The effect of Influencer Marketing in a highly involved product: An experiment conducted in the golf industry

The effect of Influencer Marketing in a highly involved product

An experiment conducted in the golf industry

Julia Halin

Business Administration, master's level (120 credits) 2020

Luleå University of Technology

Department of Business Administration, Technology and Social Sciences

Acknowledgement

This master thesis represents the final project for me as a student at Luleå University of Technology. The thesis was conducted during the spring of 2020 and I would like to thank everyone who has been involved in the development of this research study.

First of all, a sincere thanks to the company I got the opportunity to create this study together with. They have supported me in many different ways during this journey and I am grateful for the knowledge and insight in the company that I got during this time. Without their help, I would not have been able to reach the results I present in this thesis. Also, a sincere thanks to my supervisor Kerry Chipp who has contributed with feedback, recommendations and helped me move forward in my job constantly.

I would also like to express my appreciation to all participants that made the effort to answer my inquiries. Both the participants of my questionnaire and the participant in my interview.

Further, I would like to thank all course members who have sustained me with useful comments and feedback along the journey. Finally, I would like to thank family and friends that have supported me during this spring!

Stockholm, 23^th of June 2020

_____________________

Julia Halin

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to create an understanding of how influencer marketing could be used to increase the purchase intention in an area of a high involvement product in a niche market. Since this study is collected together with a Swedish golf company, the golf industry was evaluated. In order to fulfill the purpose, the social media influencer value (SMIV) model was adopted in this study.

Method – A quantitative experiment was conducted through the use of experimental vignette methodology (EVM) together with a qualitative validity check-in form of an interview with a key person from the industry. The main data was collected through a combination of exposure to the independent variable (through a stimulus) and a set of following questions (a questionnaire). The questionnaire was sent out to the company’s consumer through email and to analyze the collected data an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used.

Findings – In the collected data, evidence indicating that golf is a high involvement activity where the participants put down a lot of time and effort in the sport was found. In the SMIV model three significant paths was found between expertise and purchase intention, similarity and purchase intention, and usefulness and purchase intention. All three independent variables had a positive impact on purchase intention which tells us that when expertise, similarity, or usefulness increases, consumers purchase intension increases as well.

Theoretical and practical implications – The results in this study contributes to current literature in the area of influencer marketing by confirming some relationships but also by extending the literature. The study also contributes to important insights for marketing practitioners since the results present important variables to consider when using influencer marketing to create purchase intention. It also creates meaningful insights for the influential person itself and open up for further research in the area of the effect of influencer marketing in a high involvement product.

Keywords: Influencer marketing, source credibility, high involvement, purchase intention, sports industry.

Sammanfattning

Syfte – Syftet med denna studie är att skapa en förståelse för hur man, med hjälp av influencer marketing, kan öka köpintensionen bland konsumenter av en högengagemangs produkt som finns på en nischad marknad. Då denna studien är genomförd tillsammans med ett svenskt golfföretag, är influencer marketing applicerat på en golfprodukt. För att uppnå syftet med studien, användes en model ”social media influencer value (SMIV)” modellen för att försöka förstå de fundamentala mekanismerna av influencer marketing i golfindustrin.

Metod – Denna studien är en kvantitativ studie baserad på ett experiment, experimental vignette methodology (EVM), och en kvalitativ validitetskontroll i form av en intervju tillsammans med en person från branschen. För att samla in primärdata skickades en enkät ut, via mail, till företagets kunder. Enkäten bestod av en bild följt av ett antal frågor kopplade till bilden. All insamlade data var sedan analyserad i SPSS med hjälp av ANVOCA.

Upptäckter – Baserat på resultatet från ANCOVA analysen visade sig tre variabler (likhet, expertis och användbarhet) ha en signifikant nivå i SMIV modellen. Baserat på bakgrundsinformationen av varje deltagare kunde man utläsa att Golf är en högengagemangs aktivitet där de som spelar golf lägger ner mycket tid och engagemang i sporten. Det visade sig också att när denna målgruppen exponeras för ett Instagram-inlägg där personen känner likhet till influencern, känner att inlägget är användbart eller att influencern är expert inom området ökar deras köpintension av produkten som presenteras av influencern.

Bidragande upptäcker till teorin samt praktiken – Resultatet i denna studien bidrar och stärker vad tidigare forskning har hittat samtidigt som den expanderar tidigare forskning, både med nya variabler som visar sig ha en påverkande faktor samt nya upptäckter. Studien skapar även nya, viktiga insikter som kan vägleda marknadsförare i beslutet om att använda influencer marketing i mer nischade branscher. Studien bidrar även till nyttig information för influencern den själv som får kunskap av vad som skapar värde i sammarbeten. Studien öppnar även upp för vidare forskning inom effekterna av influencer marketing i en högengagemangsprodukt.

Nyckelord: Influencer marketing, source credibility, högengagemangsprodukter, köpintention, sportindustrin.

