Plan Behavior (TPB)
Norms and Perceived behavioral control:
650 male high school students, recruited randomly
Mental health and adolescence health promotion
Subjective, norms, and intention not to use drugs
One hundred and eleven elementary school teachers completed questionnaires
Teacher attitudes and behavior toward the inclusion of children
School principals and Teacher behaviors
Teachers’ beliefs, feelings, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control will each predict behavioral intention
Questionnaire data were collected for
598 drivers at 2 time points separated by 3 months
Self-reported behavior and demographic information
Attitude, subjective norm, and perceived control
According to Fazio (1989), attitudes are psychological evaluations by consumers for a product as well as memory interaction between a specific object and a brief assessment of this object Similarly, attitudes are also defined as a tendency of action to be informed by the necessary beliefs when the brain is in a ready state, attitudes will lead to behavior towards the following result (Ajzen, 1991) In other words, it is understood that the positive or negative feeling of the individual involves performing a specific behavior An individual will have a positive attitude towards a certain behavior if he or she believes that the conduct of that behavior will lead to positive results primarily (Ilham & Nik Kamariah, 2012)
When it comes to attitude of consumer toward buying counterfeits, there is a small proportion of consumer wanted to buy counterfeit in order to protest the might of the monopoly franchise which is known as the Robin Hood syndrome made by Nill and Shultz in 1996 This act makes them feel like they are stealing from the rich which are the big brands and give to the poor that indicated themselves Hydiyat and Diwasasri
(2013) also suggested that novelty seeking is one of the factor that influenced customer attitude and the researchers mentioned about fashion trends in their research Trend is about being new and stay with the timeline, this is reason why counterfeit is a good solution for those who wanted to stay on with trend but don’t have enough money They will buy counterfeit products that are similar to the current trending authentic products to satisfy their needs and continue to do that repetitively This behavior similar to the blame mechanism, instead of taking the fault of buying counterfeit, these customer blame on the brands that they made their products too expensive so that their behaviour are justified (Viot, Kremer and Roux, 2014) Put this theory in the research situation, most of the consumer we focused on are students who are young so they will somewhat have possessed a rebel mind as well as behavior, combining with the limited allowances as well as part-time wages There is a high chance that they will buy counterfeit just because they can’t afford authentic products so they will use excuses such as they don’t want to support brand names that are already too big as it will encourage a monopoly market This is also a reason for students to buy counterfeit products as they want to test them first but their financial status does not allow them to buy authentic products so instead of saving money for one products, they can spend the same amount of money on more products which are counterfeit, this open up the testing option for those who seek new things Another research suggested that novelty seeking is also a factor that affect the attitude of consumer toward buying counterfeit product, it stated that there is customer who are always wanted to try new goods but are heavily affected by the merchandise price such as too expensive (Nguyen and Huynh, 2015)
In TPB, subjective criteria of subjective norm mentioned other people's perceptions of social pressure on or against the conduct of behavior in questions (Ajzen,1987) In addition, subjective norms are defined as social awareness pressure on individuals to promote or not to conduct behavior (Ajzen, 1991) TPB believes that subjective standards are a function of belief Beliefs that underlie subjective norms are called standard beliefs Therefore, if a person believes that the referrals are the most important as a group of people close to him, such as family, colleagues, spouses, close friends, teachers and any important person in his/her life thinks that he/she should perform a particular behavior, that pressure will trigger his/her personal intention to perform the mentioned behavior (Ajzen, 1991) In addition, individuals not only perform acts under social pressure but subjective standards also provide them with information about the suitability of the behavior being considered (Jager, 2000) According to Al-Swidi, Hafeez and Shariff (2014), subjective norms is known as one of the most important that directly affected the intention to do something and it is also described as one of the key element in the Theory of planned behavior model, the research stated that subjective norms is known to be the social belief having an impact on individual’s perceptions when their action is reviewed by the surrounding group Furthermore, the study also mentioned that attitude and subjective norms are closely related, it said that social environment created a standard that shape the attitude of individuals which