MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HCMC - Chu Nguyen Mong Ngoc A MEASUREMENT MODEL OF CITY-BASED CONSUMER PATRIOTISM : A CASE OF RESEARCH IN VIETNAM Major: STATISTICAL SCIENCE Code: 9460201 THESIS SUMMARY Ho Chi Minh city, 2020 HẮNG The thesis was completed in University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City Tutor: Ph.D Ha Van Sơn and Ph.D Tran Van Thang Opponent 1: …… Opponent 2: Opponent 3: The thesis will be protected in front of the Council at: At ……… hour ……… …… ……………… 2020 The thesis can be found at: ……… CHAPTER OVERALL INTRODUCTION 1.1 Research Motivations Trade liberalisation has helped nations to assert themselves in international communities However, trade liberalisation also brings many challenges Market globalization has changed the competitive conditions of local enterprises The availability of imported goods at reasonable prices, as well as the rapidly increasing global marketing activities, have created a context of aggressive competition in the local market In this situation, consumer biases towards domestic products are an important factor in deciding the consumers' buying behaviour towards local products (Josiassen, 2011) Marketers and policymakers have used people’s affection to promote domestic consumption because it does not involve a tariff barrier, so it does not violate any trade agreement The campaign "Vietnamese people give priority to using Vietnamese goods", which was first launched nationwide by the Vietnam Politburo in 2009, is an proof of this strategy Therefore, researchers are very interested in investigating the emotional bias of consumers for domestic production, especially focus on a consumer ethnocentrism model These research which were conducted in many countries, even in Vietnam, found out the strong positive relationship between the patriotism and ethnocentrism of consumers (Auruskeviciene et al., 2012; Balabanis et al., 2001; Cao Quốc Việt and Nguyễn Thị Quý, 2017; Dmitrovic et al., 2009; Erdoğan and Burucuoğlu, 2016; F-Ferrín et al., 2015; Ishii, 2009; Pentz et al., 2017; Rybina et l., 2010) The consumer ethnocentrism model has been confirmed in developed countries, but applying this model to Vietnam, a developing country, requires that the antecedents must be investigated more carefully, due to the particular factors in the country’s economic and political environment and its history From this viewpoint, the author believe that it is possible to further explore the relationship between the patriotism and ethnocentrism of Vietnamese consumers, and to gain greater understanding of the nature and mechanism of patriots’ support for their domestic economy The author continue to consider academic studies related to the construct of patriotism in consumption at the level of individual consumers (Chen, 2011; Han, 1988; Kim et al., 2013; MacGreg and Wilkinson, 2012; Min Han, 1994; Notari et al., 2011; Ngô Thái Hưng, 2013; Shah and Hazril, 2016; Tsai, 2010) The author found that although these works studied this construct with the outstanding feature is that they used quite identical terms such as "consumer patriotism", "patriotic consumption" or "economic patriotism", however, they did not explain this construct by knowledges of social identity theory (SIT), so they had not yet investigated whether or not the causal mechanism between it and the consumer ethnocentrism as well as with other important constructs of SIT In order to unify the science name, the author combined the terms of the previous work into a common name "consumer patriotism" The author also stated that the existences in the research works around this topic has made it difficult to understand the nature and role of the construct of consumer patriotism 1.2 Problem Statement The operationalization of the construct of consumer patriotism and its relationship with Vietnamese consumer ethnocentrism The suitable measurement scale of the contruct of Vietnamese patriotism The rule of the relationship between cosmopolitanism and ethnocentrism of Vietnamses consumer The nomological network of consumer patriotism with the constructs of patriotism, cosmopolitanism and ethnocentrism of Vietnamese consumer, based on social identity theory The using and developing the appropriate statistical techniques to solve the above research problems 1.3 Research Objectives Defining and establishing a measurement scale of the construct of consumer patriotism which is suitable for the context of Vietnamese consumers Assessing the construct of consumer patriotism by multivariate statistical techniques in the quantitative research stage to confirm the findings from the qualitative stage Determining the role of the construct of consumer patriotism in the mechanism transmitting patriotism to consumer ethnocentrism by mediator effect test Assessing the suitable measurement scale of the construct of Vietnamese patriotism by multivariate statistical techniques Identifing the causal relationship between the constructs of cosmopolitanism and ethnocentrism of Vietnamses consumer, using multivariate statistical techniques Developing and testing a structure equation model (SEM) which shows the relationship of consumer patriotism with other important constructs of SIT theory 1.4 Research subjects, research scope 1.4.1 Research and data collection subjects The research subject of the thesis is the measurement model of the construct of Vietnamese consumer patriotism Data collection subjects are Vietnamese city-based consumers who are mature and active in their buying making decisions 1.4.2 Research scope The thesis focused on the construct of consumer patriotism at the level of individual consumers The space scope of the thesis was urban districts of two cities which were selected to collect data as Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi 1.5 Research methods At