Mối quan hệ giữa chất lượng dịch vụ, nhận thức về thương hiệu, lòng trung thành với thương hiệu

Liên hệ mua số liệu khảo sát: 0933114547Mail: hotrosolieugmail.comThe purpose of this paper is to develop and empirically test the antecedents of brand equity in airline context. A conceptual framework was developed based on previous studies investigating the relationship among the five constructs of perceived service quality (empathy, assurance, responsiveness, tangibility, and reliability), brand awareness, brand loyalty, countryoforigin, wordofmouth and brand equity. A survey was conducted with 269 people who used to use airline servicetake a flight in Binh Duong and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The conceptual framework was tested using structural equation modelling technique

TABLE OF CONTENTS

摘要 i

ABSTRACT ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF TABLES vii

LIST OF FIGURES ix

EXPLANATION OF SYMBOLS x

CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 BACKGROUND 1

1.2 RESEARCH OBJECTIVE 3

1.3 SIGNIFICANT OF THE STUDY 4

1.4 SCOPE 4

1.5 LIMITATION 5

1.6 PROPOSED STRUCTURE 5

CHAPTER 2 - LITERATURE REVIEW 7

2.1 CONCEPTS AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 7

2.1.1 Brand Equity 7

2.1.2 Perceived Service Quality 8

2.1.3 Word-of-mouth (WOM) 9

2.1.4 Country-of-Origin (COO) 10

2.1.5 Brand Loyalty 11

2.1.6 Brand Awareness 13

2.2 RESEARCH MODEL 15

CHAPTER 3 - METHODOLOGY 16

3.1 QUANTITATIVE APPROACH 16

3.1.1 Questionnaire Design 16

3.1.2 Sampling Selection 16

3.1.3 Pilot Test 17

3.1.4 Data Collection 17

3.1.5 Data Analysis 18

3.2 MEASUREMENT SCALE 18

CHAPTER 4 - DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 25

4.1 SAMPLE DEMOGRAPHICS 25

4.2 DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS 33

4.3 RELIABILITY TEST 38

4.3.1 Empathy 38

4.3.2 Assurance 39

4.3.3 Responsiveness 41

4.3.4 Tangibility 41

4.3.5 Reliability 42

4.3.6 Brand Equity 44

4.3.7 Brand Loyalty 45

4.3.8 Brand Awareness 45

4.3.9 Country-of-Origin 47

4.3.10 Word-of-Mouth 48

4.4 FACTOR ANALYSIS 49

4.5 CONFIRMATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS 52

4.5.1 Test the appropriateness of the model 52

4.5.2 Correlation testing 53

4.5.3 Reliability testing 54

4.5.4 Discriminant validity 55

4.6 STRUCTURAL EQUATION MODELLING (SEM) 57

CHAPTER 5 – CONCLUSION 62

5.1 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 62

5.2 LIMITATIONS AND DIRECTIONS FOR FUTHER RESEARCH 64

REFERENCES 66

APPENDICES 72

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3 1 Measurement Scale………19

Table 4 1 Gender 26

Table 4 2 Age 26

Table 4 3 Education 27

Table 4 4 Occupation 29

Table 4 5 Airlines that respondents usually choose to fly in last 6 months 29

Table 4 6 Purpose to take a flight 30

Table 4 7 Respondents ‘flying route 31

Table 4 8 Airline companies when respondents going abroad 33

Table 4 9 Descriptive Statistics 33

Table 4 10 Empathy Cronbach’s Alpha (1st time) 38

Table 4 11 Empathy Cronbach’s Alpha (2nd time) 39

Table 4 12 Assurance Cronbach’s Alpha (1st time) 39

Table 4 13 Assurance Cronbach’s Alpha (2nd time) 40

Table 4 14 Responsiveness Cronbach’s Alpha 41

Table 4 15 Tangibility Cronbach’s Alpha (1st time) 41

Table 4 16 Tangibility Cronbach’s Alpha (2nd time) 42

Table 4 17 Reliability Cronbach’s Alpha (1st time) 42

Table 4 18 Reliability Cronbach’s Alpha (2st time) 43

Table 4 19 Brand Equity Cronbach’s Alpha (1st time) 44

Table 4 20 Brand Equity Cronbach’s Alpha (2nd time) 44

Table 4 21 Brand Loyalty Cronbach’s Alpha 45

Table 4 22 Brand Awareness Cronbach’s Alpha (1st time) 45

Table 4 23 Brand Awareness Cronbach’s Alpha (2st time) 46

Table 4 24 Country-of-Origin Cronbach’s Alpha (1st time) 47

Table 4 25 Country-of-Origin Cronbach’s Alpha (2nd time) 48

Table 4 26 Word-of-Mouth Cronbach’s Alpha 48

Table 4 27 KMO and Bartlett's Test Result 50

Table 4 28 EFA results for factor scales 50

Table 4 29 Goodness-of-fit Measures 52

Table 4 30 Correlation Coefficient 53

Table 4 31 Reliability Testing 54

Table 4 32 Discriminant validity factors 55

Table 4 33 Result in the process of analyzing structural equation modeling 59

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2 1 Proposed Research Model………15

