Customer engagement in a facebook brand community a study of airline consumers in vietnam

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 o

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

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

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to ISB Professors Committee for their valuabletime as the members of the proposal examination committee Their comments andmeaningful 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 mastercourse

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

customer satisfaction.

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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

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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 implication48 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

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List of abbreviations

ATAG Air Transport Action Group

BC Brand Community

CE Customer engagement

CEB Customer engagement behavior

IATA International Air Transport AssociationJPA Jetstar Pacific Airlines OCB Online

brand community

VJ VietJet Air

VNA Vietnam Airlines

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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

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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

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INTRODUCTION Research background

The globalization of competition, saturation of markets, and development of informationtechnology have enhanced customer awareness and created a situation where long-termsuccess is no longer achieved through optimized product price and qualities Instead,companies build their success on a long-term customer relationship by satisfying customer’sneeds and transferring customers to loyal customers In recent years, customer engagementhas 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- orcompany-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 onwebsite, etc Firms that have more engagement of customer can improve customersatisfaction and loyalty (Brodie, Ilic, Juric, & Hollebeek , 2011; Gummerus, Liljander,Weman, & Minna, 2012) Customer engagement (CE) generate enhanced corporateperformance, including sales growth (Neff, 2007 as cited in Brodie et al., 2011), andprofitability (Voyles, 2008 as cited in Brodie et al., 2011) As a result, customer engagementbecomes a competitive advantage in the globalization economic

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

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networks are increasingly replacing traditional media for marketing and communications.They have become a major factor in influencing various aspects of consumer behaviorincluding awareness, information acquisition, opinions, attitudes, purchase behavior, andpostpurchase communication and evaluation (Mangold & Faulds, 2009) The application ofsocial media and web 2.0 is changing the communication between business and consumerand 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 dailyoperations (NIIT, 2013) Passengers are increasingly using the web and mobile devices toresearch, book and pay for trips AITA (2014) reports that more than 50% passengers goonline to book flights From the airlines side, the world airline industry is switching topromoting 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 RoyalDutch Airlines, JetBlue or Virgin America (Consumerreports.org, 2015) This new trend putairlines in the effort of building customer engagement to firms’ social media

In Vietnam, air service industry affected economic growth significantly According to thestatistics of IATA by Tyler (2014) - IATA’s Director General, Vietnam’s aviation market isforecast to be the world’s 7th fastest-growing in the period of 2013-2017, with annual growthrates of 6.9 percent and 6.6 percent expected for international passengers (Tyler, 2014) In thetrend of transitioning and developing Vietnam’s economy, a restructuring plan of Vietnam’sair service industry was approved by the Ministry of Transport aim to gain the 5th position inASEAN aviation market and raise the passengers carried by airlines achieving 3.23% of alloverall the domestics transport market share (Viet Nam Government Portal, 2015) Hence,there is a tough competition between airlines companies from the time governmentauthorized 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

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

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

In the report of We are social (2015) facebook is reviewed to become the world largestsocial 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 communityoffer both firms and customers new ways to engaged with each other They pointed out thatcustomer engagement in a facebook brand community is the group of people who engagedinto a specific brand by clicking “Like” on its Facebook fan page Customer as a fan page’smember easy to follow information, to read and write comments, to share experiences, tocomplain 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 willlead 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 themost popular social platforms with 31.3 million users, make up 94% of social networkaccount ownership (Moore Corporation, 2015a) 33% Vietnamese passengers researchinformation before trip on social media (Moore Corporation, 2015b) This situation creates anenvironment to airline’s marketers for touching with this community Airline companiesstarted to build their facebook fan page for so that customers can follow their information and

