FINDINGS IN THE APPLICATION OF THE DIMENSIONALITY AND MEASUREMENT OF ATTACHMENT IN BRAND CONTEXT: NIKE CHINA’S CASE

Ning (Chris) Chen 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2016 Global Marketing Conference Vol.2016 No.7

Academic researchers have conceptualised and studied consumer-brand relationship and individual-place relationship in parallel in branding literature and environmental psychology research. As a construct that describes the strength of the bond connecting an individual with an entity, attachment receives great attention, due to its potential in affecting behaviours that may assist in marketing and promoting this entity (not limited to repeat purchase) (Park, MacInnis, Priester, Eisingerich, & Iacobucci, 2010). For example, research in branding literature finds that the strong attachment to a brand indicates a private relationship between consumers and brands and further leads to developmental commitment (Fournier, 1998), energetic word-of-mouth behaviour (Sommerfeld & Paulssen, 2008), and apparently loyalty (Thomson, MacInnis, & Park, 2005); in internal marketing studies, brand commitment is found influencing employees’ brand citizenship behaviour intentions (e.g. Morhart, Herzog, & Tomczak, 2009); research on brand ambassadors explores how they would influence other potential consumers in a general consumer-to-consumer (C2C) communication context, (e.g. Keaveney, 1995; Lovelock, 1983); in resident studies, Chen, Dwyer, & Firth (2014a) find that attachment may motivate word-of-mouth (WOM) to promote a place as a tourism destination. On one hand, the similar concepts of brand attachment and place attachment are respectively developed and discussed from different paths, but on the other, researchers from brand studies and place studies have long invoked to apply findings from one to the other. For instance, Kavaratzis (2005) attempts to transfer marketing and branding knowledge to places; while some other researchers devote themselves in adopting the framework of place attachment in the study of the consumer-brand relationship to take advantage of its multi-dimensionality development (Chen, 2012). Regardless, the multi-dimension nature of this concept is explored in branding literature. For instance, Mittal (2006) suggests that consumers associate a brand to themselves because the personality of these brands also represents who they are (i.e., an identity basis); Fournier (1998) finds an emotional component that is highly relevant to both marketing academics and practitioners; etc. Nevertheless, little research on brand attachment develops a multi-dimensionality as complex as those in place studies (e.g. Kyle, Graefe, & Manning, 2005). The questions are: Is the multi-dimension nature of consumer-brand relationship the same as that of individual-place relationship? If not, to how much extent may researchers apply findings from these two research streams to the other? To fill in these research gaps, this study aims to test the dimensionality of place attachment on studying consumer-brand relationship, and to examine how dimensions of brand attachments affect consumers’ brand citizenship behaviours.A variety of disciplines have shown an interest in understanding the attachments that people form with places. The concept of place attachment is defined as “a positive connection or bond between a person and a particular place” (Williams & Vaske, 2003, p. 831). In environmental psychology, a number of researchers have attempted to conceptualise, understand, and measure attachment to interpret the individual–individual, individual–community, and individual–place bonding (e.g., Kyle, Graefe, & Manning, 2005). Research on place attachment can be divided into two streams: (1) The first stream of research (research in environmental psychology) considers place attachment as an outcome of an individual’s evaluation and attitude towards a place based on knowledge and experience with this place; (2) The second stream of research (research in interaction) ascribes the bond formed by an individual to a place to the meaning given to this object through interactional processes (Chen, Dwyer, & Firth, 2014b). In branding literature, Fournier and Alvarez (2012) suggest that the relationship between consumer and brand is highly alike to how one builds relationships between each other, which provides the ground of evidence to apply attachment (originated from studies on the child-mother relationship) in understanding consumer-brand relationship. Brand attachment can be defined as “a dynamic bond that illustrates the connection between consumers and brands” (Chen, 2012). Following Chen, Dwyer, and Firth’s (2014b) conceptualisation on place attachment, this study adopts the six-dimension framework of attachment and applies it in studying the consumer-brand relationship via brand identity; brand dependence, affective attachment, social bonding, brand memory, and brand expectation. In internal marketing literature, Morhart, Herzog, and Tomczak (2009) classify brand building/citizenship behaviours into three categories: retention, in-role citizenship behaviour, and extra-role citizenship behaviour. This framework of behaviours is applied in this research to explore consumers’ brand citizenship behaviours including retention, as well as WOM and proactive participation (equivalent to the extra-role citizenship behaviour). The relationships between dimensions of attachment and brand citizenship behaviours are established based on similar propositions in research in different disciplines. Many researches support this bond-behaviour relationship in different disciplines and research scopes. For instance, in tourism research, Choo, Park, and Patrick (2011) study and discuss residents’ voluntary behaviours to assist in promoting their resident place as a tourism destination, suggesting that residents would like to show hospitable attitudes and behaviours if they feel a sense of belonging and identify themselves with their places. A survey approach was employed to test the relationships between included constructs. Data was collected from different cities in China from November 2014 through March 2015. This study used a sample of 362 consumers who have used or are using Nike product. 