Figure 4 1 Respondents’ gender in percentage 26

Figure 4 2 Respondents’ age in percentage 27

Figure 4 3 Respondents’ education in percentage 28

Figure 4 4 Respondents’ occupation in percentage 29

Figure 4 5 Airline that respondents usually choose to fly in last 6 months in percentage 30

Figure 4 6 Respondents’ purpose to take a flight in percentage 31

Figure 4 7 Respondents’ flying route in percentage 32

Figure 4 8 Airline companies when respondents going abroad in percentage 33

Figure 4 9 Confirmatory Factor Loading (CFA) model 57

Figure 4 10 The result of analyzing structural equation modelling 59

EXPLANATION OF SYMBOLS

SQ: Perceived Service Quality

BE: Brand Equity

CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND

In recent years, airline transportation has become one of the most important economic sectors representing for modern transportation progress Airline transportation plays an increasingly important role in the development of economic – culture –society – security – national defence of a nation The rapid development of low-cost airlines alongside traditional airlines has contributed to facilitating the movement of goods between domestic and international areas It can be said that the airline transportation market has a lot of potential development but also poses many challenges The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has ranked Vietnam along with China as the two fastest growing airlines in the world In recent years, the freight market in Vietnam has seen remarkable development The development of this sector has been strongly contributing to the linking of economic sectors in the world This is a prerequisite for Vietnam's high-value export businesses have access to international markets The government has issued many policies to create opportunities, promote the development of airline transportation At the same time, the aviation infrastructure is being repaired and newly built However, there are many challenges and difficulties that Vietnam airline industry has faced The competitive situation in the world aviation industry is increasingly fierce The facilities and technology of aviation in Vietnam despite many efforts to improve but still much slower compared to other countries in the region This makes the competitiveness of Vietnam airline industry be low Vietnam airline transportation, although fast growing,

is still very small Vietnam airlines are not focused on freight They only focus on passenger transport According to Vietnam Ministry of Transport, from 2005 to 2015, Vietnam has the highest increase with 18.6% comparing with other countries in

Asia-Pacific region for example: Philippine, India, Indonesia, China, etc The percentage of passengers who use airlines rise about 14.9% in the period 2010-2015 and continue increasing 13.9% in the next 5 years In addition, Vietnam is in the golden population with young labour force The development prediction in 2017 and

2018 is above 6% The development of economy will make the increase of labour income and it also make their travelling needs by airline increase Found that potential development, there are many international airlines are investing and expanding their business in Vietnam and some Vietnamese private airlines will stating to do business

in next year ( Bamboo Airline) Along with the 4 current Vietnamese airlines (Vietnam Airline, Vietjet Air, Jestar Pacific Airlines and VASCO) and 68 foreign airlines from 25 countries which are working in Vietnam market, customers have more and more choices to choose the airlines that they are satisfied and believe According to the development of economic and living standard, the transportation needs of customers is bigger and bigger Airlines also give many promotion activities

to attract customers and compete with their competitors The problem is how to create

a brand equity for Vietnam airlines to compete with many competitive airlines and how to attract customers and make them believe in service quality when they have many choices in the current trend Hence, an investigation into the service environment as well as an evaluation of brand equity database to build up significant retention strategy are regarded as desirable, if not more inevitable

