Customer engagement in a facebook brand community A study of Airline consumers in Vietnam

Specifically, it investigates: -The relationship between Customer Engagement behavior and Social benefit -The relationship between Customer Engagement behavior and Entertainment benefit

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business

Le Minh Hoang Long

CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT IN A FACEBOOK

BRAND COMMUNITY:

A study of Airline consumers in Vietnam

ID: 22130038 MASTER OF BUSINESS (Honors)

SUPERVISOR: DR NGUYEN THI MAI TRANG

Ho Chi Minh City, Year 2016

Acknowledgement

Firstly, I would like to express my gratefulness to my supervisor Dr Nguyen Thi Mai Trang for her professional guidance, intensive support, valuable suggestions, instructions and encouragement during the time of doing my research

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to ISB Professors Committee for their valuable time as the members of the proposal examination committee Their comments and meaningful suggestions were contributed significantly for my completion of this research

My sincere thanks are given to all of my teachers at International Business School – University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City for their teaching and guidance during my master course

Key words Customer engagement, brand community, facebook, customer loyalty, customer satisfaction

CONTENTS

Acknowledgement i

List of Figures vi

List of Tables vii

Introduction 1

Research background 1

Statement of the problem 4

Research objectives 6

Research scope 7

Structure of the research 7

Literature review 9

Brand Community (BC) 9

Online brand community (OCB) 10

Customer engagement 10

Customer engagement in brand community 12

Perceived relationship benefits of customer engagement in brand communities 12

Relationship outcomes of customer engagement in brand communities 14

Proposal model and hypotheses 16

2.7.1 Proposal model 16

2.7.2 Hypotheses summary 17

Chapter summary 18

Methodology 19

Research method 19

Research design 19

3.2.1 Sample 19

3.2.2 Measurement scale 20

Research procedure 24

3.3.1 Qualitative phase 25

3.3.2 Main survey - Quantitative research 26

Chapter summary 27

Data analysis and results 28

Data statistical analysis 28

Cronbach’s alpha reliability test 29

Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) 32

Reliability test after EFA 36

Modified Model and Hypotheses 36

Testing research model using structural equation modeling (SEM) 37

4.6.1 Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) 37

4.6.2 Structural equation model 42

Hypotheses evaluation 45

Chaper summary 46

Conclusion and implication 48

Key findings and research contributions 49

5.1.1 Impact of customer engagement behavior 49

5.1.2 Measurement model 49

Managerial implications 50

5.2.1 Customer engagement behaviors 50

5.2.2 Perceived relationship benefits 51

5.2.3 Relationship Outcomes 51

Limitations and future research 52

APPENDIX 1: List of in-depth interview’s participants 62

APPENDIX 2 Questionaire 65

APPENDIX3 CFA ……….67

APPENDIX 4 Maximum Likelihood Estimates 77

List of abbreviations

ATAG Air Transport Action Group

BC Brand Community

CE Customer engagement

CEB Customer engagement behavior

IATA International Air Transport Association

JPA Jetstar Pacific Airlines

OCB Online brand community

VJ VietJet Air

VNA Vietnam Airlines

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1 The conceptual Model 17

Figure 3.1 The Research Process 25

Figure 4.1 The Revised Model 37

Figure 4.2 Diagram CFA 39

Figure 4.2 The structural model result 43

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1 Source of measurement scale 20

Table 3.2 Sources of data collection 27

Table 4.1 Description of sample 29

Tables 4.2 Cronbach’s alpha results 30

Tables 4.3 Retest Cronbach’s alpha results 32

Table 4.4 Pattern Matrix – EFA first round 34

Table 4.5 Pattern Matrix – EFA last round 35

Table 4.6 Cronbach's alpha of new measurements 36

Table 4.7 Composite Reliability and Average Variance Extracted 40

Table 4.8 Discriminant validity test 41

Table 4.9 Fitness of conceptualized model 42

Table 4.10 Result of hypothesis testing 44

Table 4.11 Standardized regression weight of hypothesis 44

INTRODUCTION Research background

The globalization of competition, saturation of markets, and development of information technology have enhanced customer awareness and created a situation where long-term success is no longer achieved through optimized product price and qualities Instead, companies build their success on a long-term customer relationship by satisfying customer’s needs and transferring customers to loyal customers In recent years, customer engagement has been viewed as a hot issue to build long-term customer relationship (Sashi, 2012)

Customer engagement (CE) is difined as “the engagement of customers with one another, with a company or a brand The initiative for engagement can be either consumer- or company-led and the medium of engagement can be on or offline.” (Roebuck, 2012) Customer engagement can be the variety activities as joining the brand’s fan group, take part

in brand’s contest, disscussing about products or like brand’s facebook, commenting on website, etc Firms that have more engagement of customer can improve customer satisfaction and loyalty (Brodie, Ilic, Juric, & Hollebeek , 2011; Gummerus, Liljander, Weman, & Minna, 2012) Customer engagement (CE) generate enhanced corporate performance, including sales growth (Neff, 2007 as cited in Brodie et al., 2011), and profitability (Voyles, 2008 as cited in Brodie et al., 2011) As a result, customer engagement becomes a competitive advantage in the globalization economic

Aviation is one of the most important aspects of global economic nowadays Aviation provides the rapid worldwide transportation network, which makes it essentials for global business and tourism The total value of goods transported by air represent 35% of all international trade and 52% of international tourists travel by air (ATAG, 2014) Come up with the globalization process, airlines industry is in the difficulty situation Volatile fuel pricing, intense competition, security concerns and a focus on the environmental impact of air travel have resulted in airline profitability taking a nosedive Therefore, increasingly airlines are looking to have a far more direct and real-time connection with their customers and prospective customers Leung, Schuckert and Yeung (2013) state that social media is a suitable tools for marketing purpose in the airlines bussiness In the global trends, the social

networks are increasingly replacing traditional media for marketing and communications They have become a major factor in influencing various aspects of consumer behavior including awareness, information acquisition, opinions, attitudes, purchase behavior, and post­purchase communication and evaluation (Mangold & Faulds, 2009) The application of social media and web 2.0 is changing the communication between business and consumer and consumer to consumer significantly (Au, 2010; Jones & Yu, 2010) This reality is shown

by airlines’ increasing social media engagement of customers (Kepes, 2014)