Table of Content

1. Introduction ... 1

1.1 Background ... 1

1.2 Problem discussion ... 2

1.3 Purpose ... 4

1.4 Delimitations ... 4

1.5 The international aspect ... 4

2. Literature review ... 5

2.1 Influencer marketing ... 5

2.2 Source credibility ... 6

2.2.1 An overview of the Social Media Influencer Value (SMIV) model ... 8

2.3 Factors in the adapted model ... 10

2.3.1 High- and low-involvement ... 10

2.3.2 Purchase intentions ... 11

2.3.3 Perceived trust ... 12

2.3.4 Trustworthiness ... 13

2.3.5 Expertise ... 14

2.3.6 Similarity ... 15

2.3.7 Usefulness ... 16

2.3.8 Moderators ... 17

2.3.9 Variables excluded from the model ... 18

2.4 Golf versus fashion ... 20

3. Methodology ... 23

3.1 Research purpose ... 23

3.2 Research approach ... 23

3.3 Research strategy ... 24

3.4 Data collection ... 26

3.4.1 Measurement instrument ... 26

3.4.2 Experimental Vignette Methodology ... 29

3.5 Credibility ... 40

3.5.1 Reliability ... 40

3.5.2 Validity ... 41

3.6 Summary of methodology ... 42

4. Data results ... 43

4.1 Description of the final sample ... 43

4.2 Testing assumptions ... 46

4.2.1 Reliability of covariates ... 46

4.2.2 Correlations among the covariates ... 47

4.2.3 Homogeneity ... 49

4.3 Significant of the data results ... 50

5. Analysis of data ... 53

5.1 High involvement ... 53

5.2 Analysis of H1 ... 54

5.3 Analysis of H2a, H2b, H2c H2d, and H2e ... 55

5.4 Analysis of H3a, H3b, H3c, H3d, and H3e ... 56

5.5 Analysis of the moderators ... 57

5.6 Significant paths ... 57

6. Findings and conclusions ... 59

6.1 Answer to research question ... 59

6.1.1 Specific findings toward the collaborating company ... 60

6.2 Contribution to the theory ... 60

6.3 Implications for practitioners ... 61

6.4 Limitations and further research ... 61

6.5 Conclusions ... 63

Reference list ... 64

Appendix A ... 70

Appendix B ... 72

Appendix C ... 75

Appendix D ... 76

List of figures

Figure 2.1: Original SMIV model……… 8

Figure 2.2: Proposed hypothesis H1………. 13

Figure 2.3: Proposed hypothesis H2a-d & H3a-d added………... 17

Figure 2.4: Proposed SMIV model………... 18

Figure 3.1: Adapted model after the qualitative validity check of the model....……….. 28

Figure 3.2: Steps and decisions points in conducting an EVM study……….. 29

Figure 3.3: The vignettes used in the questionnaire………. 33

Figure 3.4: Summary of methodology……….. 42

Figure 4.1: Significant paths………. 52

List of Tables

Table 3.2: Source’s for each variable………... 28

Table 3.3: Question construction……….. 39

Table 4.1: Dummy variables…...……….. 43

Table 4.2: Participants gender……….. 44

Table 4.3: Participants age………... 44

Table 4.4: Participants country of residence………... 45

Table 4.5: When the participants mainly play golf………..…………... 45

Table 4.6: Number of golf rounds participants play each year ……….………... 46

Table 4.7: Years of interest/played golf among the participants.…….………... 46

Table 4.8: Cronbach Alpha………...……….………... 47

Table 4.9: Correlations…..………...……….………... 48

Table 4.10: Distribution among the variables ……….……...……….……….……….………... 48

Table 4.11: Homogeneity of regression slopes………. 49

Table 4.12: Levene’s Test of Equality of Error Variances………... 50

Table 4.13: Significant level in ANCOVA…...….….……...…….….……….……….………... 51

Table 4.14: Estimated Marginal Means….…...….….……...…….….……….……….………... 51

1. Introduction

This chapter will introduce the reader to a background and an understanding of why this research area is important. From the literature in the background, a problem discussion will be presented which focuses on the lack of theory in the area of influencer marketing in the high involvement category. Thereafter, the purpose of the thesis, a research question, and delimitations will be presented.

1.1 Background

Despite a growing volume of research on influencer marketing, a lack of understanding of the effect of influencer marketing in high involvement products is still partial. In the 21st century a focus on the personalities, termed influencers, has arisen and the term source credibility has been shown to be an important factor to be considered in the influencer marketing literature (Lou & Yuan, 2019; Munnukka, Uusitalo, & Toivonen, 2016; Xiao, Wang & Chan-Olmsted, 2018). Previous use of celebrity endorsers has during the years moved over to the use of influencers as endorsers instead of celebrities. Traditional endorsers are normally public figures or celebrities that have gained their publicity through traditional media, when influencers are

“regular” people that have become famous through their social media channels (Lou & Yuan 2019). The use of social media has had an expanding phase the last years and in a recent report from Statista, numbers showed that in June 2018, Instagram reached one billion users with a monthly activity on this channel (Statista, 2019a). Data also shows that all ages are slowly becoming members of the social media platform Instagram (Statista, 2019b), which has a huge impact on the ability of companies to reach out to potential customers through this platform.

The success of Influencer marketing has changed the way companies reach out to consumers nowadays, and statistics show that 88% of customers trust online reviews by strangers as much as they would trust a recommendation by a friend (Ahmad, 2018). Recent studies have also revealed that influencer marketing can drive yearly incremental sales at a rate 11 times greater compared to conventional digital marketing (Ahmad, 2018; Kemp, Randon McDougal, &

Syrdal, 2019). The exponential growth of influencer marketing has influenced more companies to considering the use of this strategy. Recent reports show that marketers intend to invest even more on influencer marketing in the near future (Hughes, Swaminathan, & Brooks, 2019; Lou

& Yuan, 2019; Reinikainen, Munnukka, Maity & Luoma-aho, 2020). This growth increases the importance of understanding the underlying mechanisms of the strategy’s success in a world

where consumers nowadays are facing thousands of commercials on a daily basis (Ganguly, 2015).

The phenomenon has been investigated from various perspectives and researchers have made attempts to define factors that need to be considered to achieve an effective outcome when considering influencer marketing as a strategy (De Veirman, Canberghe & Hudder, 2017;

Djafarova & Trofimenko, 2019; Munnukka et al., 2016; Reinikainen, et al., 2020). However, Lou and Yuan (2019) recently discussed that even if there has been research on influencer advertising, there still is a gap in the knowledge of what the fundamental mechanisms of the strategy are. As a result of this gap, Lou and Yuan (2019) created a theoretical model, the social media influencer value (SMIV) model, that aimed to explain the important mechanisms that makes influencer marketing effective.

Although the SMIV model aimed to cover the existing gap, the gap of analyzing the effectiveness of influencer marketing in more high involvement product categories still exist.

Lou and Yuan’s (2019) study, together with the majority of previous literature in this area, has mainly analyzed influencer marketing from two perspectives, the low involvement product perspective and the phenomenon more in general (Lou & Yuan, 2019; Kunkel, Walker &

Hodge, 2019; Reinikainen, et al., 2020). Recently there has been some updated literature testing the effect of influencer marketing in different product categories (Kunkel, et al., 2019; Lee &

Watkins, 2016; Foti and Devine, 2019) or based on the consumers’ involvement level in the product (Handriana, 2017; Lee & Watkins, 2016), however, these studies are relatively new and in need of further research. Since influencer marketing as a marketing strategy increases, new industries and product categories implementing the strategy increases as well. Therefore, there is a need for extended literature regarding the use and effectiveness of influencer marketing in different contexts.

1.2 Problem discussion

Based on influencer marketing’s growth previous research has been conducted and the topic are commonly represented in literature already. However, the phenomenon has mainly been researched in a more general aspect or in the context of low involvement products (Lou & Yuan 2019; De Veirman et al., 2017; Evans, Phua, Lim, & Jun, 2017; Djafarova & Trofimenko, 2019). Due to the lack of literature, covering empirical evidence of how effective influencer marketing is in other product category, such as high involvement products, the maximal

effectiveness of this strategy, in more complex and niche markets, is hard to create without assuming what will work. Since there is a difference in consumers indention-behaviour between low- and high-involvement products (Foti & Devin’s, 2019), previous findings may not be applicable in other contexts. This lack of knowledge could, in the long run, harm the development of using influencer marketing in those areas.

