5.4 Data Collection ··················································································
5.4.1 Questionnaire Construction ······························································
The questionnaire construction is McCracken (1988)’s terminology. The interview questions are in the semi-structured format to gain a qualitative understanding of the underlying reasons and motivations of customers’ evaluation of services. The semi-structured approach allowed me to probe for in-depth information. It was
consequently unrealistic to have a complete question list before the interviews. Indeed it was expected that on many occasions questions would arise from participants’ responses. The purposes of this study do require some degree of planning for the
interviews. These purposes are specific; they are: to find out the COO effects on
service evaluation, and find out the intrinsic and external influences of COO effects
on service evaluation. The questions accordingly should be focused on these
purposes.
The long interviews and focus group interviews were designed to examine five areas:
1. The relationship between respondents’ COO stereotypes and their evaluation of services in terms of the related COO (namely the COO effects on service
evaluation).
2. The relationship between respondents’ prior service familiarity in terms of the COO image and the COO effects on the evaluation of foreign country and home
country services
3. The relationship between respondents’ vertical individualistic orientation and the COO effects on the evaluation of foreign country and home country services.
4. The relationship between respondents’ consumer ethnocentrism and the COO
effects on the evaluation of foreign country and home country services.
information cues considered.
According to the above five areas, the questions set should be designed to understand
the following:
1. Respondents’ British COO image and Chinese COO image;
2. Respondents’ evaluation of British higher education services and Chinese higher education services;
3. Respondents’ prior familiarity of Chinese higher education and their prior familiarity of British higher education;
4. Respondents’ vertical individualism; 5. Respondents’ consumer ethnocentrism; and
6. Non-COO information considered in the evaluation of services.
It is noted here that the above would only serve as a guide for the interviews. The
questions may or may not follow the order as presented. In reality, other questions were asked as prompts according to participants’ responses during the interviews.
Biographical Questions
Questionnaire construction is an interview preparation process. Before the interview
began in earnest, respondents were requested to answer a set of biographical questions. Answers to these biographical questions allow me to record each respondent’s descriptive details. As McCraken (1988: 34) states:
“Collecting these details in this way helps both to cue the interviewer to the biographical realities that will inform the respondent’s subsequent testimony and to make sure that all of this material is readily at hand during analysis”.
The information collected by the biographical questions included: Biographical Questions Today’s Date: Place: Time: Interviewer’s Name: Subject’s Name: Sex: Birth Date: Age: Respondent’s Education: Highest level: School:
After graduation, plan to continue to study in:
1. China 2. The UK 3. Other countries: _______________
The university selected for further higher education is:
Grand Tour Questions
The forthcoming questionnaire consists of unobtrusive and nondirective questions – which are also known as “grand-tour” questions (McCracken, 1988). The grand-tour questions are open-ended questions that could allow some scope for the respondents
to set the direction of the interview. The grand-tour questions include
Main Questions
The pre-planned interview topics outlined from previous chapters were used to form some predetermined interview questions. Some “floating prompts” (Spradley, 1979; Werner and Schoepfle, 1987; McCracken, 1988) were also used for further discovery
of respondents’ answers. The important categories from the COO literature review in
the product settings include determinants of COO image the relationship between
COO image and service evaluation, vertical individualism cultural dimension, and
consumer ethnocentrism.
This thesis assumes that some internal influences and external influences can
influence the magnitude of COO effects. Based on the literature review, the study can
be divided into three parts as following:
COO effects on service evaluation;
Internal influences of COO effects on service evaluation; and
External influences of COO effects on service evaluation Grand Tour Questions
1. Why did you choose to study in the current university?
2. How do you like or dislike your university life so far?
3. Why do you choose to continue to study after you graduate?
4. Could you describe the kinds of things that you need to do to get ready for your future
higher education?