The present study aims to investigate the connections among brand equity and its prominent antecedents in airline industry Model proposed here trying to understand how it is and why it works Traditionally, many previous researches study about brand loyalty and brand awareness as dimensions of brand equity (Aaker, 1991; Keller, 1998; Davis, Golicic, and Marquardt, 2008) However, there have been very limited

research examining brand loyalty and brand awareness as independent variables (Chen et al., 2011; Yoo et al., 2012) In this research, researcher want to make clear the role of brand loyalty and brand awareness as an independent variables of brand equity to examine that whether they have impact on brand equity or not Furthermore,

in airline setting, much attention of researchers has been paid to service quality as a brand equity’s determiner (Kim et al., 2018) A very limited number of paper published propose an analysis framework of word-of-mouth and brand equity (Regina Virvilaite et al., 2015) or country of origin and brand equity (Ahmed and d'Astous, 2006) However, most of the researches is examined and conducted in developed country; developing countries like Vietnam has fewer opportunities to approach this knowledge to develop the inner potential of Vietnamese business There have been very limited attempts made to investigate the relationships among brand equity, brand awareness, brand loyalty, perceived service quality, word of mouth and country of origin in Vietnam airline context

1.2 RESEARCH OBJECTIVE

In this paper, the relationships among brand equity and its prominent antecedents, namely, brand loyalty, perceived service quality, brand awareness, country-of-origin and word of mouth are examined to gain a more concrete insight into the significance

of customer retention strategies and managers to build up their own strategies in retaining the valuable loyal customer base For achieving the goal, the two objectives are constructed as follows:

 To examine the relationships among brand equity and its antecedents in airline context

 To build up a framework for customer retention strategy based on the brand equity database in airline business

study in a coherent and consistent mainstream:

 What is the significance in the relationship between brand equity and its antecedents?

 What are measurement scales on which airline management should be based

to build up a concrete and effective customer retention strategy?

1.3 SIGNIFICANT OF THE STUDY

Customers are the central focus of any organization, hence the mission of an organization should be to create, grow and nurture ongoing relationships with them Despite the claim that the sole purpose of a commercial organization was originally

“to create customer”, retaining the customer has since become considered as equally,

if not more important, for it has become increasingly difficult for organizations to assume that there exists an unlimited customer base prepared to maintain patronage The shift in focus from attracting customers to retaining customers necessitates the creation of brand equity which sets forth strategic implications regarding customer retention management

The main purpose of this thesis is to provide airline companies with tools to create a good customer retention strategy rather than making a conceptual framework for the airline industry

1.4 SCOPE

The research studies the structural relationships among brand equity and its prominent antecedents catered only for people who used to use airline services All of communication methods and data collection were conducted in Ho Chi Minh City, Binh Duong Province (Vietnam) due to the limitation in geographic approach capability The research results are expected to shed light on the service environment within airline service and help airline top management realize and thus build strategic approach to good customer retention management

1.5 LIMITATION

One limitation of study relates to the sampling method The study was conducted

in Ho Chi Minh City and Binh Duong Province, Vietnam The sample of respondents are deliberately targeted at some people that fit the measurement scale A convenient sample of customers was used Therefore, the study may not reflect the opinions of all airline service users and the generalizing findings to the general public should be done with care

A second limitation relates to the scope of the study The study examined brand equity by identifying and measuring some of its antecedents while there are a number

of other determiners that contribute to the overall brand equity level

Finally, the lack of time and experience of the researchers as well as limited accessibility to customer pool at several cased several problems during the researching process

1.6 PROPOSED STRUCTURE

This paper is organized as follows:

 Chapter 1: Introduction: To confer a brief background and expound the explanation to carry out the research; explore this difficulties, questionnaires then detailed purposes of this study; the scope and limitations

 Chapter 2: Literature Review: To reconsider the notions, descriptions, obtained study also prior related papers Besides, the researcher’s evaluation, which can assist to express the academic information furthermore build the conceptual framework with hypotheses

 Chapter 3: Methodology: To begin with, the method employed in this study then clarify some approaches of information gathering and sampling; inherit and modify the measurement scales, finally, give the plan for information

CHAPTER 2 - LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 CONCEPTS AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

