The effect of country of origin on brand equity: An empirical study of chicken eggs

--- NGUYỄN VĂN THANH THE EFFECT OF COUNTRY OF ORIGIN ON BRAND EQUITY: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF CHICKEN EGGS MASTER THESIS OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION HO CHI MINH CITY - 2012... --- NGUYỄ

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NGUYỄN VĂN THANH

THE EFFECT OF COUNTRY OF ORIGIN ON BRAND EQUITY:

AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF CHICKEN EGGS

MASTER THESIS OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

HO CHI MINH CITY - 2012

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NGUYỄN VĂN THANH

THE EFFECT OF COUNTRY OF ORIGIN ON BRAND EQUITY:

AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF CHICKEN EGGS

Subject: Master of Business Administration

Code: 60.34.01.02

MASTER THESIS OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

SUPERVISOR: Assoc Prof Dr NGUYỄN ĐÌNH THỌ

HO CHI MINH CITY - 2012

Friendly classmates of eMBA course 19, University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City for helping, coordinating with me during the course, especially for always making class in relaxible and funny atmosphere to absorb new knowledge from the lectures

The most special classmate – Mrs Phạm Võ Thanh Điệp who has married with me and given many useful discussion and advices during implementing this thesis

Lastly, the author acknowledges that nothing is perfect so the mistakes and errors could not be avoided although the author already tried the best Therefore, the author is looking forward to any constructive comments and advices from respectful lectures and friends in order to amend the thesis

Nguyễn Văn Thanh

Ho Chi Minh, 16th October, 2012

COMMITMENT

I would like to commit that this thesis, “The effect of country of origin on brand equity: an empirical study of chicken eggs”, was completed based on my independent and serious effort and scientific researches The data was collected in

reality

Nguyễn Văn Thanh

LIST OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I COMMITMENT II LIST OF CONTENTS III LIST OF ABRREVIATION VI LIST OF TABLE VII LIST OF FIGURE VIII

ABSTRACT 1

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 2

1.1 Introduction 2

1.2 Research background 2

1.2.1 General background 2

1.2.2 Vietnamese background 3

1.3 Problem statement 4

1.4 Research questions 4

1.5 Research objective 4

1.6 Scope and Methodology of the study 5

1.6.1 Scope of the study 5

1.6.2 Methodology of the study 5

1.7 Structure of the study 6

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 8

2.1 Introduction 8

2.2 Country of Origin 8

2.2.1 Definitions 8

2.2.2 The effect of country of origin on buyer evaluations to products 9

2.3 Brand, brand equity and its components 11

2.3.1 Brand 11

2.3.2 Brand equity and its dimensions 12

2.4 Research model, hypothesis and statements 15

2.4.1 Research model 15

2.4.2 Hypotheses 17

2.5 Summary 17

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 18

3.1 Introduction 18

3.2 Research Design 18

3.2.1 Qualitative Research 18

3.2.2 Pilot test 19

3.2.3 Official quantitative Research 19

3.3 Sample Design 19

3.4 Methods of data analysis 21

3.4.1 Frequency 21

3.4.2 Cronbach’s Alpha 21

3.4.3 Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) 21

3.4.4 Linear Correlation Analysis 22

3.4.5 Simple Linear Regression (SLR) 22

3.5 Measurements 23

3.5.1 Measurements of country of origin (CI) 24

3.5.2 Measurements of brand distinctiveness (BD) 25

3.5.3 Measurements of brand equity (BE) 26

3.6 Research Process 27

3.7 Summary 28

CHAPTER 4 DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 29

4.1 Introduction 29

4.2 Descriptions of sample 29

4.3 Assessment of scales 31

4.3.1 Reliability testing 31

4.3.2 Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) 33

4.4 Simple Regression Analysis 35

4.4.1 Testing the correlations of constructs 36

4.4.2 Evaluating the fitness of the linear regression model with the sample data 37 4.4.3 Testing the fitness of the linear regression model with population 38

