Word of Mouth Marketing in
Education and Training Industry
A case study of Word of Mouth communication and its influence on
consumer decision making process in the Chinese Education Market
Bachelor’s thesis within Business Administration
Author: Qian Wei
Wei Gong
Yidi Zhu
Tutor: Maxmikael Björling
Jönköping May/18/2012
Bachelor Thesis in Business Administration
Title: Word of Mouth marketing in education and training industry
Subtitle A case study of Word of Mouth Communication and its influence on consumer decision making process in Chinese education market
Author: Qian Wei, Wei Gong and Yidi Zhu
Tutor: Maxmikael Björling
Date: 2012-05-18
Subject terms: Word of Mouth marketing, Education and training service industry,
Abstract
Purpose: the purpose of this thesis is to explore how entrepreneurial business within Chinese education and training service industry to conduct Word-of-Mouth marketing and to further investigate the factors that influence the effectiveness of WOM marketing during customer purchase decision making process.
Based on the purpose above, the authors aim to investigate whether there is a relationship between input and output WOM in terms of those factors.
Method: the authors used both inductive and deductive approaches to fulfill the exploratory and descriptive purposes. In order to gather primary data, the authors applied multiple methods which combine qualitative and quantitative studies. Respectively, interviews and questionnaires were being used.
Result and analysis: the authors obtained the empirical findings from six interviews and ninety two questionnaires. From which, the authors selected the most useful information related to the topic of this thesis based on the previous theories and models. In terms of the qualitative data analysis, a comprehensive summary was extracted. As for the quantitative data analysis, the authors used the SPSS software and then interpret the data according to previous theories and models.
Conclusion: in this final part, the authors answered the five research questions. And concluded that based on the internal and external information management, the company should have an Integrated Marketing Communication approach to WOM marketing. Furthermore, the factors that have influence on customer purchase decision making process are six channels and eight attributes for the case company. The importance level of those factors will be further discussed in order to gain implications.
Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge those people who have helped us to make this thesis possible and continuously give us feedbacks and suggestions to make it even better.
First, we want to express our sincere gratitude to the marketing manager Mr. Dong and Director Mr. Xu of Minami Fuji TBC. Both of them have devoted valuable time and resources to help us complete the thesis. Without their help, we would not have been able to conduct the interviews, design and distribute the questionnaire to all the TBC service customers since September 2011. Additionally, we would like to thank all the students who have responded to our survey; their answers have constituted the foundation of our quantitative data analysis.
We would like to thank our tutor Maxmikael Björling, who has given us inspirations and constructive feedbacks throughout the entire writing period of the thesis. We also appreciate our classmates and opponents who have offered us critical feedbacks and suggestions, which helped us to further improve the quality of the thesis.
Finally, we give our special thanks to our family and friends for their support and encouragement.
Wei Gong, Qian Wei, Yidi Zhu
Jönköping, May 2012
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Table of Contents
1 Introduction .......................................................................... 1
1.1 Background ................................................................................... 1
1.2 Problem discussion ....................................................................... 2
1.3 Research questions ....................................................................... 3
1.4 Purpose ......................................................................................... 3
1.5 Perspective ................................................................................... 3
1.6 Delimitation ................................................................................... 3
1.7 Definitions ..................................................................................... 4
1.7.1 Education and training services .......................................... 4
1.7.2 Traditional marketing .......................................................... 4
1.7.3 The concept of entrepreneurship has three underlying dimensions ................................................................... 4
1.7.4 Training before career service ............................................ 4
1.7.5 Wuhan ................................................................................ 4
1.8 Disposition of the thesis ................................................................ 5
2 Method .................................................................................. 6
2.1 Research purpose ......................................................................... 6
2.2 Research approaches ................................................................... 6
2.3 Research strategy ......................................................................... 7
2.4 Research methods choices ........................................................... 8
2.5 Data collection ............................................................................... 8
2.5.1 Primary data source ............................................................ 8
2.5.2 Secondary data................................................................... 9
2.5.3 Population and sample ....................................................... 9
2.5.4 Interviews ........................................................................... 9
2.5.5 Questionnaire ................................................................... 10
2.6 Qualitative data analysis ............................................................. 10
2.7 Quantitative data analysis ........................................................... 11
2.8 Time horizon ............................................................................... 11
2.9 Limitations ................................................................................... 11
2.10 Research credibility ..................................................................... 12
2.10.1 Validity .............................................................................. 12
2.10.2 Reliability .......................................................................... 12
3 Literature reviews ............................................................... 13
3.1 Marketing communication ........................................................... 13
3.1.1 Communication process ................................................... 13
3.1.2 Integrated marketing communications .............................. 14
3.2 Word of mouth ............................................................................. 16
3.2.1 Word of mouth marketing ................................................. 16
3.2.2 Power of word of mouth .................................................... 18
3.2.3 Input and output word of mouth ....................................... 18
3.2.4 Positive and negative word of mouth ................................ 20
3.3 Consumer decision making process ............................................ 21
3.3.1 Problem recognition .......................................................... 21
3.3.2 Search for alternative solutions......................................... 21
3.3.3 Evaluation of alternatives .................................................. 22
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3.3.4 Purchase .......................................................................... 22
3.3.5 Post-purchase use and reevaluation of chosen alternative .................................................................................... 22
3.4 Service marketing ........................................................................ 23
3.4.1 Service industry ................................................................ 23
3.4.2 Service marketing ............................................................. 23
3.4.3 WOM in service industry ................................................... 24
3.5 Entrepreneurial marketing ........................................................... 24
3.6 Education and training industry in China ..................................... 25
3.7 Gender differences in information processing strategies ............. 25
4 Empirical findings from qualitative studies ...................... 26
4.1 Case background and introduction .............................................. 26
4.1.1 Minami Fuji training before career .................................... 27
4.1.2 Training before career service .......................................... 27
4.1.3 Organizational structure of Minami Fuji TBC .................... 28
4.2 Marketing communications of Minami Fuji TBC .......................... 28
4.2.1 Information management center of Minami Fuji TBC ........ 29
4.2.2 Integrated marketing communications of Minami Fuji TBC ...................................................................................... 32
4.3 Word of mouth marketing of Minami Fuji TBC ............................. 33
4.3.1 Marketing generated WOM at problem recognition stage ......................................................................................... 33
4.3.2 Marketing generated WOM at search for alternative solutions stage ............................................................................ 34
4.3.3 Marketing generated WOM at evaluation of alternatives stage ........................................................................ 35
4.3.4 Marketing generated WOM at post-purchase evaluation stage .......................................................................... 35
5 Empirical findings from quantitative studies ................... 37
5.1 Data response and demographics............................................... 37
5.2 Descriptive studies ...................................................................... 37
5.2.1 Marketing generated WOM (Input WOM) ......................... 37
5.2.2 Customer generated WOM (Output WOM) ....................... 39
5.3 Hypotheses testing ...................................................................... 41
5.3.1 Hypotheses regarding RQ4 .............................................. 41
5.3.2 Hypotheses regarding RQ5 .............................................. 43
6 Qualitative data analysis .................................................... 46
6.1 Analysis regarding research question one .................................. 46
6.1.1 Analysis of internal information management ................... 46
6.1.2 Analysis of integrated marketing communications ............ 47
6.1.3 Analysis of external information management .................. 48
6.1.4 Analysis of word of mouth marketing ................................ 48
6.2 Analysis regarding research question two ................................... 49
6.2.1 WOM at search for alternative solutions stage ................. 49
6.2.2 WOM at evaluation of alternatives stage .......................... 50
6.2.3 WOM at post-purchase evaluation stage .......................... 50
7 Quantitative data analysis ................................................. 51
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7.1 Marketing generated WOM (Input WOM) analysis ...................... 51
7.1.1 Search for alternative solutions stage (where do you get the most information…?) ................................................ 51
7.1.2 Evaluation of alternatives stage (How important are the following…?).......................................................................... 51
7.2 Customer generated WOM (Output WOM) analysis ................... 52
7.2.1 Search for alternative solutions stage (Which channel in the following list..?) .................................................... 52
7.2.2 Evaluation of alternatives stage (How likely are you to talk about…?) .......................................................................... 52
7.2.3 Post-purchase evaluation stage (How satisfied are you…?) ........................................................................................ 53
7.3 Correlation analysis ..................................................................... 53
7.3.1 Analysis of the most influential channels in input and output WOM ......................................................................... 53
7.3.2 Analysis of the most influential attributes in input and output WOM ......................................................................... 54
7.3.3 Analysis of satisfaction of attributes and output WOM 55
8 Conclusion .......................................................................... 56
9 Discussion and implications ............................................. 58
9.1 Descriptive studies regarding the industry ................................... 58
9.2 Descriptive studies regarding the case company ........................ 58
9.3 Further research suggestions ...................................................... 59
10 Reflections on the writing process ................................... 60
List of references ..................................................................... 62
Appendix ................................................................................... 67
1. Research design ........................................................................... 67
2. Time Plan .................................................................................... 68
3. Semi-structured interviews ........................................................... 69
4. Questionnaire .............................................................................. 73
5. SPSS Tables ................................................................................. 77
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Figures Figure 1, Communication Process……………………………………………...13
Figure 2, Integrated Marketing Communication ........................................... 14
Figure 3, Integrated Marketing Communication triangle……………………...14 Figure 4, Communication cycle .................................................................... 16
Figure 4, The purchasing process and Word of Mouth ................................ 16 Figure 5, WOM models ................................................................................ 17 Figure 6, Generic Model of Consumer Problem Solving .............................. 21
Figure 7, Service Marketing ........................................................................... 23
Figure 8, Structure of empirical findings from qualitative studies chapter .... 26
Figure 9, Company background ................................................................... 26 Figure 10, “6+1 model” ................................................................................. 27 Figure 11, Organizational structure of Minami Fuji TBC ............................... 28
Figure 12, External information management……………………………….…29 Figure 13, Integrated Marketing Communications ........................................ 30
Figure 14, Current internal information manageme…………………………...31 Figure 15, prospective internal information management ............................ 32
Figure 16, How entrepreneurial business conduct WOM marketing ............ 46
Tables Table 1, Correlation Coefficient Index (Cohen & Holliday, 1982) .................. 11
Table 2 , four areas of word of mouth literature (Justin & Paul, 2006, p. 168) ...... 19
Table 3, Six Channels .................................................................................. 34
Table 4, Eight Attributes ............................................................................... 35
Table 5, Demographic data of gender .......................................................... 37
Table 6, Demographic data of age ............................................................... 37
Table 7, Importance level of channels in input WOM ................................... 38
Table 8, Importance level of attributes in input WOM ................................... 38
Table 9, Frequency analysis ........................................................................ 39
Table 10, Importance level of channels in output WOM ............................... 39
Table 11, Importance level of attributes in output WOM .............................. 40
Table 12, Spearman’s Rho Correlation analysis for H1 ............................... 41
Table 13, Spearman's Rho Correlation analysis for H2 ................................ 41
Table 14, Spearman's Rho Correlation analysis for H3 ................................ 42
Table 15, Spearman’s Rho Correlation analysis for H4 ............................... 42
Table 16, Spearman’s Rho Correlation analysis for H5 ............................... 43
Table 17, Spearman’s Rho Correlation analysis for H6 ............................... 43
Table 18, satisfaction level of customers ..................................................... 44
Table 19, Spearman’s Rho Correlation analysis for H7 ............................... 44
Table 20, Spearman’s Rho Correlation analysis for H8 ............................... 45
Table 21, Spearman’s Rho Correlation analysis for H9 ............................... 45
Table 22, Input word of mouth (Where do you get the most information?) ... 77
Table 23, Input word of mouth (How important are the following…?) ........... 77
Table 24, Output word of mouth (How likely are you to talk about...?) ......... 78
Table 25, Output word of mouth (Which channel in the following list...?) ..... 78
Table 26, Output Word of Mouth (How satisfied are you...?) ....................... 79
1
1 Introduction
The main task of the introductory chapter is to provide readers with a general
background of the Word of Mouth Marketing and its usage for entrepreneurial business
in Chinese education & training industry. Furthermore, this chapter intends to show the
problem discussion and clarify the research purpose and questions. Finally it will be
followed by perspective, delimitation and definitions.
1.1 Background
The word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing communication process is one of the most
powerful forces in the marketplace (Harvir S. Bansal & Peter A. Voyer, 2000). It stands
at a predominant position mainly because customers frequently rely on informal or
personal communication sources in making purchase decisions, instead of traditional or
formal sources such as advertising campaigns. Indeed, as Silverman (2001) claims that
“the importance of traditional marketing in all its forms is diminishing because
consumers simply do not have the time to absorb them”. Thus, the WOM has become a
time saver and will stimulate the decision easier among people (Silverman, 2001).
Furthermore, with the accelerated development of information technology and social
media, it provides numerous venues for consumers to share their views, preferences, or
experiences with others, as well as opportunities for firms to take advantage of WOM
marketing. (Trusov, Bucklin & Pauwels, 2009)
Compared to tangible goods context, WOM is more important and influential within a
services purchase decision context (Murray & Schlacter, 1990). Because a consumer
may not understand a service fully before its consumption, he or she might seek WOM
information from an experienced source (Bristor 1990). In addition, the purchase of a
service is influenced not only by the service itself, but also by such factors as the service
firm’s reputation and the quality of the customer’s interaction with the firm’s systems
and staff (Storey & Easingwood J, 1998). However, among various types of businesses
in service industry, education and training services are the key indications to a nation’s
prosperity. Indeed, fast–growing developing nations such as China and India often rely
on education and training services to help support their growth (First Research, 2011).
Therefore, it is of great necessary for the authors to further explore how WOM
marketing affects the education & training service industry.
As the rapid development of national economy in China, more and more venturing
opportunities were discovered and seized by those innovative entrepreneurs. And thus it
brought with increasingly amount of newly launched business projects. As there are so
many brand new projects in recent years, the authors mainly focus on the Internal
Corporate Venturing (ICV) within this thesis. Internal Corporate Venturing is a way for
corporations to continuously scan their existing assets and resource structure for new
business opportunities and commercialization potential (googol.se, 2009). In terms of
this particular kind of new projects, marketing is considered to be a major key to its
success. According to research studies by Hills/LaForge, venture capitalists rate the
overall importance of marketing for the success of new firms at 6.7 on a scale of 7, a
rating that is higher than all other business functions (Gruber, 2004). Since WOM-
marketing is one of the useful tools within entrepreneurial marketing, the venturing
businesses were disproportionally depending on WOM. Some owners even concluded
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that they did not need to promote their business by traditional marketing method, as
sufficient new business came from WOM messages (Stokes & Lomax, 2002).
Drawn the conclusion from above, it is evident that WOM marketing plays a vital role
in both service context and entrepreneur business scenarios. Although these aspects can
always be seen by other scholars and articles, they exist as separate topics. Within this
thesis, the authors aim to combine them together and make connections of each other.
1.2 Problem discussion
It is well known that WOM is something powerful and especially in the service sector
(Grönroos.C, 1997). WOM information from a reliable source might also help tackle the
problems of few search qualities related to services (Bristor, 1990). Since the education
and training service industry is one sector within the service industry that is heavily
influenced by WOM, the authors turn to focus more on its target customers of this
industry. Take students from campus for example, their main problems are the low
access to marketing promotions and scarce financial resources (Ness, et al., 2002). This
topic sounds interesting and the authors desire to discover how companies in education
and training industries regard or apply WOM marketing towards this particular market.
As mentioned above, WOM also plays a key role in entrepreneurial business scenarios.
The concept of entrepreneurship has three principal aspects: innovativeness, risk-taking,
and proactiveness. (Covin & Slevin, 1994). In practice, successful entrepreneurs find
ways of encouraging referrals and recommendations by proactive methods (Stokes &
Lomax, 2002). In terms of Internal Corporate Venturing (ICV), the minor difference
between this and entrepreneur business is that ICV projects starts with the existing
assets and resources from the corporation itself. There are many theories and extensive
research about entrepreneur marketing and entrepreneurial management of WOM, yet
few of them are concerned about the relationship between ICV and WOM marketing.
That is the main reason for the authors to explore how ICV businesses conduct WOM
marketing by using existing assets and resources.
During the 2008 financial crisis, education industry was one of the few industries
throughout the world that has escaped from massive economic stroke. Instead of being
frustrated by the global economic disaster, education industry has seen a sharp increase
in investment, especially in China. Which is expected to continue this growth until 2012,
so that the entire education and training market will reach 960 billion Yuan, with a
compound annual growth rate at 12%. (Deloitte Consulting(Shang Hai), 2009). Under
this macro environment, there is an upward trend of brands emerging in the education
and training industry, among which some projects are Internal Corporate Venturing
projects. However, due to the overexpansion of education industry in China, some
major problems arose such as “various misleading marketing promotions, fake promises
and vicious competition with other companies within the same industry” (Deloitte
Consulting(Shang Hai), 2009). In this thesis, the authors intend to find out through
which means the Internal Corporate Venturing develop by using WOM marketing in
this increasingly fierce competition environment.
The chosen case within this thesis is MinamiFuji TBC, which was established in 2005,
whose main business is to provide “Training before Career” (TBC) service to college
students. During the six years of development, TBC has been continuously exploring
the application of WOM marketing in order to build its brand awareness and reputation.
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Until 2010, MinamiFuji TBC has achieved its principal goal of building a positive
WOM effect in the market, despite its slow annual growth rate. Nevertheless, the
positive WOM power was not strong enough to influence the customer decision-making
process. Furthermore, as the emergence of some negative WOM, it is of great
importance for MinamiFuji TBC to take measures to control its WOM marketing
management. By studying this case, the five research questions below are to be
answered.
1.3 Research questions
RQ1: How does entrepreneurial business conduct WOM marketing within the education
and training service industry in China?
RQ2: What are the factors that influence the power of WOM on consumer decision
making process for the case in this thesis?
RQ3: What are the importance levels of each factor that are summarized from RQ2 in
input and output WOM context?
RQ4: Whether there is a correlation between the importance levels of the first three
most significant channels and attributes in input and output WOM
RQ5: Whether there is a correlation between the first three most satisfied attributes and
customers’ output WOM
1.4 Purpose
The purpose of this thesis is to explore how entrepreneurial business conduct WOM
marketing within education and training service industry in China and to further
investigate the factors that influence the effectiveness of WOM marketing during
customer purchase decision-making process.
Based on the purpose above, the authors aim to investigate whether there is a
relationship between input and output WOM in terms of these factors.