2.1.1 Brand Equity

Brand equity is a common phrase in the international marketing, consumer behavior and international business managers In the marketing literature, brand equity is an important asset that can help firms promote their performance It can be defined as a set of includes all the unique values that the brand brings to the people involved (customers, employees, shareholders, the community ) (Keller, 1998) The components of this brand asset must be connected to the brand name, company logo

or product If a company changes its name or logo, the brand equity will be affected and, in some cases, it may be lost (Aaker, 1991) It can be known as the perception of customers about the all benefits that a brand can bring for them Brand equity is most often seen through the way customers see, feel, and interact with the brand The influence of brand equity can also be realized through factors such as market share, price, demand and profitability The elements that make up the brand equity may vary from case to case However, in principle there will be five main components: brand loyalty, brand awareness, perceived quality, brand associations and other brand equities (van Riel et al., 2005) In most of industrial branding, brand loyalty, brand awareness and perceived quality play a key role among many customer-based brand equity In the case of brand associations, it seem to be not irrelevant to B2C market Based on many previous researches, brand associations is suitable to evaluate brand equity for a firm more than a product/service like in this research Therefore, this research only apply three factors: perceived quality, brand awareness and brand loyalty as individual variables to examine the relationship with brand equity

Brand equity has many benefits for the company (Aaker, 1991) Brand equity is

the most important intangible asset of the company that Like the other asset, brand awareness can be sold, rented or used their brand image A good brand equity help company improve the value of product/service compared with the actual value of the product/service on the market Owning a good brand awareness may attract more loyal customers and it can increase the market share If a brand has a good brand loyalty, it can be easy for this brand to create a new product/service

2.1.2 Perceived Service Quality

Service quality is one of the most researched topics in marketing, starting with the very first service quality model introduced by Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1985) In those days, the conceptualization was based on the disconfirmation paradigm that viewed quality as a result of comparing performance with a set standard, which was supported later by Gronroos (1984) and Parasuraman et al (1985, 1988) Perceived service quality is defined as an evaluation of customers about product or service through the satisfaction of customers based on the gap between their expectation and the value and experience that customers perceived (Zeithaml, 1988)

In the airline industry, service quality is defined as the ability of the airline providers to their passengers to the destinations that they require with excellent services that the airline providers can provide through the interactions between airline employees (for example: cabin crew, pilot) and passengers (Rhoades & Waguespack, 2008) Passengers require about the safety, security, comfortable and accuracy in service quality of airline industry It is different with the other industries (Feng & Jeng, 2005)

SERVQUAL that is a powerful tool to measure the service quality that was used

by some previous researchers (Park et al., 2005) SERVQUAL use the gap theory as a framework between customers’ expectations and perceptions It including five main dimensions: tangibility, reliability, assurance, empathy and responsiveness (Gronroos,

1984 and Parasuraman et al., 1988)

Yoo et al (2000) showed the relationship between perceived service quality and brand equity Chen et al (2011) also indicated the positive impact of perceived service quality on brand equity According to Alvarez and Galera (2001), perceived service quality is a basic and indispensable factor in competitive advantage in B2C markets and also in branding It has an important source when mentioning brand equity Higher perceived service quality will affect customer’ choice It will lead to the increase of brand equity The hypothesis therefore is:

H2: There is a positive impact of perceived service quality on brand equity

There are many previous researches that indicated the relationship between perceived service quality and word of mouth in both direct and indirect sides (Alexandris et al., 2002, Hutchinson et al., 2009, and Oh, 1999) In addition, Liu and Lee (2016) showed that there is also a relationship between perceived service quality and word of mouth in tourism industry If the service quality increase, word-of-mouth also increase and customers will recommend this product/service for others customer based on their good experience The hypothesis therefore is:

H3: There is a positive impact of perceived service quality on word of mouth

2.1.3 Word-of-mouth (WOM)

Bae (2008) and Litvin et al (2008) showed the importance and powerful of word-of-mouth for free communication in social media marketing on the context of service and tourism firm It is the easy and fast tool to approach and connect with the new customers It related to the communication between customers who used to use that products or services to the other people through their using experience Word-of-mouth maybe negative or positive recommendations depending on customer experience and it can affect the evaluations and purchase decision-making process of other customers about this product or service (Mangold, Miller, and Brockway, 1999)

Kim and Lee (2011) showed that in low-cost airline industry, the higher word-of-mouth, the higher revisit intention and recommendations for others people If customer is satisfied with the product/service of an airline company, they will expect

to recommend this for their friends, neighbours or relatives to use the same high service quality like them These people can try this product/service based on the recommendations (Cantallops and Salvi, 2014)