With airline industry, social media is playing an increasing important role in daily operations (NIIT, 2013) Passengers are increasingly using the web and mobile devices to research, book and pay for trips AITA (2014) reports that more than 50% passengers go online to book flights From the airlines side, the world airline industry is switching to promoting booking deals and flight promotions on Facebook and other social media websites For examples, passengers can book their flights via Facebook or Twitter on KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, JetBlue or Virgin America (Consumerreports.org, 2015) This new trend put airlines in the effort of building customer engagement to firms’ social media

In Vietnam, air service industry affected economic growth significantly According to the statistics of IATA by Tyler (2014) - IATA’s Director General, Vietnam’s aviation market is forecast to be the world’s 7th fastest-growing in the period of 2013-2017, with annual growth rates of 6.9 percent and 6.6 percent expected for international passengers (Tyler, 2014) In the trend of transitioning and developing Vietnam’s economy, a restructuring plan of Vietnam’s air service industry was approved by the Ministry of Transport aim to gain the 5th position in ASEAN aviation market and raise the passengers carried by airlines achieving 3.23% of all overall the domestics transport market share (Viet Nam Government Portal, 2015) Hence, there is a tough competition between airlines companies from the time government authorized the operation of private airlines as the commitment between Vietnam and WTO in

2007 Up to now, there are four major air carries in Vietnam: Vietnam Airlines (VNA), Jetstar Pacific Airlines (JPA) and VietJet Air (VJ) and Vietnam Air Services Company (VASCO) (Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam, 2015) Customers have choices to

choose airlines when traveling in domestic routes This competition leads to the result that airline companies must find the effective ways to attract and retain customers

As per the statistics by Moore Online Development Solutions Corporation, Vietnam has the population of 90.73 million with 39% internet users 40% internet users use online brand website to make purchasing decision (Moore Corporation, 2015a) Therefore, the understanding on role of social media affecting to the Vietnam airline industry becomes important than ever Besides, social networking sites such as Facebook, YouTube, or LinkedIn are playing more important roles in business According to Chui, Manyika, Bughin, Dobbs, Roxburgh, Sarrazin, and Westergren (2012) there are 70% companies advocated social media technologies to transform businesses and improve organizational performance The application of social media affects the ways company and in particular airlines company doing business

In the report of We are social (2015) facebook is reviewed to become the world largest social media platform with 1,366 million users in Q1, 2015 Besides, in the academic aspect, Gummerus, Liljander, Weman and Minna (2012) have indicated facebook brand community offer both firms and customers new ways to engaged with each other They pointed out that customer engagement in a facebook brand community is the group of people who engaged into a specific brand by clicking “Like” on its Facebook fan page Customer as a fan page’s member easy to follow information, to read and write comments, to share experiences, to complain to the brand owner as well as to communicate with other members of that fan page Companies who encourage customer engagement in their facebook brand community will lead to purchase behavior, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty (Gummerus, Liljander, Weman, & Minna, 2012)

In fact, Facebook is emerging as the largest social media networks in Viet Nam It is the most popular social platforms with 31.3 million users, make up 94% of social network account ownership (Moore Corporation, 2015a) 33% Vietnamese passengers research information before trip on social media (Moore Corporation, 2015b) This situation creates an environment to airline’s marketers for touching with this community Airline companies started to build their facebook fan page for so that customers can follow their information and

directly interact with them With the tendency of opening airlines market and the more competition, Vietnam airline companies should concern about the issue of attracting customer engagement to their facebook brand community to gain customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and good business performance

Statement of the problem

Customer engagement has emerged in the last few years as a topic of great interest to managers and consultants in diverse industries and companies worldwide (Sashi, 2012) This issue has been discussed in many researches (see e.g Bowden, 2009; van Doorn et al., 2010;

Roberts & Alpert, 2010; Brodie et al., 2011; Fliess, Nadzeika & Nesper, 2012) All these

disscussions generally have the deep understanding in customer engagement and the important of customer engagement in achiving bussiness growth Customer engagement create the deep connections with customers that drive purchase decisions, interaction with firms (Forrester Consulting as cited in Sashi, 2012) A customer's engagement in a brand community results in a number of outcomes for firms’ growth, including the customer's continuing participation in the community, satisfaction, increased trust in, commitment and loyalty (Wirtz et al., 2013; Brodie et al., 2011) The advent of Web 2.0 and in particular the social network sites (like My space, Facebook, Google plus) in recent years have led to an explosion of interest in customer engagement Attracted by a great amount of users, companies have created brand communities in social media With the abilities to creating the interaction among individuals and firms in brand communities, social media can use to better serve customer and meet the needs Therefore, the establishment of company’s social network sites in the recent years presented an opportunity to built close relationship with customer by enhancing the customer engagement to brand community

In the view of airline industry, intergrating the bussiness with the social media will be the new trend of bussiness (Leung et al., 2013) Airline companies can use social media to build relationships and create greater interaction with customers, listen to what their customers are saying and to respond in real-time, facilitate engagement with its customers and increase awareness about the brand (Kahonge, 2013) Recently, many airline companies have created facebook page for to give information, launch promotion, feedback and respond to

customers’ complains and sell tickets The airline industry is also reported to be one of the leading sectors in deploying Facebook for customer care (Kollau, 2015) Hence, customer engagement to airline brand communities on facebook has entered the lexicon of airline managers as well as proposed an interested topic for researches

With present situation of Vietnam’s dynamic and rapidly growing aviation market, airline companies seek for an efficiency way to support business growth and compete with others Facebook which has reported to be a largest social network in Vietnam (Moore Corporation, 2015a) has been adopted as a new marketing tool for all the airlines in the past few years Up

to now, all the fours airlines include Vietnam Airlines, Jetstar Pacific Airlines, VietJet Air and Vietnam Air Services Company have fan page on facebook They generally use facebook page to communicate with customers, provide information and promote their brand On the trends of Vietnam’s aviation market development, airline companies are now trying to have more participation of customers on the fan page and using fan page’s activities to attract and retain customers Basing in on this problem, this research aims to examine the engagement of customer on facebook brand community in the context of Vietnam’s airline industry likewise find out more critical implications to help the manager of Vietnam’s airline companies turning up their customer’s satisfaction and loyalty by improve the engagement of customer