later combined together and formed a intention to do something For example, if a group of people often buy counterfeit products and they think that the action itself is alright then other will most likely to do the same due to the influential impact The idea is also supported by another study made by Utami (2017) In the research, it stated that the subjective norms are known to be the influence of one upon another in order to persuasive the individual to do or not to do a certain type of behavior Subjective norms are also known as social belief that are standard and everyone should follow But in the research of the role of subjective norms in forming the intention to purchase green food (Ham, Jeger and Ivković, 2015), it stated the link between subjective norms and intention itself is rather weak and instead the intention will mostly have affected by perceived behavior control and the attitude elements The reason why is due to the elements of personal belief, if those who having strong personal belief they intention would not be affected by social belief and the opposite Our research rejected this idea due to the fact our subject are students in the modern ages who have their intention of almost everyday activities affected by subjective of those from the internet because they want to create a good image among others This was shown in another research another research also suggested that subjective norm is the pressure from social to individual to perform or not to perform a certain behavior (Muia, Cheruiyot & Lagat, 2018) The research stated that subjective has a close relation on the intention to buy counterfeit products and the research model also based on the TPB model In addition, it stated that customer behavior nowadays is heavily influenced by social media such as Facebook, twitter and Instagram that are famous social website and those whose social group support their decision to buy counterfeit products will have a positive attitude toward buying counterfeit product and also the opposite Reflecting on the research situation, the target are students who are university who most likely use social media and they care about what their social group think about them This leads to the fact that if a group of friends decided that buying counterfeit is good then each individual that associated with that group will also think the same Ultimately lead to the action of buying counterfeit product Another research also suggested that people often seeks approval of other surrounding who are important to them before making decision and in the situation of counterfeit, family and relatives act as a factor that has an direct influence toward the purchasing of counterfeit based on how much their relatives and family like the counterfeits This often happens when they need consultant about products they do not know much about and others opinion encourages them to buy or not to buy counterfeits, research also mentioned that this happens when those who purchasing counterfeits want to make a good impression to others who surround them (Faruqui, Hoque and Hride, 2017) Moreover, another research stated the subjective influences get stronger as those who are influencing are family member or friends, it suggested that if they supported buying counterfeit product then their relative will do the same (Nguyen and Huynh,
2015) This is also very true for student as they often play in a closed group so when the majority of the group favour something, others member will do the same because they don’t want to be left out There is another research also suggested the same that individual buying intention often affected by those who are surrounding the individual The research also suggested that subjective moderating the price factor, quality factor and convenience (Sasangko and Haryanto, 2017) Hsu (2015) also suggested the same idea that subjective norm also impact price factor and giving the example, consumer often have their relatives suggested them to buy items with cheaper price that sharing the same function and appearance which indicated counterfeit products
Based on the discussed literatures, subjective norm can be understood as the social belief and judgement about whether is right or wrong to do certain types of behaviour, this belief influences on other and even persuades them to follow it In the situation of students buying counterfeit, students in general only buy counterfeit to satisfy the need of having luxury products when they don’t have enough cash but if their friends and relatives approved or disliked that behaviour then their will follow their decision as students care very much about their images