One area that has recently explored the effect of influencer marketing is the sports industry.

The use of influencer marketing in the industry has increased during the past years and it is now considered an important marketing tool (Maderer, Parganas, & Anagnostopoulos, 2018).

However, sports include different activities and difference age profiles which makes it hard to draw only a few conclusions of what is working in the sports industry. Since people usually puts down a lot of time and engagement in sports, sports could be considered as a high involvement activity. But some sports needs more engagement than others and based on the different level of engagement a general conclusion of the effect of influencer marketing in the sports industry is not enough. One example of a sport, that might not get the same result when using general findings in this area, is Golf. Golf is a sport where the engagement from the practitioners is high, it is practiced by all ages and the practitioners put down a lot of time and money into the sport. Golf has for many become an established community and culture, and today’s literature is not covering this context.

In today’s literature, that discuss influencer marketing in the sports industry, the findings mainly focus on the effect sports team could gain from using social network as branding-enhancement tools (Maderer et al., 2018; Anagnostopoulos, Parganas, Chadwick & Fenton, 2018), or they have focused on consumer perspective of the endorsers used in influencer marketing for a sports brand, such as Nike (Kunkel, et al., 2019). But if a high involvement activity, such as Golf, launches a product/services that facilitates for the practitioner, and the company behind it wants to promote this product through influencer marketing, there is today no literature explaining how to use influencer marketing to increase the consumers purchase intension of this product.

Since influencer marketing is growing, further research needs to be done in the area to creating an understating for different product categories. Due to the lack in literature, this study, in behalf of a golf company, will test and adopt the SMIV model to evaluate the fundamental mechanisms in a high involvement participatory product in the golf industry. Managing to establish a deeper understanding of the fundamental mechanism that explains what makes influencer marketing effective, managers could potentially implement more effective strategies

in the researched area (Lou & Yuan, 2019). For researchers, this insight could contribute with a deeper understanding of if there is any need for further research in the area of influencer marketing in different product categories or if one general strategy is enough.

1.3 Purpose

The purpose of this research is to create an understanding of how influencer marketing could increase the purchase intention in the area of high involvement products in a niche market.

Since this study is based on a collaboration with a Swedish golf company, with the aim of creating an understanding of how the company can use influencer marketing to generate purchase intent toward one of their products, the SMIV model will be adopted in the golf industry. Grounded on the problem discussion above, together with the aim from the company, the following research question has been developed in order to answer the purpose of this study:

How is the purchase intention generated through the use of social media networks in a highly involved, niche market?

To answer the research question, three hypotheses will be developed and presented in the following chapter.

1.4 Delimitations

One limitation of this study is that the data will be collected on consumers that are already involved in the product and therefore have high brand awareness, and a relationship with the product since earlier. Consequently, the findings of this study may have been different if they were collected on participants that had not had a relationship with the brand earlier.

1.5 The international aspect

This study is conducted in collaboration with a company where its consumers can be found all over Europe. Hence, the data in this study will be collected among different nationalities, and therefore will the conclusions be drawn with a perspective focusing on strategies working for participants living around Europe.

2. Literature review

To be able to understand the use of social media networks to increase purchase intention in a high involvement category the literature will first turn to what influencer marketing is, and later cover the main aspects of the model and how it will be adopted. Lastly, the chapter will be concluded with a review of the high involvement participations in the category of golf in contrast to the original study on fashion.

2.1 Influencer marketing

Influencer marketing has become an advertising and marketing technique that utilizes the impact of influential individuals or opinion leaders that online try to influence the brand awareness and/or purchasing decisions of consumers’ (Lou & Yuan, 2019). De Veirman et al., (2017) describes opinion leaders as persons sharing content that focuses on their areas of expertise and their specific interests instead of providing content focusing on themselves.

Another explanation, that is built on Corey’s (1971) definition of opinion leaders, is that those are said to influence consumers through their expertise and knowledge. During the previous years, opinion leaders have in literature been equal with the term influencers (De Veirman et al., 2017; Corey’s, 1971), that can be defined as “a new type of independent third party endorser who shape audience attitudes through blogs, tweets, and the use of other social media” (Freberg, Graham, McGaughey, & Freberg, 2011. p.90). McCracken (1989) also defines influencers as

"endorsers" which are "any kind of individual that delights in public recognition as well as that utilizes this recognition on behalf of a customer good by appearing with it in an ad" (p. 310).

During the years, the use of influencers as endorsers for companies have become more and more popular and the result of this was the phenomenon influencer marketing. Sigala (2017) defined influencer marketing as “... the practice of identifying individuals who have influence over a target audience” (p.94), Sudha and Sheena (2017) defined it as “... a process of identifying and activating individuals who have an influence over a specific target audience or medium, in order to be part of a brand's campaign towards increased reach, sales, or engagement“ (p.16), and, De Veirman et al. (2017) describe influencer marketing as “rather than pushing their (whether or not personalized) ads to their target audience, brands are turning to trusted online personas to get their products and messages out to the consumers.” (p.813).

The main purpose of influencer marketing is to use these famous social media personalities to influence consumers in different aspects. To reach the desired effect of this strategy, literature have found factors such as trustworthiness, attractiveness or credibility, only to mention a few among others, to be important elements to consider (De Veirman et al., 2017; Lou & Yuan

2019; Evans et al., 2017; Djafarova & Trofimenko, 2019; Lee & Watkins, 2016). In the end, the importance for companies lies in finding influencers that, with their personality, in an effective way can impact the purchase decision of their follower-basis (Liu, Jiang, Lin, Ding, Duan, & Xu, 2015).

Even though the positive outcomes of influencer marketing have been well highlighted in literature and articles there is a concern regarding how genuine the influencer actually is in all their different collaborations. Ahmad (2018), relished statistics showing that 60% of people seeks advice from social media posts, vlogs or blogs before considering purchasing a product, and 90% of consumers have been shown to trust recommendations from an influencer.

However, the question arises if the influencers recommendations regarding the products actually are genuine and real, or if they mainly do it for money and that covert (misleading) advertising might take place instead. Since the phenomenon is rather recent, there is still some uncertainty regarding rules and guidelines in this area (Gurkaynak, Kama, & Ergün, 2018).

Another important aspect is the lack of internet infrastructure around the world that could still be considered an obstacle (Van-Tien Dao, Nhat Hanh Le, Ming-Sung Cheng & Chao Chen, 2014).

