Is your brand loyalty affected by the country?
An explanatory investigation of the relationship between brand loyalty and country-of-origin in a Swedish context
Authors:
Julia Sunnegårdh Christoffer Eriksson Sofia Dahlgren
Supervisor: Viktor Magnusson Examiner: Åsa Devine
Semester: Spring 2021 Course code: 2FE21E
Acknowledgement
This Bachelor thesis was conducted by Sofia Dahlgren, Julia Sunnegårdh and Christoffer Eriksson at the Marketing Program during spring 2021 at Linnaeus University in Växjö.
We would like to say a huge thank you to our supervisor Viktor Magnusson. Without your engagement and patience, we would not have managed to finish this thesis. Thank you for your time and support. We would also like to express our gratitude towards our examinator Åsa Devine. Your feedback has been crucial for us and has got us on the right track. We would also like to thank the opposition groups from the seminars, your feedback and
comments has strengthened our thesis. We are also grateful for the help we got from Micheala Sandell, your expertise in English helps our research a lot.
Last but not least we would like to say thank you to all who took the time to participate in our survey. Without you this thesis would not have been possible.
Abstract
Background: Brand loyalty is a rather old concept and has become a central part of every brand and there are many factors that need to be considered when choosing strategies in order to achieve this. However, even though the concept itself is rather set-in stone the research on how brands archive this in different contexts is constantly in motion, for instance it has been shown that a brand's Country-of-Origin has effects on consumers purchase intent and attitudes which are crucial factors within Brand loyalty.
Purpose: The Purpose of this paper is to explain what effect COO has on brand loyalty of Swedish consumers.
Methodology: For this research a quantitative method was used. The research was
explanatory, and a cross-sectional research design was chosen. After this a questionnaire was constructed and shared through two platforms in order to collect the data that was needed for the research.
Findings: Both our hypotheses from the proposed model were rejected, therefore the researcher could conclude that Country-of-Origin has no effect on brand loyalty of Swedish consumers.
Conclusion: Even though both hypotheses were rejected, did the research contribute with knowledge that COO has no significant effect on brand loyalty since such research has not been done before. However, the research also contributes with knowledge towards previous research, where it has been shown that perceived quality from a country has an effect on consumers' purchase intent and attitudes. Whereby, our test showed that it also has an effect on brand loyalty when tested alone without the country image.
Key words
Brand loyalty, country-of-origin, perceived quality, country image, repetitive purchase, attitudinal loyalty.
LIST OF CONTENT
1 Introduction ... 1
1.1 Background ... 1
1.2 Problem discussion ... 3
1.3 Purpose ... 4
2 Theoretical framework ... 5
2.1 Brand loyalty ... 5
2.1.1 Attitude ... 6
2.1.2 Repetitive purchase ... 7
2.2 Country-of-origin ... 9
2.2.1 Country image ... 9
2.2.2 Perceived quality ... 12
3 Conceptual framework ... 14
3.1 Proposed model ... 15
4 Method ... 16
4.1 Research approach ... 16
4.2 Research design ... 16
4.3 Data collection method ... 17
4.3.1 Operationalization ... 18
4.3.2 Operationalization table ... 18
4.3.3 Execution of the questionnaire ... 22
4.3.4 Translation... 24
4.3.5 Pre-test ... 24
4.4 Sampling ... 26
4.4.1 Data collection ... 26
4.4.2 Sample selection ... 27
4.5 Data Analysis ... 28
4.5.1 Descriptive statistics ... 29
4.5.2 Correlation and regression analysis ... 30
4.6 Research quality ... 32
4.6.1 Reliability ... 32
4.6.2 Validity ... 33
4.7 Ethical and societal issues ... 35
4.7.1 Ethical issues ... 35
4.7.2 Societal issues ... 36
5 Results ... 37
5.1 Demographics ... 37
5.2 Descriptive statistics ... 37
5.3 Construct testing, quality criterion: Spearman correlation ... 40
5.4 Reliability testing: Cronbach's alpha ... 40
5.5 Analysis output: Regression analysis and hypothesis testing ... 41
6 Discussion ... 45
6.1 Discussion of Hypothesis 1 - “Country image has a positive effect on brand loyalty of Swedish consumers” ... 45
6.2 Discussion of Hypothesis 2 - “Perceived quality has a positive effect on brand loyalty of Swedish consumers” ... 46
7 Conclusion... 47
8 Implications (theoretical & managerial) ... 47
9 Limitations and future research ... 48
10 References ... 51
Appendices ... 60
Appendix 1: Demographic tables ... 60
Appendix 2: Translation of questions ... 62
Appendix 3: Questionnaire ... 64
1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND
Brands have become a natural part of our everyday life and they appear everywhere in all situations (Kapferer, 2008). Brands affect the human individual in different ways and different levels, depending on both the perception of the brand and what we as humans find valuable and attractive. The relationship between consumer and brand is a fundamental part of brand management, creating a relationship with your consumer can become a competitive advantage (Kapferer, 2008). These relationships can furthermore evolve into brand loyal consumers (Aaker, 1991). The fundamentals of brand loyalty are that a consumer is forming a repurchasing behavior due to the psychological process and attitude towards the brand where the consumer is actively choosing one brand over another (Jacoby and Kyner, 1973) without being affected by the competition on the market or even changes in the environment (Kopp, 2019). This bond between the brand and the consumer can have both a light and heavy emotional attachment, and the level is dependent on certain criteria that the brand must never disappoint the consumers and always live up to their expectations (Kopp, 2019). Brand loyalty is an accomplishment and is achieved through different factors, such as repetitive purchase and attitude (Aaker, 1991). When a consumer not only is satisfied with the product or the service of a brand but with everything that revolves around the brand, the consumer becomes a committed buyer, the highest level of loyalty. It is at this point that the consumer actively chooses one brand over the other competing brands, no matter price or feature differences (Aaker, 1991).