In the regard of customer engagement, many researchers have been at the forefront of attempts to define and figure out the ways to build customer engagement to online brand community Brodie et al (2011) examines consumer engagement in a virtual brand community is an aspect of interactive process of sharing, learning, socializing, advocating, and co-developing Sashi (2012) develops a model of customer engagement cycle in the platform of social media with connection, interaction, satisfaction, retention, loyalty, advocacy, and engagement as stages in the cycle An exploratory study is conducted by Javornik and Mandelli (2012) to investigate the behavioral perspectives of customer engagement with three FMCG brands in the social media environment With the use of facebook as a social media, Pronschinske, Groza and Walker (2012), Mitu and Vega (2014)

study about customer engagement firm’s facebook page Especially, findings in Gummerus et

al (2012) research give ideas about how firms can utilize customer engagement to brand

facebook communities to enhance satisfaction and loyalty by offering the right kinds of relationship benefits However, the majority of these studies have been conducted to build framework of theories or undertaken in advanced economies in the fields of training products, FMCG products or game products There is little researches have been done or addressed in airlines sector in developing and transitioning countries such as Vietnam Until recently, there

is only the research of Pham and Tran (2014) axamines the customer engagement in Vietnam’s tourism facebook brand page

Therefore, we have the reason to examine the customer engagement in Vietnam’s airlines facebook brand community and delivering the practical implications for airline company’s managers to gain customer satisfaction and loyalty through customer engagement

Research objectives

The overall objective of this study is to examine the effect of customer engagement behavior on customer commitment, customer word of mouth and customer satisfaction and mediating through perceived benefits Specifically, it investigates:

-The relationship between Customer Engagement behavior and Social benefit

-The relationship between Customer Engagement behavior and Entertainment benefit -The relationship between Customer Engagement behavior and Economic benefit

-The relationship between Social benefit and Customer Brand Page Commitment

-The relationship between Social benefit and Customer Word of Mouth

-The relationship between Social benefit and Customer Brand Page Commitment

-The relationship between Entertainment benefit and Brand Page Commitment

-The relationship between Entertainment benefit and Customer Word of Mouth

-The relationship between Entertainment benefit and Satisfaction

-The relationship between Economic benefit and Brand Page Commitment

-The relationship between Economic benefit and Customer Word of Mouth

-The relationship between Economic benefit and Satisfaction

up to 2014 with 56% of VNA, 29.4% of VJ and 13.1% of JPA (Anh, 2014) Secondly, those three airlines flight to almost major domestic destination like Ha Noi, Ho Chi Minh, Da Nang, Nha Trang, Da Lat, Phu Quoc Whereas, on the other hand, VASCO with the lowest market share just flights to small destination like Quy Nhon, Tam Ky

Structure of the research

The research consists of four chapters:

Chapter 1: Introduction

This chapter presents research background of the study, as well as, research problems, research objectives, research scopes

Chapter 2: Literature Review and Hypotheses

This chapter provides the literature review and previous studies, and then the research model

of the study and the hypotheses are also discussed

Chapter 3: Research Methodology

In this chapter, the method used to design and implement the research base on the research objectives and scopes, the processes of doing the research are also presented

Chapter 4: Data Analysis and Data Results

All the data collected from the survey are analyzed The final model of the research is built based on the results of those analyses Depending on output results from the analyzing, the relationship of those factors as mentioned in the research model will be examine

Chapter 5: Conclusion, Implications And Limitations

The final chapter discusses summarily the study’s core findings, suggests some recommendations for business strategy of using social media in airline industry based on findings and finally points out some limitations of the research

LITERATURE REVIEW

In order to achieve these objectives this study, this part presents a discussion of customer engagement behaviors, brand community, customer engagement in brand community, perceived relationship benefit of customer engagement in brand community, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and the relationship of those constructs This is followed by the development of hypotheses and the construction of a conceptual model

Brand Community (BC)

Muniz and O’Guinn (2001, p 412) defined that “A brand community as specialized, non­geographically bound community, based on a structured set of social relationships among admires of a brand It is specialized because at its center is a branded good or service Like other communities, it is marked by shared consciousness, rituals and traditions, and a sense of moral responsibility.” A brand community is a collective of people with a shared interest in a specific brand, creating a subculture around the brand with its own values, myths, hierarchy, rituals and vocabulary (Cova & Pace, 2006 as cited in Pham & Tran, 2014) Studies show that customers joining in a brand community become more loyalty and enhance

the relationship (Gummerus et al., 2012)

Furthermore, McAlexander, Schouten, and Koenig, (2002) showed four crucial relationships in a brand community: between the customer and the brand, between the customer and the firm, between the customer and the product in use, and among fellow

customers Woisetschlager, Hartleb, and Blut (2008) found two reasons for consumer

participation in brand communities: community satisfaction and degree of consumer influence within the community In addition, brand communities give the potential of improving the relationship between the consumers and the brand (Sicilia & Palazón, 2008) Consequently, regarding the existing research on brand communities, we can see community identification as a central influence for community participation Previous work has shown that brand community engagement can affect membership loyalty, brand image, and word­of­mouth (Bhattacharya, Rao, & Glynn, 1995) Thus, community participation and membership can be seen as an important tool for a successful branding strategy

Online brand community (OCB)

Muniz and O'Guinn (2001) place the development of brands and brand communities in the context of the development of mass media and modern marketing that started in the early nineteenth century Result in the a massive adoption of advances in internet, social media and mobile in the last decicate, there is a proliferation of online brand communities (OCBs) By

2012, 50 percent of the top 100 global brands had established an OBCs (Manchanda, Packard, & Pattabhiramaiah, 2012) It raises an issue for firms to establish and manage OBCs and customer engagement to OCB

As Wirtz et al (2013) has indicated the four key dimensions that significantly shape an

OBC:

Brand orientation The core focus of an OBC can be the brand itself (including

brand-related consumption experiences such as riding a Harley Davidson bike), a wider shared interest (e.g biking in general), or both

Internet-use Both entirely online and online/offline hybrid BCs can be considered as

OBCs

Funding and governance OBCs can range from being entirely funded by the brand, to being

fully funded by the community of enthusiasts Likewise, OBCs can be governed either entirely by the brand at one extreme, or entirely by the BC at the other