62.4% of the respondents are male (consistent with the distribution of sports product consumers). Average age of the sample is 26.5, and the average length of brand usage is 8.87 years. Data was analysed using IBM® SPSS® Statistics 22 and IBM® SPSS® Amos 22 software. CFA was used to test the reliability and validity of the measurement, and SEM was applied to identify relationships among the constructs. The measurement of brand attachment in this study is adapted from Chen, Dwyer, and Firth’s (2014b) place attachment dimensionality and scales. Three three-item scales on one-to-one WOM, retention, and participation were replicated from Morhart, Herzog, and Tomczak (2009). One-to-many and many-to-many WOM measurements were respectively adopted from Hsu, Ju, Yen, and Chang (2007) and Lu, Lin, Hsiao, and Cheng (2010). CFA with maximum likelihood (ML) estimation was conducted to test the validity of the dimensionality of brand attachment. Due to the high correlations between several constructs, this measurement failed discriminant validity test. To enable further analysis, brand identity, affective attachment, and social bonding are combined as one single dimension (as Individual Attachment). Thereafter, a standard two-step SEM was run to identify relationships among the constructs in the hypotheses. A measurement model was first tested on the data to verify demonstrate convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity of brand attachment (revised) and the other constructs (Byrne, 2001). Goodness-of-fit indices of both measurement and structural models reached an acceptance level. From data analysis, the frameworks on brand citizenship behaviours are supported by the statistics. However, the number of attachment dimensions is compromised in testing the consumer-brand relationship due to the high correlations between several dimensions. This implies that consumer-brand relationship is less complex than individual-place relationship and can be captured by a simplified dimensionality framework. In other words, the finding indicates a high complexity on the dimensionality of place attachment compared to brand attachment. The results suggest that simple replications of brand concepts in studying places may be problematic and biased, since aspects that are not significantly distinguished in brand attachment but important in place context may be overlooked. On this basis, branding researchers need to be cautious in studying phenomena in place and destination issues when applying classical branding and marketing theories. Similar evidence can also be found in several previous studies (e.g. Chen, Dwyer, & Firth, 2014b; Lee, Kyle, & Scott, 2012). As to the constructs included in this study, the factor loadings (all larger than 0.76) were satisfactory after combining brand identity, affective attachment, and social bonding as one construct, indicating a satisfactory degree of reliability. An alternative model (considering brand attachment as a second-order construct) is tested to explore the general indication from brand attachment to WOM, retention, and participation. This result also provides a theoretical and empirical basis for practitioners to finds means to motivate loyal and attached consumers on different behaviours which may benefit their brands. Specifically, Individual Attachment and Brand Memory are found to be significantly affecting different types of WOM behaviours. This is consistent with Chen, Dwyer, and Firth’s (2014) findings on the impact of place attachment on WOM behaviour in studying Shanghai residents. The results imply that for Chinese consumers, the stronger an individual identify a brand will influence the more he/she would “talk up” the brands. For branding managers, it is clear that an emphasis should be taken on enhancing the identify fit between their brands and consumers, as well as promoting a brand personality which is perceived popular and adoptable by consumers. Similarly, helping consumers to build brand community to interact and socialise with other consumer and stimulating consumers’ emotional arousal can help brands motivate consumers to “pass on the right word”, likewise creating unforgettable consumer experiences. Secondly, BAS and brand expectation are found to be influencing brand participation. This is consistent with the study on Chinese students’ attitude toward participation in tourism activities in Sydney by Chen, Dwyer,and Firth (2015). For brand managers, assisting in consumers’ identification process with the brand, creating socialising opportunities and receiving positive emotional responses from consumers via brand activity designs, as well as enhancing consumer’s confidence on the brand may attract consumers to be more actively involved in the branding process. Lastly, brand dependence and brand expectation are found to affect retention behaviour in this study, suggesting brands still need to emphasise on maintaining and constantly improving the quality of the product and the brand to take a better place in the competitive market. This remains the key to reduce consumer defections. Future research may be taken to (1) propose a refined dimensionality of brand attachment based on place attachment; and (2) compare consumers and brands in different cultures on what role attachment may play in motivating different brand citizenship behaviours.