Perceived behavioral control is defined as the cognitive ability to perform a specific target behavior (Ajzen, 1985) It is the third variable in the TPB model added by Ajzen and upgraded from the TRA model called cognitive behavioral control (PBC) to show the ability of a person to commit behavior to be considered hypothetically that individuals behave in a logical way when considering dispersal of their actions (Ramayah, et al., 2012) It involves a personal awareness of how easy or difficult it is to perform that behavior, and it is said to reflect past experiences of anticipated obstacles (Ajzen & Driver, 1992) This independent variable is affected by awareness of access to the skills, resources and opportunities needed to perform the behavior If an individual does not have control over situations, the individual may not have or intend to perform a specific behavior In behavioral intention research, cognitive behavioral control has been found to be a determining factor in the interest of intended use (Fusilier & Durlabhji, 2005) Another research also suggested the same that PBC is also described as perception of individual easy or difficult in carrying out a specific behavior (Patiro and Sihombing, 2016) A behavior is happened when individual has both motivation and ability to conduct this behavior (Maichum et al., 2016) However, Kim and Karpova (2010) did not mention about motivations or ability of individual to conduct behavior, they indicated that out resources and opportunities will affect on behavior intention of individual in case this person can’t performs specific behavior Combined these two different ideas, Dhingra and Bhatia (2014) concluded that PBC has two factors which is internal and external Internal factors are including confident levels or ability of person to perform specific behavior and external factors is measure by two components time and money (Dhingra and Bhatia,2014) or information, time and ability to solve problems (Patiro and Sihombing, 2016)
By using TBP theory, researchers can study or prove the relation between PBC and purchased intention then making helpful solutions for sellers In research conducted by Patiro and Sihombing (2016), they proved that customer who has perception about time money and difficult in purchasing products will be likely to buy counterfeit products Penz & Stửttinger (2005) also concluded that the higher perception of behavior control, individual tend to having strongly intention to buy counterfeit products
According to Yzer (2015), perceived behavioral control is one of the key elements to determine the intention or the action itself and only happen when a person think that they have enough resources and proper opportunity Based on the Planned behavior theory made by Ajzen, the research was able to identify that perceived behavioral control is similar to self-efficacy which also known as the ability to performance action based on one judgement Furthermore, the researcher also mentioned that when one performs an action it may encourage other surrounding them to do the same Moreover, it can also be seen that the action of buying counterfeit may happen when one person has the chance and enough money to do it and counterfeit is often much cheaper than the original so the action would likely to happen In addition, when one decided to buy counterfeits that proved to be function proper like the authentic, others may act similar and also buy counterfeit if they see fit
Extracted from Wang (2017) idea, the researcher stated that perceived behavior control is described as individual perception about the chances of success when performing certain action The similar theory about perceived behavioral control was also suggesting by Anggraini (2016) The research was also based on the Planned behaviour theory research model and it also stated that perceived behavior control is the possibility of someone to do any action when they feel at ease which can be understood as if the action itself is easy enough then the person would likely to do it Reflected this theory on the behaviour of buying counterfeit, when an individual sees a counterfeit that is cheap enough and serve its purpose properly then it would be bought by that individual
According to Nguyen and Nguyen (2015), perceived behavior control is described as how easy a person can perform a certain type of action and when referring to consumer perception of buying counter, PBC describes whether it is easy or not for an individual to purchase luxury counterfeit products In addition, the research also mentioned that the higher the ability to buy counterfeit products, the higher the intention to purchase counterfeit products Lastly, the research stated that in the context of consumer in Vietnam, if the consumers have better perception and feeling like they have the opportunity or feeling like there is not any difficulties when buying counterfeit products the intention to buy will often be very high
But those factors alone are often not enough to persuade an individual to buy a counterfeit product That is why in the research about repeated behaviour (Sheeran and Orbell, 2017) which talked about how a repetitive action may affect the behavior itself The research stated that the intention to do any action might be affected by action from the past that are done before, if a action is already been done from the past multiple time in the past then it will happen again in the future if the condition is the same This created a scenery that an individual decided to buy a counterfeit product which are cheap and work like the real product multiple times then it is almost certain that the action itself will happen again So, the action won’t happen again if it didn’t happen in the first place