Furthermore, to understand why the consumers continue with these repetitive purchases which are a fundamental part of brand loyalty (Oliver, 1999), the dimension of attitudinal brand loyalty was added to the research of brand loyalty (Back & Parks, 2003). This
dimension explains and justifies the repeated behavior of consumers as an effect of attitudes towards the brand. Therefore, it is important to measure both the repeated purchases and attitudinal brand loyalty to gain a greater understanding of the consumers and by that understanding their attitudes towards the brand and what makes them brand loyal (Back &
Parks, 2003).
As individuals and consumers, humans are constantly facing an uncountable amount of choices every day, the country-of-origin (COO) plays a part in consumers decision making where COO is of great importance in terms of brand perception (García-Gallego 2017; Moon 2017). Country-of-origin is where a person or an object is from or created (Johnsson, 2016).
In business it is often talked about brand origin, however country-of-origin covers both brand origin and country of manufacture (Johnsson, 2016). Johnsson (2016) further claims that Country-of-origin is argued to have an impact on consumer evaluation and product choices, these choices are determined by the consumer choice behavior and what each consumer values the most and their attitude towards it. Country-of-origin has a significant role in decision-making (Aichner, 2014), and is shown to have influence on consumers, over the world, on attitude, purchase behavior and perceived quality (Woo, Jin and Ramkumar 2017;
Cristea, Capitana, and Stoenescu 2014; Fan 2019) which all are components towards building brand loyalty (Carvalho, Azar & Machado 2020).
1.2 PROBLEM DISCUSSION
Within research, brand loyalty is often divided into the two dimensions of behavioral- and attitudinal loyalty (Oliver 1999; Watson, Beck, Henderson & Palmatier 2015; Nisar and Whitehead 2016) Whereby attitudinal refers to feelings and preferences and behavioral to repurchasing and intentions towards the brand (Nisar and Whitehead 2016).
Hence, brand loyal consumers do not just become loyal, these consumers are earned by the company and brand (Kapferer, 2008). Along with this, the brand must identify the consumer and what is influencing them to purchase, especially in terms of attitudes and repurchase. To target brand loyal consumers with the right individual marketing is crucial and often separates a successful brand against others. This takes part in every marketing department, brand
loyalty requires a level of intelligent marketing strategy (Kapferer, 2008).
As the importance of COO has grown rapidly over the past decade and the topic continues to grow in interest of how it really influences consumers (Semaan, Gould, Chao and Grein 2019). For instance, according to Koubaa (2008) country-of-origin affects brand image, their study shows that it can have both good and bad effects on brands. It can even make “new”
brands more attractive on the market rather than already well-known brands.
COO has been seen to affect the purchase intention of young consumers in Europe (Bartosik- Purgat 2018), the effect COO has on consumers depends upon product category and
development level (Maier and Wilken 2017; Bartosik-Purgat 2018). For instance, Germany is heavily connected with cars, France with cosmetics, Italy with footwear, and Japan with electronics (Maier and Wilken 2017; Bartosik-Purgat 2018). However, the consumer effect and influence of COO has also been seen to differ from market to market, whereby young consumers from France mainly prefer products from France and young consumers from Poland prefer cars and electronics from Japan, cosmetics from France, and footwear made in Italy (Bartosik-Purgat 2018).
Existing research have the tendency to take two perspectives of brand loyalty and COO in conjoint, whereby COO image is considered to have an effect on brand loyalty (Panda and Misra, 2014; Saydan, 2013), or that COO has an effect on the brand loyalty elements rather than the whole concept of brand loyalty (Koubaa, 2008; Bruwer et al., 2014). Hence, research made of both COO and brand loyalty is focusing on a specific market or industry, and it is suggested to continue research of different countries on the field together with different brands and products with different approaches to get a deeper understanding of how COO affects consumers due to cultural differences in brand loyalty context (Boutin 2011; Semaan et al.
2019; Fan 2019). Additionally, research has proven that COO has a positive effect on brand equity, attitudes and purchase intention (Panda and Misra, 2014), however the nuance of research of relationship between the two theories in whole has not yet been conducted. The overall suggestion collected from previous research is that continues research should aim to answer questions of how COO affects brand loyalty, as it is of value for brands to understand in what way COO affects brand loyalty and gain a greater understanding of the degree of influence of preference reversals and choice behavior, to reach these highly valued consumers (Panda and Misra; Boutin 2011; Saydan, 2013; Semaan et al. 2019; Fan 2019). In addition, the authors will adapt the suggestion of conducting the research in context and culture not part of the leading economies (Boutin, 2011) to get an understanding of such consumers.
To sum up what’s been said so far regarding previous research of COO respectively brand loyalty, the authors have chosen to conduct a research with the aim to distinguish the possible effects of COO on brand loyalty in a Swedish context. This study will aim to provide an explanation of the two concepts and investigate possible relationships and effects.
1.3 PURPOSE
The Purpose of this paper is to explain what effect COO has on brand loyalty of Swedish consumers.
2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
The chosen concepts for this research are brand loyalty and country-of-origin and will be presented in this chapter. The literature reviewed below is chosen to create an understanding of both concepts to conduct as good of a research possible.
2.1 BRAND LOYALTY
Brand loyalty is a frequently researched concept where researchers find new dimensions and levels all the time. The overall definition of brand loyalty stated by Jacoby and Kyner (1973) however still stands.