1.5 Perspective
In this thesis, there are several perspectives that can be taken into account to conduct the
research. In order to explore how entrepreneurial business apply and develop WOM
marketing, the authors decided to choose perspective of a corporate, that can be divided
into views of Department Director and Marketing Manager. When it comes to the
second part of the purpose, the authors started to consider the university students
perspective to see if there is any difference between intended WOM marketing message
and customer perception message.
1.6 Delimitation
The authors have chosen to limit the research to educational and training service
industry in the region of Wuhan, Hubei in China. In addition, to further restrict this
thesis to the area of entrepreneurial business, particularly confined to Internal Corporate
Venturing projects. Besides that, the target customers in this industry are limited to
students in campus that belong to 11 key universities in Hubei province, to ensure the
comprehensive quality of target customers.
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1.7 Definitions
1.7.1 Education and training services
“This kind of service is a broad category that comprises professional training, job-
specific certification and lessons focusing on self-fulfillment, leisure, and hobbies.
Many of the industry’s programs, classes, and training services fall under the category
of career and technical education (CTE). High schools, community colleges,
universities, and educational support services are not included in this industry.” (First
Research, 2011)
1.7.2 Traditional marketing
Philip Kotler explains that “In traditional marketing the needs of customers are being
discovered and satisfied, through traditional channels of communication such as face-to-
face communication, magazines, advertisements” (Kotler, 2003)
1.7.3 The concept of entrepreneurship has three underlying dimensions
Innovativeness
“Innovativeness refers to the seek of creative, unusual or novel solutions to problems
and needs. It includes the development of new products and services as well as new
processes and technologies for performing organizational functions.” (Morris, et al.,
2001)
Risk-taking
“It involves the willingness of managers to commit significant resources to
opportunities that have a reasonable chance of costly failure.” (Morris, et al., 2001)
Proactiveness
“It is concerned with implementation and making events happen through whatever
means are necessary. It usually implies considerable perseverance, adaptability, and a
willingness to assume some responsibility for failure. (Morris, et al., 2001)
1.7.4 Training before career service
“The target customers of Training before Career Service are students who are about to
face their first job, junior white-collar workers and fresh workers who are unfamiliar
with related industries, companies and jobs. The aim is to enable them to receive more
comprehensive ethics and professional skills training, thus become compatible with the
labor market needs and knowledge.” (Electronic publishing house, 2010)
1.7.5 Wuhan
“Wuhan is the scientific and educational center of central China, with 35 higher
educational institutions. There are eight national colleges and universities (Hubei
Provincial Department of Education, 2006), and fourteen public colleges and
universities (Hubei Provincial Department of Education, 2006).”
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1.8 Disposition of the thesis
This bachelor thesis is composed by 10 chapters, and each chapter is separate based on
the authors’ research design, which can be found in Appendix 1.
Chapter 2 - Method presents the research approaches, research purposes, and research
strategies. Furthermore, specific data collection techniques are illustrated. The
interviews are mainly used for exploratory study and questionnaires are applied for
descriptive study. The reliability and validity of this study are discussed
comprehensively at the end of chapter two.
Chapter 3 – Literature reviews presents some existing theories, models and knowledge
based on previous studies regarding WOM marketing, integrated marketing
communication, customer decision making process, service industry, entrepreneurial
marketing, and gender differences. Moreover, definitions of Chinese education and
training industry from other researches are summarized.
Chapter 4 – Empirical findings from qualitative studies demonstrates the data collected
from six interviews. This chapter are structured based on the research design (Appendix
1) and theoretical frameworks. Original qualitative data are reduced and displayed in
different sections: Case company introduction, Marketing communications, and word of
mouth marketing.
Chapter 5 – Empirical findings from quantitative studies shows the data collected from
100 questionnaires. However only 92 questionnaires are taken into account since there
are 8 incomplete questionnaires.
Chapter 6 – Qualitative data analysis intends to analyze the empirical finding from
interviews by associating these findings to the previous theories and models. The
purpose of this chapter is to answer the first two research questions and generate
implications for the industry.
Chapter 7 – Quantitative data analysis aims to analyze the empirical findings from
questionnaires. The purpose of this chapter is to answer the last three research questions
and develop implications for the case company.
Chapter 8 – Conclusion summarizes the research findings and demonstrates answers to
the five research questions.
Chapter 9 – Discussion and implications is used to apply more thorough discussions
based on the quantitative study. The authors have demonstrated implications not only
for the Chinese education and training industry, but also for the case company Minami
Fuji TBC. In addition, suggestions for further research are also given at the end of
chapter.
Chapter 10 – Reflections on writing process illustrates the individual contribution on
this thesis. The writing process and time plan are also showed in this chapter.
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2 Method
This chapter presents the methodologies and methods chosen for conducting the
research. The chapter begins with describing the research purpose, research
approaches, and research strategies of this thesis. Furthermore, specific data collection
methods will be evaluated and then finished with the discussion of reliability and
validity of this thesis.
Research methods are the specific techniques employed in the execution of a piece of
research, for instance, the way in which subjects or participants are sampled, the design
and use of data collection techniques, the specific processes that are needed to analyze
data (Julius Sim, 2000).
2.1 Research purpose
According to Payton, research is the process of searching for a specific answer to a
typical question in an organized objective reliable way (Payton, 1979). The function of
research is either to create or test a theory, by using the method of gathering data. (Cano,
2002). The classification of research purpose is frequently divided into three groups:
exploratory, descriptive, and explanatory, however, one research project may have more
than one purpose. (Saunders, et al., 2009)
Robson explains that “exploratory study is a valuable means of finding out ‘what is
happening; to seek new insights; to ask questions and to assess phenomena in a new
light’” (Robson, 2002). An exploratory study is conducted when not much is known
about the situation at hand, or no information is available on earlier model as a basis of
the study. However, the aim of descriptive research is ‘to portray an accurate profile of
persons, events or situations’ (Robson, 2002). This may be an extension of, or a
precursor to exploratory research. By using visual aids such as graphs and charts,
descriptive research enabled the reader to better understand the data distribution
(Spector, 2008).
In this bachelor thesis, the authors categorized the study as an exploratory and
descriptive research. Although there exist plenty of studies and researches about the
way that entrepreneurial business spread WOM message in western countries, few of
them are related to education and training service industry, especially in Asian countries
like China. Thus the authors concluded that not much is known about the situation at
hand, and too little previous knowledge of WOM marketing in education and training
service context has been considered in China. Furthermore, as an extension of
exploratory research, the descriptive method has also been used in this paper, as Spector
says “descriptive study has an important role in educational research” (Spector, 2008),
the authors used this approach to clarify “what is”, describe the event and then organize
the data. Consequently the authors can form a crystal picture of the phenomena.
2.2 Research approaches
“The extent to which you are clear about the theory at the beginning of your research
raises an important question regarding the design of your research project. This is
whether your research should use the deductive approach or the inductive approach”
(Saunders, et al., 2009).
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Inductive approach, sometimes called “bottom up” approach, is shifting from concrete
observations to broader generalizations and theories (Trochim, 2006). Based on the
accumulation of tiny things, the authors are able to collect data and build a broad theory
as a result of the data analysis (Saunders, et al., 2009). Compared to deductive approach,
inductive approach tends to use small sample of subjects instead of large number
(Saunders, et al., 2009). While deductive approach, informally called “top-down”
approach, begins with general ideas such as theory, laws, and principles (Trochim,
2006). Based on that, the authors then narrow it down into more specific hypotheses
that can be tested. If the hypothesis is supported, the authors can prove the assumptions
that the initial general idea was indeed correct (Trochim, 2006).
In this thesis, the authors combined both inductive and deductive approaches. Since the
topic is new and rare especially in education and training service industry in Asian
countries. The authors find it may be more appropriate to work with inductive approach
that uses actual words instead of statistical method. Hence, qualitative data was
collected by conducting semi-structured interviews. As well, the authors used deductive
approach by collecting data through questionnaires. And consequently, the authors can
test the hypotheses to decide whether to confirm the initial assumption that was
generalized from inductive studies.
2.3 Research strategy
There are various types of research strategies that can be used for exploratory,
descriptive and explanatory research (Yin, 2003). Some of the strategies belong to the
deductive approach, others to the inductive approach. However, “the most important
factor when choosing a typical strategy is to test whether it will enable you to answer
your particular research questions and meet your objectives” (Saunders, et al., 2009). In
this bachelor thesis, the authors choose case study and survey as the main research
strategies.
The main purpose for using case study strategy is to get a thorough understanding of the
context and processes of the research (Morris & Wood, 1991), and to generate answers
to the question ‘why?’ as well as the ‘what?’ and ‘how?’ (Saunders, et al., 2009). The
reason why the authors used a single-case study is that, under numerous limitations of
entrepreneur business within Chinese education and training service industry, few
choices are available for authors to consider. As for the chosen company in this case
study, Minami Fuji, a service named Training before Career (TBC) was launched in
2005 in Chinese education and training service industry. This is exactly applied to the
criteria of the chosen case. One of the members within this bachelor thesis group had a
two-month internship experience in Minami Fuji TBC, during which time, he had
obtained an overall impression of the company and its service. And he had also kept a
long-term relationship with the Marketing Manager and Director. Thus the authors had
great access to specific information, and simultaneously, the company also shows strong
interests to engage themselves in this research.
Since the survey strategy is usually associated with the deductive approach, the authors
collected standardized data by using questionnaires (Saunders, et al., 2009). In order to
answer the last three research questions and fulfill the descriptive research purpose, the
authors had reached an agreement with Marketing Manager of the case company to
distribute questionnaires to the existing customers. More detailed information regarding
survey will be discussed later in data collection section.
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2.4 Research methods choices
With regard to research methods, the terms quantitative and qualitative are used widely
to differentiate both data collection techniques and data analysis procedures (Saunders,
et al., 2009). The authors has selected two approaches available in research method part,
to either use a single data collection technique that paired with analysis procedures, or
use multiple methods that contain more than one data collection technique and analysis
procedures. In this thesis, the authors have applied multiple methods to combine the
quantitative and qualitative researches.
As Tashakkori and Teddlie (2003) argued that “multiple methods are useful if they can
provide better opportunities for the writer to answer the research questions”. In this
thesis, the qualitative research method is mainly used to answer the first two research
questions and fulfill the exploratory research purpose. Furthermore, the authors intend
to use the quantitative research method to answer the last three research questions.
2.5Data collection
“When considering how to answer the research questions and meet the objectives, the
authors firstly think of the possibility of reanalyzing data that have already been
collected for some other purposes. Furthermore, the authors also think to collect new
data specifically to fulfill the research purposes” (Saunders, et al., 2007). These two
kinds of data are namely secondary and primary data (Wrenn, et al., 2002).
2.5.1 Primary data source
In this thesis, the authors used two main sources of primary data. Standing at the
perspective of the corporate, interviews with the Marketing Manager of Minami Fuji
TBC helped to formulate the research questions and purposes. Moreover, some other
employees of Minami Fuji TBC were invited to participate in the qualitative research
interviews to “find out what is happening and to seek new insights” (Robson, 2002). In
order to achieve the high validity and reliability of this thesis, the authors have made an
appropriate selection of participants based on their background, position and
experiences.
First Interviewee : Mr. Dong
Mr. Dong Yi is the Marketing Manager of Minami Fuji TBC. In January 2010, he
became the manager in marketing department of Minami Fuji TBC. During his two
years’ professional life in Minami Fuji, he has dedicated to not only the internal
business administration of Marketing department, but also the external marketing
promotions and communications.
Second Interviewee: Mr. Xu
Mr. Xu Xingu is the Director of Minami Fuji TBC. He has been heading the Minami
Fuji TBC since 2006. Under the management of Mr. Xu, Minami Fuji TBC has
developed into an influential brand among its target market, Wuhan, China.
The other kind of primary data are collected from existing customers of Minami Fuji
TBC through questionnaires by the authors. These primary data will be uploaded and
analyzed in order to further test the hypothesis and to seek factors that answer the
second research question. As mentioned in the introduction of this thesis, existing
customers of Minami Fuji are mainly from 11 key universities in Wuhan, China. In
9
practice, the authors have reached an agreement with Minami Fuji TBC to conduct this
survey together to distribute questionnaires to its existing customers.
2.5.2 Secondary data
The definition for “secondary data” is the one that have already been collected by others
for some purposes (Saunders, et al., 2007). These data include both raw data and
published summaries by organizations or individuals. For many researches, the main
merit of using secondary data is the significant saving in resources, in particular time
and money (Ghauri & Grønhaug, 2005). According to Wren et al (2002), sources of
secondary data are magazines, books, journal articles, newspapers, previous surveys,
and the World Wide Web.
In this thesis, some data from documents such as “existing customer information”,
“annual sales report”, “marketing plan proposal” and “advertising campaigns”, are
available only from the case company Minami Fuji TBC. The authors have negotiated
with this company and gained almost full access to these secondary data and
information.
Moreover, papers, articles, reports and books that are related to “entrepreneurial
marketing”, “Word of Mouth marketing” and “education & training industry” are used
to complement the primary data. In practice, the authors have used university database
(Diva), Google Scholar and Scopus as the main search engines to collect useful
secondary data and find valuable literatures. In addition, resources in Jönköping
University are also used to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the research.
2.5.3 Population and sample
Generally most of the marketing researches are trying to obtain information regarding
some specific characteristics or parameters of a population. By population, the authors
mean “the aggregate of all the elements that possess some sort of common
characteristics” which jointly form the collection for the purposes of the marketing
research problem. “The entire enumeration of the elements of a population” is called a
census, while a sample is “a fraction or subgroup of the population that is selected for
the purpose of study” (Naresh, 2010). In this research, the authors are able to reach the
whole population, which is all the customers of TBC service since September, 2011.
2.5.4 Interviews
According to Kahn and Cannell (1957), “An interview is a purposeful discussion
between two or more people” (Kahn, 1957). Interviews can be categorized based on
level of formality and structure as follows:
The authors of this thesis have prepared several questions for each interviewee and
decided to use semi-structured interviews to collect primary data. In terms of the
research purpose, semi-structured interviews can be applied in relation to exploratory
study (Saunders, et al., 2007). This is the main reason for the authors to use this kind of
interviews to reach the first research purpose. As the authors mentioned above, two
employees in Minami Fuji TBC are invited to the interview. Thus, one-to-one
interviews will be applied in this research. In addition, Due to the fact that the
respondents are working in China, the authors will use internet-mediated interviews in
10
order to save research budget and time. During the interviews, information will be
recorded in electronic device to avoid losing valuable data.
2.5.5 Questionnaire
“A questionnaire is a structured technique that consists of a series of questions for the
respondents to answer” (Naresh, 2010). In this research, the questionnaire serves the
following objectives:
It contains four portions with introduction at the start of each portion of questions. The
scaling technique that has been mainly used is the Likert scale. Which is a measurement
scale that requires the respondents to indicate a degree of agreement or disagreement
regarding a series of statements about the stimulus objects (Naresh, 2010). The major
advantages of Likert scale questions are “easy to construct and administer for the
researcher and easy to understand for the respondents” (Naresh, 2010).
Due to the physical limitations in China, the form of the questionnaire within this thesis
is paper-based. And the company staffs are responsible for the distribution and
collection of the questionnaire. In order to adapt to the language barrier, the authors
have translated the questionnaire into Chinese for better understanding.
2.6 Qualitative data analysis
Qualitative data refers to all non-numeric data or data that have not been quantified.
Researchers can obtain qualitative data by means of open-ended questions in a
questionnaire or from interviews. These data are always in the form of a large amount of
unstructured textual material and cannot be analyzed straightforwardly (Bryman & Bell,
2003). In this thesis, interview is the only method to collect qualitative data and
according to Marshall and Rossman (1999), “before analysis, empirical data from
interviews need to be structured and organized.” Hence, the authors of this thesis will
categorize and structure the empirical findings based on different interviewees and in
chronological order.
“Taking the research approaches into account, the empirical data need to be analyzed
based on either inductive or deductive perspective” (Saunders, et al., 2009). As
mentioned in the research approach section, the inductive approach is initially used in
this thesis. Therefore, the authors will try to build up theories or models that are
grounded in the qualitative empirical data.
In terms of the inductively-based analytical procedures in this thesis, empirical data
from semi-structured interviews will be analyzed mainly by using data reduction,
display analysis and template analysis (Saunders, et al., 2009). In fact, data reduction
aims to “summarize and shorten the collected data and/or selectively emphasizing some
parts of the data.” Then, “some of the selected data will be displayed into appropriate
cells, and these cells are developed based on different models from previous research
findings” (Miles & Huberman, 1994). Moreover, the authors will also use template
analysis to analyze data. A template is “basically a list of the codes or categories that
represent the themes exposed from the data” (2004, cited in Saunders, et al., 2009). Data
from interviews will be presented by using templates like input WOM, output WOM
and different stages in decision making process. In conclude, the authors will associate
the data with existing theories and models to come up with new models for WOM
marketing.
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2.7 Quantitative data analysis
In quantitative analysis, the data is inserted in SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social
Sciences) for computerized data processing. In the data analysis, descriptive analysis
and associative analysis are mainly used to fulfill the research goal.
The authors used descriptive analysis first to get the mean of each question and then
ranked them from the highest to the lowest. The authors also get separate ranks in terms
of different gender groups to discover whether there are differences exist. Since census
is being used, the results of the descriptive analysis represent the population. Finally,
Spearman correlation analysis is used to determine whether there is a stable relationship
between the two variables. Due to the interval scales, the authors decided to use the
correlation coefficient to determine the relationship. The presence of the relationship
can be seen from the p-value (there is a presence of correlation when p-value is less than
0.05 given the confidence interval percentage as 95%). The direction of the correlation
can be found by examine the sign of correlation coefficient (positive or negative). The
following table is a correlation coefficient index developed by Cohen and Holliday
(1982) which can be used to determine the strength of the correlation.
Correlation Coefficient Index Correlation Strength
0.19 and below Very low
0.20 to 0.39 Low
0.40 to 0.69 Modest
0.70 to 0.89 High
0.90 to 1 Very high
Table 1, Correlation Coefficient Index (Cohen & Holliday, 1982)
2.8 Time horizon
The time horizon of a research can be either cross-sectional or longitudinal.
Longitudinal studies are similar to “diaries” and can be representation of events over a
given period (Saunders, et al., 2009). Due to time constraint, the authors of this thesis
decided to apply cross-sectional approach, which are studies of a particular phenomenon
at a particular time, like a “snapshot”.
2.9 Limitations
Since the authors selected single case study rather than multiple case studies, there are
some possibilities of difficulties of replication and the problem of generalization
(Bryman & Bell, 2003). Where the aim of exploratory study is to gain deeper insights of
the WOM marketing in education and training service industry. Due to the limitations
such as time constraint and restricted social resources, the research credibility could be
improved with multiple case study and larger amount of interviews. Furthermore, the
authors emphasize the corporate perspective by conducting interviews with marketing
manager and director. However, the accuracy of this thesis could be enhanced by
collecting more information from interviews with customers.