4.4.4 Testing the regression coefficient 40

4.5 Summary 43

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS 45

5.1 Introductions 45

5.2 Conclusions of the study 45

5.3 Implications of study 46

5.4 Limitations and recommendations 46

REFERECES 48

APPENDIX 1: CRONBACH’S ALPHA 52

APPENDIX 2: EFA RESULT 58

APPENDIX 3: TESTING THE ASSUMPTION OF REGRESSION 62

Appendix 3.1: Testing the assumption of regression for CI – BE 62

Appendix 3.2: Testing the assumption of regression for CI – BD 64

Appendix 3.3: Testing the assumption of regression for BD – BE 66

APPENDIX 4: REGRESSION ANALYSIS RESULT 68

Appendix 4.1: Dependent Variable CI and Independent Variable BE 68

Appendix 4.2: Dependent Variable CI and Independent Variable BD 69

Appendix 4.3: Dependent Variable BD and Independent Variable BE 70

APPENDIX 5: PEARSON COEFFICIENT 71

APPENDIX 6: QUESTIONNAIRE IN ENGLISH 72

APPENDIX 7: QUESTIONNAIRE IN VIETNAMESE 74

LIST OF ABRREVIATION

BD: Brand distinctiveness

BE: Brand equity

CI: Country of origin

EFA: Exploratory factor analysis

SLR: Simple linear regression

LIST OF TABLE

Table 3.1: Measurements of country of origin 25

Table 3.2: Measurements of brand distinctiveness 25

Table 3.3: Measurements of brand equity 26

Table 4.1: Sample descriptions 30

Table 4.2: Cronbach’s Alpha of reliability testing 32

Table 4.3: EFA results 35

Table 4.4: Person Correlations 37

Table 4.5: Model Summary 38

Table 4.6a: ANOVA (CI – BE) 39

Table 4.6b: ANOVA (CI - BD) 39

Table 4.6c: ANOVA (BD - BE) 39

Table 4.7: Regression coefficients (CI-BE) 40

Table 4.8: Regression coefficients (CI-BD) 41

Table 4.9: Regression coefficients (BD-BE) 41

Table 4.10: Results of testing the hypotheses 42

LIST OF FIGURE

Figure 2.1 The Aaker’s brand equity model 13

Figure 2.2 Elements of brand awareness 14

Figure 2.3 The main types of brand associations 15

Figure 2.4 Research model s 16

Figure 3.1 Research process 27

Figure 4.1: The research model with detail of impacts 43

ABSTRACT

Vietnam has had remarkable result in economic and political for the last twenty years Specifically, in term of diplomacy, Vietnam has increased its role on the international community In term of economy, Vietnam has integrated deeper and wider into global economy and become one of the countries with highest gross domestic products growth Together with those performances, living standard of Vietnamese have improved attaching with a higher needs and wants about food for Vietnamese population This inspires the need to do a research regarding to food sector, specially, in the chicken eggs field

The purpose of this research is to study the impact of the country of origin to the brand equity directly and indirectly through mediating variable The data for this study is collected from consumers who consume chicken eggs and can recognize the country of origin of the brand name which they bought

There are 240 respondents, who are in Binh Duong province and Ho Chi Minh city, selected for analyses in this study The study used the software SPSS version 11.5

to analyze the data In detail, the Cronbach’s alpha was used to test the reliability of measurements, EFA was used to test the validity of the measurements, the Pearson coefficient was used to test the linear correlation between the variables, and simple linear regression was used to measure the impact of CI to BE and to BD, and the impact of BD to BE The results showed that both CI and BD had positive effect to

BE but the effect of BD was stronger Therefore, practitioners should pay more attention the BD when promoting the products Anyhow, CI had strong effect to BD

so it is important too

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Introduction

In the first chapter, a general introduction is given as the reasons for doing the study The research background including general and Vietnamese context are mentioned to convince the necessary of this study in practice of Vietnam The research problem and the research objective are also provided in this chapter to strongly support the necessary of carrying this study and how the author determine the relationship between the variables involved in the research model In the later part of this chapter the scope of study and the research method are addressed as well

in order to illustrate a general imagination of what this study is done and what methods are used to assess the hypotheses The structure of the whole study is provided at the end of this chapter to outline a general picture of the study

1.2 Research background

1.2.1 General background

Food, all the time, is necessary and important to human life All the countries around the world are trying to develop their own nation and one of the criteria to measure the level of development are the amount of food consumption per capita per year, so all the countries try to maximize their own population food satisfaction The fact is that the development is not equal among countries, there are some countries called rich and developed while others called poor and less developed or developing countries The people lives in developed countries getting a better chance to consume more and better food while the people lives in less developed countries consume less food and may not be enough food for their basic need There

is a gap in term of food availability in developed countries and less developed countries The reasons of this gap are many but one of them is different level of technology development As a result, many companies from developed countries

penetrate the less developed countries by exporting their products or investing factories directly abroad