the qualitative research stage, the author applied the Grounded theory method of Strauss and Corbin (1990) to explore the relationship between consumer patriotism and consumer ethnocentrism and other related constructs From the results was obtained, the author build research model and research hypotheses Next stage, the author conducted quantitative research twice The first is a preliminary study, the second is a formal study These two times study followed this order of steps: Building-completing the scale of construct/ Assessing the measurement scale first time/ Assessing the measurement scale second time 1.6 Value, new contribution in theory and practical implications 1.6.1 Value, new contribution in marketing science The research results have formed the construct of consumer patriotism suitable to the context of Vietnamese city-based consumers and enriched the scientific knowldege of SIT Therefore, the thesis could be used as a reference for researchers not only in the field of economics but also in sociology, anthropology, or political science The author has chosen a suitable measurement scale of the construct of Vietnamese patriotism This scale showed its stability through two times of quantitative researches, provided a reliable reference for researchers who continue to develop on this topic The thesis has brought useful information for practical marketers about the operating rule of consumer cosmopolitanism It is meaningful in the context of global economic, cultural and social integration which makes consumer cosmopolitanism exist and actives more strongly than ever In practical aspect, this research result can be applied directly to increase the effectiveness of the campaign "Vietnamese people give priority to using Vietnamese goods" which was first launched nationwide by the Vietnam Politburo in 2009 1.6.2 Value, new contribution in statistical aspect The thesis can be a reference source for researchers in the fact that the application of mediator effect test of Baron and Kenny (1986) in quantitative studies still exists some problems In addition to, the mediator effect test by Sem technique is used by the author to increase the persuasion of the conclusions Therefore, the thesis is a vivid illustration of how to combine the results of two different mediator effect test methods to draw the final optimal conclusions There has not been any domestic doctoral thesis (also application mediator effect test) in the same field with this research that reached this achievement The thesis has provided an illustration of Sem application that implements all 06 steps according to the rules of Kline (2011) This is advantage that no applied Sem research in Vietnam gained yet In the thesis, the author has performed detailed sample size calculations, as well as checked multivariate normal distribution of data by rigorous tests, and overcame the violation to ensure reliable statistical conclusions from Sem These are useful informations for researchers who want to apply Sem CHAPTER OVERVIEW OF WORKS ABOUT CONSUMER PATRIOTISM 2.1 Academic works The earliest and the most referenced view is Han's view (1988) Han (1988) assumed that there is a significant relationship in buying domestic products and patriotism by consumers who realise their task is to protect their country’s economy and domestic manufacturing Consumers consider that their choice of buying domestic products has a powerful effect on their country They express their biases in purchasing domestic products to reaffirm their loyalty to their country Han (1988) built his measurement of the construct of consumer patriotism using 02 items adopted directly from the U.S consumer ethnocentrism scale of Shimp and Sharma (1987), namely CETSCALE Han's method led McMellon and Long (2006, pp.4) to say that “Han (1988) used the CETSCALE to examine the role of consumer patriotism“ The second view came from Tsai (2010), which derived from his point that consumers were urged by their patriotism to buy domestic products and with such acts they consciously helped fellow citizens whose employment was threatened by imported products Tsai's (2010) definition of consumer patriotim was very similar to Han's definition (1988) but Tsai (2010) did not operationalise the construct of consumer patriotism in his work MacGregor and Wilkinson (2012) defined a specific form of consumer patriotism, which would express an individual’s willingness to contribute more to business for the benefit of the country However, they only constructed a single item – “It is more patriotic to buy goods made in the United States than goods made in other countries” – to measure an individual's patriotic beliefs It is unrealistic to expect that a hypothetical construct could be appropriately measured by a single item (Kline, 2005, pp.70) In addition, the three works mentioned above reflected the characteristics of American consumer culture which is not entirely consistent with the context of other countries, such as Vietnam Another common point of the these works are their way to establish the theoretical basis of the research construct Consumer patriotism reflects the in-group bias among consumers but these works did not use SIT theory as a background Therefore they also did not exploit the potential relationship between consumer patriotism and other related contructs of SIT 2.2 Views of the Vietnamese people - approach from public opinion The author has compiled articles published on printed media and forums with many anonymous participants on the topic of patriotic consumption to understand the Vietnamese people's views on this topic The author used keywords like “Patriotic consumption“; “Patriotic purchases“; “Patriotic shopping“; “Patriotic buying behaviour“ to find articles relevanting this content The results of the appearence frequency of these keywords were compared