Customer engagement

Customer engagement has become an interested issue to business managers and researchers in recently years As existed researches have been discussed, there are different ways to conceptualize the customer engagement concept The main research streams for investigating the customer engagement that were identified in the academic literature, are

thus the following: a) behavioral perspective – concerned with the behavioral aspects of

customer engagement and customers’ activities, most often beyond purchase; b)

psychological (cognitive and affective) perspective - investigating customers’ cognitive and

affective processes which are antecedents to engagement or to interaction with brands; c)

multidimensional perspective - unifying different dimensions of customer engagement and proposing multidimensional approach; d) social perspective - investigating the social and

network component of the phenomenon (van Doorn et al., 2010; Mollen & Wilson, 2010;

Brodie et al., 2011; Gambetti, Graffigna & Biraghi, 2012)

This stream of behavioral perspective studies on customer engagement (Sashi, 2012; Gummerus et al., 2012; Javornik & Mandelli, 2012; Ahuja & Medury, 2010;) bases the research on the definition elaborated by Van Doorn et al (2010) These studies investigate consumers’ activities such as word-of-mouth, recommendations, repeat purchases, social media activities, community participation, interactions with brands and similar Such approach is often favored by practitioners as it can lead to quantification and measurement of consumers’ activities in their interactions with brands The engagement of customers to the online brand community reflects in activities as clicking “like”, commenting, using brand applications… Thus, this analysis adopts a behavioral perspective of customer engagement because it places attention to customer’s activities and highlights the active role of them When it comes to the behavioral perspective, customer engagement (CE) is defined as

"behaviors [that] go beyond transactions, and may be specifically defined as a customer's behavioral manifestations that have a brand or firm focus, beyond purchase, resulting from motivational drivers" (van Doorn et al., 2010, p 254) It reflects “consumers' interactive

experience within online brand communities, and value co-creation among community participants” (Brodie et al., 2011, p 105) Customer engagement behaviors (CBEs) consist

of joining brand activities, helping other customers, writing reviews, complaining to organizations, blogging Sashi (2012) stated a similar conceptualization of the consumer engagement Sashi's customer engagement cycle is composed of the following stages: connection, interaction, satisfaction, retention, commitment, advocacy and engagement It may be confirmed that customer engagement is an interactive, experiential process that capture how and why customers behave in ways relevant to the firm and other customers

In the research of Gummerus et al., (2012) the authors pointed out that customer’

engagement consists of 5 dimensions: (1) customer engagement can be expressed in different ways depending on the customer’s resources (e.g time); (2) it can result in different types of outcomes for the customer (e.g improvements in the service); (3) it can vary in scope and be momentary, such as issuing a complaint, or ongoing behavior; (4) it has varying impact on

the firm and peers (negative/positive); and (5) customers may engage in the behaviors for different purposes

Customer engagement in brand community

Traditionally, customers’ engagement in a brand community is shown in many activities

of their behaviors to that brand: more frequency on visits, purchasing behaviors, purchasing intention In the context of social media, the customers engaged into the brand via joining to online brand communities Facebook fan page is an example, via clicking “Like” on the fan page, customers interact directly with the brand owners or communicate with other members insight the community The customers joining in a facebook brand fan page is perceived to get benefits: Social, Entertainment, and Economic upon joining the community (Gummerus

et al., 2012 ; Pham & Tran, 2014)

Besides, Gummerus et al (2012) indicated that customer engagement in a facebook brand community consists of 2 constructs:

Community Engagement Behaviors: the behaviors of visit, content liking, commenting and news reading (Gummerus et al 2012)

Transaction Engagement behaviors: The behaviors of transactions with firm like take

part in activities on fan page (Playing games, joining contests, …) or spent money on firm’s

products Gummerus et al., 2012 ; Pham & Tran, 2014)

Perceived relationship benefits of customer engagement in brand communities

Gwinner, Gremler and Bitner (1998) emphasized that in order to create and maintain

relationships between two parties both need to feel that they gain something (as cited in

Gummerus et al., 2012) Therefore, the customer engagement behaviors may be strengthen by

satisfying the needs and gaining benefits from the behavior itself or from the overall brand relationship

Colgate, Buchanan-Oliver and Elmsly (2005) confirmed that customer receives relationship benefit from internet-base relationship Online brand communities especially on facebook offer some kinds of benefits to customers According to the researches of Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) brand comminities in social media have the benefits of enabling social

presence, avoiding uncertainty, reducing ambiguity and delevering self-presentation Dholakia, Bagozzi, & Pearo, (2004) found that customers can gain practical and informational benefits by engaging in community behaviors In another study, Wirtz et al., (2013) stated that online brand community increase the social benefits and functional benefits

of members

In an article study, Gummerus et al., (2012) sum up all the theoris above and supposed

that customer engament in a online brand comunities have three perceived relationship benefits: social benefits, entertainment benefits and economic benefits:

Social benefits are rise from the interaction between customer and company and also

customer and customer For example, customers engage in discussions with peers, giving and receiving help In addition, they can be seen thanking the company for birthday bonuses and gifts Customers may also seek social enhancement, which derives from the need to feel useful, recognized and needed in the community (Hars & Ou, 2002; Ho & Dempsey, 2010;

Nambisan & Baron, 2010 as cited in Gummerus et al., 2012)

Entertainment benefits are derived from relaxation and fun (Dholakia et al., 2004)

People spend their time browsing the community pages and applications such as games can

be incorporated to a Facebook site (Gummerus et al., 2012)

Economic benefits refer to people joining brand communities in order to gain discounts and time savings, or to take part in raffles and competitions (Gummerus et al., 2012)

The next important issue that Gummerus et al (2012) proved is customer behavioral

engagement has a possitive effect on ralationship benefits A research conducted by Pham and Tran (2014) in context on Vietnam travel industry also come up with the same finding Wirtz et al (2013) has express a similar view that the increase the social and functional benefits members perceive, and in turn enhance their engagement in the OBC

Based on above arguments, the following hypothesis is developed:

H1a Community Engagement behavior has positive impact Social benefit

H1b: Community Engagement behavior has positive impact Entertainment benefit

H1c: Community Engagement behavior has positive impact Economic benefit

H2a: Transaction Engagement behavior has positive impact Social benefit

H2b: Transaction Engagement behavior has positive impact Entertainment benefit

H2c: Transaction Engagement behavior has positive impact Economic benefit

Relationship outcomes of customer engagement in brand communities

A customer's engagement in a brand community is likely to have a number of outcomes, including the customer's continuing participation in the community, satisfaction, increased

trust in, commitment, loyalty and word of mouth intentions (Wirtz et al., 2013; Brodie et al.,