When companies export their products or invest factories abroad, they for sure would like maximize their profit, but the process of getting profit is not easy at all The exporting companies and the abroad investing companies are not only facing the competition among themselves but also facing the competition from local companies on the same product category It is important to find out what factors influence to competition race and help the involved firms increasing their competition capability It is significant necessary to do the research and understand the factors influencing the competition in this case and help both foreign companies and local companies improving their competitive strength in the real market, especially in Vietnam market

Among other food, chicken eggs is one of the most popular food source to Vietnamese and the author want to focus on this product in this study

1.2.2 Vietnamese background

In general, the food consumption of Vietnamese is much lower than that of the world’s average Vietnamese consume 46 kg of meat per capita per year while that average amount of the world is 80 kg Vietnamese consumes 67 eggs per capita per year while that average amount of the world is 150 eggs (Sơn Nghĩa 2011)

From these information, we can conclude that Vietnam still be a very potential market for food sector especially the chicken eggs business

The conclusion above is supported by the practice when many foreign companies invest into livestock in Vietnam like CP group from Thailand, Jafa Comfeed from Indonesia, Emivest from Malaysia, and QL from Malaysia ect and many other local

companies like Ba Huan, Adeco, Vietfarm ect., specifically the eggs production That why a study in this sector is significant necessary

1.3 Problem statement

Brands bring a lot of benefits to both customers and firms (Kotler & Keller 2009) For customers, brands identify the origin of a product so it allows customers to assign a product’s performance to a manufacturer Customers might spend less time

to inspect a product before buying if they have experience with the product or a product under the same brand For the firms, brands help them protecting some unique features of their product by registering trademarks, patent or copyrights A strong brand also results in a better profit (Kotler & Keller 2009)

There are direct and indirect approaches to measure brand equity (Kotler & Keller 2009) There are many models of brand equity in marketing field and many factors affecting to the brand equity but to my best knowledge, there is no model applying for chicken eggs in Vietnam

1.4 Research questions

The aim of this study is to find out the answers for the following questions:

1 What factors influence to the customers’ evaluation of products?

2 How do these factors influence to the customers’ evaluation of products?

1.5 Research objective

The objective of this study is to examine the impact (direct and indirect) of country

of origin to brand equity, specifically:

1 The impact of country of origin to brand equity

2 The mediating role of brand distinctiveness on the relationship between country of origin and brand equity

Basing on the study result, author gives some suggestions to practitioners for their decision making in eggs business sector

1.6 Scope and Methodology of the study

1.6.1 Scope of the study

The study focuses on how consumers evaluate a chicken eggs brand name basing on the country of origin and brand distinctiveness To ensure the collected data contributes a high level of accuracy, the respondents interviewed are consumers who consume chicken eggs regularly and who can recognize the country of origin

of the chicken eggs brand name that they buy

The study is conducted in Ho Chi Minh city and Binh Duong province and done with two phases In the first phase, the qualitative approach is employed The quantitative is employed in the second phase More detail about this is presented in chapter 3 and chapter 4

1.6.2 Methodology of the study

As mentioned earlier, the study is carried out by two phases: the qualitative research

is used to translate English questionnaire into Vietnamese questionnaire basing on focus group of 7 people to ensure the translation conveying correct meaning in Vietnam context The quantitative research including the pilot test is conducted to check the suitable of the measurements

In order to complete the tasks, the software SPSS 11.5 is used to analyze the reliability, validity and the significance of the research model In detail, the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient is used to test the reliability of the measurements Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) is used to assess the validity of the measurements The linear correlation is used with Pearson coefficient to test the linear correlation between variables before coming to regression analysis The

Simple Regression analysis is employed to determine the relationship between the country of origin variable, the mediating variable and the brand equity Detail of methodology and the results of these analyses are mentioned in the chapter 3 and chapter 4

1.7 Structure of the study

This study is built into five chapters as below:

Chapter 1: Introduction

This chapter introduces a general picture of the study It also convinces the necessary to do this research in Vietnam context and highlights the purpose of the study

Chapter 2: Literature Review

Chapter 2 presents some previous studies which regard to this research The model research and hypotheses are also provided in this chapter Especially, some definitions related to the study are mentioned in chapter 2 a well

Chapter 3: Methodology

This chapter presents the process of doing the study including research design, sampling and all measurements for testing and measuring the research model

Chapter 4: Data Analysis and findings

This chapter uses the software SPSS 11.5 to analyze the primary data collected from consumers All the analyses results are showed in this chapter together with the explanation the results In detail, the Cronbach’s alpha, EFA, linear correlation and simple regression are employed in this chapter