Part one of the study aims to evaluate whether COO effects existed on consumers’ service evaluation. COO effects on service evaluation were expected to be found in
part one of the study. If it had been found in the long interviews, part two and three of
the study would evaluate the internal and external influences that can affect COO
effects on service evaluation. Based upon the literature, the internal influence suggested includes respondents’:
Service familiarity
Vertical individualism
Consumer ethnocentrism
The external influence suggested includes:
Reputation
Entry requirement
Availability of courses in home country
Influence of normative referents
English acquisition
Cost of studying overseas
Employment opportunity
Country environment
Part One of the Study: COO Influences on Service Evaluation
First of all, the extent of both British COO image and Chinese COO image held by
Chinese students should be assessed. The determinants of COO image in this thesis were based on Parameswaran and Pisharodi (1994)’s three facets of COO image in the product settings. According to their study, the COO image used to evaluate a specific
product from a specific country consists of three elements: “General Country Attributes” (GCA), “General Product Attributes” (GPA) and “Specific Product Attributes” (SPA). These three elements were transferred to current study in the service context. The impact of COO image on consumers’ service assessment can be
1. “General Country Attributes” (GCA) of the U.K and China
2. “General Service Attributes” (GSA) of the U.K and China
3. “Specific Service Attributes” (SPA) namely, higher education service attributes of
the U.K and China
The main questions in the part one of the study are shown in the table 5.3.
Table 5.3: Interview Question Topics (1)
Categories Category Questions Planned Prompts and Contrast Prompts
British Country-of-origin (COO) image held by Chinese students
Q1: What are your views of the U.K?
- Positive or negative? - Any examples?
- Why?
Q2: What are your views of the services provided by the U.K.?
- Positive or negative? - Any examples?
- Why?
Q3: What are your views of higher education services provided in the U.K.?
- Positive or negative? - Any examples?
- Why?
Chinese COO image held by Chinese students
Q4: What are your views of China?
- Positive or negative?
- Could you please compare your views of China with your views of the U.K.?
- Any examples?
- Why?
Q5: What are your views of Chinese services?
- Positive or negative?
- Could you please compare your views of Chinese services with your views of British services?
- Any examples?
- Why
Q6: What are your views of Chinese higher education services?
- Positive or negative?
- Could you please compare your views of Chinese higher education services with your views of British higher education services?
- Any examples?
the COO effects on evaluation of services
Q7: How do you think the image you hold of the U.K. would influence your evaluation of British higher education services?
- Why?
- Any examples?
Q8: How do you think the image you hold of China would influence your evaluation of Chinese higher education services?
- Positive or negative?
- Why?
- Any examples?
Vertical Individualism Q9: Do you agree or disagree that you have many social hierarchies in your life? Such as in your family, school, your work place, and the society around you?
- Why?
- Any examples?
Q10: Do you agree or disagree to sacrifice your own benefits to promote others’ interests?
- Why and why not? - Any examples?
Ethnocentrism Q11: When you are buying a service, do you typically choose Chinese made or foreign made service?
- Why?
- What are the differences between them?
- Any examples?
As only the COO cue is presented in the part one of the study, it can also be seen as a
single cue study which aims to evaluate the COO effects on service evaluation when
the COO cue is the only presented information cue. In order to motivate respondents
to only consider COO cue in part one of the study rather than many other information
cues, the COO cue related information were addressed in each interview with relevant
prompts.
Part Two of the Study: Internal Influences that can Affect COO Influences on Service Evaluation
Many studies have shown that products made in the UK are associated with positive
COO images by consumers (Greer, 1971; Darling and Kraft, 1977; Bannister and
Saunders, 1978; Ghadir, 1990; Baker and Michie, 1995; Hooley et al. 1988; Peris et
evaluation of British higher education services, they may still not choose to purchase
British higher education. The reasons are due to many influences that can affect their
willingness to buy a specific service.
These influences can therefore directly or indirectly influence the COO effects on consumers’ choice decision. In the part two of the study, the intrinsic influences were addressed in terms of Chinese students’ personal traits that can influence COO effects. The literature showed that the following most influential variables can significantly
facilitate or reinforce COO effects in the evaluation of products: vertical
individualism (Gurhan-Canli and Maheswaran, 2000 a; and Ferguson et al. 2008), and
consumer ethnocentrism (Shimp and Sharma, 1987; Sharma, et al. 1995; Waston and
Wright, 2000; Javalgi and White, 2002; Ferguson, et al. 2008). These variables can not only be seen as influences that can affect consumers’ willingness to buy but also serve as drivers of COO influences in service evaluation under the assumptions of this
thesis.