Although, the majority of the literature has discussed the positive outcomes of the phenomenon and De Veirman et al. (2017) discussed different reasons of why there is an importance in forming a strong relationship with the right influencer from both the companies’ and the influencers’ viewpoint. First of all, the chosen influencers’ own characteristics will be reflected on the brand and therefore impact the association among the company’s consumers. Secondly, the communication from the influencer needs to be relevant for the followers and therefore a fit between the brand and the influencer needs to be existent (De Veirman et al., 2017). Since this fit between the brand and influencer have become more important during the years, the factors impacting the credibility of influencer used in the marketing need to be investigated and understood by the company using influencer marketing.

2.2 Source credibility

Perceived credibility, usually referred to as source credibility of the influencer, is one of the factors determining the effectiveness of influencer endorsements (Munnukka et al., 2016). “

‘Source credibility’ is a term commonly used to imply a communicator’s positive characteristics that affect the receiver’s acceptance of a message” (Ohanian, 1990. p.41)

could be perceived with. These three factors were expertise, trustworthiness, and attractiveness.

By time, literature has extended the phenomenon source credibility with other factors as well (Lafferty, Golfsmith, & Newell, 2002; Lim, Radzol, Cheah, & Wong, 2017; Reinikainen, et al., 2020). One extended factor is similarity (Munnukka et al., 2016), that Ohanian (1990) discussed in context of the regular use of celebrities that usually were “closely associated with both the product and the target audience” (p.39). However, similarity, was only “employed as a measure for nomological validity” (p.41) back then.

The phenomenon source credibility has been used in literature form many decades and has with time also become an important part of the influencer marketing literature (Lim, et al., 2017;

Xiao et al., 2018; Reinikainen et al., 2020; Lou & Yuan, 2019). the phenomenon has been evaluated in different contexts and Wheeler (2009) did a study where he tested the effect of source credibility in high versus low involvement products with a result of a non-proved hypothesis. Wheeler’s (2009) hypothesis tested if the source credibility was greater under low involvement than under high involvement, which could not be proved. However, more recent literature testing the relationship between source credibility and involvement level in a product is still thin. Instead, literature have focused on testing source credibility in relationship to trust in branded trust and purchase intention. Reinikainen et al. (2020) tested the relationship between source credibility and branded trust where the relationship was found positive and source credibility was found to have an indirect impact on the purchase intention. This was in line with Lafferty’s et al. findings (2002) that indicated that an endorser’s credibility seemed to influence consumers’ attitudes toward the brand and their purchase intentions indirectly. Lim et al. (2017) though tested source credibility, only containing the factors of expertise and trustworthiness of the influencer, in relationship with purchase intention, and found this hypothesis rejected.

Common to hose studies mentioned above is that all of them have measured source credibility as one variable in the hypothesis. However, there have also been literature looking at each dimension of source credibility as separated variables instead of measured together to one (Munnukka et al., 2016; Xiao et al., 2018; Lou & Yuan, 2019). Munnukka et al. (2016) looked into a peer endorser’s credibility based on the factors of trustworthiness, expertness, similarity, and attractiveness and the advertising effectiveness. Lou and Yuan (2019) continued to explore the source credibility in their study where trustworthiness, expertise, similarity, and

attractiveness were tested toward consumers’ trust in branded content. In their study they created the SMIV model that will be further explained in the following paragraphs.

2.2.1 An overview of the Social Media Influencer Value (SMIV) model

As mentioned above, Lou and Yuan, (2019) created a model, see figure 1 below, built on Munnukka et al. (2016) study where source credibility included four variables: expertise, trustworthiness, attractiveness and similarity. Lou and Yuan (2019) measured source credibility together with advertising value containing of two other factors, informative value and entertainment value. These, in total six different factors, were tested towards three outcome variables; trust in influencers’ branded posts, brand awareness, and purchase intention. The results showed that the source credibility variables (expertise, trustworthiness, attractiveness, and similarity) and the advertising value variables (informative value and entertainment value) all had different effects on the three outcome variables.

Figure 2.1: Original SMIV model Source: Lou and Yuan, 2019, p.63

In Lou and Yuan, (2019) study all variables were tested in separated hypotheses and research questions. In total they had five hypotheses and two research question. H2, H5, and RQ 1 aimed

Advertising value

Source credibility

Informative value

Entertainment value Expertise

Trustworthiness

Attractiveness

Similarity

Trust in branded posts

Brand awareness

Purchase intentions

Involvement Age Gender

H1&H2

H3 & RQ1

H4 & H5

RQ2a RQ2b

to test the four factors of source credibility (expertise, trustworthiness, attractiveness, and similarity) toward the three outcome variables (trust in influencers’ branded posts, brand awareness, and purchase intention), and H1, H3, and H4 aimed to test the two factors of advertising value (informative value and entertainment value) toward the three outcome variables (Lou & Yuan, 2019).

In Lou and Yuan’s (2019) first research question (RQ1) the effect of the four source credibility factors on brand awareness were tested. The findings showed that out of the four source credibility variables, attractiveness and expertise had a positive impact. Similarity did not have any relationship at all, and trustworthiness was shown to have a negative impact on brand awareness. In the hypothesis regarding expertise, trustworthiness, attractiveness and similarity’s effect on trust in influencer-generated branded posts (H2) all of the variables, except expertise, had a positive impact. However, in the hypothesis regarding effect on purchase intention (H5) trustworthiness actually had a negative effect on the consumers purchase intention whereas expertise, attractiveness and similarity did not have any impact at all. However, the authors also found that consumers that have trust in branded posts are significantly influencing their brand awareness and their purchase intention. Thereby, trustworthiness, attractiveness, and similarity have an indirect impact on purchase intentions since they have a positive relationship with the trust in branded posts. Additionally, expertise also had an indirect impact on purchase intention since it was found that brand awareness impacted the purchase intention positively.

In hypotheses H1, H3, and H4 Lou and Yuan (2019) tested the advertising values variables, informative value and entertainment value, toward the three outcome variables. For the factor entertainment value, no relationship with any of the depended variables was found. The findings regarding the information value was shown to be the only factor that actually had a positive relationship with the dependent variable purchase intention. It was also shown to have a positive relationship with the dependent variable trust in branded posts. However, none of the advertising value factors was found to have a relationship with the variable brand awareness.

So, Lou and Yuan’s (2019) findings were spread, and the most unexpected finding was the negative effect of trustworthiness. Something Lou and Yuan (2019) said deserved to be further researched. Although, Lou and Yuan’s study is only one study with these results and recently conducted so therefore in need of further research.