Chapter 5: Conclusions and implications

Basing on the results in chapter 4, the author withdraws some conclusions, suggestions for further study and practitioners The acknowledgement of the limitations of the study is presented in this chapter as well

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Introduction

This chapter reviews some theories about brand equity and provides some studies regarding to the effect country of origin to customers’ product evaluation or/and the effect of country of origin to brand equity In addition, some definitions regarding

to all components of this study are also provided Country of origin does not only affect the brand equity directly but also indirectly affects brand equity through mediating factors

2.2 Country of Origin

2.2.1 Definitions

There are many definitions of country of origin in the literature review According

to Johansson et al (1985), country of origin is the country where the headquarters

of the company is located Bilkey and Nes (1982), defines country of origin of the products is the country where the products were manufactured or assembled According to Samiee (1994), he defines that “Country of manufacture pertains to firms that maintain a relatively large global network of operations or do business with a variety of suppliers” According to Bannister and Saunders (1978), the term

“made in” is used to define the country of origin

The integration of the world economy and the growth of the multinational companies make the task of defining the country of origin become more complicated in the modern marketplace The term “made in” is blurred as well For example, Honda and Toyota are a Japanese manufacturers but some their products are assembled outside Japan like Vietnam Therefore, the product assembled in Vietnam can be denoted “assembled in Vietnam” and what assembled in Japan can

be denoted “made in Japan”

2.2.2 The effect of country of origin on buyer evaluations to products

Many studies reveal that country of origin affects to product evaluations According

to Wang and lamb (1983), country of origin effects are not tangible barriers to penetrate a new market where the new comer facing negative consumers bias toward imported products According to a study of Schooler (1965), the products made in less developed countries are not evaluated as quality products In his follow-up study, Schooler (1971) shows that the products of Germany are rated better than those of Asia, India and Western Europe and Us products are also rated better than those of India and Western Europe

A study of Nagashima (1970) shows that Japanese businessmen rate “made in Germany” as the best while American and British businessmen rate their own product as the best In addition, American and Japanese businessmen rate France as the lowest of the five countries in (USA, Japan, Germany, England, and France) In his follow-up study, Nagashima (1977) find out that there is a change in attitude among Japanese businessmen with the “made in” US deteriorated to the lowest among above five countries while the “made in” Japan, Germany, Britain and France upgrades significantly

According to Greer (1971) shows that the older officers rate their home country’s products higher than the younger officers

In comparison between more developed countries and les developed countries, there

is a positive relationship between degree of development with product evaluation according to Schooler (1971), meaning the products from more developed countries are evaluated higher than those of less developed countries

A study of Krishnakumar (1974) confirms that the people from developing countries are unfavourable “made in” image of their home country’s products in

term of workmanship, reliability, durability, technical superiority and other characteristics

There is a bias within less developed countries on the product evaluation According to Schooler (1965), Guatemala students rank products quality from El Salvandor and Costa Rica lower than domestic and Mexican products quality This study also reveals that Guatemala students have negative attitude toward people come from those countries According to Krishnakumar (1974), students from India and Taiwan studying in U.S evaluate more developed countries products being better than their own products Anyhow, Taiwanese students with higher income evaluate the difference less than do Indian students Moreover, Taiwanese students evaluate their own food and fashion better than products from more developed countries This reveals that the more developed countries products which are very different from less developed countries products can not be great substitutes

According to Erickson et al (1984), country of origin affects beliefs but not attitude

A study of Han and Terpstra (1988) about the effect of the country of origin and brand name cues to customer product evaluations demonstrates that the country of origin has more powerful effects than brand name cues on consumer evaluation of binational products

Demographic variable also plays an important role in the country of origin effect to customer product evaluation The old people rank the foreign products higher than did younger people according to Schooler (1971) while Wang (1978) do not find such differences According to Dornoff (1974), the females rank foreign products higher than do males Anyhow, he can not assure this if the products derive from more developed countries People with higher education rate foreign products higher than do people with limited education according to Schooler (1971) Non-white people evaluate products from Africa and Latin America higher than do white

people according Wang (1978) The white people rate U.S and North America products higher than do non-white people according to Schooler (1971) The people with higher income tend to be more favorable to foreign products in general than do lower income people according to Wang (1978)

The perceived risk is also considered as a determinant of country of origin effects The first research regarding to this topic is conducted by Hampton (1997) In this study, he investigates perceived risk of American products made in US and abroad

by US firms The result reveals that the products made abroad is larger perceived risk in comparison with products made in US