Service Familiarity
A substantial number of past studies showed that customers’ knowledge and experience of products plays an important role in the COO research because it can
also influence the product evaluation (e.g. Brucks, 1985; Johansson et al. 1985;
Eroglu and Machleit, 1988; Han and Terpstra, 1988; Jaffe and Nebenzhal 1988;
Johansson 1989; Wall, et al. 1991; Okechuku 1994; Lee and Ganesh 1999; Lin and Zhen 2005). Such knowledge is dependent on consumers’ memories or known knowledge (Brucks, 1985) or based on the awareness about the products purchased by
consumers (Lin and Zhen 2005, cited in Lin and Chen 2006).
There are two procedures before they make the decision of buying or not buying a
product. The first refers to the information search (Solomon, 1997) that resorting to
on consumers’ information processing procedures (Larkin et al., 1980). According to Lin and Chen (2006), when consumers search for products, they often depend on their
product knowledge to evaluate, and such product knowledge could also influence
their information search procedure. Additionally, Lin and Chen (2006) claimed that
the level of consumers’ product knowledge could not only influence their purchasing
decisions but also influence their willingness to purchase indirectly.
Service familiarity refers to consumers’ perception of how much they know (Park and Lessig, 1981) or the amount of what they have stored in their memory (Johnson and
Russo, 1984) or the dimension of their past purchasing experience (Marks and Olson, 1981). Respondents’ service familiarity can be assessed by not only the observation during the interviews but also the observation of the data obtained after the interviews.
Through note-taking key observations appeared, a pattern of respondents’ familiarity
emerged. For example, how prompt they answered some questions and the amount of
information they provided during the interviews can determine the degree of their service familiarity. The patterns of respondents’ familiarity were then coded and labelled into the themes that have emerged, which were then systematically organised
into categories. How service familiarity can affect the COO effects on the respondents’
evaluation of higher education services would be addressed in the data analysis
process.
Vertical Individualism
Individualism refers to the cultural dimension of one cultural group’s shared values. It looks at individuals’ understanding of what should be considered right or wrong
behaviour in terms of interpersonal relationships. It has built a moral construct that
employs within different cultures (Komarraju, et al. 2008). This construct can indicate
differences of using COO cues in services evaluation between different cultures.
In addition, researchers found that the individualism dimension has both horizontal
Gurhan-Canli and Maheswaran, 2000a; Sivadas, 2008, etc.). The major difference
between the horizontal and vertical constructs is the number of social hierarchies in people’s lives. This has resulted in the difference between American individualism and Swedish individualism (Triandis, 1995) and the difference between Chinese low
individualism and Indian low individualism (Sivadas, 2008). In the horizontal social
relationship, an individual is more or less like others. There are not many social
hierarchies in their life. In contrast, an individual in a vertical relationship is different
from others within the social hierarchies. According to Gurhan-Canli and
Maheswaran (2000 a), only the vertical dimension of individualism can result in COO
effects rather than horizontal dimension.
High Vertical Individualism
According to Hofstede (1980), the individualistic culture was importantly and
positively correlated with the significance of personal challenge, freedom, and time.
Therefore, building on the theoretical framework of Hofstede (1980) it can be asserted
that when evaluating services, individuals in high individualistic societies are often
focusing on achieving personal desires over group wants, and giving importance to
their own attitudes to direct actions with less pressure from group norms. In other words, they do not agree to sacrifice their own benefits to promote others’ interests. Although individualists can be in several in-groups they have very weak associations
with their in-groups; further, when there are too many constraints from in-group
imposed on them, they will soon disassociate themselves from that in-group (Fadil, et al 2009). In high vertical individualism, “people often want to become distinguished and acquire status, and they do this in individual competitions with others. They are likely to say ‘I want to be the best’. (Triandis and Gelfand, 1998: 119)”
Low Vertical Individualism
In contrast, a low individualistic society is reflected by the desire that the group’s needs and wants are at least of equal importance or even more important than
important. In order to maintain these relationships, people may sometimes have to
sacrifice some degree of personal cost for the enhanced welfare of the group.
