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1.1. Reasons of research topic
Chinese-origin garments are the top competitors for domestic firms
in the industry. To acquire the market’s competitive advantages, besides
other conditions, firms need to understand their competitors and need to
know how customers behave towards competitors' products.
There are very few studies using Ajzen's theoretical framework in
explaining intention to purchase foreign products, especially no research
has mentioned in the imported garment industry.
There has been no official research on the impact of consumer
animosity and consumer affinity in the Vietnamese context.
Researching and understanding factors affecting customers' buying
intentions is one of the bases for garment business managers to come up
with effective marketing solutions, thereby helping businesses gain a
competitive advantage in the market, and also stimulating consumers'
intention to buy and use domestic garments.
Based on above practical and theoretical bases, the author chooses
the research topic of: “Factors affecting Vietnamese consumers'
intention to purchase Chinese garments” to conduct research.
1.2. Objectives, questions and tasks of the research
1.2.1 Research objectives
- To build a model of some factors affecting Vietnamese
consumers’ intention to purchase Chinese garments.
- To measure the impact level of several affecting factors
Vietnamese consumers’ intention to purchase Chinese garments.
- Based on the research results of factors affecting Vietnamese
consumers’ intention to purchase Chinese garments, to give some
recommendations for domestic manufacturing and supplying garment
firms to develop marketing programs to improve business efficiency.
1.2.2 Research questions:
1) How are factors affecting intention to purchase foreign products
in the research model of the thesis studied in the world and in Vietnam?
2) Do the factors: consumer ethnocentrism; consumer affinity;
consumer animosity; subjective norms; attitude towards behavior and
perceived behavioral control affect Vietnamese consumers’ intention to
purchase Chinese garments?
3) What is the impact direction and level of independent variables in
the research model of the thesis to Vietnamese consumers’ intention to
purchase Chinese garments?
1.2.3 Research tasks
1) Overview of research situation in our country and around the world
about factors affecting the intention to purchase foreign products.
Previous research along with qualitative research s will be the basis to
build official research model.
2 Investigate, collect, analyze evaluations and judgments of
consumers in Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh City about factors affecting
intention to purchase Chinese garments.
3) Test the research model on factors affecting Vietnamese
consumers’ intention to purchase Chinese garments.
1.3. Subjects and scope of the research
- Research subjects: Research on some factors affecting Vietnamese
consumers’ intention to purchase Chinese garments.
- Research scope:
+ Contents: Research Chinese garments at the middle - cheap tier.
+ Research object: Vietnamese consumers, age of 18 and more, have
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sufficient behavioral and social capacity, have consumer demand of
garments.
+ Scope of research space: in Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh City.
+ Scope of time: The secondary data is collected mainly in the period
of 2010 – 2018. The primary data gathered from in-depth interviews
with experts and consumer surveys were conducted in the period of
2016 – 2017.
1.4. Research approach
- Secondary data analysis: (1) Consolidate statistics and analysis data;
(2) Analyze and consolidate theory; (3) Classify and systematize theory;
(4) model; (5) deductive and inductive scientific thinking.
- Qualitative data: tape removal, manual processing (summarizing
comments, counting frequency of important words, noting important
answers).
- Quantitative data: analyze by SPSS software version 18, combining
a number of methods such as statistics, factor analysis, reliability analysis,
regression analysis.
1.5. New contributions
1.5.1 New theoretical contributions of the thesis.
- The thesis identifies the relationship of some cognitive and
emotional factors of Vietnamese consumers in their intention to purchase
Chinese garments. Research results identify 7 factors affecting intention
to purchase Chinese garments, in which there are 3 opposite variables:
Consumer ethnocentrism; Consumer economic animosity; Subjective
norms, and and 4 positive variables: Consumer affinity in general;
Consumer entertainment affinity; Attitude towards behavior; Perceived
behavioral control.
With 4 factors of Consumer animosity in general, Consumer
cultural affinity, Consumer personal affinity, Consumer political affinity,
research results show that there is not enough evidence to conclude that
they affect Vietnamese consumers’ intention to purchase Chinese
garments.
- Research results also show that, Consumer affinity is a factor that
has an independent influence on Vietnamese consumers’ intention to
purchase Chinese garments. This is a concept that has not been
mentioned in the context of studying behavior to purchase foreign
products in Vietnam.