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2.10 Research credibility
“In order to reduce the chance of getting things wrong, much attention has to be paid to
two typical research designs: validity and reliability” (Saunders, et al., 2009). As the
authors introduced above, both qualitative and quantitative data will be collected.
Therefore it is necessary for the authors to have discussions regarding the validity of the
qualitative data and the reliability of the quantitative data.
2.10.1 Validity
Validity is to test if the findings are really about what they appear to be about. Is the
relationship between two variables a causal relationship? (Saunders, et al., 2009). There
are two types of validity: internal and external. According to Bryman, Internal validity
checks if the independent variables are the ones having effect on the dependent variable
(Bryman, 2003). As for external validity, which also called “generalizability”, it seeks
whether your findings are equally applicable to other research settings (Saunders, et al.,
2009).
In order to reach a high validity of this thesis, the authors selected the interviewees from
middle and senior management level, both the Marketing Manager and Director had
more than two-year working experience in the case company Minami Fuji TBC. And
thus hold a comprehensive understanding of the company and its business. The authors
record and present most of the useful information from six interviews with them.
Furthermore, appropriate theories and models regarding WOM marketing were applied
to analyze the data. As for the validity of quantitative studies, all the questions were set
based on the previous theories regarding WOM marketing and Integrated Marketing
Communications. In addition, as mentioned above in data collection part, the authors
reached an agreement with the Marketing Manager to distribute questionnaires to all the
existing customers since September 2011. Thus it is the whole population that the
authors had obtained, instead of selecting from samples.
2.10.2 Reliability
Reliability refers to “the extent to which your data collection techniques or analysis
procedures will yield consistent findings” (Saunders, et al., 2009). It can also be divided
into two groups: internal and external criteria. Internal reliability is when the group
agrees on what has been seen and heard, whereas external reliability is actually to test if
the study can be replicated or not (Bryman, 2003). In this thesis, internal reliability was
assured since the authors discussed the observed data right after the reviews. In addition,
external reliability was proved to double-check the questions in the questionnaire before
the authors distributed to respondents. In terms of the quantitative data, since the
authors have reached an agreement with the Marketing Manager of the case company, it
is possible to distributed questionnaires to all the existing customers from September
last year. Hence, the reliability of the quantitative data could be enhanced. After the
authors designed questionnaire, 100 questionnaires were printed and distributed by the
Marketing assistant of Minami Fuji TBC to its customers. Then the authors obtained
these 100 answered questionnaires from Marketing assistant one week later and to
upload data on SPSS. The cooperation and assistance from the company also
significantly improve the data quality and reliability.
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3 Literature reviews
In this chapter, previous theories and models from articles and books are presented.
The authors of this thesis intend to firstly demonstrate marketing communication and
word of mouth related concepts, and then followed by a specific introduction of
consumer decision making process. Theories regarding service marketing,
entrepreneurial business, Chinese education and training industry and gender
differences will be further discussed.
3.1 Marketing communication
3.1.1 Communication process
It is significant to have a clear view of the communication process in order to build a
comprehensive understanding of Marketing Communications. Hence some previous
theories and models are presented. Communication was defined by Lasswell (1948) as
“Who (source or sender), says what (message), in which channel (medium), to who
(audience or receiver), with what effect.” In other words, communication is a process of
transmitting, receiving, and processing information.
Figure 1, Communication Process (1997, Cited in Kenneth & Donald, 2010)
The communication process is part of the marketing program. Based on the model
above, the senders are companies that manufacture and sell products or services. The
second step for senders is to encode messages in an appropriate way. It is essential for
senders to encode the message and make it understandable in terms of language, culture,
and values for their receivers. Moreover, a creator takes the idea and transforms
messages into attention-drawing advertisements or some other communicational efforts.
After encoding, messages or information are processed through different channels or
transmission devices. These channels can be television, magazines, Internet, and some
other traditional Media or social Media. Then, decoding occurs when the messages
travel to various receivers’ senses. At this time, the receiver needs to decode the
message and understand its meaning. It is possible that the same commercial will be
decoded differently by distinct people. In other words, the desired message or
information may not be received. Therefore, “the quality communication process
appears when receivers decode or interpret the message as it was intended by the sender”
(Kenneth & Donald, 2010). However, there might be obstacles that prevent messages
from being efficient and effective. These obstacles create noise that distorts or disrupts a
message. Finally, receiver sends the feedback to sender and it means that the message
has reached receiver and that receiver is responding.
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When this communication process being used in marketing program for organizations to
communicate and interact with customers, it is called marketing communications
(Kitchen & Schultz, 1999), which will be discussed in next part.
3.1.2 Integrated marketing communications
Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) is the integration and coordination of all
marketing communication tools, channels, and internal resources within a company into
a unified program that maximizes the influence on customers and stakeholders at a
minimal cost (Hutton, 1996).
In order to further explore the concept of Integrated Marketing Communication, the
traditional framework of marketing has to be taken into account. As shown in figure2,
promotion is one of the four components of the marketing mix 4Ps (product, price,
promotion, and place). According to the traditional view, advertising, personal selling
and sales promotions are included in promotional activities (Kotler, 2003). However,
this traditional view has changed somewhat because of the outburst of information
advances and some other new channels. The efforts to integrate all marketing
communications have expanded promotions beyond the three conventional essentials--
advertising, personal selling and sales promotions. Regarding IMC, it also includes
promotional efforts such as E-active marketing, sponsorship and event marketing,
database marketing, guerrilla marketing, alternative marketing, and public relations.
(Kenneth & Donald, 2010)
Figure 2 Integrated Marketing Communication (Kenneth & Donald, 2010)
Integrated Marketing Communication is not only the combination of various
promotional efforts. However, it integrates components of the promotional mix, which
aims to cultivate a counterbalance between strengths and weaknesses of various
channels. In other words, marketer will take advantage of one channel’s strengths to
make a balance between these and other channels that have weaknesses. Which means
that collaboration between different communication channels can be applied to speak
with a clear and unified voice. (Kitchen & Schultz, 1999)
Moreover, Integrated Marketing Communication is always associated with promotional
mix, channels or marketing mix. However, according to Picton and Hartley (1998),
there is a comprehensive view of IMC that presents some other dimensions of
Integration: intra-organization, inter-organization, creation, target audience, and
database systems. Indeed, in order to implement a successful IMC program, the
engagement of the whole organization and its agents are required. And it is significant
15
to consider both the high-level corporate strategy as well as the individual tactical
activity (Picton & Hartley, 1998).
To conduct effective Integrated Marketing Communication, some sources are spread to
the target audiences by companies. Based on the theory of Duncan and Moriarty (1997),
there are four kinds of unique sources sent by the organization: planned messages,
service messages, product messages, and unplanned messages. This concept also
contains the primary sources of brand-related information that are delivered by an
organization both purposefully and inadvertently. Some specific definitions and
characteristics of these four different messages are given below:
Planned messages: this kind of messages are related to regular promotional efforts,
such as advertising, personal selling, sales promotion and public relation. There are
a variety of channels for planned messages, such as TV, newspapers, magazines,
Internet, social media and sales persons. These are conventional forms that
emphasize giving the promises to the external public by company or brand.
Regarding planned messages, the level of interactivity is relatively low and these
messages are perceived as the least trustworthy by customers. (Duncan & Moriarty,
1997)
Unplanned messages: these messages, such as stories on social networks, word-of-
mouth messages among customers, are not delivered by the company itself. Instead,
people that are unrelated to the company or brand share their experiences and
opinions to others regarding the company offers. Therefore, unplanned messages
are treated as the most trustworthy source of information for customers.
Product messages: this kind of messages is the physical products that are offered by
the company. Consumers can obtain information through the product design,
package, quality as well as its functions.
Service messages: company provide service offering to customers. Consumers can
gain information and experiences in terms of the attitude and behavior of the
company’s employees and environment.
After these theories by Duncan and Moriarty (1997), Grönroos and Lindberg-Repo
(1998) describe the planned messages, unplanned messages, product messages, and
service messages in the other way. In fact, these messages are distinguished as “What
the firm says (in planned messages)”, “what the firm does (Creating product and
service messages)”, and “what others say and do (Unplanned messages)” (Grönroos,
2007, p. 306) . These three concepts were combined by Grönroos and Lindberg (1998)
as “Integrated Marketing Communication triangle” (1998, cited in Grönroos, 2007).
16
Figure 3, Integrated Marketing Communication triangle Figure 4, Communication cycle
(Grönroos & Lindberg-Repo, 1998) (Grönroos, 2007)
Furthermore, Grönroos (2007) argued that the power of Word of Mouth communication
is always huge and greater than that of planned communication. The critical role of
Word of Mouth has been illustrated by Grönroos through “Communication circle”
(Grönroos, 2007). This circle is shown above in figure 4. According to this circle, the
customers have developed a certain expectations due to problem recognition,
advertising or other reasons. Hence, the customers may decide to purchase certain
products or services. After this point, customers have interactions with the company and
gain further experience of its products or services. In some cases, their experiences and
views are delivered to other potential customers by means of positive or negative Word
of Mouth messages, which will create new expectations.
Marketing Communications
Sales materialsSales calls
AdvertisingDirect mail,
Etc.
Prospects hear about your products
Word of Mouth
Experts/prospects/customers talk
about your product
Action
TrialPurchase
RecommendationPrescriptionSpecification
Figure 4, the purchasing process and Word of Mouth, (Silverman, 2001, p. 36)
To summarize, Silverman (2001) used a model to show that traditional marketing
communications such as advertising are complemented by the word of mouth among
customers. By taking advantages of word of mouth, the effectiveness of the marketing
efforts could rise.
3.2 Word of mouth
3.2.1 Word of mouth marketing
Many literatures within the management category have claimed that the word of mouth
communication process has an essential influence in the marketplace (Harvir & Peter,
2000). In fact, through over fifty years of research, it has shown that word of mouth
plays a significant role in consumer information search, consumer decision making,
consumer dissatisfaction and complaining behavior (Justin & Paul, 2006).
What the firm SAYS
What the firm DOES
What others SAY and DO
Word of Mouth
Expectations
Interactions
Experiences
17
Definitions and models of word of mouth marketing can be found on various articles
and journals. One has described word of mouth marketing as “the intentional
interference of communications between consumers by professional marketers” (Robert,
et al., 2010). Frederick claims that word of mouth is “interpersonal communication
between a perceived non-commercial communicator and a receiver concerning a
product or service” (Webster, 1970, p. 186). In Journal of Marketing Research, Robert
describes word of mouth as “informal communications directed at other consumers
about the ownership, usage, or characteristics of particular goods and services and/or
their seller” (Westbrook, 1987, p. 261). There are many more definitions like these
three. However Justin and Paul (2006) gives a more specific and restricted definition:
“Oral, person to person communication between a receiver and a communicator whom
the receiver perceives as non-commercial, concerning a brand, a product or a service”
(Justin & Paul, 2006, p. 164). This definition emphasizes the three crucial parts that all
other definitions are trying to explain: interpersonal communications, commercial
content, and non-commercial motivation.
Generally, there are three models of word of mouth marketing.
Figure 5, WOM models (Robert, et al., 2010)
The first model is the simplest model of WOM since it is a communication between
consumers without interferences from marketers. This model assumes that the
interpersonal communication happened naturally, which is reason why the model is
called ‘organic’. ‘The linear marketer influence model’ is a more advanced model,
whose marketers are trying to influence the WOM by traditional marketing means.
Opinion leaders have been sought by the marketers, and the key to success of WOM is
the accuracy of the information that flowed from opinion leaders. ‘The network
coproduction model’ is the most recent model of WOM theory. Due to the invention of
Internet, marketers can directly target and influence the consumer. Moreover,
18
consumers form its own network that makes the information flow directionally (Robert,
et al., 2010).
3.2.2 Power of word of mouth
Jillian, Geoffrey and Tim (2008) mentioned that consumers’ trust towards traditional
advertisings and organizations is decreasing and therefore WOM marketing becomes a
viable way of achieving competitive advantage (2005, cited in Sweeney, et al., 2008). In
their latest work they claimed that modern consumers become less and less attentive to
traditional advertising, which in turn lead to decreasing expenditure in advertising by
organizations. Thus marketers have aware that WOM is vital in modern marketing
practice especially with its implications for trust and outcomes (2005, cited in Sweeney,
et al., 2008).
The reason why organizations are interested in WOM is because that the ability of
individual influence over others’ opinions may considered to be an important factor for
marketing offerings, especially for those products or services that cannot be easily
trialed before purchase (1995, cited in Sweeney, et al., 2008). Moreover, WOM has a
solid impact on perceptions towards market offerings which may in turn lead to a
change in judgments, value ratings and the likelihood of purchase (1967, cited in
Sweeney, et al., 2008). Therefore, WOM has been seen as a vital risk reducer in terms
of functional, time, financial, psychological and social (1971, cited in Sweeney, et al.,
2008).
In addition, Mark, Robert and Wendy (2010) have shown that WOM volume and
market share is broadly related to each other. As stated in their research paper “market
share is correlated with word-of-mouth volume” (Uncles, et al., 2010)
3.2.3 Input and output word of mouth
As mentioned above, from a marketing perspective, WOM is essentially interpersonal
communication regarding products or services. According to the communication
process model, it is the exchange of messages and information between senders and
receivers about a commercial topic. In terms of studies of these two groups, one group
focuses on the gaining and processing of product-related information (receiver-oriented
studies), while the other emphasizes information delivery (sender/communicator-
oriented studies) (Justin & Paul, 2006). Associating these two groups with word of
mouth, two concepts were developed, namely “input (receiver)” and “output
(sender/communicator) WOM. (Karen, et al., 1994)
In addition, “word of mouth can also be defined in terms of direction, valence and
volume” (David & Wendy, 2002, pp. 349-357). In fact, the direction of word of mouth
can be shown as the messages or information input into the customer decision-making
process, or output from communicator or post-purchase consumers (Bone, 1995). The
valence of WOM can be either positive or negative and its volume is related to the
number of people sharing or relaying these messages.
Justin and Paul (2006) have structured four areas of word of mouth literature by means
of the causes and consequences of input, output word of mouth. As shown below:
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Focus on study
Unit of analysis
Antecedents to word of
mouth (Causes)
Consequences of word of
mouth (Effects)
Receiver
(Input word of mouth)
Q1. Why do people listen? Q2. The power of word of
mouth?
Sender/Communicator
(Output word of mouth)
Q3. What makes people
talk?
Q4. What happens to the
communicator after a
WOM event?
Table 2 , four areas of word of mouth literature (Justin & Paul, 2006, p. 168)
Input word of mouth
In the research area of input word of mouth, firstly, studies emphasize the receiver and
aim to identify factors that influence the likelihood of people using word of mouth. For
the customers, word of mouth is existent with other possible sources of information,
such as advertising, brochures or guidebooks. Furthermore, input word of mouth
becomes especially relevant where the product is characterized by experience and
credence qualities.
Therefore, word of mouth serves a vital role in the consumer information search process,
and it is commonly called ‘external information search’, which is something goes
beyond marketer-generated sources (Justin & Paul, 2006). Consumers seek
recommendations to reduce their perception of risk, which is the risk of potentially
negative outcomes of using the product (1967, cited in Justin & Paul, 2006). The early
studies argue that, with more and more risk that consumer perceives from purchase
decision, more and more likely he or she would be exposed to word of mouth (Hugstad,
et al., 1987). In terms of service industry, accroding to “service marketing theory”, one
of the significant characteristics of services is the higher level of perceived risk as
opposed to products(1991, cited in Justin & Paul, 2006). This is the reason why
consumers of services use and trust word of mouth sources more than purchasers of
products (Justin & Paul, 2006).
Output word of mouth
Some previous literature studies show there are a number of factors that influence the
extent to which communicators engage in postitive or negative word of mouth. Three
typical factors are shown below:
A person might be highly involved with some products or services, because he or
she take pleasure in talking about it.
A person might be knowledgeable or familiar with a product or service and use
conversations as a way to introduce product or service to others. Thus, word of
mouth communication sometimes can enhance the individual esteem by impressing
his or her own experience and expertise to others.
A person might initiate a conversation out of concern for someone else. people tend
to make sure that their friends or relatives can purchase the right things they desire
with less money.
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WOM output as part of post-purchase behavior offers different characteristics. Output
WOM can be stimulated by the degree of customer involvement with the product,
service, or supplying organisation (David & Wendy, 2002). However, even though
some times customers desire to share their experiences and talk about the product or
service due to human nature, it still requires the superior relationship between input and
output WOM for effective WOM marketing. Therefore, David and Wendy suggested
that, marketer should examine the relationship between input and output WOM and
look for potential dissonance.
In next section, the other significant characteristic of output word of mouth will be
presented.
3.2.4 Positive and negative word of mouth
The earlier discussion regarding the power of WOM has shown that WOM becomes a
robust power to drive the marketing practice. However the WOM itself contain two
sorts of messages, positive and negative.
Generally, positive WOM can generate affirmative emotions such as confidence,
enthusiasm and optimism on the receiver. This is consistent with the early statement
that WOM can reduce the perceived risk (Sweeney, et al., 2008). Studies have shown
that the likelihood of purchasing a service is high when consumers are receiving
consistent positive WOM (2007, cited in Wang, 2011). Mark, Robert and Wendy’s
research (2010) also confirmed that the association between market share and positive
WOM volume is greater than the association between market share and negative WOM
volume. Which indicated an optimistic effect of positive word of mouth on market share
(Uncles, et al., 2010). Hence, marketers are trying to promote positive WOM and to
decrease or avoid negative WOM, since positive WOM has seen as the ultimate product
success factor (1971, cited in Wang, 2011).
Negative WOM, on the other hand, also has a significant effect on consumers’
perception and decision. Researches on negative WOM suggest that satisfied consumers
may or may not create a positive WOM message, while the unsatisfied consumer is
much more likely to create a negative WOM to express his or her anger (2007, cited in
Wang, 2011). Moreover, negative WOM has an undesirable effect on current customers
which may lead them to complain a subsidiary brand stress the anger as antecedent
(2007, cited in Wang, 2011). According to Marsha’s (1983) research on negative WOM,
there is a great tendency for the consumer to spread the negative WOM when the
problem of dissatisfaction getting more serious (Richins, 1983). His research also
showed that there will be more negative WOM when the dissatisfaction is positioned on
marketing institutions rather than the consumer (Richins, 1983). The power of negative
WOM over positive WOM has also been studied by previous researchers. It showed that
negative WOM communication has a greater influence on consumers’ evaluation of the
brand than positive WOM (2001, cited in Wang, 2011). Likewise, relevant researches
also revealed that negative word of mouth can predict a decline in company’s revenue
more accurately than positive word of mouth predicts the growth of revenue (Samson,
2006).