“Brand loyalty is the biased behavioral response expressed over time by some decision-making unit with respect to one or more alternative brands out of a set of such brands, and is a function of psychological processes”. (Jacoby & Kyner, 1973:
p2)
Brand loyalty is an attitudinal repurchase behavior where the consumer actively chooses a brand over a set of other brands acting on the same market due to emotional commitment. The psychological process where the consumer creates a relationship with the brand takes part in the decision-making process of that consumer. A brand loyal consumer is not only pleased with product quality but also with the brand as a whole and makes repetitive purchase decisions based on previous experiences (Jacoby & Kyner, 1973). One can argue that a consumer is loyal due to only repetitive purchases, however, the active choice versus the inactive (inertia) choice must be taken into account (Huang & Yu, 1999).Inertia consumers are of course loyal in one form; however, they do not typically have any emotional
commitment to the brand and are repeatedly purchasing from the same brand due to non- conscious decisions. In comparison to brand loyalty where the consumer is consciously purchasing from the same brand due to personal preference. Consumer inertia is therefore an easily persuaded crowd that other brands reach out to that consumer with another offer
whereas brand loyal consumers are not (Huang & Yu, 1999). To be loyal, the consumer has to be disloyal to other brands. Brand loyalty is therefore an active choice, a commitment, and a positive attitude to a brand that makes the consumer come back for further purchases (Jacoby and Kyner, 1973).
2.1.1 ATTITUDE
Attitudinal loyalty is divided into three aspects, affective, cognitive and conative loyalty (Oliver, 1999). Cognitive loyalty stands for the consumers preference of one brand compared to others. Conative loyalty represents the response of a satisfied usage of a brand that a consumer experience (Oliver, 1999). Affective responses are simple like and dislike, however these feelings can be strong, yet not based on any knowledge but prior to emotions, if these emotions of a brand are positive and strong, they can be explained as an emotional attachment towards a brand (Oliver, 1999).
The three aspects of attitudinal loyalty are further explained as phases, where the preference phase represents the beginning of brand loyalty, second phase is the formation of emotional attachment and lastly, usage phase (Oliver, 1999). The consumer is argued to be loyal
throughout all phases individually, however the phases are influencing each other leading to a
“complete” behavior of attitudinal loyalty (Oliver, 1999; Yuksel, Yuksel and Bilim, 2010).
Hence, according to Back and Parks (2003), the conative phase is affected rather than affecting in terms of attitudinal loyalty since it represents the outcome of preference and emotional attachment i.e., the usage of the brand. However, Vahdat et al., (2020) argue that the phase of emotional attachment towards the brand determines attitudinal brand loyalty as it has a strong positive influence on brand loyalty overall. Jacoby and Kyner (1973) claims for preference to be essential for brand loyalty as it selects certain brands and selects out brands that are not preferable. This is an important aspect as part of the essentials of brand loyalty is that in order to be loyal, one also has to be disloyal (Jacoby and Kyner, 1973).
As each individual form’s attitudes on both objects, people and ourselves (Solomon et al., 2016), consumers are likely to find self-recognition with brands where responses are similar
as they have formed for themselves (Liu, Li, Mizerski and Soh 2012). Hence, building a self- connection with the consumer will result in an emotional attachment which increase the consumer's attitude towards the brand in a positive way and later become a driver for brand loyalty (Vlachos, Theotokis, Pramatari and Vrechopoulos 2010; Vahdat, Hafezniya,
Jarbarzadeh and Thaichon 2020).
2.1.2 REPETITIVE PURCHASE
Repetitive purchase means that the consumer comes back and repurchases a product/service over and over again (Curtis, Abratt, Rhoades and Dion, 2011). It is also defined as the actual action and behavior that a consumer has. Research shows that the behavior is connected to brand loyalty and is the reaction of such biased emotion towards such brand (Curtis et al., 2011; Jacoby and Kyner, 1973). The attitudinal dimensions of brand loyalty further both affects and is being affected by the behavior of purchases and intention for future purchase (Jacoby and Kyner, 1973; Oliver, 1999). To be brand loyal, the consumer must make repetitive purchases over time and stay committed for future purchases (Jacoby and Kyner, 1973; Yi and La, 2004). Curtis et al., (2011) and Weisberg et al., (2011) further argues that if the consumer is pleased with the purchase, the consumer’s intention for future purchases on a regular basis will increase.
However, a distinction between random regular purchases and intended regular and future purchases as the intended regular purchases demands a commitment from the consumer (Jacoby and Kyner, 1973). Without the commitment the purchasing behavior is more likely to be random and not biased. If the decision making is based on biased decisions, then the commitment is there, and this means that the consumers are brand loyal. This simply means that commitment is the one factor that will decide if it is random purchase behavior or loyalty.
Oliver (1999) further argues that a commitment to repetitive purchasing regularly is what defines a loyal consumer. This means that the consumer will buy a brand regardless if there
are similar brands with the same products on the market. Despite marketing and other factors that might lead to purchase exchange, the consumer will repurchase the brand that they feel committed to (Oliver, 1999).
Ercis, Candan, and Unal (2012)claims that brand loyalty is created when you as a consumer feel the commitment to the brand that you buy and that you repurchase the brand instead of changing to similar brands on the market. They further argue that the commitment that a consumer feels towards the brand can often be connected to the intentions to repurchase a brand. Mbango (2018) also argues that there is a strong relationship between commitment and repetitive purchase behavior. A customer's commitment towards a brand is influenced by the satisfaction of the brand and further the purchase intention.