EFFECT OF DIMENSIONS OF TEAM ATTACHMENT ON RUNNING GROUP IN SPORT EXERCISE

Ning (Chris) Chen,Jifang Dou,Xueli Wang 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2018 Global Marketing Conference Vol.2018 No.07

Over the past decade, the field of sport exercise in China gets increasingly popular, resulting in a nationwide exercise fashion (Schulenkorf, Sherry, & Rowe, 2016; Yu, Li, Liu, & Su, 2015). With this new emerging shift, this study tested the proposed structural model, and specifically tested the mediating effects of dimensions of sport team attachment between runners’ team satisfaction and their runner team building behaviors (Morhart, Herzog, & Tomczak, 2009). With a sample size of 301, three dimensions of team attachment, team identity, social bonding, and team expectation were found to be significant influencing runners’ in-role team building behavior and participation in the development of this runner team. Other important findings and implications were further discussed.

RESIDENTS’ ENGAGEMENT IN TOURISM DEVELOPMENT: SELF-CONGRUITY AND WORD-OF-MOUTH BEHAVIOUR

Ning (Chris) Chen,Tina ?egota,Tea Golja 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2018 Global Marketing Conference Vol.2018 No.07

Destination Marketing Organisations (DMOs) are facing the dilemma: on one hand, communicating branding messages effectively to target markets all over the world requires abundant resources, while stakeholders within the destination have different (sometimes even conflicting) interests in destination branding on the other. Specifically, residents of a tourism destination have great potential in helping the place by being involved in tourism development and destination branding, due to the development of information technology. To investigate how self-congruity influences residents’ evaluation on the place, as well as their voluntary WOM behaviours, this article proposes self-congruity as a key construct affecting residents’ place satisfaction and expectation, and further influencing residents’ place related behaviours, such as word-of-mouth (WOM). An empirical study was conducted in Ljubljana, Slovenia, with 309 questionnaire collected. Via a structural equation modelling analysis, this study finds that variation of self-congruity in the impacts on place satisfaction and expectation, as well as two types of WOM behaviours, namely one-to-one WOM and one-to-many WOM. This provides evidence to support the standpoint that different WOM are motivated by different factors via different psychological mechanisms. Specifically, (1) actual self-congruity and place satisfaction (reflecting an evaluation of past of current performance of the place) only affect one-to-one WOM, suggesting that this type of WOM is mainly motivated by one’s current state; (2) ideal self-congruity was found to affect place expectation, suggesting a consistency in the expectation of one’s self image and the place; (3) one-to-many WOM has two indicators of ideal self-congruity and place expectation, implying publishing one’s opinions and thoughts is driven by expectation rather than current state. In general, the results add detailed and in-depth findings on distinguishing the motivations of different types of WOM in WOM literature.

CONSUMER BEHAVIOURS UNDER ON-GOING TERROR THREATS

Ning Chris Chen,Rohail Ashraf 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2020 Global Marketing Conference Vol.2020 No.11

The world is not in peace everywhere, unfortunately. There is a huge population living in fear, whose ordinary lives are affected by terror. Literature suggests living in terror leads to different relationships with the place (e.g. Billig, 2006) and to psychological distress, which further leads to changes in attitudes and beliefs (Echebarria-Echabe & Fern?ndez-Guede, 2006), as well as behaviors (e.g. Schiff, 2006; Schiff, Benbenishty, McKay, DeVoe, Liu, & Hasin, 2006). This study looks at regions in Pakistan where people live in constant terror of terrorism, political unrest, and threats of death, and aim to understand how people cope with the extreme situations, how their attachment to the place evolves and changes, and how people’s perceptions and ideologies on consumption shift.