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3.3 Consumer decision making process
From the early discussion regarding the input and output of word of mouth, the
direction of word of mouth can be shown as the messages or information input into the
customer decision-making process, or output from communicator or post-purchase
consumers.
The generic model of consumer problem solving mentioned in Peter and Olson (2010)
is used as a reference for consumer decision making process. The model treats
consumer decision making as problem solving, where problem means the “wanted”
consequences have not been achieved (Peter & Olson, 2010).
The following flow chart is the generic model of consumer problem solving:
Problem recognitionSearch for
alternative solutionsEvaluation of alternatives
PurchasePostpurchase use
and reevaluation of chosen alternative
Figure 6, Generic Model of Consumer Problem Solving (Peter & Olson, 2010, p. 163)
3.3.1 Problem recognition
Problem recognition is the first step in the model where the consumer perceives
substantial differences between ideal and actual state of affairs (Peter & Olson, 2010).
However there are two types of problem recognition which are need recognition and
opportunity recognition. Need recognition occur when the consumers’ needs cannot be
satisfied adequately, which happens in various ways such as running out of a product,
current product is not satisfied or new needs have been created (Solomon, et al., 2008).
Opportunity recognition can occur when the consumer gets in contact with different or
better products (Solomon, et al., 2008).
3.3.2 Search for alternative solutions
In the second step, consumers have already recognized their problem and are ready to
search for available alternatives. The search process can be clarified into
internal/external search and intentional/accidental search.
Internal vs. External Search
The internal search which consumers retrieve from their own memory of previous
experiences or information regarding relevant product alternatives may be the first
reaction when consumers facing a purchase decision (Solomon, et al., 2008). However
the consumer only has limited time, energy and cognitive capacity which imply that the
consumer will not consider every possible alternative (Peter & Olson, 2010). Actually
the consumer will remove or eliminate those brands that he or she is not familiar with
and brands that tried but didn’t turn out to be good (Clow & Baack, 2010).
When the consumer cannot acquire sufficient information about the right brand to
purchase, he or she will perform external search from sources such as friends, books,
magazines or advertisements (Clow & Baack, 2010).
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Intentional vs. Accidental Search
Consumers may involve in intentional search through reading the consumer report or
talking to knowledgeable friends if he or she still remain uncertainties about the choice
alternatives (Peter & Olson, 2010). Alternatively, consumers may acquire information
through a more passive manner that we call accidental search by exposure to advertising,
promotion activities or overhearing a conversation regarding a brand (Peter & Olson
2010, Solomon, et al. 2008 ).
3.3.3 Evaluation of alternatives
At this stage, the consumer will evaluate and judge different alternatives in terms of
product beliefs and combine the knowledge to make the final decision (Peter & Olson,
2010).
The product beliefs represent three types of product knowledge that consumer hold
which are attributes, benefits and value satisfaction. Product attributes is the basic
product characteristics and can be seen as two different types, concrete attributes and
abstract attributes (Peter & Olson, 2010). Concrete attributes denote tangible and
physical characteristics of a product whereas abstract attributes represent intangible and
subjective characteristics (Peter & Olson, 2010). Those attributes that are actually used
to compare and choose among all alternatives are called determinant attributes
(Solomon, et al., 2008).
When consumers confronted with various types of alternative choices, they perceive the
outcome when the product is consumed as consequences (Peter & Olson, 2010). There
are two types of product consequences which are functional consequences and
psychosocial consequences. Functional consequences are tangible outcomes that the
consumer can experience quite directly of consuming the product whereas psychosocial
consequences represent the psychological and social outcomes of consuming the
product (Peter & Olson, 2010). Product benefits are the desirable functional and/or
psychosocial consequences that consumers particularly looking for when buying and
consuming the product. However perceived risks are the undesirable consequences that
the consumer tries to avoid and reduce during the purchase (Peter & Olson, 2010).
Consumers have personal values that are the general life goals. Some products may help
the consumer to achieve such goals (Peter & Olson, 2010).
In fact, any type of these product beliefs can be considered as choice criterion at the
evaluation stage (Peter & Olson, 2010).
3.3.4 Purchase
After carefully selecting the alternatives, the best perceived choice would be carried out
at this stage as purchase behavior (Peter & Olson, 2010).
3.3.5 Post-purchase use and reevaluation of chosen alternative
At the final stage, the product or the service has been consumed and the consumer may
reevaluate the choice for future reference (Peter & Olson, 2010).
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3.4 Service marketing
3.4.1 Service industry
A service is a complex sign, it can either be a personal service or service as a product or
offering. The definition for the term “service” can be various depending on the scope.
However, one of the fundamental natures of services is that despite they cannot be
experienced in a tangible way; they can always be exchanged from one to another
(Grönroos, 2007). As a result, it is of great significance for service to contain
interactions in the process that most people might ignore. Therefore, services, in essence,
are activities or procedures with the character of intangibility. The second nature of
service is that it can be produced and consumed at the same time, which implies that
service is not a thing but a course that involves various activities. The third character of
service is that the customer is not only playing the role as a receiver, but also put
himself as a production resource during the process (Grönroos, 2007).
In many cases, most people regard services as totally intangible things that own the
opposite characters to physical goods. For example, the obvious natures of physical
products are tangible, non-perishable, non-ephemeral and countable, whereas services
process the contrary. Nevertheless, the fact is that the intangibility characteristic cannot
differentiate services from products that easily and clearly. It often varies from
customers` minds—some just don't regard products as tangible goods (Grönroos, 2007).
There are two broad categories: product industry and service industry. While product
industry includes agriculture, mining and manufacturing areas that mainly produce the
tangible goods; the service industry is relatively focus on wholesale &retail trade,
distribution and transport domains. The service industry can also be divided into three
parts: professional services (engineering, computer software development, medicine and
non-profit activity), consumer services (haircut) and government services (defense and
administration of justice) (Britannica Inc, 2010). In our thesis, the authors mainly focus
on the second kind of services: consumer service.
3.4.2 Service marketing
Figure 7, Service Marketing (Grönroos, 2007)
From the figure 7, we can get a clear clue of how physical goods and services vary in
terms of the nature of consumption. Here, three elements are taken into consideration:
24
production, consumption and marketing. The upper figure illustrates the outcome
consumption of products, we can see that there is a bridge between two isolated parts:
production and consumption, the bridge also helps to close the gap that functioning as
the traditional role of marketing. As for the lower graph, it demonstrates the process
consumption of services. In this case, production and consumption are processing at the
same time. With more correlation and interaction, the essence of service marketing
emerged. Notably, there is no gap between the two processes that requires to be ceased
by some typical activity (Grönroos, 2007). In conclusion, the core of marketing services
is to test how the service production process correlate with service consumption process,
in order to ensure that consumers obtained desirable service with high satisfaction, so
that the company can keep a long-term relationship with the loyal customers (Grönroos,
2007). However, compared with product marketing, it is much harder to guarantee a
service instead of a physical product (Answers Corporation, 2010).
3.4.3 WOM in service industry
As the prevalence of Word-of-Mouth marketing in recent decades, it has become the
marketing mainstream of service industry. The uniqueness of WOM that are different
from other marketing activities is that it depends totally on the clients themselves to
voluntarily promote or spread the service to someone else. In other words, it is the
clients that are playing the active role in endorsing the service proactively to their own
networks, instead of the service provider directly taking control over it. Therefore, the
optimal way to make full use of WOM in service industry is to motivate the key
customers and encourage them to spread their high satisfaction and referrals to the
people around them (Kumar, et al., 2007).
3.5 Entrepreneurial marketing
The definition for “entrepreneurial marketing” has traditionally been “the marketing
activities of small and new ventures”. However with an innovative attitude,
entrepreneurial marketing can also be carried out regardless of firm size or age. In terms
of the nature of “entrepreneurial marketing”, just like the two sides of one same coin,
entrepreneurial marketing owns both qualitative and quantitative characteristics. The
former one emphasizes marketing with an entrepreneurial spirit such as innovativeness
or value creation, whereas the latter one focuses more on marketing for small or new
ventures that are resource-constraint and with few employees (sascha kraus, 2009).
Furthermore, the uncertainty of entrepreneurial business creates valuable opportunities
that produce profits that are not obvious to others.
According to Hills, entrepreneurial marketing often communicates through word-of –
mouth instead of traditional marketing mix, and it usually controls the marketplace via
informal networks rather than official market research. Overall, entrepreneurial
marketing generally leans upon interactive marketing approaches
(Hills&G.E.&Hultman, 2006). However, the most obvious merit of entrepreneurial
marketing is that it can add value to customer’s lives. By standing at customer’s point in
a closer distance, marketers and brand managers can better understand customers’ needs
and desire, therefore to seek the most favorable solutions. In practice, entrepreneurial
companies usually conduct different and unique marketing behaviors compared to
traditional and classic marketing approaches.
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3.6 Education and training industry in China
As mentioned before, during the 2008 financial crisis, education industry was one of the
few industries throughout the world that has escaped from massive economic stroke.
Instead of frustrated by the global economic disaster, education industry has seen a
sharp increase in investment, especially in China. Which is expected to continue this
growth until 2012, and the entire education and training market will reach 960 billion
Yuan, with a compound annual growth rate at 12% (Deloitte Consulting(Shang Hai),
2009). The fact is that education and training industry in China is constantly booming
and it should thanks to the demographic dividend. According to recent surveys and
statistics, the expenditure on education has reached the second place in china’s largest
daily expenditure, which ranks after the costs of food. There are several causes that
provide a broad opportunity for the development of education and training industry:
Firstly, people find it hard to put theory into practice in a brand new workplace, their
traditional education system cannot fit well in the practical working criteria. Secondly,
the implementation of qualification systems has made it tougher for the applicants to
enter the market. Thus they need to be more capable of managing various staff with
qualified skills. Thirdly, the heavy pressure from employment drives the applicants to
search professional and skillful strategies of getting a job. Therefore, the education and
training industry has become a new source of growing economic opportunities that help
support the national economic growth (First Research, 2011)
When choosing a credible education and training institution in China, the potential
clients will focus on several key elements, such as the quality of teaching, the
institutional integrity, teaching environment and cost performance ratio. Among which,
the quality of pragmatic was regarded as the principle in selecting a solid vocational
training.
3.7 Gender differences in information processing strategies
William and Robert (1995) have conducted an empirical test of differences between
male and female’s response to commercials based on the “selectivity model”. The result
of their test is generally consistent with the predictions of the “selectivity model”.
According to the “selectivity model”, males are selective processors. The model
indicates that males usually do not pay attention to all the available information, but
instead only focus on part of the information (1989, cited in William & Robert, 1995).
Moreover, males tend to use heuristics that usually include a single cue or cues that
imply a single inference. Those cues used by males are typically highly available and
prominent in the context (William & Robert, 1995).
In contrast, females are comprehensive processors. Females tend to consider and
conduct comprehensive analysis of all available information, give equal treatment to the
messages that are received. Precisely, females exhibit two major differences regarding
the information processing strategies compared to males: first, females encode more
information than males; second, females expound the information more
comprehensively than males.
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4 Empirical findings from qualitative studies
This chapter intends to report the research findings from interviews to fulfill the
exploratory research purposes. The structure of this chapter was designed based on the
result of the research findings and literature studies.
In this bachelor thesis, the authors have conducted both inductive and deductive studies
with exploratory and descriptive purposes. The only research strategy is in-depth single
case study as mentioned in method section. The structure of this chapter is shown in the
figure below:
Figure 8, Structure of empirical findings from qualitative studies chapter
4.1 Case background and introduction
Minami Fuji CO., Ltd was founded in 1944 in Shizuoka, Japan. It is the Japan’s largest
roof construction and patent Octagonal housing company. The current business of
Minami Fuji includes comprehensive exterior, residential construction and personnel
training. In 1975, Minami Fuji entered the Chinese market and established its wholly
owned subsidiary in Shanghai. After 1990, two divisions were launched successively in
the cities Wuhan and Guangzhou. In the Chinese market, Minami Fuji has two main
businesses: the one is to continually gain profits by providing consulting and
outsourcing service, the other one is called “Sowing program” which emphasizes
education by means of scholarship and personnel training. The integration of Minami
Fuji’s activities is shown below:
Figure 9, Company background: Minami Fuji official website. (www.mfsg.co.jp/english/top.htm)
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4.1.1 Minami Fuji training before career
In 2005, Minami Fuji initiated a new sowing program called Training before Career
(TBC) in the city Wuhan, China. The purpose of TBC is to enhance the professionalism
of university students by providing specific training services. In this thesis, the authors
have decided to use Minami Fuji TBC as the main case to study.
“The greatest corporate social contribution is educating people”, this is the core value
of Minami Fuji. It gives meaning to the company and meanwhile guides the
organizational strategy. Under this core value, the vision and mission of Training before
Career program have been set as follows:
Mission: “Minami Fuji TBC creates value in society by solving the problems of
employment and professional development of the Chinese students.”
Vision: “Improving the corporate competitiveness and support Chinese economic
growth. Minami Fuji TBC is the leading and reputable company in China.” (Minami
Fuji TBC, 2005)
The reason for the authors to mention the core value, mission and vision is to emphasize
that Minami Fuji TBC has clear intentions, to ensure their pursuit in an acquiescent
environment. After almost seven years development, Minami Fuji TBC released its
updated business idea in 2012: “Our new business idea could be described within a
coordinate axis. The horizontal axis is the Education, which is the core value of Minami
Fuji. Then the vertical axis is business that aims to make a balance between education
and business. We hope this idea can better stimulate the development of Training before
Career program” (Xu, 2012).
4.1.2 Training before career service
According to the information available from the official website of Minami Fuji,
“Training before Career service is based on six forces model (Figure 11, Independent
intellectual property rights) and theory of competitive advantage. The teaching
philosophy is interactive teaching with methods of small class and simulation game.
The fundamental training service is called “M project”, which is a three-year program
for university students.” (Minami Fuji TBC, 2012)
Figure 10, “6+1 model”
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The whole “M project” includes 24 classes and two simulation games within three-year
period. This project aims to help students to build self-awareness, develop clear career
planning and maximize their advantages. Eventually facilitate students to obtain a
satisfied job with high professionalism. (Minami Fuji TBC, 2012)
4.1.3 Organizational structure of Minami Fuji TBC
The president Mr. Sadahisa Sugiyama positioned Minami Fuji as “a small but shiny
company”. All divisions including Training before Career are organized based on this
positioning. In order to obtain detailed information about organizational structure of
Minami Fuji TBC, the authors have conducted first interview with the director Mr. Xu.
“As the director of TBC division, I am in charge of the daily operations, management
and coordination of three functional departments. These three departments are product
development department, marketing department and teaching department.” Furthermore,
Mr. Xu introduced the manager for each department and the personnel structure.
According to the information provided by him, the authors have summarized
organizational structure of Minami Fuji TBC as shown below:
Figure 11 Organizational structure of Minami Fuji TBC
4.2 Marketing communications of Minami Fuji TBC
After comprehensive description of Minami Fuji TBC, the authors will focus on the
Marketing department in this section. In order to answer the first research question,
interviews with both Director and Marketing manager were conducted based on the
purpose of “explore how Minami Fuji TBC apply and develop Word of Mouth
marketing”. The authors had the first interview with the marketing manager Mr. Dong.
From his point of view, WOM marketing is not an independent marketing strategy or
tactic, it is the outcome of the integrated marketing communications. Furthermore, he
claims that WOM marketing is not only rely on the efforts of marketing department, but
also depends on the engagement of the whole organization. At that time, the authors
were inspired by Mr. Dong’s words “In Minami Fuji TBC, there is no independent
WOM marketing, but it has an Integrated Marketing Communication approach to Word
of Mouth marketing”. Therefore, more additional questions were asked regarding to
integrated marketing communication approach.
Four marketing communication tools are used by Minami Fuji TBC, including
advertising, public relation, personal selling, and E-active marketing. Based on the first
interview with marketing manager Mr. Dong, In Minami Fuji TBC, advertising
communications are mainly delivered through traditional media channels: outdoor
advertising, Magazines and Newspapers. However, advertising communications play a
29
secondary role, such as supporting sales force and a firm’s public relation program. As
Mr. Dong mentioned, “Since we are a service company in education and training
industry, we need to emphasize interaction with our customers by public relation
activities and personal selling rather than simply doing advertisement which is one-way
communication”. Furthermore, Mr. Dong described other three marketing
communications, as summarized below:
Public Relations program: In Minami Fuji TBC, the external public relation
functions are performed completely by the marketing department. It serves a vital
role in the whole Integrated Marketing Communication program. The marketing
department aims to interact with customers by means of sponsorship marketing and
event marketing. Indeed, sponsorship marketing means that the Minami Fuji TBC
pays money to sponsor some superior students, campus groups that are part of a
public relation activity. Similarly, event marketing refers to some speeches,
simulation games and debate competitions organized by Minami Fuji TBC.
Personal selling: As seen from the figure 12 above, sales representative is one of
the positions in Marketing Department. The responsibility of sales representatives
is not only to sell TBC service to students, but also to offer useful information to
the target customers. “Instead of simply calling them sales person, we prefer to call
them solution provider”.
E-active Marketing: Minami Fuji TBC uses various means of E-active Marketing,
including online social networks, search engine optimization, emails, official
website and blogs. Among which, online social networks are used most frequently.
Some important information and advertising campaigns have been displayed by
Minami Fuji TBC on Chinese popular social network sites such as Renren
(renren.com) and Weibo (weibo.com), so that staff can communicate with
customers and obtain useful information from the customers’ comments. Besides
this, Minami Fuji TBC optimized their search results on Chinese largest search
engine-Baidu. In addition, the major functions of emails are keeping relationship
with existing customers by sending newsletters. Lastly, customers can access to the
official news and activities on company’s official website and blogs. To conclude,
all the jobs that are mentioned above belong to the Marketing Assistant.
The concept “IMC” was initially introduced by Mr. Dong as “Information Management
Center”, which is known as “IMC V1.0” within marketing department. In order to
analyze target customers’ behavior and uniformly send out the information through four
marketing communications, the company has to integrate both internal and external
resources and information. The “IMC V1.0” is mainly responsible for collecting and
controlling information, and then encodes and sends out the positive information to
customers.
4.2.1 Information management center of Minami Fuji TBC
External information management
As Mr. Dong said on the second interview: “ Our Integrate Marketing
Communications are based on Information Management from both internal and
30
external perspectives.” The aim of second interview with Marketing Manager was to
understand the way of Minami Fuji TBC managing its internal and external information.