2.2 COUNTRY-OF-ORIGIN
In the decision-making process, country-of-origin can be an important factor for consumers to consider, as COO is often an indicator for quality (Solomon et al., 2016). The country image and the perceived quality form stereotypes of such a country and can be both an advantage and disadvantage for businesses in global markets. Previous experiences with countries and goods from it can be both positive and negative and therefore be a guideline for consumers in the decision-making process (Solomon et al., 2016). Josiassen, Lukas, Whitwell (2008) argue for COO affecting purchase decisions when the consumer is not completely familiar with the product category. COO has been shown to affect consumers perceived value and perceived quality, whereby products from countries that have a favorable country image are perceived with higher quality and the consumers are willing to pay a higher price compared to countries with less favorable images (Cristea et. al 2014; Koschate-Fisher, Diamantopoulos and
Oldenkotte 2012). Yet, country image can determine the overall perception of a brand as consumers are in some product categories domestic country biased (Magnusson et al., 2011;
Maier, Wilken, 2017). However, Cristea et al., (2015) argue that COO influences the
perceived quality of a product on a cognitive level and that managers should pay attention to the relationship between the product and country-of-origins reputation.
2.2.1 COUNTRY IMAGE
Roth and Romeo (1992) define country image as following.
Country image is the overall perception consumers form of products from a particular country, based on their prior perceptions of the country's production and marketing strengths and weaknesses. (Roth and Romeo, 1992 p. 3)
Josiassen, Lukas, Whitwell (2008) argue that the product’s country-of-origin matters in the evaluation process of products where the consumer is not previously involved with the product,
however, have a perception of the country and have formed a country image. The overall impression of a country can be determined by the overall perception and image of a country (Lascu, Ahmed, Ahmed and Min, 2020; Maier and Wilken, 2017; Martin and Eroglu, 1993).
This overall impression is called a macro dimension, where the perspective of perception regards what effect politics and economics has on the perception (Lascu et al., 2020) and image regards the “descriptive, inferential and informational beliefs” about a particular country (Martin and Eroglu, 1993, p. 193). Acknowledging and paying attention to consumers' perception and image of the COO is important in marketing strategies, brands must also be aware of what beliefs consumers have overall of the country and act accordingly to target the right consumers (Lascu et al., 2020). Brijs, Bloemer and Kasper (2011) argue for the importance of familiarity of the country in mind when speaking of the effects the country has on the consumers perception and image. It’s argued that previous studies have taken a product image perspective to be most important, while country image in fact plays a much important part in consumers' overall perception of the brand and product. The familiarity of the COO functions as an indicator of quality and value of such products (Brijs et al., 2011).
As well as brands and individuals have reputations, do countries have reputations that reflect upon the image, whereby country reputation can be defined as the sum of shared perceptions and attitudes by the public towards the country (Wang 2006). Matarazzo, Lanzilli, Resciniti (2018) further argues that a good country image has a positive influence on consumers' purchase intent, and mostly on repetitive purchases. This influence grows even stronger when both a good country image and a good corporate image are correlated. However, a good country image cannot uphold or save up for a bad corporate reputation. Furthermore, a country’s reputation does reflect upon what comes out from the country, for instance products from that specific country, meaning that an unfavorable reputation could result in perception of weak competence through the eyes of a consumer (Jiménez and San-Martin 2016).
However, Brijs, Bloemer and Kasper (2011) argue that even though a country can be perceived with a reputation as luxurious, wealthy, and with good moral standards, marketers need to use
the country’s image carefully in marketing strategies. The country image should correlate with the wanted brand image to make a distinct message where the different components are matching. Magnusson, Westjohn, Stanford, Zdravkovic (2011) present findings that many consumers have a misperception of the actual country-of-origin for many products. Brand and marketing managers must be aware of the perceived country-of-origin the brand has from the consumers’ perspective to understand their perception of the brand as a whole. Furthermore, if the perception is wrong, correcting these perceptions can be both good and harmful for the brand. In fact, this is due to the country's image and what reputation and perception the consumers have regarding what they think the COO is. Woo, Jin and Ramkumar (2017) however state that a less-known product can be enhanced by a country’s image if the country has a well-known product with a good reputation and perception. This is due to the halo effect where consumers can assume that a country with a good quality product is also capable of producing other good products and therefore influence the purchase intention. This type of halo effect is functioning between both close and far separated product categories (Woo et al., 2017).
Woo (2019) further explains the halo effect as a domino effect, where a good brand image can contribute to a good country image, yet a bad brand image can result in a negative country image. Furthermore, an internationally successfully perceived brand image can influence consumers to have a positive image of the country-of-origin, this effect extends to all product categories of a country and can move from a general to specific aspect of product categories, and from specific to general. The attitude towards both brand country and product is affected by each other (Woo, 2019). For instance, if a COO image has a good reflection upon a certain product category, such as Germany and cars, could that influence customers to choose a car brand that is from Germany over competitors from other countries (Bartosik-Purgat 2018). This phenomenon is also called the Country-of-Origin Effect (Roth & Romeo 1992). When it comes to the effect of COO, could a mismatch between the customers’ values and beliefs and the country’s perceived image result in the customer rejecting the brand (Cristea et.al 2014).
2.2.2 PERCEIVED QUALITY
Zeithaml (1988) defines perceived quality as following:
“Perceived quality is different from objective or actual quality, a higher-level abstraction rather than a specific attribute of a product, a global assessment that in some cases resembles attitude and a judgement usually made within a consumer’s evoked set.”
(Zeithaml, 1988 p.3)
In other words, perceived quality is a higher level of judgement of the quality of a product or service (Zeithaml, 1988), and is an overall assessment of a product's functionality (Cristea et al., 2015), performance (Zeithaml, 1988) and reliability (Bandyopadhyay, 2015).