1.5.2 New practical contributions of the thesis
Base on research results of the thesis, some recommendations are
given to marketers in decisions regarding buying Chinese garments
behavior of Vietnamese consumers to improve competitiveness in the
domestic market:
- Vietnamese consumers’ intention to purchase Chinese garments
will decrease when the variables Consumer ethnocentrism, Consumer
economic animosity and Subjective norms are at high level. Therefore,
people working in marketing field need to have the forms of advertising
that uphold the national spirit and impact for consumers to be aware that
foreign product buying behavior can negatively affect economic
development and increase the domestic unemployment rate.
- Entertainment factors such as movies, music…can attract affinity
of consumers and have a positive effect to their buying intention.
Therefore, people working in marketing field need to focus on this factor
in advertising products.
1.6. Layout of the thesis
To present the entire content of the study, the layout of the thesis is
divided into 5 chapters as follows:
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Theoretical bases and research model
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Chapter 3: Research method
Chapter 4: Research results
Chapter 5: Discussion of research results and some recommendations
CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BASES AND RESEARCH
MODEL
2.1 Theory bases of factors affecting intention to purchase foreign
products
2.1.1. Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) and Theory of Planned
Behavior (TPB)
Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) was born by Fishbein and Ajzen
(1975). The theory states that people often consider results before
performing different actions and they choose to perform actions that will
lead to the results they desire. Intention is a continuation tool between
attitude and behavior. Behavior is determined by intention to perform the
action of a person in a specific context. Intention is the cognitive
representation of the willingness to take an action. Fishbein and Ajzen
proposed that the intention of the individual to perform the behavior is
influenced by two factors which are attitude towards behavior and
subjective norms.
Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) is an expanded theory of Theory
of Reasoned Action (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980; Fishbein and Ajzen,
1975). In this theory, the authors mentioned that intention to implement
a behavior is affected by three factors: (1) attitude towards behavior,
(2) subjective norm and (3) perceived behavioral control.
2.1.2. Social identity theory
The original theory of Consumer ethnocentrism and Consumer
affinity came from social identity theory Tajfel (1982). Social identity
theory is proposed to be useful to illustrate the root cause of consumer
ethnocentrism (Huang et al., 2010) and consumer affinity (Oberecker and
Adamantios Diamantopoulos, 2011). Social identity theory proposed
that individuals always strive to develop and enhance personal image,
expressing self-esteem through a social categorization process by
classifying himself and others into in-group and out-group (Turner,
1987).
2.1.3. Realistic group conflict theory
This theory framework can be combined with social identity theory
to explain animosity in international relations in general (Brief et al.,
2005; Michener et al., 1986) and especially the discrimination with
foreign brands (Brief et al., 2005; Tajfel and Turner, 1979). Specifically,
some research mentioned that war history and ethnic conflict was
increasing (Hong et al., 2001), from which creates negative attitude to
the outside cognitive group (Brown et al., 2001; Shoham et al., 2006).
2.2 Overall of research related to the intention to purchase foreign
products
2.2.1 Overall of domestic research
- The research by Nguyen D. Tho and Nguyen T.M. Trang (2008)
investigated the effect of consumer ethnocentrism and cultural sensitivity
to value of foreign products and the trend of consuming domestic
products in the context of a developing country – Viet Nam. Results
show that consumer ethnocentrism has an opposite effect to evaluation
of imported products value and have a positive effect to buying intention
domestic products
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- The research by Nguyen Thi Tuyet Mai and Nguyen Hong Thang
(2016), based on the Theory of Planned Behavior, the authors expanded
and proposed a model with the impact of the new factors - a tendency to
show class in the transition economy to buying intention of urban
consumers in Vietnam. The research used both qualitative method and
quantitative method. The research model was tested with survey data set
consumers in Ha Noi. Regression analysis results show that there are
three factors affecting Barrisol buying intention: tendency to show
modern class, attitude and perceived behavioral control.
- The research by Le Thuy Huong (2014) based on the Theory of
Planned Behavior to propose a model with the impact of the factors on
the buying intention of food safety among urban Vietnamese. Research
results identified 6 factors affecting buying intention of food safety.
These are: attention to health, awareness of quality, subjective norm,
awareness of selling prices of products, references-information, mass
media.
- The research by Ha Ngoc Thang and Nguyen Thanh Do (2016)
discussed about factors affecting online buying intention of Vietnamese
consumers based on Theory of Planned Behavior by Ajzen. The research
model is tested with survey data set in online shopping websites.