According to Regina Virvilaite et al (2015), the research showed that word of mouth communication has a positive impact on brand equity on the context of luxury good The research showed that word-of-mouth is an important antecedent of brand equity In addition, very few researches examine this relationship between word-of-mouth and brand equity, especially in airline context This research want to test the important of word-of-mouth in the relationship with brand equity The hypothesis therefore is:

H4: There is a positive impact of word-of-mouth on brand equity

2.1.4 Country-of-Origin (COO)

Thakor and Kohli (1996) showed the definition of country-of-origin as how a product/service from a specific country can attract and influent their customers by positive or negative perception through their brand, image, reputation or stereotype Schooler (1965) was the first researcher showed the important role of country-of-origin in the field of consumer choice behaviour and competitive market based on the perception of customers about the product/service related to image, reputation, stereotype, national characteristics, economy, political system, history, traditions, technological development and people from a given specific country According to Teo, Mohamad, & Ramayah (2011), the differences of cultures and histories among nations impact the evaluation and perception of customers when they want to purchase a product/service Torres & Gutiérrez (2007) have a research about

country-of-origin Country-of-origin are also called by country of manufacturer, country of assembly or country of design The research showed that country-of-origin have the impact on customers’ awareness and beliefs about different countries The result is that it will impact their purchase decision-making process Hanzaee & Khosrozadeh (2011) showed that country-of-origin has an important role on customers’ perception towards a brand from any given specific country Customers care about the country which this brand came from or where it was made

Many researchers found that there is a relationship between brand equity and country-of-origin in international B2B market (Pappu, Quester and Cooksey, 2007) Chen et al., (2011) also conducted the research about the impact of country-of-origin

on brand equity The result showed that there is significant relationship between country-of-origin and brand equity It means that higher country-of-origin will lead to higher brand equity Moreover, very few researches examine about the relationship between country-of-origin and brand equity in airline context In the case that many competitors in airline industry now and its potential development, country-of-origin become more and more important in international market and competitive market The research about the relationship between country-of-origin and brand equity will have more opportunities to apply in the real market The hypothesis therefore is:

H5: There is a positive impact of country of origin on brand equity

2.1.5 Brand Loyalty

Fournier and Yao (1997) showed that brand loyalty has an important role in marketing, especially in the service industry Oliver (1999) refers brand loyalty as the repeatedly and continuously purchasing behaviors of customers to a product/service

of a brand in the future He also showed the advantages of brand loyalty in marketing strategies for example reducing marketing communication cost, sale promotion, advertisement, profitability and favorable word of mouth Bandyopadhyay & Martell

(2007) defined brand loyalty into two perspective: behavioral loyalty and attitudinal loyalty Behavioral loyalty refers to customers actual repeat frequently purchasing behaviors Attitudinal loyalty refers to the intentions to purchase or intentions to recommend to other people It seems be a psychological commitment Customer satisfaction is an important factor impacting brand loyalty (Oliver, 1999) If a brand satisfied customer needs, suitable product/service and reasonable price, they will be loyal with this brand Even though if another brand has the same product/service with higher quality or cheaper price, they still choose the brand that they are loyal and trust However, if customers feel the product/service is not good or it is not suitable with them, they tend to find another alternative brand Comparing with explore the new customers, maintaining the old and loyal customers require less effort and cost It ensure a stable revenue for company Customers will be loyal with the product/service that bring many benefits and satisfaction for them and they will help the brand to be know more widely

Cai et al (2014) indicated there are no impact of perceived service quality on brand loyalty in intergenerational communication On the other hand, Kim et al (2018) showed the positive impact of perceived service quality on brand loyalty When a brand provide their service with higher service quality than other competitive brands, customers tend to be trust in this brand and they always want to be perceived the best service quality It will establish a loyalty in their customers and they will continue supporting this brand and avoid switching to another brand The hypothesis therefore is:

H1: There is a positive impact of perceived service quality on brand loyalty.