Grönroos (2016) states that perceived quality in perspective of services is the total perception of both expected and experienced quality. Expected quality is the perception of the brands and other outer environments message of the quality, while the experienced quality focuses on the technical and functional quality of the service.
According to Cristea et al. (2015), does the country's image influence the perceived quality by affecting customer perceptions of functionality. Woo, Jin and Ramkumar (2017) follow with this point that the reputation of a country's product category image affects purchase behavior and consumer attitude, where the perceived quality of a product can be dependent on the country-of-origin. Furthermore, Grönroos (2016) explains functionality as a dimension and antecedent of perceived quality. This dimension explains how the quality is perceived and is the overall explanation of perceived quality. Functionality characteristics of a product should aim to meet the consumers’ needs and wants, and even if not all consumers are attracted to all functions of a product, at least one should be (Lee, Lee and Garrett, 2012). Furthermore, the perceived functionality is argued to be an important part of decision making and in product attitudes (Lee, Lee and Garrett, 2012).
Companies should brand themselves with other attributes such as reliability instead of with a competing price as non-domestic consumers can get confused with a “low” (competing) price for a high-quality service (Bandyopadhyay, 2015). To make a consumer feel the reliability that is needed in order for them to feel good about the perceived quality, it is of importance that everything is connected and working together, which means that the country, consumer and the product must be in harmony (Cristea et.al 2014). In order to keep reliability in the consumer eyes the user experience needs to be constant and not change in quality. It is very important that the quality is not getting worse, that is something that will decrease the consumers vision on reliability. The reliability can also be connected to the image and that image will be constant if the quality is constant. The reliability is affected by the perceived quality and they both are dependent on each other (Cristea et al., 2014).
Performance is an important factor when looking into perceived quality (Zeithaml, 1988;
Mugge and Shoormans 2011). Does the product perform the way that the consumer needs and wants it to and does it have any negative sides? These are only a few factors that can be measured in performance. A consumer wants the best on the market and in order to fulfill their needs the product must perform the way that they want to. The better the performance of the product is, the more consumer needs will be achieved (Profiletree 2021). Mugge and Shoormans (2011) further argue that performance is often what consumers are looking for in order to find the superior product when comparing alternatives.
Loureiro and Kaufmann (2017) argues that consumers' perception of quality is not dependent on the country of manufacture, however, the brand origin has a clear influence on the
perceived quality. The brand's origin plays a bigger part in consumers' perception of the quality of the products due to the country’s reputation regarding industrialization and
technology even if that is not the country manufacturing the product Loureiro and Kaufmann (2017).
3 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
As both Magnusson et al., (2011) and Maier and Wilken (2017) argue, country image affects the overall perception of a brand, COO influences the consumer attitudes with both perceived quality and country image (Woo, 2019; Cristea et al., 2015). Attitudes are argued to be influences by once instant perception and reaction or storage from a memory connected to a certain situation (Bohner, Dickel, 2011) and attitudes towards a country can be based on both reputation and a previous positive perception (Josiassen, Lukas, Whitwell, 2008).
Hence, theoretical contribution has not been given regarding the connection of brand loyalty and a specific country. Brand loyalty is a well argumented topic (Jacoby and Kyner, 1973), and research has shown that consumers have country preferences of certain product categories (Bartosik-Purgat, 2018; Bruwer et al., 2014) due to previous experiences in such countries.
Research is however needed to further understand the correlation between brand loyalty and COO. Brijs et al., (2011) discuss the large impact of country image on consumers' overall perception of brand and product. Furthermore, Magnusson et al., (2011) argue for the awareness of the brand’s COO reputation to be of importance in marketing because of possible misperceptions. Yet, to what extent this misperception and reputation affects the brand is not presented.
The image of the country-of-origin reflects upon the product, if a country has a good general development, the perceived quality is higher than a product from a lower developed country (Cristea et.al 2014). The apprehension of the different distinctive features of a product can be based on or even affected by the country-of-origin. Oumlil (2020) further argues that the perceived quality of a product is less important in the total perception of the consumer if the country is less developed. Consumers value the enchanting quality of a country more than the quality of the product. According to Loureiro and Kaufmann (2017) perceived quality is not dependent on coo, however the country's reputation is. Cristea et al. (2014) future argues that the country's image is a factor that influences perceived quality.
This leads to the discussion if perceived quality will have a positive effect on brand loyalty.
Based on the presented literature and its findings together with Sweden being the chosen country of interest, the following hypotheses are formulated and further tested in this research.
H1: Country image has a positive effect on brand loyalty of Swedish consumers
H2: Perceived quality has a positive effect on brand loyalty of Swedish consumers
3.1 PROPOSED MODEL
The proposed research model for this research is accordingly to the hypotheses. The hypotheses are based on the basis of country-of-origin theory and perspective.
Table 1: Research model
H1+
H2+
Brand loyalty
Country image
Perceived quality Country-of-origin
4 METHOD
This chapter aims to explain and justify the chosen methodology for this research
4.1 RESEARCH APPROACH
This research aims to explain how COO affects consumers brand loyalty and this will be done by using theory that is already existing. This type of research speaks for using a deductive perspective when it comes to the method approach. This means that hypotheses are created and with the help of the chosen theory and data collection they can be tested (Bryman & Bell 2011). The study will be quantitative, and it will aim to see if the hypotheses are rejected or not. According to Bryman & Bell (2011), quantitative research is good to use when taking a deductive perspective. This is based on deductive research that aims to test hypotheses and is often used when the theory is already existing and then tested on a chosen subject (Bryman &
Bell 2011). The deductive perspective was chosen because the purpose is to see if the
proposed research model can be applied to the Swedish market and to do this a survey design was chosen. A survey design is used when the study wants to gain an understanding of the participants’ attitude and opinions (Bryman & Bell 2011).