with definitions of comsumer patriotism of Han (1988); MacGregor and Wilkinson (2012); Tsai (2010) The author could realize that the views of Vietnamese consumers were similar to those of American consumers in that they felt their responsibility to help the jobs of their domestic peope, and help the economy of their country develop In additon to, there is an emerging point, the Vietnamese consumer patriotism showed a clear bias attitude towards domestic goods, driven by a pure emotional reason that was the attachment to country of Vietnamese people This shows the fact that the construct of Vietnamese consumer patriotism, beside the similar part of comsumer patriotism of foreigner authors (Han, 1988; MacGregor and Wilkinson, 2012; Tsai, 2010), there is an additional emotional part that the foreigner authors has not mentioned According to the author, when referring to the emotional bias, which is driven by the emotional attachment to the country, people must apply SIT theory to be able to explain the reason satisfactorily CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW 3.1 Social identity theory (SIT) and its related contructs 3.1.1 Social identity theory (SIT) The main point of SIT is that in a society, individuals categorize themselves into groups, then these groups identify themselves through things associated with their own group identity, and which can be distinguished from other groups The in-group people share the same views, and behaviors toward outgroups through an attitude of cooperation, conflict, prejudice or discrimination in a process called social comparison (Tajfel, 1982) 3.1.2 Consumer ethnocentrism (CET) Shimp and Sharma (1987) defined consumer ethnocentrism as a unique economic form of ethnocentrism that captures the beliefs of consumers about the appropriateness and morality of purchasing foreign products Consumers having an ethnocentric attitude consider that the products produced in their own country are good and consider the purchasing of foreign products as wrong because they can adversely affect workers’ jobs, restrain the development of domestic businesses, and endanger the economy 3.1.3 National identity and patriotism (PAT) In marketing literature, national identity has been discussed using the concept of patriotism (Kim t al., 2013, pp.77) because patriotism is one of the main sources of national identity (Petya, Marco, 2014) Patriotism is often perceived as a love of one’s country and devotion to it, but it can take many forms (Schatz, Staub, and Lavine, 1999) Vida and Reardon (2008) noted that the concept of patriotism was attached to culture, so it should be operationalised in market scenarios Because of the broad perspectives on the concept of national identity and patriotism, up to now, in addition to a number of works measured patriotism in a particular way, four main points can be listed in the measurement They are point of Adorno et al (1950), Kosterman and Feshbach (1989), Keillor et al (1996) and Karasawa (2002) The author noticed Keillor et al (1996) based on SIT when developing the measure of patriotism, but the scale was designed quite complicated with four diemensions that one of which bias consumer ethnocentrism So the author decided to reference simply this scale to measure Vietnamese patriotism Therefore, the author continued to review marketing science studies that referenced the scale of Keillor et al (1996) to find the most reasonable reference Through the review, it could be seen that most these studies had the statements expressing main ideas such as: Love for the country; Pride in nationality; The meaning of being a citizen of that country; The connection with the country These statements exhibit similar psychological characteristics of patriots in many different countries, including Kazakhstan (Rybinal et al., 2010) The author assumed that Kazakhstan and Vietnam have a number of geographical - historical and political similarities that can make people's psychology similar So the application the Kazakh patriotism scale for Vietnamese case could be a reasonable choice As a result, the author decided to use the measurement scale of the construct of patriotism in the work of Rybina et al (2010) for Vietnamese people 3.1.4 Consumer cosmopolitanism and open-mindedness 3.1.4.1 Cosmopolitanism (COS) In the 20th century, sociology literature defined cosmopolitans as people who oriented themselves outside their community rather than being influenced solely by local traditions and values (Riefler ctg., 2012) Cosmopolitanism is like a form of openness to different cultures, along with a desire to work to seek experiences from other cultures rather than from one's own culture (Hannerz, 1990; Roudometof, 2005; Thompson and Tambyah, 1999) In the preliminary study, the author used the CYMYC scale (Cannon et al., 1994) to measure consumer cosmopolitanism 3.1.4.2 Open-mindedness (OPEN) After conducting preliminary study, in order to increase the monological validity of the construct of consumer cosmopolitanism, the author reviewed the literature to find out a newer measurement scale called C-COSMO (Riefler ctg., 2012) This scale defines consumer cosmopolitanism as a three-dimensional, second-order construct capturing the extent to which a consumer (1) exhibits an open-mindedness towards foreign countries and cultures, (2) appreciates the diversity brought about by the availability of products from different national and cultural origins, and (3) is positively disposed towards consuming products from foreign countries (Riefler et al., 2012) According to Riefler et al (2012), the first dimension named "open-mindedness" is an important characteristic of consumer cosmopolitanism Riefler et al (2012) established a scale for the construct of open-mindedness with statements revolving the consumer desire for cultural exchange and travelling