According to Neal and Fullerton (2010), there is no official definition for ethics However, Neal et al (2010) defined ‘’Ethics’’ as a set of principles describing a behavior code that explains what is good and right or bad and wrong Teik et al (2013) pointed other definition that Ethics is an act, behavior that people should do based on reasonable principle such as Justice, Fair or Trust Ethics also understand as moral judgement, standards and rules of behavior (Jirotmontree,2013) With the higher lever, Basu et al (2015) emphasized that ethic is standard principles that forbids people acting immoral in any situations All the four definitions above have same common which is Ethics refer acting, behavior that people should do instead of bad things in different levels and situation
Prior researches have studied about Ethics aspect in purchasing intention in different fields When mention about ethics in purchasing, Jiang et al (2019) believed that ethic issues is part of consumer behavior in ethical making decision Specifically, an individual who have ethical awareness clearly will behave more ethically than person who don’t have ethic perception in same act For instance, a research conducted by Basu et al (2015), they pointed that if a consumer has high moral and idealistic, he tends to negative in purchasing counterfeit products intention In order to analyze consumer ethics, most research use legal and law enforcement to measure it Jaeger
(2016) reasoned that purchasing counterfeit products is not criminal act but it is indirectly encouraging and support for manufacturing counterfeit products Therefore, purchasing or intention to buy counterfeit products is illegal act and lightly unethical Batsu el al (2015) indicated that law-biding will make consumer more ethical and impact negatively in purchasing counterfeit product intention However, Perez et al
Purchase intention
Purchase intention is to decide the action or psychological state that represents the perceptions of each participant and a specific behavior (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1975) According to theory of planned behavior (TPB) of Ajzen (1991), purchase behavior of consumers is determined by intentions of purchasing which measured by the attitude of them However, Chang (1998) suggest that chances and resources like accessibility of fake products, have to existing before behavior of purchasing which implemented Without these, no matter how beneficial the intention is, it will be difficult to make purchases behavior Although the implementation of purchasing behavior also needs many other factors beyond the intention such as accessibility, opportunities as well as financial resources, the intention is still the main factor to predict consumer buying behavior toward counterfeits (Phau & Teah, 2009) Also, the intention to towards buying counterfeit products is supported to be positively affected by perceived value, which mediates the impact of fashion consciousness and perceived price, as suggested by different conceptual models (Dodds & Monroe 1985; Zeithaml, 1988) and unethical buying decision making of consumers like the purchase of counterfeits is justified generally by subjective norms, regardless of class of product (Wee et al., 1995) In conclusion, this research supposes that purchase intentions towards buying counterfeit products are thought to be affected by the following four factors above including attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavior control and ethics (Chang, 1998).
Purchase behavior
According to Vatanparast (Nokia Interactive Advertising, USA): “an individual’s intention to perform a behavior which is a function of attitude towards behavior and subjective norms” (2010) Actual behavioral control refers to the extent to which a person has the skills, resources, and other prerequisites needed to perform the behavior in question In many situations, it may be difficult or impossible to ascertain a person's level of actual control However, to the extent that perceived behavioral control is accurate, it can serve as a proxy for actual control and be used for the prediction of behavior Actual behavior, based on attitudes as described in the theory of planned behavior assumes planning Planning tends to be an elaborate process In real life situations, people may revert to less intense decision-making approaches and may rely on environmental cues that nudge their behavior with any planning, automatisms, rather than applying the much more intensive system that facilitates conscious deliberation (Kahneman, 2003) In fact, many daily behavior, and especially frequently repeated behavior like food purchases, and notably addictions maybe the outcome of habits and other automatized behavior Such automatic, habitual behaviors may lead to situations where an evaluation of the product or behavior (Aarts & Dijksterhuis, 2000), nor conscious behavioral goals are guiding behavior While some claim the attitude concept could be expanded to include habitual and automatic behavior (Bamberg et al.,
2003), others argue this results in a different class of consumer behavior, in which attitudes towards the product and intentions to buy that product play a minor role This class of consumer behavior could better be understood as based on a different mode decision making relying on process and method rather than model (Kahneman, 2003) This may explain both habitual and automatic behavior as well as other decisions outside conscious control, like impulse buying In practice marketers use many techniques relating to these unconscious, unplanned behavior to entice consumers to exhibit behavior (see e.g Cialdini, 2006) Nevertheless, while theories for planned behavior are fairly mature and complete, theoretical views on this type of unconscious, actual behavior remain remarkably underdeveloped to date (Glockner & Witteman,