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

Statement of the problem

Customer engagement has emerged in the last few years as a topic of great interest tomanagers and consultants in diverse industries and companies worldwide (Sashi, 2012) Thisissue 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 theimportant of customer engagement in achiving bussiness growth Customer engagementcreate the deep connections with customers that drive purchase decisions, interaction withfirms (Forrester Consulting as cited in Sashi, 2012) A customer's engagement in a brandcommunity results in a number of outcomes for firms’ growth, including the customer'scontinuing participation in the community, satisfaction, increased trust in, commitment andloyalty (Wirtz et al., 2013; Brodie et al., 2011) The advent of Web 2.0 and in particular thesocial network sites (like My space, Facebook, Google plus) in recent years have led to anexplosion 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 theinteraction among individuals and firms in brand communities, social media can use to betterserve customer and meet the needs .Therefore, the establishment of company’s socialnetwork sites in the recent years presented an opportunity to built close relationship withcustomer by enhancing the customer engagement to brand community

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

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

With present situation of Vietnam’s dynamic and rapidly growing aviation market, airlinecompanies 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 Airand Vietnam Air Services Company have fan page on facebook They generally use facebookpage to communicate with customers, provide information and promote their brand On thetrends of Vietnam’s aviation market development, airline companies are now trying to havemore participation of customers on the fan page and using fan page’s activities to attract andretain customers Basing in on this problem, this research aims to examine the engagement ofcustomer on facebook brand community in the context of Vietnam’s airline industry likewisefind out more critical implications to help the manager of Vietnam’s airline companiesturning 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 ofattempts to define and figure out the ways to build customer engagement to online brandcommunity Brodie et al (2011) examines consumer engagement in a virtual brandcommunity is an aspect of interactive process of sharing, learning, socializing, advocating,and co-developing Sashi (2012) develops a model of customer engagement cycle in theplatform of social media with connection, interaction, satisfaction, retention, loyalty,advocacy, and engagement as stages in the cycle An exploratory study is conducted byJavornik and Mandelli (2012) to investigate the behavioral perspectives of customerengagement with three FMCG brands in the social media environment With the use offacebook 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

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facebook communities to enhance satisfaction and loyalty by offering the right kinds ofrelationship benefits However, the majority of these studies have been conducted to buildframework 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 inairlines 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 inVietnam’s tourism facebook brand page

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

Research objectives

The overall objective of this study is to examine the effect of customer engagementbehavior on customer commitment, customer word of mouth and customer satisfaction andmediating 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

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up to 2014 with 56% of VNA, 29.4% of VJ and 13.1% of JPA (Anh, 2014) Secondly, thosethree airlines flight to almost major domestic destination like Ha Noi, Ho Chi Minh, DaNang, Nha Trang, Da Lat, Phu Quoc Whereas, on the other hand, VASCO with the lowestmarket 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

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

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LITERATURE REVIEW

In order to achieve these objectives this study, this part presents a discussion of customerengagement behaviors, brand community, customer engagement in brand community,perceived relationship benefit of customer engagement in brand community, customersatisfaction, customer loyalty and the relationship of those constructs This is followed by thedevelopment 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, geographically bound community, based on a structured set of social relationships amongadmires of a brand It is specialized because at its center is a branded good or service Likeother communities, it is marked by shared consciousness, rituals and traditions, and a sense ofmoral responsibility.” A brand community is a collective of people with a shared interest in aspecific 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 showthat customers joining in a brand community become more loyalty and enhance the

non-relationship (Gummerus et al., 2012).

Furthermore, McAlexander, Schouten, and Koenig, (2002) showed four crucialrelationships in a brand community: between the customer and the brand, between thecustomer 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 consumerinfluence within the community In addition, brand communities give the potential ofimproving the relationship between the consumers and the brand (Sicilia & Palazón, 2008).Consequently, regarding the existing research on brand communities, we can seecommunity identification as a central influence for community participation Previous workhas shown that brand community engagement can affect membership loyalty, brand image,and wordofmouth (Bhattacharya, Rao, & Glynn, 1995) Thus, community participation andmembership can be seen as an important tool for a successful branding strategy

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Online brand community (OCB)