to interact with people and other cultures The author decided to choose openmindedness to represent the consumer cosmopolitanism in the formal stydy (second quantitative study) 3.1.5 Consumer patriotism (COPAT) and its position in SIT 3.1.5.1 The definition of consumer patriotism Clift, Woll (2012a, pp.308-33) defined “economic patriotism as economic choices which seek to discriminate in favour of particular correlation between this construct and other constructs to ensure this construct has discriminant validity Content validity: Steenkamp and Van Trijp (1991, p.294) say the content validity is assessed by statistical testing the relationship between construct and other constructs in the theoretical system 3.2.2 Exploratory factor analysis technique for preliminary assessment of measurement scale Assessing the discriminant validity: The number of factors extracted by EFA must be consistent with the original hypothesis of the number of factors, combined with the condition that the observed variables download exactly the latent concept that it is designed for measuring (Nguyen Dinh Tho, 2011) Assessing the measurement model by EFA requires that the cumulative percentage of variance is higher than the threshold of 50% (Gerbing and Anderson, 1988) Hair et al (2010, pp.117) noted that Factor loadings FL greater than 0.5 to meet the requirement of convergent validity for the construct scales 3.2.3 Covariance based structural equation modeling 3.2.3.1 Basic steps of SEM Step Specify the model Step Evaluate model identifcation Step Select the measures and collect, prepare, and screen the data Step Estimate the model: a Evaluate model ft (if poor, skip to step 5) b Interpret parameter estimates c Consider equivalent or near-equivalent models (skip to step 6) Step Respecify the model (return to step 4) Step Report the results 3.2.3.2 Path model (PA) A path model (PA) is a structural model for observed variables, and a structural model represents hypotheses about effect priority In the PA model, the variables analyzed are observed variables but not the latent variables are measured through a set of observed variables Calculate the PA degrees of freedom: dfM = Number of observations - Number of free model parameters 11 Types of PA: There are two basic types of path models: recursive and non-recursive There are two basic requirements for the identification of any kind of structural equation model, not only PA: (1) dfM ≥ 0, and (2) every unobserved (latent) variable must be assigned a scale (metric) The sample size of PA: the relationship between sample size and model parameters is 20:1 Bollen (1989) said that this relationship must be at least a 5:1 ratio Estimation procedure: the most common procedure is the MLE The goodness-of-fit of PA: χ2M =(n-1)FML to test the hypothesis H0: The model is correct; χ2M /dfM < or or even (Bollen, 1989); 0,06 0.05, but actually this situation was the consequence of multicollinearity in regression model The results of testing the mediate role of COPAT in the relationship COS/CET showed that COPAT was not mediator variable The hypotheses H4 and H3 (again) were supported But the hypothesis H5 was rejected (2) Mediator effect test of BC boostrap The author continued to analyze the SR model based on the results of the CFA model The author eliminated the unsignificant causal relationship of COS/COPAT, so the research hypothese H5 was rejected Then the author re-specified the SR model and reestimated The goodness of fit of re-specification SR model was also satisfied Based on the significance test of the path coefficient of the re-specification SR model, the author concluded that the hypotheses H1, H2, H3 and H4 were supported The author used the re-specification SR model to conduct the BC boostrap test on the mediate role of COPAT Based on the 95% confidence intervel, the author concluded that COPAT was not mediator variable in the relationship between COS/CET but was full mediator variable in the relationship between PAT and CET 5.1.2.3 Conclusion of the measurement models of latent constructs after the first study From the results of two times of mediator effect test, the author generally concluded of the research hypotheses as follows: H1; H2; H3; H4 were accepted, but H5 was rejected Finally, the author concluded that the measuement models of constructs were satisfied the requirements avergely, because the sampling was not representative; some relationships had not been resolved clearly, the content validity was not completely convincing, the construct of consumer ethnocentrism had not reached totally the convergence validity 17 5.2 Results of the second study 5.2.1 Sample profile The sample comprised 25,3% men and 74,7% women A total of 45,2% of respondents had undergraduate education, 11,5% of respondents had graduate-level education or above, and 26,3 % of respondents had completed high school The other respondents had a lower education level A total of 15,8% of the sample were 24 years of age or younger, nearly 43,8% were aged from 25 to 40, and approximately 38% of respondents were 41 or over 5.2.2 Evaluating the measurement scale 5.2.2.1 Factor analysis procedure After the EFA and Cronbach’s Alpha procedures, the author concluded that the measurement scales of the four latent constructs had achieved reliability and unidimensionality requirements All of the measurement scales met the convergent and discriminant validity Starting with 20 observed variables, after the preliminary evaluation procedure, the author got 19 observed variables for CFA analysis The author performed the CFA procedure following 06 steps: Step Specify the model Step Evaluate model identifcation Step Select the measures and collect, prepare, and screen the data Step Estimate the model: The values of indices indicated the goodness of fit of the CFA model In particular, NC = 3,5