2011; Sashi, 2012; Tsai & Huang, 2007; Chan, Zheng, Cheung, Lee & Lee, 2014)

Brand page commitment refers to a psychological attachment of participants to the

community building efforts of a brand in social media environments, e.g the creation of a Facebook fanpage of the brand (Kim et al., 2008; Morgan & Hunt, 1994 as cited in Hutter, Hautz, Dennhardt, & Fuller, 2013) Brand page commitment can be viewed as the active and psychological involvement of a consumer with the social media activities of a brand Hutter et al (2013) indicated that that engagement with a Facebook fanpage has positive effects on consumers’ brand commitment Customers joining in a fanpage have relationship with brand through this page Sashi (2012) demonstrated the concept of affective commitment – a commitment in a relationship that base on emotional He also stated that customer engagement occurs when customers have strong emotional bonds in relational exchanges with sellers, customer engagement will lead to customer commitment in engament cycle

Word of mouth (W-O-M) is personal communication between a receiver and a source

that the receiver perceives as noncommercial (Day, 1971) WOM effectively can cause changes in opinion and behavior, as well as drive brand awareness and excitement about a product or services (WOMMA, 2005) Word-of-mouth tends to flow through interpersonal channels based on shared interests, friendship, or family and people commonly use it to seek information when they are facing with a high­risk purchase situation (Murray, 1991); A research was drew on marketing and consumer behavior literature to formulate a conceptual framework, empirically tested the hypotheses using data obtained from a large online retailing store in Taiwan by Tsai and Huang (2007) stated that community building is positively related to repurchase intention Thereby, we believe that engagement in online

brand communities will lead to positive behaviors of members such as word-of-mouth behaviors (Mollen & Wilson, 2010; Chan et al., 2014)

Satisfaction is the customer’s value fulfillment response (Bloemer & Dekker, 2007) The

relationship between service satisfaction and loyalty is non-linear, meaning that in case satisfaction increases above a certain level, customer loyalty will increase rapidly (Oliva, Oliver, & MacMillan, 1992) Oliver (1997) assumed customer satisfaction is a judgment that

a product or service feature, or the product or service itself, provided (or is providing) a pleasurable level of consumption-related fulfillment, including levels of under- or over fulfillment (as cited in Güngör, 2007) Consumer satisfaction is likewise positively influence

by customers' affective responses such as their enjoyment, excitement and pleasure of using the service (Lynch, Kent, & Srinivasan, 2001), and these may be experienced due to customer engagement Customer satisfaction can be seen as a measure of the quality of the relationship between the customer and the firm (De Wulf & Odekerken-Schröder, 2001) When an brand community meets or exceeds consumers' expectation in achieving these goals, they are likely

to be satisfied with the OBC (Woisetschlager et al., 2008) Satisfaction with the OBC has a direct effect on consumers' intention to carry out behaviors such as saying positive things about the brand, recommending it to others, and remaining loyal to it in their purchasing decisions (Wirtz et al., 2013)

There are a lot of researches illustrated the important of customer satisfaction with firms But studies on the how customer engagement behaviors has influent on customer satisfaction are still small in number The customer behavioral engagement in a brand community is hoped to support the degree of satisfaction and loyalty of customer The more engaged

customers are, the higher we expect their satisfaction (Brodie et al., 2011, Wirtz et al., 2013)

As has been already discussed above, customer commitment, W-O-M and customer

satisfaction can viewed as the outcomes of customer engagement Gwinner et al 1998 point

out perceived benefit are belibed to perecede ralationship out come contruts (as cited in

Gummerus et al., 2012) In a analysis in southeast asian service industries context, Patterson

& Smith (2001) claims the correlation beetween relationship benefits and outcomes

(satisfaction and loyalty) Studies by Gummerus, et al (2012); Pham and Tran (2014)

revealed that perceived benefits will mediate the effect of customer engagement on relationship outcomes Based on this result , the following hypothesis is given:

H3a Social benefit has positive impact on Customer Brand Page Commitment

H3b Social benefit has positive impact on Customer Word of Mouth

H3c Social benefit has positive impact on Customer Brand Page Commitment

H4a Entertainment benefit has positive impact on Brand Page Commitment

H4b Entertainment benefit has positive impact on Customer Word of Mouth

H4c Entertainment benefit has positive impact on Satisfaction

H5a Economic benefit has positive impact on Brand Page Commitment

H5b Economic benefit has positive impact on Customer Word of Mouth

H5c Economic benefit has positive impact on Satisfaction

Proposal model and hypotheses

2.7.1 Proposal model

Based on the foundations of former research, the model in the study of Gummerus, et al

(2012) is mostly suitable to our objectives as stated above We re-applied this model as figured out below in the Vietnam airline industry context

Figure 2.1 The conceptual Model

2.7.2 Hypotheses summary

H1a Community Engagement behavior has positive impact Social benefit

H1b: Community Engagement behavior has positive impact Entertainment benefit

H1c: Community Engagement behavior has positive impact Economic benefit

H2a: Transaction Engagement behavior has positive impact Social benefit

H2b: Transaction Engagement behavior has positive impact Entertainment benefit

H2c: Transaction Engagement behavior has positive impact Economic benefit

H3a Social benefit has positive impact on Customer Brand Page Commitment

H3b Social benefit has positive impact on Customer Word of Mouth

H3c Social benefit has positive impact on Customer Brand Page Commitment

H4a Entertainment benefit has positive impact on Brand Page Commitment

H4b Entertainment benefit has positive impact on Customer Word of Mouth

H4c Entertainment benefit has positive impact on Satisfaction

H5a Economic benefit has positive impact on Brand Page Commitment

H5b Economic benefit has positive impact on Customer Word of Mouth

H5c Economic benefit has positive impact on Satisfaction

Chapter summary

In conclusion, this chapter presents the proposed research model of this study which bases on the literature review in this chapter In the proposed research model, the engagement behavior of customer on a brand’s Facebook page was divided into twos constructs: the community engagement behavior and transaction engagement behavior They are both demonstrated positively to customer perceived benefits: social benefit, entertainment benefit and economic benefit when customers joining a brand’s Facebook page Then, the influences of social benefit, entertainment benefit and economic benefit on customer’s brand page commitment, word of mouth and satisfaction are also considered Such factors are selected to build the model because their relationship has already tested by many previous scholars through their studies