2.3 Factors in the adapted model

Based on Lou and Yuan’s (2019) findings and prior research have found in the context of source credibility in the context of influencer marketing, a model for this study have been formed. The standpoint for the model is Lou and Yuan’s (2019) SMIV model. However, the model has been adapted to contain purchase intention, perceived trust, trustworthiness, expertise, similarity and usefulness. All different factors will be discussed and presented below together with those factors that have not been used in this study.

2.3.1 High- and low-involvement

The phenomenon of high- and low-involvement could be found in many different contexts. To mention a few, it could be found in the context of work practices, decision making, management and products. In an early stage, involvement was viewed as the relationship between a person’s ego and an objective (Aldlaigan & Buttle, 2001). Later, researchers have developed the area and Haynes, Pipkin, Black, and Cloud, (1994) said that; “Involvement, in general, is determined by the perceived relevance of an object or activity to an individual. Involvement can occur with an object (product involvement) or an activity (process involvement)” (p.23). In the context of activity, purchase intention has been identified as an activity which people have been said be able to involve with. The involvement level in purchase intentions is usually connected to the information processing a person puts down in a product. In those products where a person does not process much information and the product choice is not that important, a low involvement is discussed. When the situation is opposite, high involvement is instead considered (Aldlaigan

& Buttle, 2001).

When it comes to the context of products, key elements to attract and maintain existing consumers is to make distinguishing elements in a product that makes consumers want to identify and buy the product (Radder & Huang, 2008). In prior literature, high-involvement products have been said to usually have a symbolic meaning, psychological satisfaction or image reinforcement, where in low-involvement products the consumption is less subject, and consumers buy these products more on routine (Radder & Huang, 2008). Connecting back to Aldlaigan and Buttle’s article 2001, Radder and Huang’s explanation of high versus low involvement indicates different information processes and importance in the different levels as well. A product bought on routine is less in need of a more extended information process than a product with a higher meaning and satisfaction. Another finding of Radder and Huanger (2008) was that high- and low-involvement products could need different types of marketing

channels to get the desirable outcome of a purchase intention. However, Radder and Huanger’s study was made in the early 2000, so the use of social media (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter) was not that common during this timeframe and therefore these types of channels were not discussed. In a more recent study made by Lee and Watkins (2016), looking into the impact of the social media channel YouTube’s impact on the purchase intention on luxury products, the result indicated that those consumers that had watched vlogs (on YouTube) promoting the luxury products (usually considered high-involvement products) had a higher purchase intention than consumers that had not watched the vlogs. Interesting conclusions, a couple of years later than Lee and Watkins (2016), was Foti and Devin’s (2019) that said that “since the intention–behaviour gap differs between low- and high-involvement products, it is necessary to study high-involvement ethical consumption directly, rather than simply interpolate low- involvement findings onto high-involvement consumption” (p.8). This really indicates the importance to understand the difference between the high- and low-involvement products when marketing a product.

Another study, discussing the effect of the consumer’s product involvement on a consumer’s attitude toward an advertisement (further abbreviated as ad) was Munnukka et al. (2016), (though not specific on social medias). According to Munnukka et al’s (2016) previous literature had found that a consumer’s involvement with a product impacted their attitude formation toward an ad and depending on the consumers’ level of involvement, an endorser would be differently evaluated. The result of Munnukka et al’s (2016) study showed that the effect of product involvement on attitude toward ad was significant. From previous studies it was told that for consumers with low involvement, expertise and attractiveness was two important factors and Munnukka et al (2016) extended those findings with their results indicating a relationship between the consumers’ involvement in the product and perceived similarity to the endorser.

2.3.2 Purchase intentions

Regardless if a company has a high- or low-involvement product, the outcome for the company are the same; to create purchase intention among their consumers and sale their products.

Purchase intention have been a popular research topic in the prior marketing/advertising literature (Ohanina, 1990; Lafferty et al., 2002; Amos, Holmes & Strutton, 2008; Lee &

Watkins 2016; Reinikainen et al., 2020; Lou & Yuan, 2019). The term has been referring to a consumer’s possibility or likelihood to purchase a certain product (Lou & Yuan, 2019). Spears

and Singh (2004) defined purchase intentions as “an individual’s conscious plan to make an effort to purchase a brand” (p.56). Consumers’ attitudes toward ads have been found to have an impact on the purchase intentions in different types of context and have lately also been tested in the context of influencer marketing (Lee & Watkins, 2016; Reinikainen et al., 2020; Lou &

Yuan, 2019). Those factors that have had a direct impact on purchase intention have varied.

However, previous literature has found that the dimensions of source credibility have had a positive effect on the consumers’ purchase intentions (Lafferty et al., 2002).

Although, prior studies have mainly been measured purchase intention in the area of low- involvement products this gap made Foti and Devine (2019), to tried to understand consumers’

decision-making process in high-involvement ethical products in their study. They found that two driving factors in this process were trust and information. “This is important as consumers’

cognitive dissonance is reduced when they trust the agent and are provided with reassuring information” (Foti & Devine, 2019. p.9). Furthermore, Hung et al. (2010) studied the antecedents of luxury brand purchase intention and argued that there is “considerable research”

in the area of luxury brand but few studies explaining the relationships influencing purchase intention. Based on the authors’ results, they suggested marketers, working with luxury brand, to concentrate on “maintaining the factors of authenticity (e.g historical background, overall image & quality expectations)” and “strengthen symbolical meaning-construction attached to the product” (p.473). Although, literature talking about antecedents of purchase intention in high involvement products are still limited.

2.3.3 Perceived trust

One area that is not limited in literature regarding marketing and influencer marketing is trust.

Trust is important to consider in both high- and low-involvement products and researches have suggested that if people perceive a higher degree of trust, they are more likely to purchase as well (Corbitt, Thanasanki & Yi, 2003). Moorman, Deshpande and Zaltman (1993), describe trust as “a willingness to reply on an exchange partner in whom one has confidence” (p.82). In marketing, Racherla, Mandviwalla, and Connoly (2012) examined consumers’ trust in online product reviews and argued that perceived background similarity (reflecting a social element) and message argument quality (a content element) were two factors that contributed to increased trust. It has also been said to be based on consumer beliefs and impacted consumers’

knowledge of the brand and their decision making about the brands (Reinikainen et al., 2020).