4.2 RESEARCH DESIGN
Research design is when the researchers decide an approach of how they want to collect data and then later on analyze it. There are a few approaches that can be chosen from. This choice will then be the foundation of how the research will be conducted and executed. It will affect the process and will have a part in what the priorities will be in the research (Bryman & Bell 2011).
For this research it is suitable to choose cross sectional design as a research design. Bryman and Bell (2015) further explain that a cross sectional design can be referred to as a social research design. It is a social investigation often connected with a survey. This design is used when a variation is needed and needs to have more than one variable in order for it to work on a research. More than often, it has more than two variables to get a better variation and more reliable results. This design is used in a limited time period, it is only in one point in time that the data is collected. This is what separates this research design from some of the other options. The cross-sectional approach involves the collection of data and then the collected data will be analyzed and see if there is a relationship between the variables that are used (Bryman & Bell 2011).
4.3 DATA COLLECTION METHOD
When it comes to collecting the data there are a few options that can be chosen when the paper is based on a quantitative study. Two examples of this are questionnaires and interviews (Bryman & Bell 2011).
For this assignment the authors believed that a questionnaire would fit the research best, because they wanted to find out the relationship between two variables. A self-completion questionnaire was conducted, this means that it is a questionnaire that the participants answer by themselves, without the opinion of others that might lead to other answers (Bryman & Bell 2011). This method was also chosen because it is a good way of getting a lot of data fast, unlike interviews this method will give the participants the freedom to do the questionnaire whenever they have time. This also means that the author does not have to make time for interviews. However, the questions in the questionnaire must be easy to understand. The questionnaire must have a clear structure that is easy to follow for the participants so no problem will accrue when they are answering it. This is mainly because they are doing it by themselves and cannot get help from the authors when they are answering the questions (Bryman & Bell 2011). To limit the problems that might arise a pre-test was done. The main issue with a questionnaire is to not get as many participants as you want (or even need) to get
enough information for the analysis. The analysis will be based on the answers that the questionnaire will provide (Hair et al., 2011).
4.3.1 OPERATIONALIZATION
To make it clearer the authors did an operationalization table where the concept, sub concept, and items were divided. They did this to get a clearer structure. The concepts, sub-concepts and items were collected from the theory. The authors found four sub concepts and twelve items. The twelve items were later on the foundation for the twelve questions that were conducted, these questions can be seen in the table. The aim with this research is to explain if country-of-origin has an effect on brand loyalty on Swedish consumers.
4.3.2 OPERATIONALIZATION TABLE Theoretical
Concept
Item number Measurement Indicator Description Measure on the
questionnaire
Attitude (Dependent variable)
Attitude1 7-point Likert Scale
Preference “Cognitive loyalty stands for the consumer’s preference of one brand compared to others” (Oliver, 1999)
I prefer brand X upon
competing brands
Attitude2 7-point Likert scale
Usage Usage stands for the actions of conative loyalty (Back and Parks, 2003)
I use brand X regularly
Attitude3 7-point Likert scale
Emotional attachment
Emotional attachment is the affective response of loyalty as it describes the consumers emotions (like and dislike) towards a brand (Oliver, 1999).
I have an emotional attachment to brand X
Repetitive purchase (Dependent variable)
Rep.pur1 7-point Likert scale
Regular purchase
Regular purchase is the behavioral outcome of a loyal consumer (Jacoby and Kyner, 1973).
I regularly purchase the brand X
Rep.pur2 7-point Likert scale
Intend to future purchase
If the consumer is satisfied the likelihood of intended future purchase is higher (Curtis, Abratt, Rhoades, and Dion 2011)
I intend to conduct future purchases from the brand X
Rep.pur3 7-point Likert scale
Commitment Consumers who feel committed to a brand are less likely to switch brands (Ercis,
I am committed to brand X
Candan and Unal, 2012)
Country image (Independent variable)
CImage1 7-point Likert scale
Positive perception
Perception can be the
determination of the overall impression of a country (Lascu et al., 2020)
My perception of brand X country-of- origin is positive
CImage2 7-point Likert scale
Reputation “The sum of shred
perceptions and attitudes by the public towards the country”
(Wang, 2006)
My perception is that brand X country-of- origin has a good reputation
CImage3 7-point Likert scale
Image Image regards the
“descriptive, inferential and informational beliefs” about a particular country (Martin and Eroglu, 1993, p. 193)
I have a positive image towards brand X country-of- origin
Perceived quality (Independent variable)
Per.qual1 7-point Likert scale
Reliability In order to keep reliability in the consumer eyes the user experience needs to be constant and not change in
I associate brand X country-of- origin with reliability
quality. (Cristea et al., 2014)
Per.qual2 7-point Likert scale
Performance What the consumer assesses in evaluating the needs and wants when comparing different brands (Profiletree, 2021)
I associate brand X country-of- origin with good performance
Per.qual3 7-point Likert scale
Functionality Country image influence the perceived quality by affecting customer perceptions of functionality (Cristea et al., 2015)
I believe that brand X country-of- origin reflects good functional
Table 2: Operationalization table
4.3.3 EXECUTION OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE
The authors collected the data from a survey/questionnaire. The survey was published out on Facebook and share in groups, together with Discord in order to get as many participants and answers as possible. These platforms where be used due to the fact that the authors have access to them and can get many answers within a short period of time. They further made the questionnaire in Swedish because the authors want Swedish people's opinions, and they believe that questions in Swedish made it easier for the participants to understand the questions correctly and get their correct opinions.