Hence, there are fifteen hypotheses proposed for this research The next chapter will discuss about methodology that used to analyze the data and test hypotheses of the research model

METHODOLOGY

This chapter lays out the method and research design used in the study to explore the relationship between variables, such as: community engagement behavior, transaction engagement behavior, social benefit, entertainment benefit, economic benefit, brand page commitment, customer word of mouth and customer satisfaction The chapter starts with the research design procedure, questionnaire design Then, the method of analysis is introduced The chapter mentions information of sampling method and also the analysis type will be applied for testing the study

Research method

The mixed methodology includes quantitative method and qualitative method Denzin (1978) defined that mixed method approach is the combination of various method in a research to explore scientific phenomena In the other words, the mixed method has recently become a popular method to conduct a research (Creswell, 2003), the combination of qualitative and quantitative methodology should be used to deeply understand the ideas and collect the correct data and information This research adapts some theory of different authors

to figure out research problem and hypotheses through qualitative method The next step is using quantitative interview to have back more answers, responses from different people who have diversified background of ages, education, and employment This step includes testing the appropriate between theory and real case data collected

Research design

3.2.1 Sample

As Hair, Anderson, Tatham and Black (1998) mentioned that the minimum sample size needs

to be equal or greater than five times of the number of variables However, it shouldn’t be less than 100 to guarantee the correct analysis result As the formula is below:

 n >= 100 and n >= 5k (k: number of variables)

In this research, k = 33 variables Therefore, the minimum needed for the research is 165 answers To conduct Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), Garver and Mentser (1999) and Hoelter proposed a ‘critical sample size’ of 200 To make sure the quantity of respondents

enough for the research, the minimum sample should be 300 In order to have approximately

300 samples, this research was intended to have about 350 samples delivered to respondents

3.2.2 Measurement scale

From the literature review and the research model as referred above, measurement carefully given out to make sure the appropriation of research scope All the variables in the model were measured with multiple items, which were developed by other researchers and also based on the results of qualitative study to to adequately capture the domain of the constructs Specifically, community engagement behavior was measured by three items by

Cvijikj and Michahelles (2013) , Gummerus et al (2012), Pham and Tran (2014); Transaction engagement behavior was measured by two items from Gummerus et al., (2012);

Pham and Tran (2014) with a few modifications to suitable to airlines fan page; Seven items

of social benefit and three items of entertainment benefit that suggested by Dholakia et al (2004) and Gummerus et al., (2012) were used; The economic profit was measured by four items from research of Gwinner et al (1998); Yen and Gwinner, (2003), Gummerus et al., (2012) and the construct of satisfaction was based on Oliver (1997), and customer loyalty was measured by two three from Ouwersloot and Odekerken-Schröder, (2008); Punniyamoorthy and Raj (2007) To avoid response bias, all concepts names were eliminated from the questionnaire; total questions were presented continuously in one table

Table 3.1 Source of measurement scale

Concepts Original Items /

Cvijikj and Michahelle

Bitter, Grabner-Kräuter and

1 Tôi truy cập (mở) facebook của hãng hàng không mỗi khi tôi vào mạng xã hội CEB1

2 Read messages

2 Tôi đọc các thông tin (chương trình khuyến mại, giá

vé, chuyến bay, kinh nghiệm

du lịch v.v ) được đăng trên facebook Hãng Hàng Không CEB2

3 Use the “like”

option

3 Tôi bấm like (thích) các bài đăng (status - trạng thái, hình ảnh hoặc video) trên facebook của hãng hàng không CEB3

Concepts Original Items /

4 Tôi comment (bình luận) về các nội dung (Trạng thái, hình ảnh, video) được đăng trên facebook của hãng hàng không CEB4

5

5 Tôi hỏi/ thắc mắc về chương trình giá vé/ chính sách/khuyến mãi của hãng hàng không trên facebook của hãng CEB5

6

Use links provided

by the company/brand on

FB

6 Tôi bấm mở các link (địa chỉ web) về thông tin (thông tin sản phẩm, thông tin chính sách, khuyến mãi, thông tin giá

vé, thông tin du lịch và thông tin khác) được đăng trên facebook của hãng hàng không CEB6

8

Participate in company’s/brand’s raffles on Facebook

8 Tôi tham gia vào các cuộc thi được tổ chức trên facebook của hãng hàng không TEB2

9 9 Tôi chơi các trò chơi trên

facebook của hãng hàng không TEB3

new products) Dholakia,

Bagozzi and Pearo (2004);

Weman (2011);

Gummerus

et al

(2012);

Sjöqvist (2015)

10 Tôi được cung cấp thông tin (về sản phẩm, sản phẩm mới, giá vé, chính sách, khuyến mãi, thông tin du lịch…) từ facebook hãng hàng không SB1

11

I am a [brand]

Facebook group member to provide other group members with information

11 Tôi cung cấp thông tin (về sản phẩm, sản phẩm mới, giá

vé, chính sách, khuyến mãi, thông tin du lịch …) cho các thành viên khác cùng tham gia facebook của hãng hàng không SB2

12

I am a [brand]

Facebook group member to share my ideas with other group

members

12 Tôi chia sẻ ý kiến cá nhân (về chương trình, dịch vụ, sản phẩm, giá vé, kinh nghiệm du lịch…) với các thành viên khác cùng tham gia facebook của hãng hàng không SB3

Concepts Original Items /

members

13 Tôi kết bạn, giao lưu với nhiều thành viên khác cùng tham gia facebook của Hãng Hàng Không

SB4

14

I am a [brand]

Facebook group member to get help from other community

members

14 Tôi nhận được sự trợ giúp

từ các thành viên khác cùng tham gia facebook của hãng hàng không (trợ giúp mua vé, hướng dẫn thủ tục mua vé, hướng dẫn thủ tục lên máy bay, trợ giúp về du lịch, , v.v…) SB5

15

I am a [brand]