Figure 12 , External information management Figure 13, Integrated Marketing Communications
Based on the second interview, the authors summarised the functions of the Information
Management Center (IMC V1.0) by means of drawing the figure 13. In the center of the
figure, it is evident to see that “IMC V1.0” integrates the inflow and outflow of
information from the four parts: E-active Marketing, Support Center, Public Relations
Activities and Personal Selling. The one-way arrow from “IMC V1.0” to E-active
Marketing stands for the information needed to conduct E-active Marketing, including
newsletters and potential customer information. Then, between “IMC V1.0” and Public
Relations Activities, there is a two-way arrow, all the information are summarized by
Public Relations by means of activity proposals, news, photos and feedbacks from all
the people involved, and then delivered to“ IMC V1.0”. Before a specific Public
Relation project is launched, the relevant staff would obtain information from“IMC
V1.0” regarding places, budgets and participant’s personal information. Likewise, all
the Sales Representatives are required to update customer information in time, including
potential customers’ contact information and purchase intentions, as well as the sales
statistics. Once a week, all the Sales Representatives hold a meeting with“IMC V1.0”
to gain information about potential and existing customers, as well, to gain the latest
news of TBC service. In order to enhance the effectiveness of communication with
“IMC V1.0”, the marketing assistants have to make a close tie with Sales, Public
Relations and E-active Marketing.
With the high development of Minami Fuji TBC, based on the foundation of“IMC
V1.0”, the company owns three separate branches of“IMC V1.0”, namely, V1.1, V1.2,
V1.3. As Mr. Dong said on second interview, “time and tide wait for no man, we need
to collect and deliver the real time information from our Information Management
Center, and this is the reason why we have three more IMC braches.” Referring to the
figure 13 above, IMC V1.1 bridged the real time information between E-active
Marketing and Public Relations Activities. It is the real time information that makes the
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IMC V1.1 different from V1.0. As for IMC V1.1, it has to be in the Public Relations
activity spot in person and then gather all the photos, videos and news from very first
time, and meantime to collect participants’ personal information. Following these, the
information is delivered from IMC V1.1 to E-active marketing. In particular times
during some large-scale occasions, E-active Marketing would pass all the online
interactive comments to IMC V1.1, after a deliberate selection, several distinct
comments are delivered to Public Relations.
The IMC V1.2 is responsible for managing all the information from E-active Marketing,
containing online interactive comments and online feedbacks. Subsequently, IMC V1.2
filtered that information and picked the most relevant ones to the Support Center. After
some Public Relations Activities, sales representatives have to rely on the real time
information gathered from IMC V1.3 to better communicate with potential customers,
while most of the participants in the activity spot are potential customers of Minami
Fuji TBC.
Following all the procedures of external information management, figure 12 shows that
there are three arrows directed to external market, which are E-active Marketing, Public
Relations, and Personal Selling. The arrows mean all those three marketing
communications are integrated together to pass the unified information and messages to
customers. As the authors stated before, the advertising communications play a
secondary role in supporting the other three marketing communications, also can be
seen from the figure 14 those four parts make up the Integrated Marketing
Communication of Minami Fuji TBC.
Internal information management
According to Marketing Manager, Mr. Dong, “even though we have Information
Management Center, as well as four marketing communications, this is not enough for
the Integrated Marketing Communication. Since IMC includes clear internal
communications and information management, it requires the involvement of the whole
organization.” This is what Mr. Dong said at the end of the second interview, the
authors therefore find it necessary to conduct third interview with Marketing Manager
and second interview with Director.
In the third interview with Marketing Manager Mr. Dong, the authors obtained the
information regarding how organization manages the internal information to conduct
Integrated Marketing Communication from the standpoint of marketing department.
“As the group or department that has the closest bond with customers, the marketing
department is quite aware of customer’s needs and desires. Most of the ideas, teaching
plans, marketing campaigns and brand building methods are transmitted from the
marketing department.” Referring to the figure 15, Director blends and controls the
information received from Marketing Department, after a deliberate selection of the
mass information, Director responds to the three departments with effective messages.
Subsequently, every staff within three departments manages to reach customers with a
clear and consistent message. However, according to the observations and experience of
Marketing Manager, the effectiveness of Internal Information Integration has only
reached fifty percent. This is due to various noises occurred in different stages during
the communication process between three department managers and Director. Even
though without noises, there still exist problems of lacking execution among the staff.
32
Figure 14, Current internal information management Figure 15, prospective internal information management
From the second interview with Director Mr. Xu, he asserts that the efficiency of
Internal Information Integration has merely reached fifty or sixty percent. The problems
lie in the low quality of information and incongruent support level among staff in three
departments. Mr. Xu has the prospect for the company to launch a new department that
plays the role as a controller between Director and three department managers. The
figure 16 represents that the new department controls the input information, data and
ideas from all the three departments. From which, Director will have discussions with
this new department to decide the Integrated Marketing Communication messages.
Furthermore, this new department has to communicate with other three departments in
order to obtain unanimous approval among the whole organization.
4.2.2 Integrated marketing communications of Minami Fuji TBC
“Advertising, E-active Marketing, Personal Selling and Public Relations are integrated
like a delicious cake, however, we cannot directly show this cake to our customers. We
need a suitable packing box for this cake and write the words we want to say on it. The
packing box refers to our promotional themes, and the words are like the Integrated
Marketing Communication messages”, the metaphor of the cake and packing box was
mentioned by Mr. Dong on the third interview.
Since the target customers of Minami Fuji TBC are university students, the company
has to select relevant ways to reach target customers. According to investigations and
observations of marketing staff, Minami Fuji TBC has chosen the promotional themes
for the first half year of 2012, which is called “TBC: grow together with you”. Based on
the internal and external information management, specific messages were developed
by the company for its Integrated Marketing Communication. It means that the four
marketing communications exist for communicating with customers by conveying
specific messages.
“Minami Fuji TBC is a company in Education and Training Industry, our core value is
educating people, and our training service needs to have a clear and comprehensive
customer value.” Mr. Dong introduced the customer values of Training before Career
service to the authors, which are improving abilities, cultivating habits and building
contact networks. In addition with the thorough upgrade of awareness, including
commercial, costs and customer awareness. From which, the customer values are built
33
upon “6+1 model” that authors mentioned before. The company aims to use Integrated
Marketing Communications to spread the customer value as the main message in its
target market.
An IMC program is more than just promotions and advertising tactics, and it also needs
the cooperation from all organizational members to convey a unified message. “Since
Minami Fuji TBC is a service company, its product and teaching departments are even
more significant compared to marketing department, because these two departments
have shown that what we actually do for our customers.” stated by Mr. Xu in the
second interview. Indeed, during the six years of development, Minami Fuji TBC has
consistently improved its services, comprising teaching environment, teaching methods,
teaching forces and a well-structured teaching cycle. In conclude, all the improvements
above, further combined with satisfactory service attitude and professional behaviors of
staff, constitute a major part of IMC program.
“Besides ‘what we do’ and ‘what we say’, we also pay attention to ‘what others say’,
especially words from our customers, whether positive or negative would be taken into
account. This is an extremely important part in our Integrated Marketing
Communication program, and I think this applies to what you asked before about Word
of Mouth.” As Mr. Dong stated at the end of third interview, the authors gained detailed
information about information management and Integrated Marketing Communication
approach of Minami Fuji TBC. The authors then felt it necessary to conduct the fourth
interview with Mr. Dong regarding the Word of Mouth Marketing. And this is the last
interview with him.
4.3 Word of mouth marketing of Minami Fuji TBC
“Minami Fuji TBC is a young company starting in education and training service
industry, we have been dedicating to improving our service. Meanwhile, the customer
value of our service has been enhanced, and now we focus more on marketing. This is
what I have told you about Integrated Marketing Communication approach to Word of
Mouth Marketing. However, currently the word of mouth messages regarding Minami
Fuji TBC are not transmitted like virus, neither do we have a mature consumer
networks. ” Declared by Marketing Manager Mr. Dong in the last interview. In order to
have positive, precise and effective word of mouth message in the market, Minami Fuji
TBC has to control word of mouth sources by Integrated Marketing Communication.
What the company has done so far is for the purpose of delivering marketing-generated
WOM sources to our customers, and ultimately controlling the customer-generated
WOM in the market. Most people may regard customer-generated WOM as only ‘what
others say’, however, it also contains ‘what others do’, that sometimes the latter one is
more powerful and influential than the former one, especially in Education and Training
Service industry. “What we hope is that students’ habits and behavior can keep
identical with customers’ value of our service, these kinds of WOM message are most
desirable and anticipated by our company. That is because it can maximize the
influence of WOM on customer purchase decision process, and hence it will stimulate
the sales”.
4.3.1 Marketing generated WOM at problem recognition stage
Based on the behavior and habits of current students, potential customers are able to
realize their problems about professionalism. IMC program offers the platform for the
34
current students to show their achievements, so that the potential customers can see the
difference between themselves and those superior students that are our existing
customers. Summarized from this interview with Mr. Dong, Minami Fuji TBC has used
the following marketing communication forms to generate WOM effects on problem
recognition stage: asking the current students to give speeches in campus to share their
experience and knowledge obtained from Training before Career service; recording the
performance of current students participated in simulation games and upload it on
Chinese famous social networks; selecting the profile of excellent students that have
found a decent job after the TBC program, and set them as examples when promoting
the TBC service; and lastly inviting those superior students back to class, to increase
creditability and validity of TBC program. As Mr. Dong said: “We would not directly
tell the potential customers of their problems, but through the WOM from our existing
customers”
4.3.2 Marketing generated WOM at search for alternative solutions stage
As potential customers have realized the problem, they desire to seek the solution to
tackle the problem. Or for those who have already heard about Minami Fuji TBC, and
wish to find out more information of the TBC service, would search for it by means of
various channels. During the process of delivering the marketing generated WOM
messages to those potential customers, channel is the most significant factor in this
stage. In the IMC program of Minami Fuji TBC, there are different channels for
potential customers’ various search methods. The authors summarized those different
channels used by Minami Fuji TBC based on the last interview with Mr. Dong.
Channels Description of channels
Interpersonal relationships friends, relatives, classmates, etc.
Official organizations universities, student unions, career centers,
Social Networks Renren, Weibo, etc.
Search Engines Baidu, Google, etc.
Marketing promotion of TBC Advertisement, activities, brochures, etc.
Staff of Minami Fuji TBC Sales representatives, Trainers, Teaching
assistants, etc.
Table 3, Six Channels
Mr. Dong has used observations, experiences and small-scale interviews to summarize
those main channels mentioned above. Minami Fuji TBC used the six channels above to
input marketing generated WOM messages to customers, and then the existing
customers would output customer generated WOM messages to the market. “From my
previous experience, almost all the existing customers would volunteer to discuss the
TBC service to others”. This is the opinion of Mr.Dong regarding input and output
WOM messages. However, he has no sufficient evidence to understand the importance
level of each channel for the customers in input and output context. Neither does he has
an idea on whether there is a systematic linkage between the importance level of each
channel in input and output WOM.
35
In order to further investigate the factors that influence customers’ search for alternative
solutions stage, the authors have reached an agreement with the company to conduct a
survey for the existing customers. The aim of the survey is to answer the questions
below:
Do all the existing customers volunteer to discuss the TBC service to others? Like
Mr.Dong said.
What is the importance level of each channel for the customers in input and output
context?
Is there a correlation between the importance level of some significant channels for
customers in input and output WOM?
In order to answer the fourth and fifth questiones, six hypotheses have developed by the
Marketing manager Mr. Dong that needs to be further tested in deductive studies.
4.3.3 Marketing generated WOM at evaluation of alternatives stage
Every attribute of TBC service has an influence on WOM effects. “Based on my
previous experience and suggestions from product and teaching department, the
determinant attributes are teaching contents and teaching style of Minami Fuji TBC.
But we do not have enough quantitative research on them.” Except for teaching
contents and teaching style, Mr.Dong helped the authors to conclude the remaining
attributes of TBC service. He assumes that every attribute is the factor that has an
influence on WOM marketing.
Attributes of TBC service Description of attributes
Company background A Japanese owned company
Teaching resources Trainer and teaching assistant
Teaching environment Location and facilities
Teaching style Small class, simulation games, interaction
Teaching contents Course content, lecture notes, slides, etc.
Service cycle Three years
Price 3200 Chinese Yuan
Price benefit ratio Cost effective
Table 4, Eight Attributes
The survey that conducted by the authors and Marketing manager aims to investigate
the importance level of each factor at this stage for the customers in input and output
context. Moreover, the Marketing manager had made three hypotheses to test whether
there is a correlation between the importance level of the three most significant
attributes in input and output WOM.
4.3.4 Marketing generated WOM at post-purchase evaluation stage
According to the marketing manager Mr. Dong, every customer of TBC service is
requested to fill out the feedback form after class. “Based on the previous feedbacks,
36
majority of the students are satisfied with our courses and services”. However, Mr.
Dong has not conducted any marketing research regarding the relationship between
customer’s satisfaction on each service attribute and importance level of their output
word of mouth. This question will be further developed as hypotheses and tested in
deductive studies.
37
5 Empirical findings from quantitative studies
This chapter intends to report the research findings from surveys to fulfill the
descriptive research purposes. The structure of this chapter was designed based on the
pre-studies from last chapter and the research questions four and five.
5.1Data response and demographics
The questionnaires have been distributed by the marketing manager of the Minami Fuji
TBC and the respondents consist of all current customers of TBC program M project
since September 2011. The total number of responses is 100, among which eight were
incomplete. Thus, there are 92 valid responses for data analysis.
The compositions of male and female customers were nearly equal. Specific data can be
read from the following table.
Gender Frequency Percent (%) Cumulative Percent (%)
Male 45 48.9 48.9
Female 47 51.1 100.0
Total 92 100.0
Table 5, Demographic data of gender
The respondents’ age ranges from 19-23, of which the majorities are from 19-21.
Age Frequency Percent (%) Cumulative Percent (%)
19 20 21.7 21.7
20 33 35.9 57.6
21 26 28.3 85.9
22 9 9.8 95.7
23 4 4.3 100.0
Total 92 100.0
Table 6, Demographic data of age
5.2 Descriptive studies
In order to answer the third research question, descriptive analysis is required to get the
rank of each factor in input and output context. Moreover, the authors also ranked those
factors in different gender groups to discover whether there are differences between
male and female.
5.2.1 Marketing generated WOM (Input WOM)
Where do you get the most information…?
By comparing the means of different factors, the authors get the following rank of each
factor.
38
Male Female Overall
Rank of Factors Mean Rank of Factors Mean Rank of Factors Mean
Sales Persons 3.96 Sales Persons 3.98 Sales Persons 3.97
Interpersonal
Relationships
3.87 Interpersonal
Relationships
3.96 Interpersonal
Relationships
3.91
TBC Campaigns 3.71 TBC Campaigns 3.68 TBC Campaigns 3.70
Online Social Network 3.29 Online Social Network 3.28 Online Social Network 3.28
Internet Search 3.04 Internet Search 3.02 Internet Search 3.03
Official Organizations 2.98 Official Organizations 2.85 Official Organizations 2.91
Table 7, Importance level of channels in input WOM
The data has shown that customers get the most information about TBC from the sales
persons of Minami Fuji TBC while official organization is considered to be a relatively
unimportant source of information. The rank between male and female respondents is
the same as the overall rank.
How important are the following…?
Male Female Overall
Rank of Factors Mean Rank of Factors Mean Rank of Factors Mean
Teaching Content 4.53 Teaching Content 4.62 Teaching Content 4.58
Teaching Style 4.42 Cost Performance
Ratio
4.51 Cost Performance
Ratio 4.43
Cost Performance Ratio 4.36 Teaching Resource 4.47 Teaching Style 4.40
Price 4.09 Teaching Style 4.38 Teaching Resource 4.27
Teaching Resource 4.07 Teaching
Environment
4.09 Teaching
Environment 3.99
Teaching Environment 3.89 Price 3.85 Price 3.97
Service Cycle 3.82 Service Cycle 3.74 Service Cycle 3.78
Company Background 3.56 Company
Background
3.70 Company
Background 3.63
Table 8, Importance level of attributes in input WOM
As can be seen from Table 8, teaching content is considered to be the most important
factor while company background is the least important factor. However, all the
responses are above the neutral point 3, which indicates that all factors are in customers’
consideration when evaluating the TBC service. The rank of the factors in female group
is the same as the overall rank while price and teaching style are more important for
male respondents.
39
5.2.2 Customer generated WOM (Output WOM)
In order to verify the statement from the inductive study that most of the students will
spread the information about TBC, the authors have conducted frequencies analysis.
The result is shown below.
Frequency Percent (%) Cumulative Percent (%)
Yes 90 97.8 97.8
No 1 1.1 98.9
Not Sure 1 1.1 100.0
Total 92 100.0
Table 9, Frequency analysis
Thus it is true that most of the students will talk about TBC to others since 97.8% of the
respondents answered “yes”
Which channel in the following list…?
Male Female Overall
Rank of Factors Mean Rank of Factors Mean Rank of Factors Mean
Sales Persons 4.18 Interpersonal
Relationships
4.28 Interpersonal
Relationships
4.17
Interpersonal
Relationships
4.07 Sales Persons 4.00 Sales Persons 4.09
Online Social
Network
3.96 Online Social
Network
3.91 Online Social
Network
3.93
TBC Campaigns 3.78 TBC Campaigns 3.89 TBC Campaigns 3.84
Internet Search 3.64 Internet Search 3.62 Internet Search 3.63
Official
Organizations
3.47 Official
Organizations
3.51 Official
Organizations
3.49
Table 10, Importance level of channels in output WOM
Table 10 shows that customers are most likely to share their TBC experience through
interpersonal relationships while official organization is the last channel to be
considered. However, the male respondents tend to share the experience with sales
persons rather than their interpersonal relationships. While the case for female
respondents is opposite, females are more likely to share the experience to their
interpersonal relationships. The overall rank shows that interpersonal relationships are
the main channel to spread the customer generated word of mouth message.
40
How likely are you to talk about…?