Reinikainen et al. (2020) also argued in their literature that trust could be formed through the interaction in context of relationship, impact of consumers’ previous experience, built through consumers’ engagement and relationship with the brand and that it could be transferred, to mention a few factors. Both Reinikanien et al. (2020) and Lou and Yuan (2019) tested brand trust/trust in branded posts since prior literature have said that trust could impact consumers’

purchase loyalty. The findings of Reinikanien et al. (2020), reveal that trust is an important factor when it comes to how consumers feel about a brand. Additionally, Lou and Yuan (2019) found a positive impact of trust in branded posts on purchase intention. Therefore, this study predict that trust is an important factor to consider in influencer marketing to generate purchase intention and the following hypothesis is:

H1: Trust in branded posts mediates the effect of the source credibility variables (trustworthiness, expertise, similarity, and usefulness) on purchase intention.

Figure 2.2: Proposed hypothesis H1

Source: Author’s own work, adopted from Lou and Yuan, 2019, p.63

2.3.4 Trustworthiness

When it comes to the different variables that have been shown to impact trust in branded posts and to have an indirect impact on purchase intention, trustworthiness is one of them.

Trustworthiness is one of the dimensions of source credibility that have been a key factor since an early stage (Ohanian, 1991). Prior research has supported the trustworthiness effect on attitude change and Ohanian (1991) cited Hovland, Janis and Kelley (1953) that defined trustworthiness as “the degree of confidence in the communicator’s intent to communicate the assertions he considers most valid” (p.41). The role of trustworthiness in the context of marketing effectiveness has got some different outcome during the years. Xiao et al. (2018) found in their study that trustworthiness had a positive influence of the perceived credibility of the influencer and was the only factor that was fully supported to have a positive correlation

Trust in branded posts

Purchase intentions

with both the consumers’ attitude toward the posted material and the attitude toward the brand.

These findings were in line with Munnukka et al’s. (2016) findings that showed a strong relationship between trustworthiness and consumers’ attitude toward the brand.

As mentioned, prior studies have also investigated the effect of source credibility as one factor, that has contained trustworthiness as one of the keystones. These studies have found out that source credibility, (i.e trustworthiness) have an indirect impact on consumers’ purchase intention but not a direct impact (Lafferty et al., 2002; Reinikainen et al., 2020). Something that Lou and Yuan (2019) partly found in their study as well. What Lou and Yuan (2019) found was though that trustworthiness was the only factor that had a negative impact on the consumers purchase intentions. A result which, according to the authors themselves, was unexpected.

However, there have been previous literature finding trustworthiness as an important variable when measuring the impact of source credibility on purchase intentions, and Lou and Yuan (2019) themselves say that this result needs further research. Therefore, trustworthiness will be considered as an important variable in this study and it is purposed that trustworthiness (concern to the receivers’ perception of the influencer) will affect the trust in branded posts and the consumers’ purchase intention in a high involvement product.

2.3.5 Expertise

Expertise is another dimension that prior studies have included in the phenomena source credibility. Ohanian (1991) cited Hovland, Janis and Kelley (1953) who defined expertise as

“the extent to which a communicator is perceived to be a source of valid assertions” (p.41).

Together with trustworthiness, expertise also has been a key component of source credibility (Ohanian, 1991). Munnukka et al. (2016) also found that expertise together with trustworthiness correlated strongly with each other and formed a pair among the credibility dimensions. But even if expertise as a factor has a strong relationship with the component trustworthiness, the effect of expertise in ads has been more varied. In those studies where the phenomenon source credibility has been tested as one variable, the difference between expertise and trustworthiness impacts have been hard to compare since they have been measured together as one variable (Lafferty et al., 2002; Reinikainen et al., 2020). However, in those studies where source credibility has been divided into different variables, the impact of each variables has varied.

Munnukka et al. (2016) tested the effect of expertise on consumers’ attitude towards the ad and found a positive relationship. However, the effect of expertise was not as strong as the effect of

trustworthiness. Later on, Xiao et al. (2018) tested the effect of expertise on influencers’

credibility to investigate if there was a correlation between expertise and attitude towards the content and brand. Xiao et al (2018) findings showed that expertise had a positive influence on the perceived credibility of the influencer and the correlation between attitude and expertise was only partly supported. Furthermore, Lou and Yuan, (2019) found that expertise of an influencer positively affected brand awareness so it was only affecting the purchase intention indirectly since brand awareness had a positive relationship with purchase intention.

Even if several studies have tested the impact of expertise in different scenarios with different outcome the factor is still important to consider since it has shown to have an impact on factors that impact purchase intention and therefore has an indirect impact (Lou & Yuan, 2019;

Munnukka et al., 2016; Xiao et al., 2018). According to Lou and Yuan (2019) source expertise is “a source’s competence or qualification” (p.61), and therefore expertise could be an important variable to consider in high-involvement products since, as the name indicates, these products have a higher involvement from its consumers which may drive up the requirement of expertise of the influencer promoting the product. And since a luxury brand, that Lee and Watkins (2016) mention, could be identified as expensive, high in quality, uniqueness and rare, could be categorized under the high-involvement category, source expertise would play an important role in advertising of this products.

2.3.6 Similarity

More recently, similarity has also been included as a factor in the phenomenon on source credibility. Ohanian (1990) did not include similarity as one of the factors in the scale, however, she employed it as a measure for nomological validity in her study. It was found that a high degree of similarity to the endorser could impact the attitude towards the advertised brand positively. The term similarity has been defined as “perceived similarity of the source to the recipient (e.g. similarity in terms of demographic or ideological aspects)” (Munnukka et al., 2016. p.184) and “has been proposed as an important antecedent to attitudes toward an advertisement and ultimately, advertising effectiveness” (Lafferty et al., 2002. p.2). Further literature “propose that similarities between the recipient of a message and the endorser in terms of values and cultural background mediate the credibility associated with the source”

(Munnukka et al., 2016. p.184). In Munnukka et al. (2016) study the authors tested the effect of similarity on consumers’ attitude toward ads and found a positive relationship between these two variables. Together with trustworthiness, similarity had the strongest influence out of four

factors tested. Lee and Watkins (2016) tested YouTube Vloggers’ influence on consumers’

perception and intentions towards luxury product and found that consumers who viewed influencers as similar contributed to establish long-term relationship with the brand and that could lead to increased likelihood of repeated purchase intentions. However, Xiao et al. (2018) tested homophily, as denotes the similarity between the influencer and the consumer, and found that homophily (similarity) together with expertise was not as important as trustworthiness when consumers evaluated the credibility of eWOM ads, but they also said that those results might look different if other products were tested.