Facebook group member to help from other community

members

15 Tôi giúp đỡ các thành viên khác cùng tham gia facebook của hãng hàng không ( giúp đỡ mua vé, hướng dẫn thủ tục mua

vé, hướng dẫn thủ tục lên máy bay, trợ giúp về du lịch,…) SB6

16

I am a [brand]

Facebook group member to feel needed by [brand] or other community members

16 Các thành viên khác cùng tham gia trên facebook của Hãng Hàng Không cần tôi

Dholakia, Bagozzi and Pearo (2004);

Weman (2011);

Gummerus

et al

(2012);

Sjöqvist (2015)

17 Tham gia vào facebook của hãng hàng không giúp tôi giải trí

EB1

18

I am a [brand]

Facebook group member to relax

18 Tham gia vào facebook của hãng hàng không giúp thư giãn

EB2

19

I am a [brand]

Facebook group member to pass time when I am bored

19 Tham gia vào facebook của hãng hàng không giúp tôi giết thời gian khi tôi buồn chán

Gwinner et

al (1998);

Yen and Gwinner (2003);

Weman (2011);

Gummerus

et al

20 Tôi nhận được các phần thưởng/ điểm thưởng từ các cuộc thi/ trò chơi tổ chức trên facebook của Hãng Hàng Không

ECO1

21

I am a [brand]

Facebook group member to participate in

21 Tôi mua được vé giá rẻ khi tham gia vào facebook của hãng hàng không

ECO2

Concepts Original Items /

22

I am a [brand]

Facebook group member to get better service

22 Tôi nhận được dịch vụ tốt hơn từ hãng hàng không khi tham gia vào facebook của hãng

ECO3

23

I am a [brand]

Facebook group member to get fast responses

23 Tôi nhận được phản hồi nhanh chóng từ các hãng hàng không (khi hỏi về chính sách, giá vé, khuyến mãi, thông tin

du lịch/ khiếu nại về dịch vụ v.v….)

Lee,Huang and Hsu (2007);

Hutter, et

al (2013)

24 Tôi cảm thấy có sự gắn kết

về mặt tình cảm với facebook của Hãng Hàng Không

CM1

25

[Brand] has a great deal of personal meaning for me

25 Facebook của Hãng Hàng Không có ý nghĩa đối với cá nhân tôi

CM2

I feel a strong sense

of identification with [Brand]

26

I feel as a part of the [Brand] Facebook Community

26 Tôi cảm thấy mình là một phần của facebook Hãng Hàng Không

CM3

27

W-O-M

I recommend the brand to other people

Tu (2014);

Hutter, et

al (2013)

27 Tôi nhắc đến hãng hàng không khi nói chuyện/ trao đổi với người khác

29 Tôi nói những điều tích cực

về hãng hàng không với người khác

Oliver (1997)

30 Tôi hài lòng khi là thành viên của facebook hãng hàng không

SF1

Concepts Original Items /

31 Tôi quyết định đúng khi tham gia vào facebook của hãng hàng không

SF2

32

I am satisfied with

my decision to become a [brand]

customer

32 Tôi hài lòng với quyết định trở thành khách hàng của hãng hàng không

Figure 3.1 The Research Process

3.3.1 Qualitative phase

Concerning to the qualitative phase, the Vietnamese version of the survey questionnaire was pre-tested using in-depth interviews during two weeks with eight people included three experts in airlines marketing and five customers who “like” airlines Fanpage to check whether they understood clearly about the scales or not During the interview, the author also wanted to find out if the chosen measurement scale was suitable for conducting the research

Indept-interview – Qualitative research

(n = 8)

Final scale

Main survey – Quantitative research(n= 346)

Eliminating items had low CFA coefficients Check the suitability of model

Calculating the total reliability coefficient and cumulative variance Check the uni-dimension of the scales, convergent and discriminant validity

Check the suitability of model Check hypothesis

in Viet Nam All the comments from the interviewees were gathered with the aim to modify the measurement scale

Based on the feedback of respondents, the survey questionnaire was slightly modified to make it clearer and more understandable (see Appendix 1)

3.3.2 Main survey - Quantitative research

In association with the theoretical literature, other researches and the results of qualitative phase, the final questionnaire was given out to implicating the main survey (see Appendix 2 – Final questionnaire)

The main survey was conducted in the large scale with the attendant of three airlines fan page members:

- Vietnam Airlines: 251,981 “liked”

To assess the degree of respondent’s answer, Liker scale 5 was used in the answer sheet

1 (strongly disagree), 2 (disagree), 3 (neutral), 4 (agree), and 5 (strongly agree)

The main survey aim to respondents who ‘like’ airline facebook Consequently, Google form was used to make the questionnaire The data was collected by posting questionnaires in the fan page of Vietnam Airlines (VNA), Jetstar Pacific Airlines (JP) and VietJet Air (VJ), and the questionnaires were also shared through personal facebook wall and send by email After collecting the answering in 3 weeks (15/05/2016 – 04/06/2016), 353 questionnaires were collected The questionnaires collection included 7 eliminated questionnaires due to the same answers for all asking items as well as the blank items Finally, 346 questionnaires were used as valid data for this research In comparison with minimum sample size, this value was satisfactory

Table 3.2 Sources of data collection

Source Collected Eliminated Valid

Chapter summary

In summary, this chapter described the choice of sample size, measurement scale construction, and research method employed to process the collected data An online questionnaire was developed for data collection; it was distributed through airlines fan’s page

on Facebook and email to respondents This study was designed into two phases: first was qualitative research (in-depth interview), second was quantitative research (main survey) The in-depth interview was conducted to modify the measurement scale After the qualitative phase, the questionnaire was adjusted slightly before the official survey Main survey had sample size which included total 246 valid questionnaires that were used for data analysis with regression method The next chapter will present data analysis results of main survey

DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

This chapter presents the results and the interpretation of the survey respondents The beginning of this chapter is the overall respondents categorizes into gender, age Next, results

of scale validation were presented Cronbach’s alpha was used to examine reliability and validity of the constructs After testing Cronbach’s alpha, exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis was used to test discriminant and convergent validity Finally, research model was examined by using structural equation and the results of hypotheses was interpreted

Data statistical analysis

The results of the demographics analysis were summarized in table 4.1 Initial analysis of data indicated that 41% respondent chose Vietnam Airlines Fan’s page for most favorite fan’s page that they usually active on VNA fan’s page, 13% chows Jetstar Pacific and 46% chose VietJet Air Gender was represented with 34.7% respondents were female and 65.3% were male