Muniz and O'Guinn (2001) place the development of brands and brand communities inthe context of the development of mass media and modern marketing that started in the earlynineteenth century Result in the a massive adoption of advances in internet, social media andmobile 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 OBCsand 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 sharedinterest (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 eitherentirely 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 andresearchers in recently years As existed researches have been discussed, there are differentways to conceptualize the customer engagement concept The main research streams forinvestigating 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

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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 theresearch on the definition elaborated by Van Doorn et al (2010) These studies investigateconsumers’ activities such as word-of-mouth, recommendations, repeat purchases, socialmedia activities, community participation, interactions with brands and similar Suchapproach is often favored by practitioners as it can lead to quantification and measurement ofconsumers’ activities in their interactions with brands The engagement of customers to theonline brand community reflects in activities as clicking “like”, commenting, using brandapplications… Thus, this analysis adopts a behavioral perspective of customer engagementbecause 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 communityparticipants” (Brodie et al., 2011, p 105) Customer engagement behaviors (CBEs) consist ofjoining brand activities, helping other customers, writing reviews, complaining toorganizations, blogging Sashi (2012) stated a similar conceptualization of the consumerengagement Sashi's customer engagement cycle is composed of the following stages:connection, interaction, satisfaction, retention, commitment, advocacy and engagement Itmay be confirmed that customer engagement is an interactive, experiential process thatcapture 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 differentways depending on the customer’s resources (e.g time); (2) it can result in different types ofoutcomes for the customer (e.g improvements in the service); (3) it can vary in scope and bemomentary, such as issuing a complaint, or ongoing behavior; (4) it has varying impact on

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the firm and peers (negative/positive); and (5) customers may engage in the behaviors fordifferent 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, purchasingintention In the context of social media, the customers engaged into the brand via joining toonline brand communities Facebook fan page is an example, via clicking “Like” on the fanpage, customers interact directly with the brand owners or communicate with other membersinsight the community The customers joining in a facebook brand fan page is perceived toget 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 facebookbrand 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 maintainrelationships 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 brandrelationship

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

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presence, avoiding uncertainty, reducing ambiguity and delevering self-presentation.Dholakia, Bagozzi, & Pearo, (2004) found that customers can gain practical andinformational 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 relationshipbenefits: 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 andreceiving help In addition, they can be seen thanking the company for birthday bonuses andgifts Customers may also seek social enhancement, which derives from the need to feeluseful, 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 Phamand 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 functionalbenefits 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

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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 aFacebook 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 andpsychological 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 onconsumers’ brand commitment Customers joining in a fanpage have relationship with brandthrough this page Sashi (2012) demonstrated the concept of affective commitment – acommitment in a relationship that base on emotional He also stated that customerengagement occurs when customers have strong emotional bonds in relational exchangeswith 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 causechanges in opinion and behavior, as well as drive brand awareness and excitement about aproduct or services (WOMMA, 2005) Word-of-mouth tends to flow through interpersonalchannels based on shared interests, friendship, or family and people commonly use it to seekinformation when they are facing with a highrisk purchase situation (Murray, 1991); Aresearch was drew on marketing and consumer behavior literature to formulate a conceptualframework, empirically tested the hypotheses using data obtained from a large onlineretailing store in Taiwan by Tsai and Huang (2007) stated that community building ispositively related to repurchase intention Thereby, we believe that engagement in online

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brand communities will lead to positive behaviors of members such as word-of-mouthbehaviors (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 casesatisfaction 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) apleasurable level of consumption-related fulfillment, including levels of under- or overfulfillment (as cited in Güngör, 2007) Consumer satisfaction is likewise positively influence

by customers' affective responses such as their enjoyment, excitement and pleasure of usingthe service (Lynch, Kent, & Srinivasan, 2001), and these may be experienced due to customerengagement Customer satisfaction can be seen as a measure of the quality of the relationshipbetween the customer and the firm (De Wulf & Odekerken-Schröder, 2001) When an brandcommunity 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 adirect effect on consumers' intention to carry out behaviors such as saying positive thingsabout the brand, recommending it to others, and remaining loyal to it in their purchasingdecisions (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 satisfactionare still small in number The customer behavioral engagement in a brand community ishoped 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