Personality variables also play a role in production evaluation According to Anderson and Cunningham (1972), the dogmatism and the preference for foreign products have an inverse relationship Anyhow, the products are made in the countries with similar culture are preferred more by the high dogmatic persons The conservative persons have negative attitude toward foreign products (Anderson and Cunningham 1972)

2.3 Brand, brand equity and its components

2.3.1 Brand

Brand was “a name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or combination of them, intended to identify the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors” according to definition of the American Marketing Association (Kotler & Keller 2009) With a certain brand, buyers could easily trace back the suppliers and may assign performance responsibility to a particularly manufacturer Brand also offers a certain quality level, so help buyers to easily choose products basing on their experience

2.3.2 Brand equity and its dimensions

Kotler and Keller (2009) define “brand equity is added value endowed on products and services It may be reflected in the way consumers think, feel, and act with respect to the brand, as well as in the price, market share, and profitability and the brand commands for the firm”

According to Aaker (1991), the value of brand or brand equity contains four dimensions (brand awareness, brand loyalty, perceived quality, and brand association) which can build a platform for competitive advantage and future benefit of the firms From those, brand loyalty is the core value of the brand equity because the revenue of the firms depends on the number of the buyers who make a regular buying Brand loyalty has a positive and direct effect to brand equity (Atilgan 2005)

The Aaker’s brand equity model is mentioned below to see how brand equity generates value

Figure 2.1 The Aaker’s brand equity model

According to Keller (1993, 1998), brand awareness refers to the strength of the brand in customers’ memory Brand awareness contains two components (the brand recognition and brand recall) Brand recognition refers to customers’ ability to confirm the brand in priority Brand recall refers to customers’ ability to retrieve the brand

Figure 2.2 Elements of brand awareness

Perceived quality is what customer felt, experienced about the brand High perceived quality reflects that customers recognize and differentiate the brand to other suppliers’ brand High perceived quality influences customers’ choices and supports premium price leading to greater earning for the firm (Yoo 2000) According to Aaker (1991), perceived quality is the central association to brand equity

The last dimension of brand equity is the brand association (see figure 2.3) This is the most abstract dimension and takes different forms but according to Dickson (1994) and Keller (1993, 1998), it can be classified into three major types (attributes, benefits, and attitudes) Attributes are the descriptive features what form

a product or service and classify into product-related and non-product-related (Keller, 1993) Product-related attributes are something relating to physical composition of a product or service while non-product-related attributes refer to the external characteristics of the product or service The second type of brand

Brand awareness

Brand recognition Brand recall

association is benefits that contain the personal value what customers expect when buying the products or services and can be separated into three categories (functional benefits, experiential benefits, and symbol benefits) Functional benefits are the basic physical and safety need and respond to the product-related attributes Experimental benefits refer to what customers feel when using the products and respond to both product-related attributes and non-product-related attributes The symbol benefits are responded to non-related-product attributes and highlight the need for social approval and personal expression The last type of brand association

is the brand attitudes which reflect customers’ evaluation of a brand

Figure 2.3 The main types of brand associations

2.4 Research model, hypothesis and statements

2.4.1 Research model

Based on the study of Yasin et al (2007) to measure the effects of country of origin

to brand equity, the country of origin does not only affect the brand equity directly

but also affects the brand equity indirectly through the mediators like brand loyalty, brand awareness and brand distinctiveness

The brand distinctiveness, which is one of the mediating variables but does not explain earlier, according to the research model of Yasin et al (2007), it is measured by the brand attributes and benefits (Yasin et al 2007) In fact, it is brand association dimension

As mentioned in the first chapter, the purpose of this study is to explore the effect of country of origin to the brand equity directly and indirectly In addition, among the mediating variables, the brand distinctiveness takes a crucial role because if a brand can be easily distinguished from others, it helps buyers to recognize that brand faster between others and to recall it when buyers want to buy or repeat an order with the same product category This characteristic can help luring new customers and retain the existing customers which increase the sales and therefore bring profit

to the firms Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, the brand distinctiveness contains the brand attributes and benefits which satisfy consumers’ needs and wants These are the first criteria which customers expect before developing to brand loyalty or perceived quality Those are the reasons why the author only keeps the brand distinctiveness in the research model which demonstrated in figure 2.4