Accordingly, there may be pressure imposed by their families, friends and other social
members to deliver duties and obligations. If it was necessary, individuals are
expected to give up or ignore their own desires in exchange for what benefits the
group. They are likely to have great interest in other members of their group and are
willing to share their personal belongings and materials with others. Individuals often
position themselves in relation to each other rather than each individualist building a
strong personal sense of self.
In order to assess respondents’ vertical individualistic orientation, a reduced version of the horizontal and vertical individualism scale designed by Sivadas, et al. (2008)
was used. The authors consolidated the 32-item attitudinal scale made by Singelis et
al. (1995) and reduced it to 14-items. This is because Sivadas, et al. (2008) found the
original 32-item scale actually failed to prove to be particularly robust. Probst et al.
(1999) also argued that the items could be developed and narrowed to improve
reliability. The 14-item scale had been assessed by Sivadas, et al. (2008) to be
superior to the full 32-item and Triandis and Gelfand (1998) 16-item scale.
Nonetheless, as discussed previously, only the vertical dimension of individualism can
link to COO effects on product evaluation (Gurhan-Canli and Maheswaran, 2000 a).
Therefore, this thesis selected eight vertical items from Sivadas, et al. (2008) to form interview question topics for consumers’ vertical individualism dimension. The other items from Sivadas, et al. (2008) are related to horizontal individualism dimension
which should be excluded in the current study. The interview question topics include:
Social hierarchies,
Willingness to sacrifice own benefits to promote others’ interests,
Competition with others, and
Consumer Ethnocentrism
Consumer ethnocentricity is from someone’s love and concern to his or her country (Sumner, 1906; Shimp and Sharma 1987; Sharma, et al. 1995; Lantz and Loeb 1996;
Rawwas et al. 1996; Acharya and Elliott 2003; Balabamis and Diamantopoulos 2004).
Therefore, it will result in the fear of losing control of the economic benefits as the
consequence of the negative effects that imported products could bring to oneself.
Sharma, et al. (1995) also point out that people who are in high ethnocentrism will see
buying foreign products as a moral problem rather than just an economic issue. This
will result in people still continuing to buy domestic products even in some extreme
cases. If, for example, a consumer knows the quality or design of a domestic product
is lower than that of an imported product, he or she may continue to buy domestic one.
In contrast, individuals who are lacking in ethnocentrism or feel a very low sense of
ethnocentrism usually place less emphasis on the COO of products. They may often
evaluate foreign products by their own interest based on an objective opinion (Watson
and Wright, 2000).
Pecotich et al. (1996) first claimed that consumers’ selection of services, like airlines and banks, should be associated with ethnocentrism. Ferguson et al (2008) supported
this argument and found that people that have high preferences to patriotic services
tend to wish to support the economies of their home nation. This group of people is
usually high in ethnocentrism and hence has great preferences for domestic services.
The Consumer Ethnocentrism Scale (CETSCALE) developed by Shimp and Sharma (1987) was used to assess Chinese students’ ethnocentrism level in the above suggestions. There were seventeen items chosen by Shimp and Sharma (1987) to form
CETSCALE because they satisfied the 0.5 reliability criterions. In order to make the
result as accurate as possible, the scales from Shimpa and Sharma (1987), used to
form interview question topics, were the four highest reliability criterions in the
If it is right to purchase foreign services because it puts Chinese out of jobs
Should a real Chinese person always buy Chinese-made services
Should we buy Chinese services rather than foreign services instead of letting other countries get rich off of us
Buying foreign services may hurt Chinese business and causes unemployment
Part Three of the Study: External Influences of COO Influence on Service Evaluation
Part three of this study examines the COO influences in the evaluation of British