The authors had a lot to take in consideration when conducting the questionnaire. First of all, the participants needed to be familiar with the concept of brand loyalty and COO in order to get the most reliable results for the study. This was done because the authors wanted to make sure that the participants' answers kept consistency and stability (Malhotra, 2010), and would not change due to not understanding the aim of the study and the concept used. Read more about consistency and stability in chapter 4.7 Research Quality.
The concepts were described briefly in the beginning of the questionnaire, later on the concept of loyalty was repeated. The authors believed that a reminder would make it easier for the participants to understand what the questionnaire aimed for. The questioner will also consist of questions where the participants answer their age, gender, occupation and income (Bryman & Bell, 2015). These questions were presented in the beginning of the questionnaire.
This information was considered to help the authors in their analysis and will give it more dimensions.
The questionnaire consisted of a seven-point Likert scale, where the participant where be able to choose between strongly agree and strongly disagree. Where one (strongly disagree) is the lowest and seven is the highest (strongly agree). For example, my perception of brand X country-of-origin is positive. Then the participants had to choose between the seven different
points that are in the scale. The 7-point Likert scale does bring more options for the
participants, hence, according to Joshi, Kale Chandel and Pal (2015) the 7-point Likert scale can increase the chances of meeting the objective reality of people. Dawes (2008) further argues that a 7-point scale is a good choice for a regression analysis. Their results showed that the more range the participants had to choose the more answers options were used.
After the control questions (age, gender, income and occupation) the authors wanted the participants to answer if there is a brand that they are loyal to, they had to write down the name of the brand to make sure that they actually had a brand in mind. The next question was to control if the participants were of interest for the research. To make sure of this the
question was: Do you know which country this brand comes from? If the participants answered no to this question they were not of use for the study and were sent directly to the end where they were thanked for their participation, but they were of no use for the study. If the participants answered yes, they were able to carry on with the questionnaire and answer the following questions. The questionnaire can be seen in Appendix 3.
According to Peytchev & Peytcheva (2017) participants do not keep the same focus throughout the whole questionnaire. In the end the focus might not be the same as in the beginning and this can lead to errors in the final results. To avoid this the authors split up the questionnaire into four parts where each part had a different concept behind the questions.
The authors also added messages in the beginning of each part to inform the participant how far they had come. This was done to prevent the participant from losing focus and to make them understand how much was left for them to answer after each part.
Lastly, the most important part of the questionnaire is to make it easy to understand and to construct the questions, so nothing is unclear for the participants (Bryman & Bell 2011). The authors had this in mind when they decided the final questions.
4.3.4 TRANSLATION
In order to get results of how the country of origin affects the Swedish market, the authors decided to make the questionnaire in Swedish. This was done because the authors believed that the participants would be more comfortable when the questions were in Swedish and this would lead to them understanding the purpose better.
This did lead to some complications. The first one is to translate the questions in the right way in order to get the same meaning. If the translation is wrong and the meaning is not the same in Swedish as in English, then the result could not be counted on. In order for the participants to be sure that the questions were translated and perceived right they took help from two lecturer. The first one was the supervisor for the paper who teaches in English at Linnaeus University. Viktor Magnusson was in the process from the start and helped to see with another eye if the translation was correct. The second one is Michaela Sandell who also is a lecturer at Linnaeus University. She teaches in English and is extremely good at the English language. This means that both of them are accustomed to the English language and their knowledge when it comes to the translation were trusted. Both of them were satisfied with the translation of the questions before the questionnaire was sent out.
4.3.5 PRE-TEST
Pre-test is done before the actual questionnaire is sent out to the public. It is a precaution that is done in order to discover potential errors in the questionnaire. These errors can for example be that the participants do not understand the purpose and based on this their answers will not be reliable (Bryman & Bell 2011).
The authors of this paper pre-tested the questionnaire on 15 participants. The participants were in a wide age range (19-67). The authors wanted to know if all ages understood the statements the same. The pre-test was done because the authors did not want any unexpected problems when the final questionnaire was sent out. They also wanted the answers to be as
reliable as possible and in order for them to know this the statements needed to be perceived correctly. The participants were chosen through a convenience sample, and before they answered the questionnaire the authors told them to look for errors, if there was anything that they found unclear and if they understood and perceived all the questions correctly. When they were done the participants gave feedback and the authors got some suggestions that would change the questionnaire for the better.
The changes that were made was a clearer introduction, the word brand (varumärke) added in order to make it extra clear that we wanted to know a brand's country-of-origin and not the participants country-of-origin. A repetition of the concept loyalty was also added right before the statements that were connected to loyalty. This was done because the authors wanted it to be clear what the statements in this section were aiming for.
4.4 SAMPLING
4.4.1 DATA COLLECTION
This study was chosen to target Swedish consumers due to two reasons, firstly it is suggested by previous research that the effect of COO on consumers should be researched in more nations and cultures (Boutin 2011; Semaan et al. 2019; Fan 2019), and Sweden has not been done before. Secondly, all the authors of this research have their origin from Sweden, and it is in their interest.
Hair et al. (2011) explains the sample frame as the population that is used in the research.
Regarding the sample frame of this research the approach was non-probability. Bryman and Bell (2011) further argue that this means that the authors have not chosen all the participants without consciousness, this leads to that some part of the population can have a bigger chance of being selected than others.