Figure 2.4 Research model

Country of

origin

Brand distinctivenes

s H1

H2

H3 Brand equity

H1: Country of origin has positive impact on brand equity

H2: Country of origin has positive impact on brand distinctiveness

H3: Brand distinctiveness has positive impact on brand equity

2.5 Summary

This chapter summarizes some previous results of related topic which show the relationship between the country of origin and brand equity Especially, the study of Yasin et al (2007) is the most important one and considered as the key paper for developing this study in Vietnam chicken eggs market

In the origin model research of Yasin et al (2007), there are three mediating variables but the author considers to only keep the most important one (the brand distinctiveness) and skips others two (brand awareness and brand loyalty)

Chapter 3 METHODOLOGY 3.1 Introduction

This chapter provided more detail about research design, sampling, methods of data analysis, and process to carry out this research This chapter also gave all measurements to assess the hypotheses mentioned in chapter one basing on the research objective

3.2 Research Design

There are many definitions of research design but no one convey the full important aspects Anyhow, a research design has to contain the technique of gathering data, sampling, time and cost (Cooper & Schindler 2003)

This study was carried out by two main phases The first phase was qualitative research and the second one was quantitative research including the pilot test

3.2.1 Qualitative Research

The author translated the English questionnaire, which proposed by Yasin et al (2007), into Vietnamese (appendix 5) After translating the questionnaire, the author discussed with a group of five people to make sure the translation conveying a correct meaning Because the targeted population of this study was chicken eggs consumers so the focus group including one classmate of the author in eMBA class, two working-persons who working in textile and garment company with college degree, one college student and one housewife All five participants of this focus group were not answered in the main survey

3.2.2 Pilot test

After confirming the questionnaire, the author made a draft interview for pilot test with 150 paper questionnaire were sent out to students, who consume the chicken eggs, of the University of Economics Ho Chi Minh city and the number of answer sheets returned were 139 During entering the data from those answer sheets, there were 29 answers unacceptable because the respondents did not realize country of origin of the chicken eggs brand they chose or they marked the same scores for all items Finally, there were 110 answer sheets were used for the pilot test The result

of Cronbach’s alpha and Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) in this pilot test showed that all the measurements had high level of reliability and validity Therefore, the author did not change or adjust anything from the questionnaire in the pilot test and kept going to the official questionnaire and interview

3.2.3 Official quantitative Research

After the qualitative research and pilot test, the author continued sending out 500 paper questionnaires to consumers who consuming chicken eggs and working or studying in Binh Duong province or Ho Chi Minh city The number of the answered sheet returned were 298 but 58 answered sheet were discarded because they were incorrect or scored with same mark The final sample consisted of 240 respondents were officially used to build a data information for further analyses The Cronbach’s Alpha and Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) were used again to test the reliability and validity of the measurements basing on the official data The linear correlation and single regression analysis was used in the final step to test the research model

3.3 Sample Design

Sampling are one of the key steps of the study, it can lead to the quality of the study The reasons for sampling are lower cost, greater result accuracy, saving time

of data collection, and availability of population elements (Cooper & Schindler 2003)

Another thing was the probability sampling was used and the respondents were anyone who consumed chicken eggs

The most important thing in sampling is sample size All the people know that the bigger sample size, the greater result accuracy but bigger sample size, for sure, lead

to higher cost and take longer time to gather information The author inherited the suggestions about sample size from researchers as followings: the minimum sample size for exploratory factor analysis (EFA) is 50 and it was better with 100 samples and the rate of observations/items is 5:1 meaning one item needs at least five observations and better with 10 observations per one item (Hair et al 2006, cited in Nguyễn Đình Thọ 2011) Therefore, a good sample size for EFA of this study was

at least 210 observations because it consisted of 21 items

According to Tabachnick and Fidell (1996), the best number of sample for regression analysis follows the below equation:

n > = 8m + 50

Whereas:

n is sample size

m is number of independent variables from the research model

Therefore, sample size needed for regression analysis of this study was smaller than that of EFA because the research model of this study only consisted of one independent variable (CI) and one mediating variable (BD)

Basing on above information and calculation, the author selected a sample size of

240 for all analyses The author used the paper questionnaire to get information from respondents The respondents were working or studying in Binh Duong

province or Ho Chi Minh city and who consumed chicken eggs and could recognize the country of origin of the chicken eggs brand name which they chose

3.4 Methods of data analysis

When we measure something and we can show out the result of measurement in figure, it means that we understand about it (Lord Kelvin, cited in Nguyễn Đình Thọ 2011) In chapter two, the research model and hypotheses were presented and the author wanted to measure the impact of the country of origin to brand equity, the target was to figure out the results of this measurement To carry out this task, some functions of the SPSS 11.5 software was used like Frequency, Cronbach’s Alpha, Exploratory Factor Analysis, linear correlation, and Simple Regression Analysis