Regression analysis results show that attitude and consumer behavior
control awareness has a positive influence on online buying intention,
consumers' risk perceives a negative influence on consumers' online
buying intention.
- The expansion of Chinese electronics and the recession of the
Viet Nam economy have made it difficult for local electronics
manufacturers. In that context, the research by Pham Thuy Giang and
Nguyen Thi Thuy Ha (2012) applied the model Theory of Planned
Behavior (TPB) and used analytical tools Cronbach Alpha, Exploratory
Factor Analysis (EFA) to identify main factors affecting Chinese
electronics consuming behavior. Results show that the correlation
between buying intention and buying behavior of Chinese electronics is
weak. Although intention does not want to buy but behavior is still buy.
The main factor affecting behavior is price and designs of products.
Researching consumer behavior with Chinese electronics helped to
identify factors affecting Chinese electronics consuming behavior and
from that suggest solutions for domestic manufacturing enterprises.
- The research by Cao Quoc Viet (2015) was done with a sample
of 180 observations in Ho Chi Minh City and some neighboring
provinces. Research results showed that factors of national identity and
consumer ethnocentrism affect domestic goods buying behavior (fridge)
of Vietnamese consumers; in which, consumer ethnocentrism plays an
intermediary role in the relationship between national identity and
domestic goods consuming behavior.
- The research by Nguyen Ngoc Quang (2016) built a model of
some factors affect buying intention of Vietnamese consumers for
domestic-made foods for kids. Quantitative survey with a questionnaire
of this research was conducted with 846 consumers in Ha Noi, Da Nang
and Ho Chi Minh City. Research results showed that consumer
perception, affinity, reference symbol, family, consumer ethnocentrism,
professional reference has a strong impact on buying intention.
With an overview of officially published research in the country, it
can be seen that, when identifying the effect of some factors in buying
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behavior of consumers such as consumer ethnocentrism; consumer affinity;
subjective norms; attitude towards behavior; perceived behavioral control,
most of the research mentioned buying intention of domestic products with
different types of products. The research by Pham Thuy Giang and Nguyen
Thi Thuy Ha (2012) mentioned buying intention Chinese electronics but in
the view of the effect of factors attached to characteristics of products (price,
designs…) without mentioning cognitive factors. This research also
mentioned that to Chinese electronics, consumers may not want to but still
come to a buying decision, but have not mentioned the effect of cognitive
factors in this buying behavior.
According to customer behavior theory, consumers often make
buying decisions based on positive feelings of themselves to the products.
But according to results of the research by Pham Thuy Giang and Nguyen
Thi Thuy Ha (2012) there is a conflict between consumer intention and
consumer behavior to the Chinese products. Therefore, it can be seen that
the positive and negative feelings of consumers have an independent
influence in intention to purchase Chinese products of Vietnamese
consumers. Therefore, the author has considered and put the factors of
consumer affinity and consumer animosity to the research model of the
thesis.
On that basis, the thesis author has built a research model with
independent variables includes consumer ethnocentrism; consumer
animosity; consumer affinity; subjective norms; attitude towards
behavior; perceived behavioral control.
2.2.2 Overview of foreign studies
2.2.2.1. Consumer ethnocentrism
✓ Shankarmahesh (2006) reviewed previous research and
showed that consumer ethnocentrism had a major influence on not
buying imported products (and buying domestic products). Besides,
when reviewing research models about imported product buying
behavior the author realized that researchers have used many concepts to
indicate this influence of consumer ethnocentrism such as "buying
intention", "attitude towards buying imported products", “readiness to
buy domestic products”, “readiness to buy imported products”. On that
basis, the author has put the factor Consumer ethnocentrism to this thesis
to research Vietnamese consumers’ intention to purchase Chinese
garments.
✓ Shimp and Sharma (1987) built consumer ethnocentrism as
“specific concepts in researching consumer behavior and marketing
implications” (Sharma et al., 1995). Consumer ethnocentrism is
considered to be the only economic form of ethnocentrism that expresses
the belief of consumers on moral standards in purchasing foreign
products (Shimp and Sharma, 1987, pg.280). Therefore, consumer
ethnocentrism indicates the trend where consumers distinguish products
of domestic and foreign groups, and avoid buying foreign products for
ethnic reasons. Even when consumers rate products based on particular
values (price, quality, features), consumer ethnocentrism will make
consumers consider in purchasing imported products due to the
perception of the damage to the country's economy (Shimp and Sharma,