Furthermore, regarding sampling it is important to choose the right sampling method that will suit the research. The choice will therefore be based on what type of research that will be made and how to get the best results. There are a few sampling methods that can be chosen from, it is up to the authors to decide and it will be done on a part of the population that is chosen (Bryman & Bell 2011). A few sampling methods were used in this research in order to get as much data as needed. The first one is a convenience sample. Bryman & Bell (2011) explains convenience sampling as a good method to use when you have an easy availability to the place where you are collecting data from (Bryman & Bell 2011). In this case Facebook.
The authors have used this method because they have used friends and family on Facebook to answer the questionnaire. This method can be good when the research has a financial
limitation or if it has a time limit. It is considered a good way to get many answers fast (Bryman & Bell 2011).
The convenience sampling later led to snowball sampling. According to Bryman & Bell (2011) snowball sampling is when convenient sampling leads to more shares and these shares are not any related parties of the authors. This means that the author friends, and families then
shares them to their friends and families which will lead to more answers and more data that later on can be analyzed. This later helped the authors to achieve the amount of respondents wanted.
As mentioned before the authors chose Facebook as their social media platform to post the questionnaire together with different communities on the chatting platform Discord. Those platforms were chosen because it is an easy way of getting answers fast and a big spread of the questionnaire. The authors also decided to share the questionnaire in different groups on Facebook. This was done in order to get more results from participants that are not in the inner network of contacts of the authors.
4.4.2 SAMPLE SELECTION
According to (Bryman & Bell 2011) sampling is dependent on time and financial resources when it is done in a business research. The more data that is collected through sampling the better, because then there will be more data in the end to analyze. It is also good to aim for a lot of data because then you can afford to have errors in the sampling. Although, more data can also be a disadvantage in some cases. This also depends on time and financial resources.
If you have little time and little financial resources, then too much sampling data can have a negative effect and will not be manageable.
When it comes to country-of-origin and brand loyalty there is much variation in sample size.
It is based on different factors and what goals the different studies have. Hence, there is a lot of information on what the right sample size really is. For instance, Green (1991) argues that a study that will be using multiple regression and correlation shall have as a thumb rule that the minimum of respondents shall be 50 and that researchers shall further add 8 times the number of independent variables to those 50. However, this would give the authors of this research the minimum respondents of 98 (50+8x6), which is a relatively low number. Therefore, the authors decided to investigate the research of Bartosik-Purgat (2014) who has done similar
research, however on purchase intention on participants all around Europe. The mean of participants from each country in her study is 166, and that is the minimum number of respondents the authors then decided to work for.
For the final analyses there were 183 answers that were considered reliable. The questionnaire showed a total of 207 answers. From these 207 answers 17 of them were participants that had answered no in the first control questions, this means that those answers were not useful for this study. 7 more answers were removed before the final sample size was determined. These 7 answers were removed due to the fact that the participants did not answer the control question with an actual brand. Based on this the authors made the decision to remove all 7 answers and not use it in the research. They were seen as frivolous and because of this not considered reliable. This led to 183 answers that the authors found reliable and useful for their study. The authors of this paper also had a limited time spread whereas many answers as possible should come in. This also makes it hard to have a minimum of answers that is needed for the study because the authors did not have unlimited time to get in answers.
4.5 DATA ANALYSIS
Choosing the right test is crucial in order to make sense of the data collected and make the outcome reliable (Hair et al. 2011). Hence, to make sure that the data is as compatible with the test(s) used, it is preferable if the researcher knows what kind of test is to be used before the data is collected. Therefore, it is of help to make, for instance, the survey based on what kind of test you will be using when conducting a quantitative research (Bryman and Bell 2011; Hair et al. 2011). Once the data has been collected, one can analyze and measure the data through data analysis, hence data analysis can be seen as something that transforms data into knowledge. However, in order for the data to be useful and give knowledge it has to be interpreted and analyzed (Bryman and Bell 2011; Hair et al. 2011). This was done through a statistical program called IBM SPSS Statistics, which is a good tool in order to see
correlations and relationships between variables and even detect relationships and correlations that were not expected (Bryman & Bell 2011).
However, before importing the data into SPSS is it necessary to edit the data beforehand for correctness and consistency in order to make it reliable (Bryman & Bell 2011; Hair et al.
2011). Meaning that researchers have to find if there is any missing data or other
inconsistencies (Hair et al. 2011). For instance, in this research, people who did not know where their brand whom they are loyal to are from were sent straight to the end. Hence, they did not answer any of the statements about their thoughts towards the country-of-origin since they would not contribute to the study, resulting in blank answers and missing data.
Therefore, the researchers decided to not include these answers in the data tests.
4.5.1 DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS
Descriptive statistics is an important part when the research aims to analyze the collected data. It helps to measure the data in the right way and will give reliable numbers that later on can be presented in the research. Central tendency and dispersion are two helpful
measurements when it comes to descriptive statistics. The central tendency is a good
measurement to use when the aim is to find out the data volume. The most used variables to measure this with are the mean, mode and median.
Although Central tendency is very important when it comes to descriptive statistics, the research might need more to measure the data. Here the measurement of dispersion comes in.
When it comes to dispersion one type of measurement, which explains the distinction of the mean, is the standard deviation (Malhotra 2010).
To get more understanding of the data a measurement of how skewed the data it was done and also a test to measure the kurtosis. According to Malhotra (2010), the skewness can be
defined as a measurement of how symmetric the mean in the collected data will be. It is a way of measuring the aberrancy that will make the collected data divert in a certain direction when it comes to the mean. This measurement will make the data tilt into left, right or be
completely symmetric. The skewness is negative if the collected data is tilted to the right and