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research framework development
This research applies the TPB model (Ajzen, 1991) to predict how consumers make decisions about buying counterfeit Ajzen (1991) also said that the attitude, subjective norms and behavior control have a direct relationship with the intention Therefore, these determinants refer to whether an individual assesses positively or negatively on a particular behavior and makes a decision to undertake it (Penz & Stottinger, 2005; Kwong et al., 2003) Also, it is said that attitude will have a positive effect on purchase intention (Cheng, et al., 2011) Therefore, the following hypothesis is suggested:
H1: Attitude has a positive influence on purchase intention toward buying counterfeits b Subjective norms
Subjective norms are perceptions of social expectations of an individual about certain behaviors and to achieve that expectation, the individual have to undertake this behavior (Jirotmontree, 2013) Therefore, if society's expectations are encouraging to buy counterfeit, then that individual will be more likely to buy counterfeit Another study argues that subjective norms are an individual's perception of social normative pressure, in other words, the beliefs of others affecting whether or not to take action (Ajzen & Klobas, 2013) Albers-Miller (1999) also suggest that an individual's intention to buy counterfeit will increase if they think that important people with them agree with this behavior Based on this discussion, this research proposes the following hypotheses:
H2: Subjective norms has a positive influence on purchase intention toward buying counterfeits c Perceived behavioral control
Perceived behavioral control is the extent to which an individual feels easy or difficult to perform a specific behavior (Ajzen, 1985) It also refer to the possibility that a person has control over their behavior and their confidence in the ability to perform behavior (Jirotmontree, 2013).Thus, the more individuals feel they are able to control the purchase of fake products, the more likely they will be to do so In this research, for the case of buying counterfeit products, these factors include information related to counterfeits, the time needed to access counterfeit and personal ability to solve difficulties that they may encounter when buying such products (Penz & Stottinger, 2005).Therefore, a hypothesis of the relationship between perceived financial control and purchasing intention toward buying counterfeits is suggested:
H3: Perceived behavioral control has a positive influence on purchase intention toward buying counterfeits d Ethics
According to Vitell (2003), ethics is an individual's perception of the system of principles that prevent them from doing wrong or immoral things So the more ideal the consumer is, the more bound he is to be moral and therefore, have a negative attitude towards counterfeits (Muncy, 1992) Another research given that the more consumers comply with the law, the more negative attitudes and approaches to counterfeits (Cordell, et al., 1996) Consumers are more ethical, independent of other people's opinions and have strong identities Therefore, he considered buying counterfeits to be morally wrong (Penz & Stottinger, 2005) The guilt has a significant negative effect on the intention to buy counterfeit goods and positively affects moral decision for all kinds of products (Ang et al 2001; Wang et al 2005) Consequently, the following hypothesis is proposed:
H4: Ethics has a negative influence on purchase intention toward buying counterfeits e Purchase intention
According to theory of planned behavior (TPB) of Ajzen (1991), purchase behavior of consumers is determined by intentions of purchasing which measured by the attitude of them Ajzen (1991) also said that the attitude, subjective norms and behavior control have a direct relationship with the intention Therefore, for counterfeits, the more favorable a person's intention to buy counterfeits, the more likely he or she is to perform that behavior (Ajzen & Driver, 1992) Therefore, the following hypothesis is suggested:
H5: Purchase intention has a positive influence on purchase behavior toward buying counterfeits
Based on the above hypothesis, the research frame work is proposed as following:
The research framework includes 6 variables:
In this framework, there are four independent variables including attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavior control, ethics Also, purchase intention is mediator variable and the last one is purchase behavior is dependent variable This framework also assumes that between variables only have one-way flow of caution The arrows and solid lines illustrate how elements impact and cause other elements In addition, all the relation between variable in this framework are positive, but ethics, this mean attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavior control have positively influence on purchase intention exclude ethics have negatively impact.
