MKTG7510: Understanding Consumers' Relationships with Companies - Marketing Research Proposal Assessment Answers

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Consumer-Company Identification: A Framework for Understanding Consumers' Relationships with Companies - Marketing & Consumer Research Proposal

Task 1:What is the best research design that will get you quality information within the given time and budget?

Task :2Identify the Management/Decision (and research) Problem, and the Research Objectives

Task 3:Prepare the Report

• Executive Summary
• Background and Problem Definition
• Research Objectives
• Importance and Benefits of the Study
• Hypotheses Development

Task 4: Research Design

• Type of Research
• Research Method
• Sampling Design
• Ethics

Task 5:Data Collection

Task 6:Data Analysis

Executive summary

The research proposal deals with measuring the realer equity using empirical study. It aims at proposing the model for retailer equity because there is lack of any such framework in the literature. This is the basis of research objectives as well as hypotheses. For this purpose the researcher will collect data from consumers of retail store. The researcher will collect data using questionnaires on 7 pointer scale. Thus, research will be based on primary data. Hypotheses will also be developed on the basis of variables of the study. There will be 23 measures of the study and these measures will be analysed using confirmatory factor analysis and exploratory factor analysis. The researcher will use structural modelling tool (EMOS) for that. The table of hypotheses and analysis tools is provided in the appendices. The data will be analysed using MANOVA and the results for two categories of the retail stores will be obtained by that. The researcher will be using convenience sampling for the collection of data. The data will be collected from a minimum number of 460 respondents. In this way the results of the research will be arrived at. The results of the research “Consumer based –brand equity: Improving the measurement – Empirical evidence” suggests that the structure of retailer equity parallels the structure of brand equity. It also confirms that structure of retailer’s equity is similar to that of the brand equity. The results also depict that there are four dimensions in retailer equity and the concept of perceived quality is different from dimension of the retailer’s equity. In this way the research attempts to fill gaps in present literature and thereby providing crucial theoretical and managerial implications. Amidst several limitations a number of benefits of this study are there in retail equity that is underexplored in the literature.

Background and problem definition

The research is about consumer- based brand equity measurement aspect and the measurement of the equity that is linked with retailers. The concept of brand equity suggests that the additional value that a consumer adds to brand name. In the same way the consumers also adds value to retail stores and that is referred as retail equity. Thus, the research will be based on empirical study to establish the measurement for retailer equity based on consumer. There have been many researches to measure brand-equity but currently retail—equity measurement researches are very few (Aghaei 2014). The research problems underline that retailer equity measurement techniques are not fully explored and this why they can be improved further. The current consumer-based retailer equity measurement approaches have several limitations and these limitations define the problem of the research. The first limitation is that there is lack of evidence based on empirical study for a structural similarity between retailer equity and brand. Secondly, there is no clarity in the number of dimensions and nature of dimensions. Thirdly, there is lack of discriminating indicators so as to measure retailer association. In this way the research focuses on these problems and thereby suggesting models and measurement techniques to overcome these problems (Wright & Benjamin K. 2015).

The research is based on the following objectives:

To extend the scope of consumer-based brand equity measurement for the measurement of retailer equity that is based on consumer.

To address the limitations in the methods of current retailer equity measurement

Importance and Benefits

The research will prove to be very important in various ways. First of all the research will measure consumer based retail equity. It is very important to conceptualize retailer equity based on marketing perspective or consumer perspective and this research will do that. It will be beneficial for further researches because it will give dimensions to measure retail equity. This research would address the current limitation of measurement of brand equity (Ali & Talwar 2013). It is very important to do that before translating it to measure retailer equity. The research is also very important because it will demonstrate empirically the similarity of structure of the equity of retailer brand and construct. Thus, it is vital to conduct this study now because it will help in filling gaps in literature about retailer equity (Sultan & Henrichs 2009).

Hypothesis Development

The variables for study on the basis of hypothesis are identified as follows:

1. Retailer associations
2. Retailer awareness,
3. Retailer – perceived quality and
4. Retailer loyalty.

The variable retailer awareness implies a consumer’s ability to identify a retailer as a member of some category of retailers. In this proposal this dimension is considered to be similar as dimension of ‘name awareness’ of Arnett et al. (2003). The variable retailers association is different from many other researchers’ definition. It is termed as something that is associated with the cognition of the retailer as defined by Aaker (1991). The variable retailer quality is again similar to Yoo and Donthu’s (2001) ‘perceived quality’. It is defined as brand association that elevates the brand assets’ status. The variable retailer loyalty is defined as becoming a primary choice of customers when it comes to buy a products ( Yoo and Donthu , 2001, p. 3).