Male Female Overall
Rank of Factors Mean Rank of Factors Mean Rank of Factors Mean
Teaching Content 4.29 Teaching Content 4.51 Teaching Content 4.40
Cost Performance
Ratio
4.20 Cost Performance
Ratio
4.34 Cost Performance
Ratio
4.27
Teaching Style 4.13 Teaching Style 4.21 Teaching Style 4.17
Teaching Resource 4.07 Teaching Resource 4.09 Teaching Resource 4.08
Price 3.82 Teaching
Environment
3.87 Teaching
Environment
3.83
Teaching
Environment
3.78 Price 3.81 Price 3.82
Service Cycle 3.53 Service Cycle 3.62 Service Cycle 3.58
Company
Background
3.42 Company
Background
3.47 Company
Background
3.45
Table 11, Importance level of attributes in output WOM
Referred to table 11, the overall rank of the likelihood to talk about specific TBC
service attribute is exactly the same as the overall rank of importance of each attribute
in input WOM. Moreover, all the means are above the neutral point three, which
indicates that all attributes have the possibility to be spoken. It is notable that price has a
higher rank in the male group while the rank of factors of female group remain the same
as the overall rank.
41
5.3 Hypotheses testing
In order to answer the fourth and fifth research question, and based on the pre-studies
from last chapter, the authors conducted hypothesis test by using correlation analysis.
5.3.1 Hypotheses regarding RQ4
The first three most important channels and attributes in input WOM are selected to
conduct the correlation analysis.
H1: There is a correlation between get the most information from sales persons
and give the feedback to sales persons.
Table 12, Spearman’s Rho Correlation analysis for H1
I get the most
information from
sales persons
I will give the
feedback to sales
persons
Spearman's rho I get the most information from sales
persons
Correlation Coefficient 1.000 .217*
Sig. (2-tailed) . .038
N 92 92
I will give the feedback to sales
persons
Correlation Coefficient .217* 1.000
Sig. (2-tailed) .038 .
N 92 92
*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).
The correlation analysis is significant, thus the null hypothesis is rejected and H1 is
accepted. The correlation coefficient indicates a positive and weak correlation between
these two variables.
H2: There is a correlation between get the most information from interpersonal
relationships and share the information through interpersonal relationships.
Table 13, Spearman's Rho Correlation analysis for H2
I get the most
information from my
friends, family
members,
classmates
I will share the
information with my
friends, family
members,
classmates
Spearman's rho I get the most information from my
friends, family members, classmates
Correlation Coefficient 1.000 .320**
Sig. (2-tailed) . .002
N 92 92
I will share the information with my
friends, family members, classmates
Correlation Coefficient .320** 1.000
Sig. (2-tailed) .002 .
N 92 92
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
42
There is a correlation between these two variables and the null hypothesis is rejected.
Thus accept H2.The strength of the correlation is weak according to the correlation
coefficient index that was developed by Cohen and Holliday (1982). These two
variables are positively correlated since the correlation coefficient is positive.
H3: There is a correlation between get the most information from TBC campaigns
and share the information through TBC campaigns.
Table 14, Spearman's Rho Correlation analysis for H3
I get the most
information from TBC
campaigns
I will share the
information through
TBC campaigns
Spearman's rho I get the most information from TBC
campaigns
Correlation Coefficient 1.000 .361**
Sig. (2-tailed) . .000
N 92 92
I will share the information through
TBC campaigns
Correlation Coefficient .361** 1.000
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .
N 92 92
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
The correlation is significant and the null hypothesis is rejected. Therefore, H3 is
accepted. The correlation coefficient has shown a positive and relatively weak
correlation between these two variables.
H4: There is a correlation between the importance of teaching content and the
likelihood to talk about teaching content.
Table 15, Spearman’s Rho Correlation analysis for H4
Importance-Teaching
content (course
content, lecture
notes, slides etc.)
Likelihood-Teaching
content (course
content, lecture
notes, slides etc.)
Spearman's rho Importance-Teaching content
(course content, lecture notes, slides
etc.)
Correlation Coefficient 1.000 .362**
Sig. (2-tailed) . .000
N 92 92
Likelihood-Teaching content (course
content, lecture notes, slides etc.)
Correlation Coefficient .362** 1.000
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .
N 92 92
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
The correlation analysis is significant and the null hypothesis is rejected. Thus, H4 is
accepted. The strength of the correlation is relatively weak and the direction is positive.
43
H5: There is a correlation between the importance of cost performance ratio and
the likelihood of talk about cost performance ratio.
Table 16, Spearman’s Rho Correlation analysis for H5
Importance-Cost
performance ratio
Likelihood-Cost
performance ratio
Spearman's rho Importance-Cost performance ratio Correlation Coefficient 1.000 .448**
Sig. (2-tailed) . .000
N 92 92
Likelihood-Cost performance ratio Correlation Coefficient .448** 1.000
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .
N 92 92
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
The correlation analysis is significant. Thus the null hypothesis is rejected and H5 is
accepted. The correlation coefficient indicates that the correlation is positive and modest
H6: There is a correlation between the importance of teaching style and the
likelihood to talk about teaching style.
Table 17, Spearman’s Rho Correlation analysis for H6
Importance-Teaching
style (interactive
teaching, small class
teaching, etc.)
Likelihood-Teaching
style (interactive
teaching, small class
teaching, etc.)
Spearman's rho Importance-Teaching style
(interactive teaching, small class
teaching, etc.)
Correlation Coefficient 1.000 .517**
Sig. (2-tailed) . .000
N 92 92
Likelihood-Teaching style (interactive
teaching, small class teaching, etc.)
Correlation Coefficient .517** 1.000
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .
N 92 92
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
The correlation analysis is significant, therefore null hypothesis is rejected and H6 is
accepted. The correlation coefficient has shown that the correlation is positive and
modest.
5.3.2 Hypotheses regarding RQ5
In order to answer RQ5, the authors need to conduct descriptive analysis first to get the
rank of the satisfaction level of each factor. Then the hypothesis test will be performed.
44
How satisfied are you…?
Male Female Overall
Rank of Factors Mean Rank of Factors Mean Rank of Factors Mean
Teaching Content 4.36 Teaching Content 4.57 Teaching Content 4.47
Teaching Style 4.33 Teaching Style 4.34 Teaching Style 4.34
Teaching Resource 4.27 Teaching Resource 4.30 Teaching Resource 4.28
Teaching
Environment
4.07 Teaching
Environment
4.06 Teaching
Environment
4.07
Cost Performance
Ratio
4.00 Cost Performance
Ratio
4.04 Cost Performance
Ratio
4.02
Service Cycle 3.96 Service Cycle 3.98 Service Cycle 3.97
Price 3.78 Company
Background
3.89 Company
Background
3.82
Company
Background
3.73 Price 3.79 Price 3.78
Table 18, satisfaction level of customers
The most satisfied factor is teaching content while price is the most dissatisfied factor.
H7: There is a correlation between the satisfaction level of teaching content and
the likelihood to talk about teaching content.
Table 19, Spearman’s Rho Correlation analysis for H7
Satisfaction-
Teaching content
(course content,
lecture notes, slides
etc.)
Likelihood-Teaching
content (course
content, lecture
notes, slides etc.)
Spearman's rho Satisfaction-Teaching content
(course content, lecture notes, slides
etc.)
Correlation Coefficient 1.000 .325**
Sig. (2-tailed) . .002
N 92 92
Likelihood-Teaching content (course
content, lecture notes, slides etc.)
Correlation Coefficient .325** 1.000
Sig. (2-tailed) .002 .
N 92 92
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
The correlation analysis is significant. Thus the null hypothesis is rejected and H7 is
accepted. The correlation coefficient indicates that the correlation is positive and weak.
45
H8: There is a correlation between the satisfaction level of teaching style and the
likelihood to talk about teaching style.
Table 20, Spearman’s Rho Correlation analysis for H8
Satisfaction-
Teaching style
(interactive teaching,
small class teaching,
etc.)
Likelihood-Teaching
style (interactive
teaching, small class
teaching, etc.)
Spearman's rho Satisfaction-Teaching style
(interactive teaching, small class
teaching, etc.)
Correlation Coefficient 1.000 .345**
Sig. (2-tailed) . .001
N 92 92
Likelihood-Teaching style (interactive
teaching, small class teaching, etc.)
Correlation Coefficient .345** 1.000
Sig. (2-tailed) .001 .
N 92 92
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
The correlation analysis is significant. Thus the null hypothesis is rejected and H8 is
accepted. The correlation coefficient indicates that the correlation is positive and weak.
Table 21, Spearman’s Rho Correlation analysis for H9
H9: There is a correlation between the satisfaction level of teaching resource and
the likelihood to talk about teaching resource.
Satisfaction-
Teaching resource
(teachers, facilities,
text books etc.)
Likelihood-Teaching
resource (teachers,
teaching assistants
etc.)
Spearman's rho Satisfaction-Teaching resource
(teachers, facilities, text books etc.)
Correlation Coefficient 1.000 .344**
Sig. (2-tailed) . .001
N 92 92
Likelihood-Teaching resource
(teachers, teaching assistants etc.)
Correlation Coefficient .344** 1.000
Sig. (2-tailed) .001 .
N 92 92
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
The correlation analysis is significant. Therefore the null hypothesis is rejected and H9
is accepted. The correlation coefficient indicates that the correlation is positive and
weak.
46
6 Qualitative data analysis
Based on the six interviews, the authors have selected the related information and
written in the chapter of empirical findings from qualitative studies. In this chapter, the
authors will discuss the qualitative empirical findings by means of the structure of
literature review chapter. Therefore, the authors are able to answer the first and second
research questions.
6.1Analysis regarding research question one
As mentioned in the problem discussion part, there exist several problems in Chinese
education and training service industry, such as misleading marketing promotions, fake
promises and vicious competition with other companies. In the case study of this thesis,
the authors found that education should be regarded as the core value of entrepreneurial
business within this industry. And thus business can be developed with the foundation
of high quality education. However, it requires the entrepreneur to make a balance
between education and business in this industry.
The authors obtained from the case study that WOM marketing is not an independent
marketing strategy or tactic, however it depends on the involvement of the whole
organization. Furthermore, WOM effect is the outcome of integrated marketing
communications. The authors have figured out through which means the company
conduct and develop WOM marketing: based on the internal and external information
management, the company should have an integrated marketing communication
approach to WOM marketing. In order to make the readers better understand, the
authors drew the figure 17 below to make this process more clear.
Figure 16, How entrepreneurial business conduct WOM marketing
Figure 16 shows the combination of empirical findings and “The Organic Inter-
consumer Influence Model”. This model demonstrates the communication between
consumers without interferences from marketers (Robert, et al., 2010). Within the
chapter of empirical findings, the authors discovered that Minami Fuji TBC has not
reached the viral/network WOM marketing. Hence in this thesis, the authors mainly
focus on the organic process to conduct and develop WOM marketing.
6.1.1 Analysis of internal information management
As mentioned in the empirical findings from qualitative studies chapter, the authors
found that the process of internal information flow is not effective. Since most of the
47
ideas, teaching plans, marketing campaigns and brand building methods are directly
transmitted from the Marketing department to Director. Several problems arose such as
low quality of information, incongruent support level among staff in other two
departments, and lack of execution among staff. According to the “communication
process model” (1997, Cited in Kenneth & Donald, 2010), communication is a process
of transmitting, receiving and processing information, a channel or medium between
sender and receiver is required to facilitate this process. Related to the case company,
the “sender” refers to the Marketing department and the “receiver” implies to the
Director. However, there is no appropriate medium between the senior and middle
management levels. Of which the authors assumed as the key reason of ineffective
internal information flow among the company. This will result in the negative influence
on the engagement of the whole organization. However, as Picton and Hartley argued,
this kind of engagement is required to implement a successful integrated marketing
communication program (Picton & Hartley, 1998).
In order to solve this problem, a new department as a controller between the senior and
middle management levels is required. That is the first step of the figure above, namely
Internal Information Management. By means of this management process, the senior
executive will have discussions with the new department to decide the Integrated
Marketing Communication messages. Furthermore, the new department has to
communicate with the middle-level managers in order to gain unanimous approval
among the whole organization. Following the first step, the company is able to deliver a
unified and approved message through Integrated Marketing Communications.
6.1.2 Analysis of integrated marketing communications
According to Hutton(1996), the Integrated Marketing Communication is the integration
and coordination of various marketing communication tools(Hutton,1996). In terms of
traditional view, advertising, personal selling and sales promotions are the key
marketing communication tools(Kotler, 2003). For the case in this thesis, the company
mainly used advertising and personal selling. In addition, the company also used public
relation and E-active marketing that are relatively new promotional efforts in integrated
marketing communication program (Kenneth & Donald, 2010). Based on this, the
authors have obtained a new finding that every effective IMC program requires an
appropriate promotional theme. So that the marketing communications are able to better
communicate with customers. Within the case, Minami Fuji TBC has chosen the
promotional themes for the first half year of 2012, which is called “TBC: grow together
with you”.
Moreover, marketers should take the advantage of one channel’s strength to make a
balance between this and other channels that have weaknesses (Kitchen & Schultz,
1999). Moreover, the authors suggest that the company in education and training service
industry should emphasize the interaction with customers, and to invite them to
experience the service. Hence the customer engagement can be improved. In order to
achieve the interaction with customers, several marketing communications were utilized
such as public relations and social marketing. Among which, the traditional advertising
communications serve the secondary role to support sales force and a firm’s public
relation activities.
From the case study, the authors concluded that an IMC program is more than just
promotions and advertising tactics, it also needs the cooperation from all organization
48
members to convey a unified message. This reflects the comprehensive view of IMC by
Picton and Hartley(1998) that some other dimensions of integration such as intra-
organization and inter-organization should be taken into account(Picton &
Hartley,1998).
In order to reach the expected customers, there are four kinds of unique sources that
can be sent by the company: planned messages, unplanned messages, product messages
and service messages (Duncan & Moriarty). Related to the Integrated Marketing
Communication triangle (Grönroos & Lindberg-Repo, 1998) , planned messages refer
to ‘what the firm says’ by means of advertising and other promotions. And service
messages in this case denote ‘what the firm does’ in terms of the teaching quality,
teaching style and teaching content. However, from the case study, the authors
concluded that ‘what the firm does’ is even more significant than ‘what the firm says’
within the education and training service industry. As Silverman(2001) argued that
marketing communications such as advertising are complemented by the word of mouth
among customers (Silverman, 2001). WOM is the unplanned messages that imply ‘what
others say and do’. According to the qualitative studies, there are few unplanned
messages of Minami Fuji TBC in its target market. Since it is an entrepreneurial
business in Chinese education and training industry, Minami Fuji TBC intends to
control the future unplanned messages by developing positive and unified planned
messages paired with superior service. To achieve this purpose, the external information
management should be applied.
6.1.3 Analysis of external information management
Apart from the Internal Information Management, the company also owns an External
Information Management center. Among which, the function is to integrate the inflow
and outflows of information from different marketing communication channels.
Particularly, the information management center collects, controls, encodes and sends
the clear and unified messages through different marketing communication channels.
The traditional view of marketing has changed somewhat because of the outburst of
information advances. Therefore some newly emerged marketing communication
channels such as social network allow customers to talk about the brand and share their
user experience no matter what the place and time (Kenneth & Donald,2010). Hence it
is significant for the company to collect, process and deliver the real-time information to
the customers. Thus for every single marketing communication channel, it requires
specific branches of Information Management Center. In this case Minami Fuji TBC,
these branches refer to IMC V1.1, V1.2, and V1.3, which can be seen clearly on Figure
12.
6.1.4 Analysis of word of mouth marketing
From the qualitative studies, the authors confirmed that word of mouth marketing
played a significant role in both entrepreneurial business and education and training
service industry. According to the ‘WOM model’ developed by Robert (2010), there
are three models of WOM marketing: ‘The organic inter-consumer influence model’,
‘The linear marketer influence model’ and ‘the network coproduction model’ (Robert, et
al., 2010). As can be seen clearly from figure 16, the case company Minami Fuji TBC
intends to send the unified marketing generated WOM messages to customers through
integrated marketing communications. Then, customers are expected to share these
49
messages to others by means of customer generated WOM. The authors compared this
process with the three WOM models and found that the WOM marketing of Minami
Fuji TBC is still in the organic inter-consumer influence stage, since there are
communications between consumers without interferences from marketers. Moreover,
based on the interviews with both the Marketing Manager and Director, Minami Fuji
TBC has not sought any opinion leader to influence the customer generated WOM.
Regarding the network coproduction model, consumers form their own networks and it
allows marketers to directly target and influence the large amount of consumers.
However, through the thorough observations by the authors, it is evident to conclude
that there still have great potential for Minami Fuji TBC to reach the network
coproduction WOM model. Since few mature consumer networks or communities were
discovered within the current market.
Even though the case company Minami Fuji TBC has developed superior approaches to
achieve the effective WOM marketing, it is still essential for the company to virally
spread the WOM messages and possess its own customer community. Therefore, the
authors aim to further investigate the reason why Minami Fuji TBC has not reached
viral marketing or built its customer community. According to the empirical findings,
Minami Fuji TBC has dedicated most of its resources to develop high quality education.
In addition, as the marketing manager claimed that “majority of the customers are
satisfied with our courses and services”. Therefore the authors deem that the factor that
keeps WOM marketing of Minami Fuji TBC in the organic inter-consumer influence
stage is due to its satisfactory service and education. The service message is worthwhile
for the target customers to talk about it with others voluntarily. Since the principal basis
for the network coproduction model is the invention of internet. The authors assumed
that Minami Fuji TBC did not take full advantage of the emerging marketing
communication channels such as E-active marketing. Therefore the company has not
achieved the network or viral marketing. This will be further analyzed in the
quantitative data analysis chapter.
6.2 Analysis regarding research question two
In order to answer the research question two, the authors aim to figure out the factors
that influence the power of WOM on consumer decision making process. In the
empirical findings from qualitative studies chapter, detailed information was given to
describe the marketing generated WOM at problem recognition stage. The effectiveness
of WOM marketing highly relies on its performance during other three stages: search
for alternative solutions, evaluation of alternatives and post-purchase evaluation.
Therefore, the authors will mainly focus on these three stages.
6.2.1 WOM at search for alternative solutions stage
According to David and Wendy (2002), “word of mouth can also be defined in terms of
direction, valence and volume” (David & Wendy, 2002, pp. 349-357). Indeed, the
direction of word of mouth can be shown as the messages or information input into the
customer decision-making process (Bone, 1995). Referred to the communication
process, appropriate channels are needed for customers to search these information and
messages. From the qualitative studies, the authors summarized six main channels for
customers to obtain relevant information regarding Minami Fuji TBC. These six
channels and their descriptions can be seen from table 3.
50
At search for alternative solutions stage, WOM recommendations as input into purchase
decisions. And customers seek recommendation to reduce their perception of risk(1967,
cited in Justin & Paul, 2006). Since service cannot be experienced in a tangible
way( (Grönroos, 2007), paired with the chaos and immature status of Chinese education
and training service industry, the perceived risk of customers in this market is fairly
high. Therefore, the customers are even more desired to seek WOM information to
reduce the perceived risk through six channels mentioned above.