PERCEIVED RESIDENTIAL ENVIRONMENT QUALITY, PLACE ATTACHMENT, AND ENVIRONMENTAL SATISFACTION: THE COMPETING MODELS IN RURAL AND URBAN AREAS OF CHINA

Kangkang Yu,Ning (Chris) Chen,Xinkai Zhu,Jian Gao 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2016 Global Marketing Conference Vol.2016 No.7

Level of urbanization in China has reached 53.73% in 2013, indicating a tremendous progress on the urbanization of China. On the other hand, the number of villages in China reduces by around one million from 3.6 million in 2000 to 2.7 million in 2010 (Zhang, 2014). Issues in both urban and rural areas of China appear, including the imbalance between increased population and limited resources in urban region, and more significantly, the increasing disparity between rural and urban areas. Chinese researchers interpret and analyse these matters from different perspectives. For instance, Zheng (2006) and Ma (2006) suggest the importance of the infrastructure construction and public service. Wu (2006) advises that the government should pay attention to the development of the secondary and tertiary industry. Wen (2005) proposes that the improvement of social institution and the recovery of social cultural environment are required to achieve sustainability in the urbanization process in China. Previous studies in environmental psychology put quality of life, attachment to place, and residence satisfaction at the center to understand the relationship between inhabitants and their neighborhood of residence. However, there are gaps in this research realm in both practice and theories. Firstly, very limited research studies this environmental psychology issue in China (e.g. Mao, Fornara, Manca, Bonnes, & Bonaiuto, 2015). Secondly, there are different opinions on the causal order between quality, attachment, and satisfaction. Research on the relationship between perceived residential environment quality (PREQ), place attachment, and environmental satisfaction has not reached a consensus. The debate on the direction of the causal relationship between perceived quality and satisfaction has been summarized by Bradya and Robertson (2001). They conclude that the quality to satisfaction causal order holds up well across diverse cultures. However, relevant debate is still ongoing. A number of research articles place satisfaction as an antecedent to attachment, e.g. Chen, Dwyer, and Firth (2014); Lee, Kyle, and Scott (2012); Ramkissoon and Mavondo (2015); etc. Some argue that place attachment is an indicator of satisfaction. Kyle et al. (2004) investigate the effect of place attachment on the perceived values of tourists and find that place attachment is an important factor explaining the variance of perceived values. This is supported by research e.g. Hwang, Lee, and Chen (2005); Prayag and Ryan (2012); Yuksel, Yuksel, Biljm (2010); etc. As to the relationship between perceived quality and attachment, the debate has not stopped. Through comparisons, Mesch and Manor (1996) conclude that the residents who give a higher evaluation of the social and natural environment may have greater place attachment. Brown, Perkins, and Brown (2003) also suggest that the residents who agree that the street environment is better would attach to this place. Sam, Bayram, and Bilgel (2012) have certified the relationship between residential environment quality and place attachment. Furthermore, Borrie and Roggenbuck (2001) and Walker and Ryan (2008) find that the connection between human beings and the nature environment would affect their affection toward the environment. It means that the closer the relationship with the nature environment is, the stronger the attachment would be, which in turn, enhances the intentions to protect the environment. This quality to satisfaction relationship is supported by other research such as Bonaiuto, Aiello, Perugini, Bonnes, and Ercolani (1999); Grisaffe and Nguyen (2011); Yu, Chen, and Chen (2015); etc. Nevertheless, a different opinion arguing that attachment to a place may affect one’s perception on the quality related to a place is emerging in tourism research (e.g. Neuvonen, Pouta, & Siev?nen, 2010). This paper takes the credit of quality → attachment → satisfaction causal order as the initial model and proposes three hypotheses as follows. H1a: One’s PREQ has a positive impact on his/her attachment to this place; H2a: One’s attachment to a place has a positive impact on his/her satisfaction to the environmental settings in this place; H3a: Place attachment in addition performs as a mediating role between PREQ and environment satisfaction.To be noted, the initial model has its theoretical basis as discussed above but is not necessarily the absolute optimal model. Relatively, this model provides more theoretical interpretation and practical implications in the specific research context: residential psychology in urban and rural areas of China. On this basis, this article further examines a competing model illustrating an alternative theoretical framework on the relationships between these three constructs (satisfaction → attachment → quality). Relatively, another group of hypotheses in this competing model is listed as follows. H1b: One’s attachment to a place has a positive impact on his/her PREQ; H2b: One’s satisfaction to the environmental settings in this place has a positive impact on his/her attachment to this place; H3b: Place attachment in addition performs as a mediating role between environment satisfaction and PREQ. A survey approach is employed and data are collected from several backgrounds. Dataset A (rural) is collected from three villages from Heilongjiang Province and two villages from Shandong Province in China from July to August 2014. The choices of the provinces, rural areas, and the sampling process are random. 