Lou and Yuan, (2019) also used similarity as a factor of source credibility and they did not find a positive relationship between similarity and purchase intention. Instead, Lou and Yuan (2019) found that similarity was having an indirect impact on purchase intention since it positively impacted both brand awareness and trust in influencer generated branded posts. Although the results of prior studies do not provide wholly consistent evidence, it generally suggested that the greater the similarity between the audience and the endorser is, the greater the credibility of the endorser and the more effective the ad will be (Munnuka et al., 2016). And in Xiao et al (2018) study they argued for different results on similarity depending on the product that is tested, so, therefore, the author of this report argue that similarity will be an important dimension to consider in this study.

2.3.7 Usefulness

Lou and Yuan (2019) did not use the dimension usefulness in their study, as can be seen in figure 2.1 above. In prior studies, usefulness has not been used in the context source credibility, instead Lou and Yuan (2019) thought it could be interesting to look at other factors that could be related to media channel, such as usefulness. Based on statistics, the use of influencer marketing is found to be effective among 94% of marketers (Ahmad, 2018). However, the usefulness of influencer marketing could differ from industry and product. Munnukka et al.

(2016) discussed in their study that previous studies have showed that “endorsers’ influence on ad effectiveness varies between product categories” (p.188) and in this study the sample that will be evaluated includes an older generation (which will be explained further down) and, in an industry, where influencer marketing, is not, yet, well developed, the dimension of influencer marketing usefulness could be an interesting aspect to look closer into.

Based on the findings above, the author in this report argues that the source credibility variables (trustworthiness, expertise and similarity) plus usefulness will have a positive impact on trust in branded posts and purchase intentions.

H2: Source credibility, including (a) expertise, (b) trustworthiness, (c) similarity, and (d) usefulness will positively influence the consumers trust in branded posts.

H3: Source credibility, including (a) expertise, (b) trustworthiness, (c) similarity, and (d) usefulness will positively influence the consumers purchase intentions.

Figure 2.3: Proposed hypothesis with H2a-d & H3a-d added Source: Author’s own work, adopted from Lou and Yuan, 2019, p.63

2.3.8 Moderators

Lou and Yuan (2019) used three moderators in their study. The choice of adding the moderator

“involvement” (see figure 2.1 above) was based on previous literature examining the role of involvement in decision making and advertising effectiveness. In Lou and Yuan’s case, they conceptualized involvements as “social media users’ involvement in following influencers’

posts or updates” (p.63). Lou and Yuan also added two more variables: age, and gender, which was found crucial for classifying social media users. In the adapted model, involvement will be left out as a moderator since this study aims to look at influencer marketing from the perspective of a specific product. Lou and Yuan (2019) looked at the model from the perspective of a social

Expertise

Trustworthiness s

Similarity

Usefulness

Trust in branded posts

Purchase intentions

media user who followed at least one influencer and all the interaction that influencer had with different brands online. However, the two moderators age and gender, will still be used in this study. The moderator age is chosen since the average age of the users of the product is above 55 years old, and previous studies have mainly used a sample size of students and the younger generation (Munnukka et al., 2016; Lafferty et al., 2002; Reinikainen et al., 2020). The moderator gender is chosen since the users of the product are mainly men and prior studies have based their results mainly on female respondents (Lee & Watkins, 2016; Munnukka, et al., 2016; Reinikaninen et al., 2019). In figure 2.4 below the proposed SMIV model is presented.

Figure 2.4: Proposed SMIV model

Source: Author’s own work, adopted from Lou and Yuan, 2019, p.63

2.3.9 Variables excluded from the model

As could be seen in figure 2.4, compared with figure 2.1, prior findings, and the chosen area, have made the researcher taking the decision to exclude dimensions in the adapted model. In the left column, the independent variables, attractiveness, information value, and entertainment value have been excluded together with the outcome variable brand awareness. Regarding the factor attractiveness, Ohanian (1990) states it as a well-explored area, however, the issue is described to be far from clear. His findings became the base of the indication of adding attractiveness as one of the dimensions included in the phenomena source credibility. Since then, attractiveness has been tested in various literature afterward. Even if Lou and Yuan (2019)

Expertise

Trustworthiness

Similarity

Usefulness

Trust in branded posts

Purchase intentions

Age Gend

er

trust in the branded posts, prior research has argued that attractiveness is one of the dimensions that have less effect in this context (Amos et al., 2008). A few studies also suggest that attractiveness may have less or even no effect on the credibility of the message or on buying behavior. It has also been reported that there is a negative relationship between attractiveness and consumers’ buying behavior (Munnukka et al., 2016). It is said to be considered as a key component of source credibility in the case of peer endorsements of beauty products (Munnukka et al., 2016), and it has been shown to positively influence the advertising credibility when there are products that are related to physical appearance (Till & Busler, 2000).

Munnukka et al. (2016) tested attractiveness effect in advertising toward beauty products and found a positive effect on the consumer attitude toward the ad, however, the effect was weaker than the dimensions trustworthiness and similarity. Since this study will be conducted in the sports industry and prior research has found evidence that attractiveness could be considered to be left out as a variable of source credibility depending on the product category, this study will leave attractiveness out from the model. Even if Lou and Yuan (2019) found a positive relationship with attractiveness, their study was conducted on influencer marketing in general, not a specific industry or product category which makes it hard to know in what context the dimension attractiveness was tested. Munnukka et al. (2016) also suggest that the attractiveness of the message source has the largest influence in low-involvement situations and this study will examine the high-involvement category. Furthermore, since the factor similarity will be included, which prior studies have suggested being a factor connected with attractiveness (Munnukka et al., 2016), it could be said that dimension attractiveness will indirectly be tested in this study anyway. So, in conclusion, attractiveness will be left out in this study since this study is based on the sports industry and not in the context of beauty products and second, since attractiveness have been indicating on importance in low-involvement product and in this study, a high-involvement product will be evaluated.

Furthermore, as can be seen in figure 1, Lou and Yuan (2019) also tested the impact of advertising value (informative value and entertainment value) in their study. Previous literature had found that “advertising informativeness, entertainment, and credibility determined consumers’ perceptions of advertising value, which in turn influenced their purchase intentions” (Lou & Yuan, 2019. p.60). However, their results indicated no relationship between the dimension entertainment value and brand awareness, trust in branded posts, or purchase intentions. The information value was shown to have an impact on consumers’ purchase

intention and trust in branded posts. Even if information value had an impact on two out of three dependent variables in their study, both these dimensions of advertising value will be left out in this study. Since entertainment value did not indicate on any relationship at all and the source credibility dimensions have been shown to have an impact and indirect impact on trust and purchase intentions (Lafferty et al., 2002; Munnukka et al., 2016; Reinikainen et al., 2020) this study will focus on the source credibility phenomenon and not include advertising value.