Research method
This research used both qualitative and quantitative analysis For qualitative method, researchers based on secondary data collect professional journal, organizations’ report and online article Those collected data will help the researcher to identify the needed variable that suit the research topic
As for qualitative analysis, the researchers used the questionnaire method Questions from the questionnaire was adopted from previous researches Each variable consisted of five to seven questions and they are all measured in the scale of one to five Furthermore, the questionnaire also consisted demographic questions in order to prove that all the respondent are young people and suitable for the research Finally, after collected the data, the researcher analyzes them is SPSS 20 software because the it is faster than analyze manually and more reliable.
Sample
This research is carried out in Hanoi, with the target participants are both male and female student of different universities Participants were selected based on convenience sampling, which relies on data collection from people who are conveniently ready to be a part of the sample This sampling method is also extremely prompt, uncomplicated, economical where there are large populations to be tested as
In this study, testing the entire population of Vietnamese people is impossible
The desired sample for this research is 200 samples In all forms of research, it would be ideal to test the entire population, but in this study, the population of young people who purchase counterfeit product is just too large that it is impossible to include every individual The chosen range of age of this research is based on the definition of young people which are from 18 to 22 years old The young generation in Vietnam forms the largest and most important consumer group The Vietnam Beauty and Personal Care reports in 2010 and 2011 have regarded young people as self-image conscious and fashion trend- conscious This influenced the long-standing perception of “foreign brands are better than domestic ones” and make people prefer foreign premium brands (Euromonitor International, 2014) Hence, this research only selects young people in Hanoi as they tend unknowingly or intentionally purchase foreign premium brand counterfeits
The IBM SPSS software platform offers advanced statistical analysis, a vast library of machine- learning algorithms, text analysis, open-source extensibility, integration with big data and seamless deployment into applications (IBM, 2017) Due to its ease of use; flexibility and scalability IBM SPSS’s purpose are to evaluate finding data and to assess the likely degree of errors and the reliability and validity of the expected information Data will be collected by giving self- administrated questionnaire.
Questionnaire
Table 2: Measurement scales for research
1.Considering price, I prefer counterfeit goods 2.I like shopping for counterfeit goods
3 Buying counterfeit goods generally benefits the consumer
4.There’s nothing wrong with purchasing counterfeit goods
5 Generally speaking, buying counterfeit is a better choice
Subjective 6 1 My best friends and relatives buy counterfeit Ha and Tam, norms luxurious fashion products
2 People around me buy counterfeit luxurious fashion products
3 My best friends and relatives usually use counterfeit luxurious fashion products
4 People around me encourage me to buy counterfeit luxurious fashion products
5 It is acceptable in my society to buy counterfeit luxurious fashion products
6 In this society, it is difficult to distinguish between genuine and counterfeit luxurious fashion products
1 I have enough time to find and purchase counterfeits
2 I have enough information to find and access counterfeits
3 I am able to control and solve difficulties when finding/purchasing counterfeits
1 I buy counterfeit products because the prices of designer products are unfair and gouge
2 I buy counterfeit products because counterfeiters are “little guys” who fight big business
3 People who buy counterfeit products are committing a crime
4 People who sell counterfeit products are committing a crime
5 I would not purchase counterfeit goods if I thought my family would be disappointed in me
6 People who sell counterfeit products are committing a crime
7 Buying counterfeit products demonstrates that