Many researchers such as Yoo et al (2000), Cai et al (2014), Chen et al (2011), van Riel et al (2005) indicated the direct impact of brand loyalty on brand equity

Brand loyalty will avoid customers switch to another brand and they will continue to

do business in the long-term Higher brand loyalty will increase brand awareness According to Aaker (1991) and Keller (1998), brand loyalty usually recognize as a dimension of brand loyalty Very few researches examined brand loyalty as an individual factor of brand equity In addition, most researches are conducted in developed countries and some developing countries like Vietnam does not have opportunity to apply this conceptual framework This research want to examine the relationship between brand loyalty and brand equity to test whether they have a direct relationship or not The hypothesis therefore is:

H6: There is a positive impact of brand loyalty on brand equity

In the research of Jiska Eelen et al (2017), there is a relationship between brand loyalty and word of mouth Nikookar (2014) indicated that brand loyalty is an important antecedent of word-of-mouth When customer have loyalty, they are more like to recommend this service for other people, for example their friends, their family members of relative or someone need their recommendations They also have more motivation to introduce to other people based on their experiences Loyal customers will avoid some bad information that can affect their loyalty The hypothesis therefore is:

H7: There is a positive impact of brand loyalty on word of mouth

2.1.6 Brand Awareness

Rossiter and Percy (1987) defined brand awareness as the customer ability to recognize/distinguish a brand among many the same brands and memorize the brand

in different conditions and time Brand awareness is a necessary role in B2C markets

It is important in attracting customers when they select a product/service of a brand A good brand awareness is customers have ability to identify one brand among many comparative products/services under distinct situations (Lin, 2013) Brand awareness

is an important criteria to measure strong level of a brand Brand awareness has an important role in purchasing decision process of customers A well-known brand usually have better brand awareness in marketplace comparing to other comparative brands (Hoyer and Brown, 1990) If a brand has high awareness, the probability of customers purchasing their product/service will improve (Foroudi et al., 2014) It brings to this brand a huge competitive advantage in long-term Therefore, many companies try to generate their brand awareness for customers They use brand awareness as a tool to impact customers’ attitude by creating the beliefs towards a particular product/service and determine whether the product/service get customers attention or not Kleinrichert et al (2012) distinguished brand awareness into two dimensions: intensity and extend Intensity dimension refers the level how customers can recall a particular brand Extend dimension shows the ability of customers in acquiring and consuming the product/service of this brand

Yoo et al (2000), Chen et al (2011) showed the relationship between brand awareness and brand equity A brand name have high brand awareness will have more opportunity for customers to choose more than other brand and it will increase brand equity Aaker (1991) and Keller (1998) indicated that brand awareness as n dimension

of brand equity Very few researches showed the relationship between brand awareness and brand equity as a direct effect (Chen et al., 2011; Yoo et al., 2012 In B2C markets, customer’ recognizing and recalling their brand name is really important for brand equity Like brand loyalty, most researches are conducted in developed countries This research also want to examine the impact of brand awareness on band equity and apply in Vietnam market, a developing country The hypothesis therefore is:

H8: There is a positive impact of brand awareness on brand equity

Barreda et al (2015) showed that brand awareness has positive influence on word-of-mouth Bae (2002) examined about the relationship between brand awareness and word-of-mouth In market now, word-of-mouth become a strong tool in communication and attract new customers through recommendation of customers Based on their using experience and communication between customers, they tend to recommend for other people a good brand Therefore, higher brand awareness will have more opportunities for customers to recommend for other customers Brand awareness has a positive impact on word-of-mouth If a brand has good awareness, they will have more change in customer’ word-of-mouth The hypothesis therefore is:

H9: There is a positive impact of brand awareness on word-of-mouth

2.2 RESEARCH MODEL

Figure 2 1 Proposed Research Model

CHAPTER 3 - METHODOLOGY

3.1 QUANTITATIVE APPROACH

Quantitative approach is the way that researchers develop knowledge through hypothesis and questions, using tools and observation In the research, quantitative approach tries to answers some questions that related to “how many”, “how much”,

“how often”, “who” and “when”

3.1.1 Questionnaire Design

In the research, questionnare survey use to find out and develop the evidence about the relationship among brand equity, brand loyalty, perceived service quality, brand awareness, country-of-origin and word of mouth Questionnare survey is used

to collect data from customers and it must be clearly and easy to understand to avoid misunderstanding

Questionnare inludes two parts: the first part asks customers about their personal information and the second part asks them some question about brand equity, brand loyalty, perceived service quality, brand awareness, country-of-origin and word of mouth when they use airline services To assess this survey, customers tick on the 5-point Likert scale that was developed by Rensis Likert The scale ranges from