Lastly, brand awareness will also be excluded from the adapted SMIV model. This decision was based on the participants’ prior engagement with the product. “Brand awareness denotes whether consumers know about a certain brand and whether they can recall or distinguish it”

(Lou & Yuan, 2019. p.61). High brand awareness has been found to have a positive impact on consumers’ consideration of the purchase of a product or not. All four dimensions of source credibility that Lou and Yuan (2019) tested, trustworthiness, expertise, similarity, and attractiveness had a significant effect on the consumers’ brand awareness. However, since this study will be tested on a sampling that already is involved with the product and users of the product, the brand awareness is already considered as high among this sampling and therefore excluded.

2.4 Golf versus fashion

As discussed earlier, in 2.4.1 High- and low involvement, the phenomenon high- and low involvement could be used in different contexts. As was mentioned, a consumer’s involvement in a product depends on the importance of information needed and what type of products the consumer is considering (Aldlaigan & Buttle, 2001). Ha and Hu, (2013) explained that involvement in social media channels, or social network sites (SNS), could be divided into active and passive users where the active users had more activity on SNS than passive users.

One really interesting finding in Ha and Hu’s study (2013), was that a difference in high versus low SNS involvement users’ preference in topics could be found. Those who had a high SNS involvement seemed to be more interested in “soft news” such as gossip and celebrity news while people with low SNS involvement showed more interest in sports, politics, business, and science.

Ha and Hu (2013) further discussed that high SNS involvement users, that had a higher interaction and activity on their own channels, were more likely to post content from other news media and comments on posts and linking to other media sites on their own sites, than what

marketing, in general, has focused more on expanding in the fashion industry in an earlier stage than those areas with more profound importance of informative have done. Wolny and Mueller, (2013) found influencers particularly effective in the fashion industry since it was shown to have the ability to quickly follow upcoming trends in the industry. This made it possible to rapidly spread those trends throughout their social media network and in that way impact those consumers that had a strong willingness to embrace trends that were confirmed by others. They meant that the fashion industry has a strong connection with the users’ norms, values, and preferences that adapt fashion along the way. “The fact that the flow of new fashion or styling choices is never-ending, with the kaleidoscope of products and trends (be it recycled) constantly changing, means there is always a potential element of surprise in user-generated fashion messages.” (Wolney & Muller, 2013. p.563). If the fashion industry in an early staged focused on targeting those users with a high SNS involvement, Ha and Hu’s findings (2013) indicated on a fast spread among new trends since these users were more likely to post and link to other media sites. It was further discussed that younger people were spending much more time on their SNS and had a higher frequency of updating status than what the older generation had.

In comparison to users with low SNS involvement, influencer marketing, in the conclusion of Ha and Hu’s findings (2013) were, therefore, indicating not being so effective back then since these users seemed to have a lower activity on their own, as well as on general media channels.

Although, a lot has changed during the years and influencer marketing has increased in those areas, where Ha and Hu (2013) said people with low SNS involvement had high interest, such as sports and politics. For the sports industry, social media platforms have become an important communication tool lately (Madere et al., 2018) and Chan-Olmsted and Xiao (2019) mentioned in their article that “[a]s more and more sports content is migrated to social media, social media is now an essential media platform of fan engagement and even content distribution. Sports fans can express themselves while obtaining instantaneous information, interacting with favorite athletes, and socializing with other fans online” (p. 185). The importance of influencer marketing in the sports industry is confirmed by other authors (Maderer et al., 2018;

Anagnostopoulos et al., 2018; Jang, Ko, Kim, & Jeong, 2015; Kunkel et al., 2019), as well.

Since this study is conducted in collaboration with a company, active in the golf industry, the question arises if those general findings that have been made in the sports industry so far could be applicable in the golf industry as well. This since golf is a sport where the participants put down a lot of time and effort and the involvement could be seen as very high. Golf is a sport

that during many years has been associated with business people and which companies spend a lot of money on each year (Ceron-Anaya, 2010). During its history, rules have slowly transformed the etiquette of the sport and it has become a more expensive activity (Ceron- Anaya, 2010). In the year 2018, golf had over 4.11 million registered golfers in Europe (Statista, 2020). However, even if the sport is being practiced by a lot of people, changes that need to be made in order to follow the development in the world are slow and technology is, for example, considered to be threatening the sport’s future according to Forsyth (2020). Furthermore, Forsyth (2020) discusses the still low acceptance of women in the sport, which for many people would not even be a subject in the year 2020.

3. Methodology

Chapter three gives the reader a presentation of the chosen methodology for the research study.

It begins with the purpose, approach, and strategy, which later on is followed by how the data was collected, the choice of sampling selection, and the method of analysis. At the end of the chapter there is a summary and a “methodology map” presented to give the reader an overview of the author’s decisions.

3.1 Research purpose

A study will always have the nature of either an exploratory, descriptive, explanatory, or a combination of these three purposes. What characterizes an exploratory study is that these type of studies tries to create an understanding of phenomena that has not been investigated before by asking open questions about the topic. The focus of an exploratory study could be perceived as broad since the aim is to clarify an understanding of a problem (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill, 2012). Another alternate purpose of a study could be a descriptive purpose. Descriptive studies usually aim to answer questions such as, whom, what, where, and when and are conducted since a research area could lack investigation, the same as with exploratory studies (David & Sutton, 2016). The aim with a descriptive purpose is to profile an event, person or situation as accurately as possible (Saunders et al., 2012). The third nature of a study could be an explanatory nature.

This is usually laid over the exploratory and descriptive nature where the aim usually is to explain relationships between variables (Saunders et al., 2012). Since this study aimed to test the relationship in the adapted SMIV model throughout the hypothesis, the nature of this thesis was explanatory.

3.2 Research approach

The design of a research study could be either quantitative, qualitative, or multiple methods research. The quantitative research design is often characterized by numeric data (numbers) where questionnaires or data analysis procedures, such as statistics and graphs, often are used as a synonym for the quantitative approach (Saunders et al., 2012). Qualitative research is often characterized by non-numeric data such as words, video clips, or other material that does not consist of numbers. The numerical differences are often one way to differentiate these two research designs from each other (Saunders et al., 2012). Another way is that a quantitative study often tends to have a higher focus on generalizability when qualitative study tends to have a more subjective focus (David & Sutton, 2016). However, sometimes it could be necessary to have a mix of these studies. For example, a quantitative study may need follow-up questions to explain the findings in the questionnaire.