國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
1. Introduction 1.1. Overview
Chapter One provides an introduction to the research problem and the topic that will be investigated within this paper. First section describes the study question placing it within the marketing discipline and the changes that were shaping it during recent decades. Second section explains what the aim of this empirical study is and what questions are to be answered by the end of the paper. It also provides the context of the research including basic information on the Taiwanese telecom industry.
1.2. Research Problem
During the past three decades, the marketing discipline has undergone vast changes, with the paradigm shifting from the goods oriented to service oriented offerings and from transactions
to relationships. The reason it had to transform was because the customers have changed.
Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004) indicate that ‘the emergence of connected, informed, empowered, and active consumers’ is challenging the traditional belief that firms can create
their offerings without any cooperation with the customers. They argue that in the new reality that new type of customers is challenging businesses by ‘wanting to interact with firms and thereby “co-create” value’. It is therefore critical for brands seeking business profitability and
‧
國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
growth to create, build, and enhance customer brand relationships, thus involving in customer engagement activities. But before the firms could do so, a deeper understanding of the concept must have been developed. Hence, since the emergence of the consumer engagement and value co-creation concepts in marketing, scholars have been expressing a particular interest in the topic. Understanding consumer engagement as customers’ behavioral manifestation toward a brand or firm beyond purchase, which results from motivational drivers’ the Marketing Science Institute announced consumer engagement to be a Top Priority topic for years 2010-2012 and again from 2014-2016 (MSI, 2010;2014). However, despite the undeniable attention received and many papers published in recent years across various disciplines, the concept still has not received a sufficient amount of investigation. As most of the past studies are conceptual in nature, a considerable lack of empirical qualitative study still exists. Due to the deficiency of research, the interactions between the drivers and outcomes of customer brand engagement (CBE), as well as the mediating variables of CBE are yet not clear. In order to provide assistance and advice for managers seeking to build new marketing strategies and ways of engaging customers and exert greater impact on the company by enhancing behaviors beneficial for the firm, such as loyalty, word of mouth, brand evangelism, and purchase, further research on consumer brand engagement is indispensable.
‧
國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
1.3. Research Questions
This study examines the potential antecedents and consequences of consumer brand engagement.
Thus, the key questions to address within this study are:
Q1: What are the factors that have an effect on consumer brand engagement?
Q2: What dimensions of consumer brand engagement lead to an increase or decrease in brand loyalty?
Q3: What are the factors of consumer brand engagement that have a direct effect on brand loyalty?
1.4. Research Objectives
The main focus of this study is to understand the role of consumer brand engagement and how it influences the relationships between the consumer and the brand. It also aims to determine what drives customer brand engagement and how it affects brand loyalty, especially since brand loyalty is in fact the factor that firms are trying to establish with their customers. More specifically, this papers examines the role and the level of influence of antecedents on the mediating variables of CBE, including cognitive, behavioral and emotional dimensions. Also, the purpose of this study is to determine the level of increase or decrease in the strength of relationships between each of the independent and the mediating variables. Furthermore, the objective of this research is to investigate whether consumer brand engagement dimensions
‧
國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
have a positive or negative impact on brand loyalty and provide managers with directions on how to increase, or prevent the decrease in the level of brand loyalty. Moreover, this study aims to investigate whether the drivers or CBE can affect directly brand loyalty, if yes, establish the positive/negative effect and its intensity. Furthermore, since many scholars are calling for the validation of their findings, it is the purpose of this study is to replicate and validate the existing conceptual model by Leckie et al. (2016) by incorporating it in the conceptual model developed in this paper and verify the results.
1.5. Research Context
This research is positioned in the context of mobile service providers in Taiwan (R.O.C). The Taiwanese mobile market is divided between five main telecom companies, including Chunghwa Telecom Co Ltd, Far EasTone Telecommunications Group, Taiwan Mobile (formerly Taiwan Cellular), Taiwan Star Telecom and Asia-Pacific Telecom with the former three occupying almost 80% of the market share. With a highly mature market, high saturation index, the annual growth is marginal (in low single digits) and the competition amongst the players is fierce causing profitability to be challenging. With little space for growth, except for the LTE (i.e. Long Term Evolution, a high-speed wireless communications standard) services experiencing a significant growth since the introduction to the market, turnover threat, customer
‧
國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
retention and preventing chunk is the top priority for each of the brands. Companies are seeking for new ways of engaging customers to build strong, long lasting relationships that would ultimately have a positive impact on their profitability and sustainability. Hence, it is fair to conclude, this particular research on customer engagement should be of great significance for Taiwanese mobile service brands.
1.6. Thesis Structure
This thesis consists of six chapters. Chapter one serves as an introductory chapter and provides the justification for conducting this study. It describes the research problem by putting it in the context of marketing. It provides the key problems to be addressed within this study, the main objectives and research context. It concludes with drawing the outline of this paper.
The literature review chapter provides an introduction to the theoretical foundations of consumer engagement, describing three marketing theories, namely relationship marketing, culture customer theory, and service-dominant logic. It identifies the existing conceptual and empirical research and provides definitions of consumer engagement and consumer brand engagement found across those studies. Finally, it discusses the consumer engagement concept in the context of telecom brands in Taiwan.
The theoretical chapter provides the conceptual model and information on the models it was
‧
國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
based on, as well as the constructs incorporated. It discusses and provides definitions of the factors used as antecedents, consumer brand engagement dimensions and CBE consequence.
In this chapter a set of hypotheses is developed in order to provide basis for this empirical study.
The methodology chapter provides a detailed overview of the Taiwanese mobile service market.
It addresses the research approach, including research designs and data collection processes.
It also provides a description of the process of survey development used for the pretest and
main questionnaire of the research. It discusses the scales that were used to measure each of the conceptual model’s construct, and provides the basic contour of questionnaire design.
The results chapter discusses the findings of this study obtained by employing various statistical analysis. It provides information on socio-economic and statistical characteristics of the sample.
Also, it discusses the reliability and validity of the scales. It address the research questions by discussing three structural models obtained by employing a structural equation modeling method. Finally, it indicates the managerial implications of this study, and is concluded with information on research limitations and recommendations for future research and overall conclusion.
‧
國立 政 治 大 學