“Totally disagree”, denoted as “1” , “Disagree” as “2”, “Neutral” as “3”, “Agree” as

“4”, and “Totally agree” as “5”

3.1.2 Sampling Selection

Because of accessibility reasons, this study limited the population in Ho Chi Minh City and Binh Duong Province, Vietnam Target sample is those who ever used

airline service/took a flight in the last 6 months Accoding (Tabachnick & Fidell,

2007) the number of observations should follow this ascending order: very poor with only 50 observations, poor: 100, fair: 200, good: 300, very good: 500 and excellent:

1000 Besides, it is also believed that the ratio between observation and parameter is a minimum of 5:1 and colorful of 10:1 to conduct the Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) (Hair et al., 1998) In this current study, there are 44 items, so the minimum sample size is 44 x 5 = 220 Moreover, Shah et al (2006) said that to perform the

“Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and apply the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM)”, the minimum sample sizes needed is 200

3.1.3 Pilot Test

This measurement scale need to be translated into Vietnamese To have a good translation and avoid misunderstanding, researcher has a group with 5 people including this researcher, 2 Ph.D students and 2 Master students After translation, this questionnaire are conducted first in Foreign Trade University in Hanoi, Vietnam and have checked by some professors in this university

Pilot test is the step before collecting data It mentions to the procedures and tools to detect weakness in design and instrumentation and to provide proxy data for selecting a probability sample

In this study, pilot test was conducted with 20 passengers who used to use airline service to check these questions whether they are clarify and meaningful or not Andrews et al (2003) suggested that 10 pilot test is the minimum Each respondent was told about the purpose of the questions and assured of anonymity before filling in questionnaire After testing, these questionnaires were confirmed to be clear and easy

to understand It must be clarify and not affect to the other relevant items

3.1.4 Data Collection

Primary data is the main source for this study when the quantitative method was conducted It mentions to the data that this study have through data observing or directly collecting from survey, observation or experimentation The questionnaires

were conducted by survey to get primary data Survey was conducted by online survey that sent to people who use airline services and by survey in Ho Chi Minh City and Binh Duong Province Respondents were required to do this survey as soon as posible and the completely survey will be collected right away Moreover, through some related theories and researchs, primary data may be also collected with carefullly review

Factor analysis: it refers to a collection of methods that was used to check how underlying constructs that influence the responses on a number of measured variables There were two ways to analyze factor: exploratory and confirmatory The software AMOS 22.0 was used

Structural equation modeling analysis: it is used to examine the proposition of hypothesis and the conclusion was made

3.2 MEASUREMENT SCALE

The measurement scale was adopted and modified from previous studies In this research, questionnaire are conducted in Vietnam Moreover, after managing the pilot test, the researcher has obtained the official measurement scales for all constructs

Table 3 1 Measurement Scale

individual attention to the

EM4 Airline handling includes

modern equipment and

actions with passenger

tangibles

AS3 Provide necessary

good

Reliability RE1 Flights are On-time Jeeradist et

al (2016) RE2 Airline staff performed

accurate service during the

case RE3 Insistence on travel service

are always be resolved

RE4 Accidents related to security

and safety rarely happen

Chang &

Yeh (2001)

RE5 Airline flight safety and

security measures are always

be assured

Brand Loyalty BL1 Overall I am very satisfied

with this airline company

with this airline company in

the future

Brand Awareness BA1 This airline company is Kim et al

well-known in my country (2018)

BA2 This airline company is

recognized by my friends

BA3 This airline company is

easily distinguishable from

other companies

BA4 I am familiar with the

features of this company

BA5 This airline company comes

to my mind very quickly when I think about airline

company

(2011) COO2 Hard working

COO3 Achieve high standards COO4 Raised standard of living COO5 High technical skills

Word-of-Mouth WOM1 I say positive things about

this airline company to other

people

Norazah Mohd Suki

(2014)

WOM2 I recommend this airline

company to someone who

seeks my advice

WOM3 I encourage my friends and

relatives to fly with this

airline company

Brand Equity BE1 It makes sense to fly with

this airline company instead

of any other company, even

if they are the same

Choo et al (2000)