8 Counterfeit products hurt the companies that manufacture the legitimate product
1 I intend to purchase counterfeit luxurious fashion products
2 I think about a counterfeited luxurious fashion product as a choice when buying something
3 I buy counterfeit luxurious fashion products if
I think genuine designer products are too expensive
4 I recommend to friends and relatives that they buy a counterfeited luxurious fashion product
5 I say favorable things about counterfeited luxurious fashion products
6 When purchasing luxurious fashion, I will choose counterfeited products
7 As financial conditions, I will continue to buy counterfeit luxurious fashion products
1 I often make purchases of counterfeit luxury products
2 I often buy counterfeit luxury handbags and shoes
3 I often buy counterfeit luxury clothing
DATA ANALYSIS Error! Bookmark not defined.132 4.1 Descriptive and Analysis of Sample Demographics
Reliability and Validity Testing Error! Bookmark not defined.132 1 Reliability Testing Error! Bookmark not defined.132 2 Validity Analysis Error! Bookmark not defined.133 4.3 Regression Analysis Error! Bookmark not defined.135 4.3.1 Correlation analysis Error! Bookmark not defined.135 a Testing for Hypothesis 5 Error! Bookmark not defined.137 b Testing for Hypothesis 1, 2, 3, 4 Error! Bookmark not defined.137 c Model results Error! Bookmark not defined.140
This steps to ensure that all variables observed is ‘’true’’ value and whether they are
“error free” The Cronbach’ alpha index was used to test reliability of variables Nunnal and Stein (1994) pointed Cronbach’s alpha of each variable need to higher or at least equal 0.7 As the result of following table, all the six constructs reach the high Cronbach’s alpha index, ranging from 0.805 to 0.931 that good enough to conduct further analysis
Lehmann (1988) defined Convergent and discriminant validity are assessed by using explanatory factors analysis with varimax rotation in order to measure various items sharing the same construct or different items from different construct
The following tables are the results for 2 runs of EFA for 3 constructs, the first one including ethics, perceived behavior control, subjective norm and attitude the second is One moderating variable namely purchase intention and the last one is Purchase Behavior
Table 5: KMO and Bartlett’s Test for independent variables
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling
The results shown that KMO was 0.850 which higher than 0 5 and Sig was 0.000 which smaller than 0.05 Therefore, all the 22 items is appropriate to analyzing EFA
Constructs Items Factor loading Eigenvalue Total
Cumulative Percent of Variable (%) Ethic E1
SN1 SN2 SN3 SN4 SN5 SN6
Table 5 show that the validities of 22 items are high Specifically, just only validity A3 (0.515) and E3 (0.519) higher lightly than 0,5 which is still acceptable Besides, 4 factors including Ethic, Subjective Norms, Attitude and Perceived Behavior Control in Table 5 have eigenvalues are higher than 1
With Total Cumulative Percentage of Variable is 67.203% higher than 50%, it is pointed that using EFA for present Ethics, Attitude, Subjective Norms and Perceived Behavior Control is appropriately
Table 7: KMO and Bartlett’s Test for Purchase Intention and Purchase Behavior
Purchase intention Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling
Bartlett's Test of Sphericity df Sig
Purchase Behavior Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling
Bartlett's Test of Sphericity df Sig
As for Purchase Intention , the results shown that KMO was 0.721 which higher than
0 5 and Sig was 0.000 which smaller than 0.05 Therefore, all the 22 items are appropriate to analyzing EFA
As for Purchase Behavior, the results shown that KMO was 0.818 which higher than 0
5 and Sig was 0.000 which smaller than 0.05 Therefore, all the 7 items are appropriate to analyzing EFA
Cumulative Percent of Variable (%) Purchase intention PI1
PI2 PI3 PI4 PI5 PI6 PI7
Table 6 indicates the validities of 10 items for PI and PB exceeds 0.5, and their Eigen values are greater than 1, deemed to be acceptable
Before running regression, the correlation analysis will help to test the correlations between independent variables and dependent variables The results of correlations between will be shown in following table ‘
Based on analyzing results of table 7, it shown that |r| > 0 and p