3.4.1 Frequency

The frequency was used to check if any mistakes during entering the data to SPSS like mistyping or data missing

3.4.2 Cronbach’s Alpha

There are two kinds of measurement errors, the systematic error and random error

A measurement has reliability when it absents the random error (Nguyễn Đình Thọ 2011)

Cronbach’s alpha is used to measure the reliability of a measurement scale which contains more than two observed variables (from three and above) (Nguyễn Đình Thọ 2011)

3.4.3 Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

The reliability, which is assessed by Cronbach’s alpha was necessary condition but not sufficient for ensuring a validity of a measurement Therefore, the validity is

assessed by EFA which is an interdependence technique It does not consider dependent variable and independent variables but it bases on the interrelationships between the variables (Nguyễn Đình Thọ 2011)

3.4.4 Linear Correlation Analysis

This analysis was used to test linear correlation between two quantitative variables The Pearson Correlation coefficient (r) was used to conduct the task The r value varies from -1 (perfect negative linear relationship) to 1 (perfect linear relationship) The r value is equal to zero meaning that there is no linear correlation between two variables but they may have another kind of relationship (Hoàng Trọng & Chu Nguyễn Mộng Ngọc 2008, tập 1)

3.4.5 Simple Linear Regression (SLR)

Simple linear regression examines the relationship between two variables: independent variable (or predictor variable) and dependent variable (or criterion variable) (Nguyễn Đình Thọ 2011)

According to Nguyễn Đình Thọ (2011), the SLR model is described as below:

Yi = f(Xi) + εi = β0 + β1Xi + εi (3.1)

Where as:

- Yi is the value of Y at observation number i, i = 1,2, …, N (N is population size)

- Xi is the value of X at observation number i

- εi is the error at observation number i, this is other explanations of Y beside

X like absented variables and measurement error

- β0 is constant

- β1 is coefficient

The relationship between X and Y is the statistical relationship and when εi is equal

to zero, this relationship become functional relationship or deterministic relationship (Nguyễn Đình Thọ 2011)

The SLR was used to test the hypotheses of this study Specifically, it determined the significant relationship between dependent and independent variables, the direction of the relationship, and the strength of the relationship

3.5 Measurements

The measurements take a key role in empirical researches they help to link the theories and data (Blalock 1982, Zeller & Carmines 1980, cited in Nguyễn Đình Thọ 2011) In general, there are three ways to build a measurement: borrowing the existing measurement, borrowing and adjusting the existing measurement, and building a new measurement (Nguyễn Đình Thọ 2011)

Furthermore, the measurement has to satisfy three nature of a measurement before using in scientific research: dimensionality meaning the measurement was unidimensionality or multidimensionality, reliability, and validity (Nguyễn Đình Thọ 2011)

The validity of a measurement presents the level of measuring what needs to be measured (Bagozzi 1994; Bollen 1989; Carmines & Zeller 1979, cited in Nguyễn Đình Thọ 2011) It includes five kinds of construct validities: (1) content validity, (2) convergent validity, (3) discriminant validity, (4) nomological validity, and (5) criterion validity A measurement meets requests when it satisfies all five construct validities together with unidimesionality and reliability (Bagozzi 1994; Steenkamp

& van Trijp 1991, cited in Nguyễn Đình Thọ 2011)

Content validity presents the level of clearance and coverage of the measurements

to the concept Unidimensionality presents that one item is used to measure only

one concept Convergent validity presents the level of convergence meaning that the values, after measuring one concept two times, really had strong correlation Discriminant validity presents that two different measurements of two different concepts have to be totally different Nomological validity presents the relationship

of one concept with other concepts in the research theory or research model (Nguyễn Đình Thọ 2011)

Criterion validity presents the relationship between researching concept and another concept which is considered as criterion variable (Bagozzi 1994; Bollen 1989, cited

in Nguyễn Đình Thọ 2011) There are two criterion validities: concurrent validity and predictive validity Concurrent validity is measured at the same time of doing research while predictive validity is measured in the future or after finishing the research Anyhow, it is difficult to evaluate the value of criterion because of difficulty in determining the criterion variable (Bollen 1989; Zeller & Carmines

1980, cited in Nguyễn Đình Thọ 2011), and the validity coefficient always varies when different criterion variables are chosen