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& 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 onrelationship 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 asfigured out below in the Vietnam airline industry context

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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

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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 whichbases on the literature review in this chapter In the proposed research model, the engagementbehavior of customer on a brand’s Facebook page was divided into twos constructs: thecommunity engagement behavior and transaction engagement behavior They are bothdemonstrated positively to customer perceived benefits: social benefit, entertainment benefitand 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 pagecommitment, word of mouth and satisfaction are also considered Such factors are selected tobuild the model because their relationship has already tested by many previous scholarsthrough their studies

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

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This chapter lays out the method and research design used in the study to explore therelationship between variables, such as: community engagement behavior, transactionengagement behavior, social benefit, entertainment benefit, economic benefit, brand pagecommitment, customer word of mouth and customer satisfaction The chapter starts with theresearch design procedure, questionnaire design Then, the method of analysis is introduced.The chapter mentions information of sampling method and also the analysis type will beapplied 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 aresearch to explore scientific phenomena In the other words, the mixed method has recentlybecome a popular method to conduct a research (Creswell, 2003), the combination ofqualitative and quantitative methodology should be used to deeply understand the ideas andcollect 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 isusing quantitative interview to have back more answers, responses from different people whohave diversified background of ages, education, and employment This step includes testingthe 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 beless 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 165answers To conduct Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), Garver and Mentser (1999) andHoelter proposed a ‘critical sample size’ of 200 To make sure the quantity of respondents 19

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, measurementcarefully given out to make sure the appropriation of research scope All the variables in themodel were measured with multiple items, which were developed by other researchers andalso based on the results of qualitative study to to adequately capture the domain of theconstructs 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 socialbenefit and three items of entertainment benefit that suggested by Dholakia et al (2004) andGummerus et al., (2012) were used; The economic profit was measured by four items fromresearch of Gwinner et al (1998); Yen and Gwinner, (2003), Gummerus et al., (2012) and theconstruct of satisfaction was based on Oliver (1997), and customer loyalty was measured bytwo 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 / Reseachers Vietnamese Modified Items / Code

Cvijikj and 1 Tôi truy cập (mở) facebookMichahelle của hãng hàng không mỗi khiGroup of brands

s (2013); tôi vào mạng xã hội CEB1Gummerus 2 Tôi đọc các thông tin

2

Community Read messages (2012); vé, chuyến bay, kinh nghiệm

engagement Pham and du lịch v.v ) được đăng trên

CEB2

(2014); 3 Tôi bấm like (thích) các bài

3 Use the “like” Bitter, đăng (status - trạng thái, hình

option Grabner- ảnh hoặc video) trên facebook

CEB3Kräuter and của hãng hàng không.

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Concepts Original Items / Reseachers Vietnamese Modified Items / Code

Breitenecke 4 Tôi comment (bình luận) về

Sjöqvist ảnh, video) được đăng trên

CEB4(2015) facebook của hãng hàng không

chương trình giá vé/ chính

hàng không trên facebook của

CEB5hãng

6 Tôi bấm mở các link (địachỉ web) về thông tin (thôngUse links provided tin sản phẩm, thông tin chính

company/brand on vé, thông tin du lịch và thông

facebook của hãng hàng

CEB6không

7 Tôi thực hiện mua vé máy

TEB1

8 Transaction engagement Participatecompany’s/brand’s in 8 Tôi tham gia vào các cuộcthi được tổ chức trên facebook

TEB2

behavior raffles on Facebook của hãng hàng không

facebook của hãng hàng không

I am a [brand] 10 Tôi được cung cấp thông

tin (về sản phẩm, sản phẩmFacebook group

Weman vé, chính sách, khuyến mãi,

Social member to provide

benefits other group

Gummerus thành viên khác cùng tham gia

ideas with other lịch…) với các thành viên khác

SB3

21

Concepts Original Items / Reseachers Vietnamese Modified Items / Code

I am a [brand]