6.2.2 WOM at evaluation of alternatives stage
The attributes of service are the main factors that influence the effectiveness of WOM
marketing at this stage. In terms of the case company, there are eight attributes of TBC
service, as can be seen from the table 4. These eight attributes are fairly significant for
customers to evaluate the TBC service. Therefore, customers intend to seek information
related to these eight attributes. However, in the perspective of target customers, the
importance level for the attributes of TBC service varies from each other. In order to
gain the importance level of these attributes, the authors will have further quantitative
data analysis.
6.2.3 WOM at post-purchase evaluation stage
Input WOM, is occurred at pre-purchase stage. While output WOM, is part of post-
purchase behavior, should be carefully examined by the marketer (David & Wendy,
2002). Both the channels and attributes have an influence on customer’s output WOM.
Customers prefer to choose the most desirable channels to talk about specific attributes.
As David and Wendy suggested in their research, entrepreneurs should examine the
relationship between input and output WOM, looking for potential dissonance. The
authors will investigate the relationship between input and output WOM of Minami Fuji
TBC through quantitative analysis. As mentioned in problem discussion part, the
positive WOM power was not strong enough to influence the customer decision-making
process. The authors assume that this is due to some dissonances between input and
output WOM. It will be further analyzed in the next chapter.
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7 Quantitative data analysis
In this chapter, the authors aim to analyze the quantitative data gathered through the
questionnaires. The structure of this chapter is based on the ‘Input and output WOM
model’.
The aim of this quantitative analysis is to answer the last three research questions (i.e.
RQ3, RQ4, and RQ5). Moreover, this section will also test the hypotheses that were
raised in inductive studies. Based on the demographic data, the authors find it
interesting to investigate the differences between male and female customers since the
number of female customers are slightly more than male customers.
7.1 Marketing generated WOM (Input WOM) analysis
7.1.1 Search for alternative solutions stage (where do you get the most
information…?)
According to the ranking table 6 in the empirical findings from quantitative studies
section, personal selling is considered to be the most critical channel to get the
information of TBC service. However official organizations ranked last with a mean
lower than the neutral point, thus it shows that students in China do not rely on official
organizations such as student community to obtain the relative information.
The ranking table 6 also revealed that personal selling serves the most significant role in
the Integrated Marketing Communication program of Minami Fuji TBC. With the
support of advertising, public relation activities become the second most important
channel in IMC program while E-active marketing (Online social network and Search
Engine Optimization ) is a relatively weak force in conveying the messages. As the
authors mentioned in the frame of reference chapter, the traditional view of marketing
has been changed due to the explosion of massive information and the advances of
information technologies. Nevertheless, in this case Minami Fuji TBC did not pay much
attention to such emerging marketing communication channels since the data has shown
that traditional marketing communication channels are still in the dominate positions.
Based on the model of IMC triangle (Grönroos, 2007, p. 306), the authors observed that
besides “what the firm says”, “what others says” is also an extremely effective means to
convey the messages since the mean of “I get the most information from my
interpersonal relationships” rank only second to personal selling.
7.1.2 Evaluation of alternatives stage (How important are the following…?)
The ranking table 7 shows that teaching content is the most important attributes for
students to evaluate the TBC service while company background is the least important
attribute. However all attributes are considered to be important to consumers since the
means of those attributes are all above the neutral point.
From the ranking table 7, the authors observed that the first five most important
attributes are all related to teaching and customer values. Moreover, the mean of these
five attributes are all above four which indicates very important for consumers when
evaluating the TBC service. Hence, it is significant that “what the firm does” are the
main evaluation criteria during consumer evaluation process. Price is another critical
attribute since the mean is very close to four which is the very important level.
52
Therefore students are sensitive to the price of the service, because the main problem of
students as customers is the scarce financial resources (Ness, et al., 2002).
The ranking of the importance level of TBC service attributes is quite different between
male and female consumers. Male consumers tend to rate price higher than female
consumers and cost performance ratio is rated lower than female consumers. Moreover,
male consumers treat teaching style more important than female consumers does. Based
on William and Robert (1995), males are selective processors and tend to use highly
available cues while females are comprehensive processors and tend to consider all
available cues. According to the data that the authors have collected, it is obvious that
price is highly available information for male consumers to consider and only two of the
teaching related attributes are considered to be more important than price. However
female consumers conducted a comprehensive evaluation regarding all teaching related
attributes, thus the rating of cost performance ratio is higher than male consumers and
the rating of price is relatively lower. It is noticeable that teaching content is considered
to be the most critical attribute by both male and female consumers.
7.2 Customer generated WOM (Output WOM) analysis
From the frequency table 8, it is evident that nearly all the existing customers will
volunteer to discuss the TBC service to others like the marketing manager Mr. Dong
said. This is the foundation of the effective WOM marketing.
7.2.1 Search for alternative solutions stage (Which channel in the following
list..?)
According to the ranking table 9, the targets of output WOM are most likely to be
customers’ interpersonal relationships and sales persons, which are also the two most
important sources of input WOM. However, online social network becomes a more
important channel in output WOM than TBC campaigns. This means that students are
more likely to use this kind of newly emerged communication channels to share their
experiences while potential customers obtain less information from online social
network than TBC campaigns in input WOM. It has shown that most information
available on online social network is customer generated WOM messages. Therefore,
the result is in line with the previous analysis of marketing generated WOM that
Minami Fuji TBC did not take full advantage of the emerging marketing
communication channels. Furthermore, the official organizations are still the last
channel to be considered by students to spread and share the experiences. This also
implicates that university students in China are not desire to rely on official
organizations.
7.2.2 Evaluation of alternatives stage (How likely are you to talk about…?)
In terms of the content of the WOM, the ranking of output WOM information is
identical with the ranking of attributes in evaluating the TBC service. This result
indicates that the more important the attribute is the more likely that customer will talk
about it to others. Therefore, it reveals that the WOM marketing at evaluation of
alternatives stage is more effective than the search for alternatives stage. In terms of
specific gender rankings, the ranking by females is identical with the overall ranking
while price is rated higher by male consumers. As the authors analyzed previously price
53
is more important for male customers, thus it is more likely for male customers to talk
about price to others, which prove the effectiveness of WOM marketing at this stage.
7.2.3 Post-purchase evaluation stage (How satisfied are you…?)
It is noticeable that the means of satisfaction regarding the attributes are all above
neutral point, which proves what Mr. Dong said in the interview “Based on the previous
feedbacks, majority of the students are satisfied with our courses and services”.
Although it appeared to be a superficial positive response from customers, there still are
potential problems and risks of the business. The authors found that the satisfaction
level of all teaching related attributes are ranked higher while price ranked the last.
Because cost performance ratio contains both value and price, the lowest rank of price
causes the lower rank of cost performance ratio. Thus for TBC service, price is the main
factor that influences the cost performance ratio. The result indicates a potential risk that
some customers may feel it not worthy to purchase the service due to the low cost
performance ratio. Based on the analysis, the authors suggest that for excellent service,
cost performance ratio should be treated by customers as the most satisfied attribute.
7.3 Correlation analysis
In order to answer the RQ4, the authors have selected the first three most significant
channels and attributes based on the empirical findings section to construct appropriate
hypotheses. Then correlation analysis has been used to test those hypotheses and the
result shows that the importance level of the first three most significant channels and
attributes has correlation in input and output WOM.
As the authors mentioned in the frame of reference section, former researchers have
suggested examining the relationship between WOM information as input into purchase
decisions and WOM output during post-purchase stage (David & Wendy, 2002). This is
also the aim of the correlation analysis in this thesis. The reason that the authors have
chosen the first three most significant channels and attributes in input WOM is to
enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the research. Specifically, those attributes
and channels are the most influential factors in customer decision making process.
Therefore the authors aim to examine the relationship between those most influential
factors in input and output WOM.
7.3.1 Analysis of the most influential channels in input and output WOM
H1 (There is a correlation between get the most information from sales persons and give
the feedback to sales persons) has been accepted. However the correlation is relatively
weak since the correlation coefficient is very small. Based on the ranking table 6 of
input WOM, sales persons is the main source of incoming information to potential
customers, whereas the weak correlation means that not as much information as in the
input WOM will be given back to the sales persons. This can be also reflected in the
ranking table 9 of output WOM since the sales persons ranked second place instead of
the first in input WOM.
H2 (There is a correlation between get the most information from interpersonal
relationships and share the information through interpersonal relationships) has also
been accepted. Although the correlation exists, the strength is very weak. It means that
the input and output WOM from interpersonal relationships have very limited influence
on each other. According to the ranking table 10, students tend to share their
54
experiences mostly through friends, family members and classmates. Based on the
analysis above, the authors conclude that no matter how much information were
acquired from customers’ interpersonal relationships, students still treat friends, family
members and classmates as their main target of output WOM.
H3 (There is a correlation between get the most information from TBC campaigns and
share the information through TBC campaigns) has been accepted. The authors have
observed that the strength of the correlation is the strongest among these three most
significant channels in input WOM. The result shows that the more information students
acquired from TBC promotional activities the more likely they are to involve in such
activities after they have purchased the service. As the authors mentioned in inductive
studies, the engagement of existing customers serve a vital role in the process of WOM
marketing. In conclusion, both qualitative and quantitative analysis indicates that
Minami Fuji TBC has developed superior traditional marketing communications such as
public relation activities.
7.3.2 Analysis of the most influential attributes in input and output WOM
H4 (There is a correlation between the importance of teaching content and the
likelihood to talk about teaching content) has been accepted. The correlation strength is
relatively weak. However, teaching content ranked first in importance level ranking in
both input and output WOM. This means that although the teaching content is
considered to be the most important factor before purchase and will be recommended to
others first after purchase, there is no necessary relationship exists between the input
and output WOM regarding teaching content. The authors believe that teaching content
is the most essential factor in education and training service industry regardless of other
factors’ influences.
H5 (There is a correlation between the importance of cost performance ratio and the
likelihood of talk about cost performance ratio) has been accepted. The authors
observed that the strength of this correlation is the first one shows the modest result so
far. The ranks of cost performance ratio in both input and output WOM are the second
next to teaching content. The relatively high strength of correlation further indicates that
cost performance ratio is a crucial factor that influences the effectiveness of WOM
marketing. The authors suggest that entrepreneurial business in education and training
service industry should focus on the cost performance ratio since it contains
comprehensive information regarding both value and price.
H6 (There is a correlation between the importance of teaching style and the likelihood
to talk about teaching style.) has been accepted. Even though the ranks of teaching style
in both input and output WOM are lower than teaching content and cost performance
ratio, the authors found that the strength of this correlation is the highest one among all
others. The authors deem that the information of teaching style such as small class and
simulation game are much easier to communicate with others compared to teaching
content and cost performance ratio. Furthermore as mentioned in the case background
part, teaching style reflects the uniqueness of the teaching philosophy of Minami Fuji
TBC, which is interactive teaching. Hence this attribute is worthy for customers to share
with others.
55
7.3.3 Analysis of satisfaction of attributes and output WOM
The RQ5 can be answered by H7 (There is a correlation between the satisfaction level
of teaching content and the likelihood to talk about teaching content), H8 (There is a
correlation between the satisfaction level of teaching style and the likelihood to talk
about teaching style) and H9 (There is a correlation between the satisfaction level of
teaching resource and the likelihood to talk about teaching resource) that there is a
correlation between the first three most satisfied attributes and customers’ output WOM.
The result assured that the output WOM by existing customers are all positive. Since the
strengths of all three correlations are relatively weak, there is not necessarily a
relationship between the satisfaction level and the output WOM. To conclude, the
output WOM by customers is not solely determined by the importance level or
satisfaction level of the attribute. There might be other factors influencing the customers’
output WOM.
56
8 Conclusion
In this chapter, the authors will present the conclusions from both qualitative and
quantitative analyses and answer the five research questions.
According to the case study in the thesis, the authors confirmed that WOM marketing
plays a significant role not only in entrepreneurial business, but also in educational and
training service industry. However, from the previous studies, there are quite few
researches about WOM marketing in educational and training service industry for
entrepreneurial business. Furthermore , the previous literature implies that WOM is an
independent marketing strategy or tactic and was even regarded as an uncontrollable
form of marketing. In this thesis, the authors found that WOM is the outcome of the
integrated marketing communications that rely on the engagements of the entire
organization. At this conclusion chapter, the authors intend to answer the five research
questions based on the qualitative and quantitative analysis.
Research Question 1: How does entrepreneurial business apply and develop WOM
marketing within the Education and Training Service Industry in China?
The authors found that education is regarded as the core value of the entrepreneurial
business. However, entrepreneurs have to make a balance between education and
business within this particular industry. On the foundation above, based on the internal
and external information management, the company is having an integrated marketing
communication approach to WOM marketing. Furthermore, in the case study in this
thesis, ‘what the firm does’, such as teaching quality, teaching style and teaching
content, is even more significant than ‘what the firm says’ by means of advertising and
other promotions for IMC program.
Research Question 2: What are the factors that influence the power of WOM on
consumer decision making process for the case in this thesis?
In the Chinese education and training service industry, the power of WOM on customer
decision making process is mainly influenced by channels and service attributes. In the
case study, during the search stage for alternative solutions, the university students in
China used the following six channels to obtain and deliver service information and
WOM messages: interpersonal relationships, official organizations, social networks,
online search engines, marketing promotion of the service and staff of the company.
Furthermore, during the evaluation of the alternative stage, university students desire to
seek information of the key attributes to evaluate the service of the company. The
authors summarized eight service attributes within the case study as follows: company
background, teaching resources, teaching environment, teaching style, teaching contents,
service cycle, price and cost benefit ratio.
Research Question 3: What are the importance levels of each factor that are
summarized from RQ2 in input and output WOM context?
Regarding the case study in this thesis, the results have shown that in input WOM
customers obtain the most information about TBC service from sales persons and
teaching content is considered to be the most important attribute of TBC service.
However, official organizations are the most insignificant source of information for
students and company background is the least important factor to consider during the
customer evaluation stage. In output WOM, customers are most likely to talk about the
57
teaching content of TBC service to their friends, family members and classmates.
However, students seldom talk about company background to others and official
organizations are regarded to be the most unfavorable channel to share their experiences.
Research Question 4: Whether there is a correlation between the importance levels of
the first three most significant channels and attributes in input and output WOM.
According to the answer of RQ3, the first three most important channels are “sales
persons”, “friends, family members, classmates” and “TBC campaigns”. And the first
three most important attributes are “teaching content”, “teaching style” and “cost
performance ratio”. From which, there is a correlation of the importance levels of those
three channels and three attributes in input and output WOM context.
Research Question 5: Whether there is a correlation between the first three most
satisfied attributes and customers’ output WOM.
The first three most satisfied attributes are “teaching content”, “teaching style” and
“teaching resource”. The analysis indicates that the satisfaction level of these three
attributes above correlates to customer’s output WOM.
58
9 Discussion and implications
In this thesis, the authors have collected and analyzed both qualitative and quantitative
data to fulfill the exploratory and descriptive purposes. Majority of the findings of
exploratory studies can be further implicated for the businesses within education and
training service industry. However, descriptive study findings are not as straightforward
as exploratory study findings. Therefore the authors will further discuss the result from
quantitative data analysis (chapter 7) in order to achieve comprehensive implications for
both the case company and the industry.
9.1 Descriptive studies regarding the industry
From students’ perspective, the result shows that university students in China seldom
rely on official organizations when seeking for information. Moreover, university
students in China are price sensitive to the services in education and training industry,
especially for male students. However, this phenomenon is less significant on female
students since they process the information more comprehensive than male students
does. After the students have purchased and experienced the services in this industry,
majority of the students tend to talk about the services to their friends, family members,
classmates and other interpersonal relationships.
From company’s perspective, the quality of the service is the main evaluation criteria
for students in education and training industry. Hence, it is essential for the company to
develop superior services before doing massive marketing promotions. Teaching
content is considered by students as one of the major reflections of the service quality.
Besides the service quality, price is another significant factor that influences the
effectiveness of WOM marketing, especially for entrepreneurial businesses. For
excellent services, cost performance ratio should be regarded as the most satisfied
attribute by customers.
9.2 Descriptive studies regarding the case company
As the authors discussed in the exploratory section, the core value of the case company
Minami Fuji TBC is educating people and the company have spent six years to improve
the education quality. Hence, the company has developed substantial teaching content,
superior teaching resource and unique teaching style. This result can be also reflected in
the quantitative data since all teaching related attributes are highly satisfied by
customers. Moreover, the data shows that the more important the attribute is the more
likely that customer will talk about it. Based on this finding, the authors have concluded
that WOM marketing of Minami Fuji TBC is effective at evaluation of alternatives
stage. However, this kind of WOM marketing is the simplest among all three WOM
marketing models mentioned by Robert (2010) which is called the organic inter-
consumer influence model. Although this is the simplest WOM marketing model, it is
the foundation for the company to develop into network/viral WOM marketing.
According to the quantitative data analysis, Minami Fuji TBC mainly rely on the
traditional marketing communication channels such as personal selling and TBC
campaigns to conduct integrated marketing communications. However, the emerging
promotional efforts such as E-active marketing have not been fully developed. The data
also reflected such fact since customers treat online social network as an essential
channel to share their experiences while they obtain very few useful information from
59
online social network and other online platforms. Furthermore, based on “The Network
Coproduction Model” (Robert, et al., 2010), Internet is the most significant channel for
company to target and influence the consumer. Thus, this is the reason that why Minami
Fuji TBC has not reached viral marketing. In conclusion, the company’s WOM
marketing is more effective at evaluation of alternatives stage than search for
alternatives stage. Because the company is still in the situation of organic WOM
marketing that customer spread the messages without interferences from marketers.
The authors suggest that Minami Fuji TBC should dedicate to develop and improve
online marketing in order to better interact with potential and existing customers .
Furthermore, the authors deem that it is necessary for Minami Fuji TBC to establish an
online social community for students to involve in its brand building process. On this
basis, there is a potential opportunity for the company to further develop the organic
WOM marketing into viral/network WOM marketing.
9.3 Further research suggestions
In this thesis, the authors have used single case study to investigate the case company
and the whole industry. However, single case study may not be representative and more
cases in the same industry are needed to be studied in order to make comparison to draw
a comprehensive conclusion. Moreover, the time horizon of this thesis is cross-sectional
due to the time constraint. Therefore, the authors are not able to observe the actual
execution and effectiveness of the company’s WOM marketing along with time. For
further researches, a longitudinal study is required to capture such changes.