Return to the measurements building, this study used the measurements from the research of Yasin et al (2007) which studied on the household electrical appliances

in Malaysia

3.5.1 Measurements of country of origin (CI)

The country of origin consisted of seven items which was developed by Yasin et al (2007) and presented in table 3.1:

Table 3.1: Measurements of country of origin

CI Measurements of country of origin

CI1 The country from which brand X originates is a country that is innovative in manufacturing

CI2 The country from which brand X originates is a country that has high level of technological advance

CI3 The country from which brand X originates is a country that is good in designing

CI4 The country from which brand X originates is a country that is creative in its workmanship

CI5 The country from which brand X originates is a country that has high quality

in its workmanship

CI6 The country from which brand X originates is a country that is prestigious CI7 X originates from a country that has an image of advance country

3.5.2 Measurements of brand distinctiveness (BD)

The brand distinctiveness was measured by seven items which included five items developed by Yasin et al (2007) and two items measuring the strength of association borrowed from Yoo et al (2000) It was presented in table 3.2:

Table 3.2: Measurements of brand distinctiveness

BD Measurements of brand distinctiveness

BD1 I associate X with dynamism

BD2 I associate X with high technology

BD3 I associate X with innovativeness

BD4 I associate X with sophistication

BD5 I associate X with distinctiveness

BD6 I associate X with excellence

BD7 I associate X with prestige

3.5.3 Measurements of brand equity (BE)

The brand equity also consisted of seven items which included four items borrowed Yoo et al (2000) and three items developed by Yasin et al (2007) It was presented

in table 3.3:

Table 3.3: Measurements of brand equity

BE Measurements of brand equity

BE1 Even if another brand has same features as X, I would prefer to buy X

BE2 If I have to choose among brands of feed, X is definitely my choice

BE3 If I have to buy feed, I plan to buy X even though there are other brands as good as X

BE4 Even if another brand has the same price as X, I would still buy X

BE5 If there is another brand as good as X, I prefer to buy X

BE6 If another brand is not different from X in any way, it seems smarter to purchase X

BE7 It makes sense to buy X instead of any other brands, even if they are the same

3.6 Research Process

The process of research was illustrated in figure 3.1:

Figure 3.1 Research process

The draft of questionnaire

Group discussion

Translation modification Final questionnaire

factor loading < 0.5

Linear regression Literature review

3.7 Summary

This chapter presented the detail of research methodology, sample size and all steps

of doing this study In detail, the study was conducted in two phases: the qualitative research, which translated the English questionnaire into Vietnamese questionnaire through focus group, and quantitative research, which included pilot test and official test The final sample size was 240 and the Cronbach’s alpha was used to test reliability of the measurements The validity of the measurements was tested by EFA and the level of impact of country of origin to brand equity and the role of mediating in this relationship was assessed by SLR The measurements used in this study were utilized from the research of Yasin et al (2007) The research results and findings of this study were showed in chapter 4

Chapter 4 DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 4.1 Introduction

This chapter provided the information of the sample, tested all the observed variables and the research model The Cronbach’s Alpha was used to test the reliability of all observed variables and once all variables were adequate, the EFA was used to assess the validity of the measurements After all the measurements reaching reliability and validity then the simple regression analysis was used to measure the strength of relationship between components in the research model In detail, the simple regression analysis results explained how the country of origin related to brand distinctiveness and to brand equity, and how brand distinctiveness related to brand equity

4.2 Descriptions of sample

The population of this study was Vietnamese who consumed chicken eggs and could recognize the country of origin of the brand name which they bought The paper questionnaire was sent to respondents and there were 240 answers used for official analysis

Among 240 qualified respondents, 75 respondents (31.2%) were male, and 165 respondents (68.8%) were female About the age of respondents, 179 respondents (74.6%) were from 18 to 25 years old, 45 respondents (18.8%) were from 26 to 35 years old, and 16 respondents (6.6%) were from 36 to 50 years old In term of education level, 17 respondents (7.1%) were high school, 17 respondents (7.1%) were college, 179 respondents (74.6%) were university, and 27 respondents (11.2%) were postgraduate In view of income (monthly salary), 175 respondents (72.9%) were below vnd5 millions, 35 respondents (14.6%) were from vnd5 millions to below vnd10 millions, 12 respondents (5%) were from vnd10 millions to below vnd15 millions, 5 respondents (2.1%) were from vnd15 millions to below vnd20

millions, and 13 respondents (5.4%) were above vnd20 millions Detail of the sample was provided in (table 4.1)

Table 4.1: Sample descriptions

Monthly salary (vnd Millions)

Note: n = 240