Research Design

The research design deals with various aspects such as research method, sampling design, data collection, data analysis, etc. all these elements for this particular research are described in below sections (Ashworth 2011). A research design can be causal, descriptive or exploratory and this particular research design is exploratory in nature.

Type of research

The research is empirical in nature. The research is based on survey method. A survey method is always deals with primary research in which a researcher collects first hand data. In this research, the researcher has used questionnaires to collect primary data from consumers (Sinapuelas, Wanh & Bohlmann 2015).The research is based on quantitative data. An empirical research can be based on quantitative as well as qualitative data. The researcher will take opinion of respondents on Likert type scale with 7 anchors. Thus, the responses are quantifiable.

Sources of data

The data has been collected using primary source. To collect the data the researcher has designed questionnaires and distributed them in three retail stores that are Davis Jones, Myer and Target. The responses of consumers will be availed for the questionnaires. Thus the only source of data for this research is questionnaires.

Sampling design

The sampling design of a research is based on either probability sampling or non-probability sampling. This research is based on non-probability sampling. The researcher has used convenience sampling as a method of non-probability sampling. The survey population for the research will consist of individuals who come under the age group of 18-65 years and who have bought goods from some retail store (Kevin 2012).The sampling design is based on convenience sampling. This type of sampling design is used so that the researcher can choose sample on his/her convenience. By using convenience sampling the researcher has drawn 601 consumers on the basis of systematic sampling. The researcher will go for conformity factor analysis and it includes 23 variables thus it requires a sample size of at least 230 respondents. Due to the accumulation of two varieties of retailers, at least 460 samples are required. In this way the sample size for the research is determined.

Data collection

To collect the data from consumers the researcher has used trained research assistants. In order to improve the sample representation the data has been collected on weekends as well as different weekdays. The location of data collection was CBD shopping precinct because the chosen retailers have their outlets there. The data has been collected o the basis of 23 variables. To collect the data efficiently, firstly the researchers have explained the purpose of the research to the consumers and then asked them to fill the questionnaire (Cutler 2010). For the purpose of data collection the stores have been divided into two categories. These categories are speciality stores and department stores. For efficient data collection the stores categories were also kept different in terms of price, consumer involvement, associated risk and price.

Measurement

To measure the results of the research the researcher has used exploratory factors analysis and conformity factor analysis to establish the dimensionality of retailer equity. For analysis of conformity factors AMOS (Structural equation modelling) is used. To measure the responses of respondents effectively, the questionnaire consisted of two sections. The first section had 23 items and the second section comprised of demographic information the respondents. The instrument for survey is questionnaire with two sections (Jones 2008). Two different versions of questionnaires will be used. The researcher has adopted 1-7 Likert- type scale for equity measures of all retailers. The extreme ends in this are ‘strongly disagree’ (1) at first end and ‘strongly agree’ (7) at last end. The measures for retailer equity have been adopted from literature on branding and retailing. The measures of this study were first checked with a judgemental sample for their relevance. After this some items were deleted and some were reworded. In this research four measures were adopted for retailer awareness. Thus, data will be collected using structured questionnaires (Jones 2008).

Data Analysis

For analysis of the data the researcher will use structural equation (EMOS). The confirmatory factor analysis will be done using this. EMOS will be used to test the multi-dimensionality. The 15 articles from 23 articles of factor analysis (exploratory) will serve as indicators for confirmatory factor analysis. The dimension of retailer equity will be operationalized as an average of the rating on the Likert type item. The measurement model will be based on convarience matrix and the model will be estimated on using maximum likelihood estimation method. This is the method that is well-known to perform well under variety of less-than-optimal situations like excessive kurtosis or small sample sizes. Before the analysis of the data the Goodness-for-fit criteria will also be checked. It shall show an acceptable fit to pursue with the available data. It will undertake X square test (Haung & Sarigollu 2012). It is important that GFI value for each model shall be acceptable. The data analysis also undertakes RMSEA value to a fit-extent level. For both the department stores; the IFI values, the CFI values and the TLI values will also be checked. Thus, before data analysis validity and reliability of the data will be checked. A MANOVA will also be undertaken for each retailer with retailer equity variables. The construct validity and content validity will also be taken into consideration for the purpose of research. In this way the process of data analysis will start from checking reliability and validity of the data and then analysing it using above described tools and techniques to come to the conclusion. The data collection method deals with multivariate analysis, since it is using Multi way ANOVA for each retailer with retailer equity variables.

Data Interpretation

The results of the research suggest that retailer equity structure parallels brand equity. It also confirms that retailer’s equity structure is same as that of the equity of brand. The results also demonstrate that retailer equity is four-dimensional and perceived quality is distinct dimension of the retailer’s equity (Hanssens 2013).