BE2 Even if another airline

company has the same features as this airline company, I would prefer to fly with this airline

company

BE3 If there is another airline

company just as good as this airline company, I prefer to

fly with this company

BE4 If another airline company is

not different from this company in any ways, it seems smarter to fly with

this airline company

CHAPTER 4 - DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 SAMPLE DEMOGRAPHICS

Demographic data is the generally information that can describe characteristics of the respondents who take part in answering questionnaire of this research In this study, there are seven questions that were used to determine

A total of 300 questionnaires were conducted by both online and offline Out of them, 269 questionnaires were valid (89.67%) because they said “yes” with the first questions: “Up to date, have you ever taken a flight?” and 31 questionnaires were no valid (10.33%) because they said “no” The final data was analyzed by SPSS software The table 4.1 showed the percentage of male and female respondents who took part

in this research Male takes 47.6% (128 respondents) and female takes 52.4% (141 respondents) out of 269 respondents

Table 4 1 Gender

Frequency Percent

Valid Percent

Cumulative Percent

Figure 4 1 Respondents’ gender in percentage

Next is about age The percentage of age is described by four range: under 20, 20-40, 41-60 and above 60 The range of respondents who are between 20 and 40 is the largest range with 81.8% (220 respondents) The next group is the group of respondents who are between 41 and 60 with 8.2% (22 respondents) and “less than 20” group with 7.1% (19 respondents) The smallest group in this research is “above 60” group with only 3.0% (8 respondents)

Table 4 2 Age

Frequency Percent

Valid Percent

Cumulative Percent

Figure 4 2 Respondents’ age in percentage

In term of education, most of respondents in this study are university level with 74.7% (201 respondents) The next groups are master level with 16.4% (44 respondents), high school or equivalent level with 4.8% (13 respondents) and doctorate

or above with 2.6% (7 respondents) The respondents who are in other level is the group having the lowest percentage with 1.5% (4 respondents)

Table 4 3 Education

Frequency Percent

Valid Percent

Cumulative Percent Valid High school or

Figure 4 3 Respondents’ education in percentage

In terms of occupation, government employee/teacher is the largest group with 40.9% (110 respondents) The other occupation groups have smaller percentage: private sector employee 26.8% (72 respondents), student 13.8% (37 respondents), independent businessman/self-employee 11.2% (30 respondents), housewife 3.7% (10 respondents), the other occupations 3.0% (8 respondents) and retire with 0.7% (2 respondents) Through this chart, most of respondents in this research are government employee/teacher and private sector employee

Table 4 4 Occupation

Frequency Percent

Valid Percent

Cumulative Percent

Government

Private-sector employee 72 26.8 26.8 81.4 Independent

Figure 4 4 Respondents’ occupation in percentage

In this study, most respondents choose Vietjet Air to fly with 43.5% (117 respondents) A little bit lower group is Vietnam Airline with 40.1% (108 respondents) The respondents who usually use Jestar Paciffic Airline takes 8.2% (22 respondents), Air Asia with 5.6% (15 respondents) and the smallest group with the respondents who

use other airlines with 2.6% (7 respondents)

Table 4 5 Airlines that respondents usually choose to fly in last 6 months

Frequency Percent

Valid Percent

Cumulative Percent Valid Vietnam Airline 108 40.1 40.1 40.1

Cumulative Percent

Figure 4 6 Respondents’ purpose to take a flight in percentage

When asked about the flying route that respondents usually use, most of respondents in this study choose domestic flight with 54.3% (146 respondents) For international flight, the percentage is a little bit lower with 45.7% (123 respondents)

Table 4 7 Respondents ‘flying route

Frequency Percent

Valid Percent

Cumulative Percent

International 123 45.7 45.7 100.0

Figure 4 7 Respondents’ flying route in percentage

The figure shows that most of respondents will choose foreign airlines when they want to go abroad with 70.6% (190 respondents) The lower group choose Vietnamese airlines with 29.4% (79 respondents)

Table 4 8 Airline companies when respondents going abroad

Frequency Percent

Valid Percent

Cumulative Percent Valid VietnameseAirline 79 29.4 29.4 29.4

Figure 4 8 Airline companies when respondents going abroad in percentage

4.2 DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS

Descriptive statistics are used to explain and describe data in quantitative method

It mentions on mean, standard deviation, minimum value, maximum value and the number of valid questionnaires of one variable in this research

Table 4 9 Descriptive Statistics