Facebook group 13 Tôi kết bạn, giao lưu với

know other tham gia facebook của Hãng

SB4members

I am a [brand] 14 Tôi nhận được sự trợ giúp

từ các thành viên khác cùngFacebook group

tham gia facebook của hãngmember to get help

hướng dẫn thủ tục mua vé,community

hướng dẫn thủ tục lên máy bay,

trợ giúp về du lịch, , v.v…)

I am a [brand] 15 Tôi giúp đỡ các thành viênFacebook group khác cùng tham gia facebook

community vé, hướng dẫn thủ tục lên máy

needed by [brand] or

Hãng Hàng Không cần tôi

other community

SB7members

I am a [brand] Dholakia,

17 Tham gia vào facebook củaFacebook group Bagozzi

EB1

member to get and Pearo

trí

entertained (2004);

18 Entertainme I nt Facebookam a [brand]group (2011);Weman 18 Tham gia vào facebook củahãng hàng không giúp thư EB2

benefits member to relax Gummerus giãn

I am a [brand] et al.

19 Tham gia vào facebook của

19 hãng hàng không giúp tôi giết

member to pass time Sjöqvist

thời gian khi tôi buồn chán

when I am bored (2015)

I am a [brand] Gwinner et 20 Tôi nhận được các phần

al (1998); thưởng/ điểm thưởng từ các

20 Facebook group Yen and cuộc thi/ trò chơi tổ chức trên ECO1

member to try to get

Gwinner facebook của Hãng Hàng

22

Concepts Original Items / Reseachers Vietnamese Modified Items / Code

Sjöqvist(2015)

I am a [brand] 22 Tôi nhận được dịch vụ tốt

member to get better tham gia vào facebook của

23 Tôi nhận được phản hồi

I am a [brand] nhanh chóng từ các hãng hàng

member to get fast giá vé, khuyến mãi, thông tinresponses du lịch/ khiếu nại về dịch vụ

[Brand] has a great

Lee,Huang 25 Facebook của Hãng Hàng

CM2

Customer meaning for me and Hsu nhân tôi

I recommend the 27 Tôi nhắc đến hãng hàng WOM

1

I introduce the brand 28 Tôi chủ động giới thiệu WOM

29 about the brand to về hãng hàng không với người

23

Concepts Original Items / Reseachers Vietnamese Modified Items / Code

I think that I did theright thing when I 31 Tôi quyết định đúng khi

31 decided to become a tham gia vào facebook của SF2

[brand] Facebook hãng hàng không

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Eliminating items had low CFA coefficients Check the suitability of model

Calculating the total reliability coefficient and cumulative variance

Check the suitability of model Check hypothesis

Figure 3.1 The Research Process

3.3.1 Qualitative phase

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

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

Based on the feedback of respondents, the survey questionnaire was slightly modified tomake 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 qualitativephase, 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 fanpage members:

- Vietnam Airlines: 251,981 “liked” https://www.facebook.com/VietnamAirlinesCorp?fref=ts

- Jetstar Pacific Airlines: 376,879 “liked” https://www.facebook.com/JetstarVN?fref=ts

- VietJetAir.com: 652,452 “liked” https://www.facebook.com/vietjetvietnam?fref=ts

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, Googleform was used to make the questionnaire The data was collected by posting questionnaires inthe 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 questionnaireswere collected The questionnaires collection included 7 eliminated questionnaires due to thesame answers for all asking items as well as the blank items Finally, 346 questionnaires wereused as valid data for this research In comparison with minimum sample size, this value wassatisfactory

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