The exploratory studies of this thesis have drawn the process for the company to
conduct WOM marketing in education and training service industry. Nevertheless, the
authors are not able to generalize this process into other companies within the same
industry. In order to compensate this limitation, it is necessary to study other companies’
WOM marketing process to find similarities and differences.
From the customer’s perspective, the authors only studied product attributes at the
evaluation of alternatives stage while other factors such as product benefits and product
value may also have influence on the customers’ decision making process. Thus,
researches regarding product benefits and product value such as laddering and ZMET
(the Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique) are needed to further explore their effects
on customers’ decision making process.
According to the quantitative analysis of this thesis, customers’ output WOM is not
solely determined by the importance level or satisfaction level of the attribute. It is
necessary to conduct specific researches to explore other factors that may have impact
on the customers’ output WOM.
60
10 Reflections on the writing process
What has each individual student contributed?
We three were working together since the first year of our bachelor study. Therefore we
are familiar with each other’s working style. At the early stage of the thesis writing, we
have decided to divide the research and writing work according to each other’s
specialties. The specific contributions of each individual are as follows:
Wei Gong- a part of Method (including data collections and quantitative data analysis),
a part of Frame of Reference (including word of mouth, consumer decision making
process and gender differences in information processing strategies), Empirical
Findings from Quantitative Studies section, Quantitative Data Analysis section and
Discussion and Implications section. Wei Gong is mainly responsible for the
quantitative studies of the thesis.
Yidi Zhu- introduction section, a part of Method (including research purpose, research
approaches, research strategy, research methods choices and research credibility), a part
of Frame of Reference (including service marketing, entrepreneurial marketing and
education and training industry in China), a part of Empirical Findings from Qualitative
Studies (including marketing communications of Minami Fuji TBC) and Qualitative
Data Analysis section. Yidi Zhu is mainly responsible for the qualitative studies of the
thesis, language correction and text format modification.
Qian Wei- a part of Method (including qualitative data analysis and time horizon), a
part of Frame of Reference (including marketing communication), a part of Empirical
Findings from Qualitative studies (including case background and introduction, word of
mouth marketing of Minami Fuji TBC) and conclusion section. Qian Wei is responsible
for the qualitative studies and the coordination of the entire thesis working process. He
not only wrote the parts that he was assigned to, but also involved in the writing of other
sections. It is because he has unique knowledge of the case company from his previous
internship experience in Minami Fuji TBC.
What was the time plan of the thesis work?
We started to think and construct the basic idea of our thesis in December 2011. As you
can see from appendix 2, we have developed our first draft in early January and
literature review work has also been started in January. Due to the physical limitations
between Sweden and China, we started our data collection work at the beginning of
February and it lasts for almost two months until late March. Afterwards we were
conducting data analysis and working on the conclusion/discussion part until May.
Overall, we have spent 6 months working on the thesis.
What difficulties have been occurred?
The main difficulty is the data collection due to the physical limitations between
Sweden and China. Our questionnaires have to be translated into Chinese and printed
out in paper format. In order to collect the raw data and input into the SPSS software for
further analysis, Wei Gong went back to China for a month to finish the work.
61
What have we learned?
Throughout the writing process of our thesis, we have learned how to conduct both
qualitative and quantitative researches. Furthermore, we understood the connection
between qualitative and quantitative studies and how to combine these two kinds of
research methods to draw conclusions.
Seminars with our tutor and other thesis group members are also helpful for us to
improve the quality of the thesis. Feedbacks and suggestions from tutor and other thesis
group members helped us to review and modify the ongoing thesis work.
Overall, we also noticed that efficient time plan is crucial for the thesis work since not
everything will work out the way it supposed to be. In our case, the data collection
period was very long and we have to tackle with this difficulty in order to finish the
thesis in time.
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Appendix
67
Appendix
1. Research design
Appendix
68
2. Time Plan
Appendix
69
3. Semi-structured interviews
1.1 Interviews with Mr. Xu:
Position: Director of Minami Fuji TBC
First interview with Mr. Xu:
Date: Saturday, February 25th
2012
Objective: To introduce this thesis, to obtain specific information regarding the
organizational structure of Minami Fuji TBC.
Semi-structured interview questions:
1. Could you tell me something about yourself? What is your name? What is your
position in Minami Fuji TBC?
2. How long have you worked for this company?
3. What are your duties in your job?
4. As the Director of Minami Fuji TBC, are you the first one that introduced the
business idea of TBC? What is your attitude toward this project after you have
joined Minami Fuji TBC? Positive, negative or merely trying? Have you changed
your attitude at present?
5. What is your aim to operate this program? Is it for commercial or education? Which
one is more important?
6. How can you reach a balance between commercial and education? Does this balance
have an influence on company’s development?
7. Could you give me a description of the Minami Fuji TBC’s organizational structure?
Additional questions:
Based on Question 7
1. As you told me, there are three departments: teaching, marketing and product
development. Which department do you think serves the most significant role in the
development of Minami Fuji TBC?
2. Based on your experience and observation, product development department is the
leading and most significant department. Could you tell me the reason?
Second interview with Mr. Xu
Date: Monday, March 12th
2012
Objective: to get an overview of how TBC apply and implement information
management in the perspective of Director. And obtain the interviewee’s thoughts
regarding internal information management.
Semi-structured interview questions:
1. Do you think you integrated all the information thoroughly after you have got
various suggestions from Marketing Department? And afterwards, did you deliver
the message to Teaching and Product development Department?
2. Do you think the communication process only seemingly fluent or it is indeed
effective? Does the communication process actually contain intact understanding
Appendix
70
and splendid implementation?
3. When talked about word-of-mouth Marketing, there are different WOM messages
spread in the market about Minami Fuji TBC. Based on your observations and
experience, are any of those positive or negative? If WOM is controllable, what do
you expect to hear from the market?
4. Have you managed to spread your desire of word of mouth to the whole department?
So that the staff can deliver a unified and clear message to the market.
5. What is the customer value of TBC service?
6. Through which means does the company spread word of mouth messages that you
value the most?
7. During the process of communication, information integration and understanding,
what problems need to be solved?
Additional questions:
1. What is the most desirable process of information integration in your mind?
2. What are the duties for the IMC controller as you introduced?
1.2 Interviews with Mr.Dong:
Position: Marketing Manager of Minami Fuji TBC
First interview with Mr.Dong:
Date: Wednesday, February 22th 2012
Objective: Introducing this thesis, to obtain general information about how Minami Fuji
apply and develop the Word of Mouth marketing.
Semi-structured interview questions:
1. Could you tell me something about yourself? What is your name? What is your
position in Minami Fuji TBC?
2. How long have you worked for this company?
3. What are duties in your job?
4. As we introduced, Word of Mouth marketing is the main topic of our thesis, could
you tell us how Minami Fuji TBC used and applied word of mouth Marketing.
Additional questions:
1. Till now, what kinds of the marketing communication tools did Minami Fuji TBC
use in IMC program?
2. Can you briefly introduce the four marketing communication tools?
3. What kinds of positions and staff are operating for the four marketing
communications?
4. Does the concept IMC was firstly mentioned from you in Minami Fuji TBC?
Second interview with Mr. Dong:
Date: Sunday, March 4th
2012
Objective: to better understand the meaning of “Information Management Center”, that
was initially introduced by Mr.Dong in the first interview.
Appendix
71
Semi-structured interview questions:
1. In the beginning, why you decided to use “information management center” to
replace “integrated marketing communication”?
2. How did you transfer the concept“information management center” to “integrated
marketing communication” in the Marketing department?
3. What are the merits of this transformation?
Additional questions:
1. Can you specifically introduce the external information management system of
Minami Fuji TBC?
2. What are the functions of IMC V1.0, V1.1, V1.2, and V1.3?
3. Besides the external information management and the four marketing
communication tools, what are the other factors that affect the whole integrated
marketing communication program?
Third interview with Mr.Dong:
Date: Sunday, March 11th
2012
Objective: to comprehend how Minami Fuji TBC operates the internal information to
conduct IMC and further understand how this company use the integrated marketing
approach to reach the word of mouth effect.
Semi-structured interview questions:
1. Can you give us an overview of how the company manages the internal information
flow?
2. Based on your previous experience, how do you define the “integrated marketing
communication”?
3. What messages and information does the company deliver to the market through
integrated marketing communications?
4. Now can you further introduce the process of an integrated marketing communication
approach to word of mouth marketing?
Additional questions:
1. As the Marketing Manager in Minami Fuji TBC, do you think you reached
information integration with Director and other department managers? Or is there
any problem occurred during the process?
2. What are the causes that result in the problems you have mentioned?
3. Does the company only seemingly reached the internal information integration?
4. Did you reach the information integration with your subordinates?
Fourth interview with Mr. Dong:
Date: Sunday, March 18th
2012
Objective: to obtain a comprehensive understanding of marketing generated word of
mouth from Minami Fuji TBC; to explore the factors that influence the power of word
Appendix
72
of mouth on different customer purchase decision stages; and to reach an agreement
with Marketing Manager to conduct survey together.
Semi-structured interview questions:
1. According to your pervious knowledge, can you define the word of mouth
marketing in your perspective?
2. Do you think word of mouth is controllable?
3. What did you do to control the word of mouth?
4. How the marketing generated word of mouth influence the customer purchase
decision process?
5. In the customer purchase decision stage-search for alternative solutions, what are the
factors that influence the marketing generated word of mouth?
6. In the customer purchase decision stage-evaluation of alternative solutions, what are
the factors that influence the marketing generated word of mouth?
7. Would the existing customers volunteer to discuss the TBC service with others?
8. Based on the previous research, do you think the existing customers are satisfied
with TBC service?
Additional questions:
1. Are the factors summarized from your observations and experience, or from the
marketing survey?
2. In terms of the search for alternative solutions stage, what is the importance level of
each channel for the customers in input and output context?
3. What is the importance level of each factor at evaluation of alternative solutions
stage for the customers in input and output context?
4. Is the importance level of each factor in input context correlated to the significance
level of output context?
5. What is the satisfactory level of customers towards each attribute of TBC service?
6. Is there a relationship between customer’s satisfaction on each service attribute and
importance level of their output word of mouth?
7. Can we conduct the survey together? We will design the questionnaire for you,
could you help us to distribute the surveys to customers of TBC service?
Appendix
73
4. Questionnaire
Minami Fuji TBC Word of Mouth information and channel survey
This survey is being conducted to research the equality of input and output word of mouth information
and channel. Note that there is no right or wrong answer, please select the answer that suits you the best.
The survey will take 5-10 minutes to answer and we thank you for your participation.
This portion of the survey examines the pre-purchase consumer behavior.
1. Where do you get the most information about TBC service before your purchase？
Channels Strongly
Disagree
Disagree Neither Agree
nor Disagree
Agree Strongly
Agree
I get the most information through
interpersonal relationships
I get the most information from
official organizations
I get the most information from
online social network
I get the most information through
Internet search
I get the most information from
TBC campaigns
I get the most information from
sales persons
Note:
1) Interpersonal relationships: including friends, family members and classmates etc.;
2) Official Organizations: including school, student community etc.;
3) Online Social Network: including micro blog, forums etc.;
4) Internet Search: including Baidu, Google etc. search engines and the official website of Minami Fuji TBC;
5) TBC campaigns: including advertising, posters, brochures and competitions etc.
Appendix
74
2. How important are the following TBC service attributes to you before your purchase?
Attributes Not at all
Important
Very
Unimportant
Neither Important
or Unimportant
Very
Important
Extremely
Important
Company
Background
Teaching
Resource
Teaching
Environment
Teaching Style
Teaching
Content
Service Cycle
Price
Cost
Performance
Ratio
Note:
1) Company Background: Japanese owned company;
2) Teaching Resource: including teachers, assistant teachers;
3) Teaching Environment: including teaching place, the comfort level of the classroom and teaching facilities;
4) Teaching Style: including interactive teaching, small class and business project simulation;
5) Teaching Content: including course content, course literature and PowerPoint etc.;
6) Service Cycle: 4 years ‘M’ program;
7) Price: 3,200 RMB;
8) Cost Performance Ratio: the ratio of value of the service and the price of the service.
This portion of the survey examines the post-purchase attitude toward TBC
service.
1. Have you ever mentioned about TBC to others (personally or through Internet)?
Yes No Not Sure
If ‘No’, please indicate the reason:
_________________________________________________________________________________
Appendix
75
2. How likely are you to talk about these specific attributes with others?
Attributes Very Unlikely Unlikely Undecided Likely Very Likely
Company Background
Teaching Resource
Teaching Environment
Teaching Style
Teaching Content
Service Cycle
Price
Cost Performance Ratio
3. Which channel in the following list is the most likely one for you to spread the word of TBC
information and experience?
Attributes Strongly
Avoid
Avoid Indifferent Prefer Strongly
Prefer
I will share the information through
interpersonal relationships
I will share the information through official
organizations
I will share the information with online
social network friends
I will share the information through
Internet search engine
I will share the information through TBC
campaigns
I will give the feedback to sales persons
Appendix
76
4. How satisfied are you with the TBC service so far regarding its attributes?
Attributes Very Dissatisfied Dissatisfied Neutral Satisfied Very Satisfied
Company Background
Teaching Resource
Teaching Environment
Teaching Style
Teaching Content
Service Cycle
Price
Cost Performance Ratio
Finally, we would like to know a bit more about you.
1. Please indicate your gender:
Male Female
2. Please indicate your age: _____________________
What did you think? Follow up question.
1. Are there any other thoughts that you would like to share with us regarding TBC service?
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
Minami Fuji TBC · Thanks for your participation!
March, 2012
Appendix
77
5. SPSS Tables Table 22 Input word of mouth (Where do you get the most information…?)
Group Statistics
Please indicate your gender. N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean
I get the most information from my
friends, family members,
classmates
Male 45 3.87 .968 .144
Female 47 3.96 .884 .129
I get the most information from
student community
Male 45 2.98 .839 .125
Female 47 2.85 .780 .114
I get the most information from
online social network
Male 45 3.29 .968 .144
Female 47 3.28 .926 .135
I get the most information through
Internet search
Male 45 3.04 1.021 .152
Female 47 3.02 .921 .134
I get the most information from
TBC campaigns
Male 45 3.71 .843 .126
Female 47 3.68 1.125 .164
I get the most information from
sales persons
Male 45 3.96 .852 .127
Female 47 3.98 .921 .134
Table 23 Input word of mouth (How important are the following…?)
Group Statistics
Please indicate your gender. N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean
Importance-Company
background (Japanese owned
company)
Male 45 3.56 .867 .129
Female 47 3.70 .805 .117
Importance-Teaching resource
(teachers, teaching assistants
etc.)
Male 45 4.07 .837 .125
Female 47 4.47 .584 .085
Importance-Teaching
environment (location,
classroom comfortability,
facilities etc.)
Male 45 3.89 .647 .097
Female 47 4.09 .830 .121
Importance-Teaching style
(interactive teaching, small
class teaching, etc.)
Male 45 4.42 .621 .093
Female 47 4.38 .848 .124
Importance-Teaching content
(course content, lecture notes,
slides etc.)
Male 45 4.53 .625 .093
Female 47 4.62 .822 .120
Importance-Service cycle (4
years)
Male 45 3.82 .684 .102
Female 47 3.74 .765 .112
Importance-Price of the TBC
service
Male 45 4.09 .763 .114
Female 47 3.85 .722 .105
Importance-Cost performance
ratio
Male 45 4.36 .679 .101
Female 47 4.51 .688 .100
Appendix
78
Table 24 Output word of mouth (How likely are you to talk about...?)
Group Statistics
Please indicate your gender. N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean
Likelihood-Company
background (Japanese owned
company)
Male 45 3.42 .866 .129
Female 47 3.47 .952 .139
Likelihood-Teaching resource
(teachers, teaching assistants
etc.)
Male 45 4.07 .654 .097
Female 47 4.09 .855 .125
Likelihood-Teaching
environment (location,
classroom comfort ability,
facilities etc.)
Male 45 3.78 .902 .134
Female 47 3.87 .797 .116
Likelihood-Teaching style
(interactive teaching, small
class teaching, etc.)
Male 45 4.13 .786 .117
Female 47 4.21 .806 .118
Likelihood-Teaching content
(course content, lecture notes,
slides etc.)
Male 45 4.29 .757 .113
Female 47 4.51 .831 .121
Likelihood-Service cycle (4
years)
Male 45 3.53 .815 .121
Female 47 3.62 .795 .116
Likelihood-Price of the TBC
service
Male 45 3.82 .960 .143
Female 47 3.81 .647 .094
Likelihood-Cost performance
ratio
Male 45 4.20 .726 .108
Female 47 4.34 .841 .123
Table 25 Output word of mouth (Which channel in the following list...?)
Group Statistics
Please indicate your
gender.
N Mean Std.
Deviation
Std. Error
Mean
I will share the information with my friends, family members,
classmates
Male 45 4.07 .654 .097
Female 47 4.28 .649 .095
I will share the information with student community members Male 45 3.47 .694 .103
Female 47 3.51 .804 .117
I will share the information with online social network friends Male 45 3.96 .520 .078
Female 47 3.91 .717 .105
I will share the information through Internet search engine Male 45 3.64 .679 .101
Female 47 3.62 .677 .099
I will share the information through TBC campaigns Male 45 3.78 .704 .105
Female 47 3.89 .983 .143
I will give the feedback to sales persons
Male 45 4.18 .684 .102
Female 47 4.00 .752 .110
Appendix
79
Table 26 Output Word of Mouth (How satisfied are you...?)
Group Statistics
Please indicate your gender. N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean
Satisfaction-Company
background (Japanese owned
company)
Male 45 3.73 .688 .102
Female 47 3.89 .759 .111
Satisfaction-Teaching resource
(teachers, facilities, text books
etc.)
Male 45 4.27 .618 .092
Female 47 4.30 .657 .096
Satisfaction-Teaching
environment (location,
classroom comfortability,
number of students in a class
etc.)
Male 45 4.07 .654 .097
Female 47 4.06 .673 .098
Satisfaction-Teaching style
(interactive teaching, small
class teaching, etc.)
Male 45 4.33 .674 .101
Female 47 4.34 .635 .093
Satisfaction-Teaching content
(course content, lecture notes,
slides etc.)
Male 45 4.36 .679 .101
Female 47 4.57 .580 .085
Satisfaction-Service cycle (4
years)
Male 45 3.96 .638 .095
Female 47 3.98 .707 .103
Satisfaction-Price of the TBC
service
Male 45 3.78 .795 .118
Female 47 3.79 .778 .114
Satisfaction-Cost performance
ratio
Male 45 4.00 .739 .110
Female 47 4.04 .833 .121