More than half of the respondents who took part in this study were young people from 18

to 30 years old with 80.4% of total sample Age ranged from 18 to more than 40 years old, with 37.3% respondents were between 18 and 22 years old, 18.5% respondents were between

23 and 25 years old, 24.6% people were from 26 to 30 years old, 13.9% people were from 31

to 40 years old, 5.5% of the respondents older than 40 years old It also implicated as the common customers joining airline fan’s page are young customers because 80% facebook users in Vietnam are from 18-34 (We are social, 2015)

Most of respondents have college degree or bachelor's degree, represented with 82.7% 12.7% respondents have postgraduate degree 28.9% customers have income below 7,000,000 VND, 32.9% customers have income from 7,000,000 VND to 10,000,000 VND and 20.2% from 10,000,000 VND to 15,000,000 VND Only 17.9 % customers have income more than 15,000,000 VND In summary, respondents are widely diverse by gender, age, education level and income

Table 4.1 Description of sample

Demographic profile Category Frequency Percentage (%) Airlines Fan’s page

degree 286 82.7 Master’s degree/ Doctoral

Cronbach’s alpha reliability test

A crucial step in data analysis was to make sure all the items in one scale were reliable

in measuring the research concept that they belonged to Therefore, it was required to do the reliability test for each construct in the measurement scale

To ensure the reliability of the instrument developed for this research, Cronbach’s Alpha had been conducted as an indicator for internal consistency of scales The Cronbach’s Alpha test helped to remove unstandardized scale items

It was required the value of Cronbach’s Alpha should be above or at least equal 0.6 to guarantee internal reliability (Nunnally & Burnstein, as cited Nguyen & Barrett, 2006) Beside Cronbach’s Alpha, the Corrected Item – Total Correlation was also very important Normally, if the correlation of each specific item with total of the other items in the scale was quite high or higher than 0.3 (Nunnally & Burnstein, as cited Nguyen & Barrett, 2006), such item was assumed that most likely correlated with most of other scale items and would become a good part of this total rating rate On the other hand, if the Corrected item – Total correlation of any item was negative or too low (less than 0.3), it was necessary to re-consider the item in terms of wording problems and conceptual appropriateness (Leech, Barrett, & Morgan, 2005)

A modification or deletion for such items in this case was essential The results of reliability test for each construct in the model were summarized in the table below

Tables 4.2 Cronbach’s alpha results

Observed

Variable

Scale Mean if Item Deleted

Scale Mean if Item Deleted

Corrected Total Correlation

Item-Cronbach's Alpha if Item Deleted Community engagement behavior – CEB

Alpha: 0.791

CEB1 16.14 8.901 702 717 CEB2 16.13 9.381 627 738 CEB3 16.00 9.672 616 742 CEB4 16.27 9.232 648 732 CEB5 16.43 12.194 143 842 CEB6 16.09 10.157 549 758

Transaction engagement behavior – TEB

Alpha: 0.606

TEB1 6.94 2.527 337 611 TEB2 6.96 2.039 548 302 TEB3 7.03 2.292 371 571

Observed

Variable

Scale Mean if Item Deleted

Scale Mean if Item Deleted

Corrected Total Correlation

Item-Cronbach's Alpha if Item Deleted Social benefits – SB

Alpha:0.767

SB1 21.32 11.217 748 683 SB2 21.78 12.840 357 767 SB3 21.60 11.696 599 714 SB4 21.55 11.338 687 695 SB5 21.36 11.152 719 687 SB6 21.83 13.902 216 793 SB7 21.71 14.568 163 796

Entertainment benefits - EB

Alpha: 0.760

EB1 5.87 2.842 597 672 EB2 5.27 2.877 611 659 EB3 5.94 2.634 570 708

Economical benefits- ECO

Alpha: 0.850

ECO1 8.01 5.432 750 781 ECO2 7.99 6.026 648 826 ECO3 8.07 6.314 652 824 ECO4 8.06 5.881 709 800

Customer Commitment - CM

Alpha: 0.834

CM1 7.04 2.755 738 726 CM2 7.12 3.247 639 823 CM3 6.86 2.781 713 752

W-O-M

Alpha: 0.816

WOM1 5.54 2.446 660 756 WOM2 5.44 2.270 695 719 WOM3 5.59 2.348 650 766

Customer Satisfaction - SF

Alpha: 0.861

SF1 9.84 4.978 763 800 SF2 9.87 5.190 748 806 SF3 9.94 5.602 658 843 SF4 9.83 5.525 665 840

All eight measurement scales were reliable in measuring the research concepts because they had the Cronbach’s Alpha greater than 0.6 However, the Corrected item- Total correlation of items CEB5, SB6 and SB7 are not satisfied the standard (lower than 0.3) So, these variables were eliminated and the concepts community engagement behavior and social benefits was retest The result was show in the table below

Tables 4.3 Retest Cronbach’s alpha results

Observed

Variable

Scale Mean if Item Deleted

Scale Mean if Item Deleted

Corrected Total Correlation

Item-Cronbach's Alpha if Item Deleted Community engagement behavior – CEB

Alpha: 0.842

CEB1 13.16 7.500 742 782 CEB2 13.15 8.016 648 809 CEB3 13.02 8.342 625 815 CEB4 13.29 7.936 656 807 CEB6 13.11 8.771 563 831

Social benefits – SB

Alpha:0.843

SB1 14.48 8.036 762 781 SB2 14.93 9.019 435 870 SB3 14.75 8.371 623 817 SB4 14.71 8.127 701 796 SB5 14.51 7.885 755 781

After eliminating items, the reliability of the scale community engagement behavior became better with the Cronbach’s Alpha 0.842 in compare with the 0.791 of the original scale The scale social benefits also became more reliable with alpha value of 0.843 The Corrected item- Total correlation of all items was satisfied the standard (lower than 0.3) in this steps Therefore, all the items in scales were satisfied and retained for EFA

Exploratory factor analysis (EFA)

Factor analysis is used to uncover the latent structure (dimensions) of a set of variables (Garson, 2015) It reduces attribute space from a larger number of variables to a smaller number of factors Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) is applied in this section to test the