490 valid questionnaires are included in the data analysis. Dataset B (urban) is collected via an online survey portal, which allows a nationwide sampling reach. In total 1368 online survey entries are recorded and 420 valid questionnaires are included, resulting in a valid rate of 30.7%. The measures for each construct are based on an extensive literature review. The measurement of perceived residential environment quality is from Sam, Bayram, & Bilgel’s (2012) development on the perception of residential environment. The measurement of place attachment in this study is adopted from Kyle, Graefe, and Manning’s (2005) and Chen, Dwyer, and Firth’s (2014) evaluation based place attachment dimensionality and scales. As for the scale of environmental satisfaction, Pelletier, Legault, and Tuson’s (1996) measure was applied. All the entire variables adopted multiple-item, 5-point Likert scales were adopted, where “1” indicated “strongly disagree” and “5” indicated “strongly agree”. After pre-testing the preliminary version of the survey instrument, a revised version was developed. This study adopts structural equation modeling (SEM) based on partial least squares (PLS) modeling given the small sample size and the explorative purpose of this study (Dijkstra & Henseler, 2015a). The software used was Smart PLS 3.0. The reliability and validity of the constructs were assessed. Cronbach’s alpha and the value of CR of each construct were found to exceed the cut-off value of 0.70 (Fornell & Larcker, 1981), except for adequacy of education which is close to 0.70 (only for Cronbach’s alpha but not for CR). Furthermore, the AVE of each construct exceeded the variance attributable to its measurement error cut-off value of 0.50 (Chin, 1998; Fornell & Larcker, 1981). In addition, heterotrait-monotrait ratio (HTMT) is recommended as a better method to test discriminant validity (Henseler, Dijkstra, Sarstedt, Ringle, Diamantopoulos, Straub, Ketchen, Hair, Hult, & Calantone, 2014). The result shows that there is neither value of the HTMT higher than the threshold of 0.85 nor confidence interval containing the value one, indicating that all the constructs exhibit satisfactory discriminant validity. The hypothesized effects in the theoretical model were tested by structural equation modeling (SEM). The first group of models tested the effect of perceived environmental quality on environmental satisfaction through place attachment i.e. initial model (Model A, Model B, Model C), while the second group of models tested the reverse effect of environmental satisfaction on perceived environmental quality through place attachment (Model D, Model E, Model F). Both the full model and the multi-group model were tested. The value of SRMR of the full model that tests either the effect of perceived environmental quality on environmental satisfaction (SRMR = 0.104, t = 41.826, p < 0.001) or the reversed effect (SRMR = 0.106, t = 37.736, p < 0.001) shows that the models fit the data quite well (Dijkstra & Henseler, 2015b). However, the former is little bit more significant. In this study, PREQI is found different impacts on place attachment and environmental satisfaction. This provides evidence to support a similar mechanism of studying residents’ psychology with SERVEQUAL model. However, the model testing is found significantly different between rural and urban samples, indicating a systematic difference in the psychology of rural and urban populations. Quality ? attachment ? satisfaction causal order is found significant and supported by both samples in this study. However, a reversed causal order model (satisfaction ? attachment ? quality) is also supported by the samples. Although the results may not be able to end the debate on alternative models between PREQ, place attachment, and environmental satisfaction, this paper provides empirical evidence from a specific context (urban and rural China) for further research. Specifically, PREQ has a significant impact on place attachment in both urban and rural areas in China. As for the impact of place attachment on environmental satisfaction as well as the indirect impact of PREQ on environmental satisfaction, the influence is more significant in cities of China compared to rural areas. This suggests in the urban areas in China, affective and emotional responses to their lives play an important role to residents. Local government in cities should balance between improving and maintaining quality of the environment and strengthening local residents’ psychological attachment to the place. Governments in rural areas, on the other hand, should lay great focus on the physical aspects of the environment including nature, health, education, commerce, and venture of the rural areas, to enhance residents’ living experience and satisfaction. Further, there are some limitations. Although this study attempts to clarify the framework of “perception-affection-attitude” in the field of environment management, considering the practical implications, the future study could bring the individuals’ behaviors or intentions into this model such as willingness-to-pay for environment-friendly products. It will also benefit from reviewing more literature on community-based social marketing.

Increases in GFAP immunoreactive astrocytes in the cerebellar molecular layer of young adult CBA/J mice

Cheryl Tyszkiewicz,Ingrid D Pardo,Hayley N Ritenour,Chang-Ning Liu,Chris Somps 한국실험동물학회 2021 Laboratory Animal Research Vol.37 No.3

Background CBA/J mice are standard experimental animals in auditory studies, and age-related changes in auditory pathways are well documented. However, changes in locomotion-related brain regions have not been systematically explored. Results We showed an increase in immunoreactivity for glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) in the cerebellar molecular layer associated with Purkinje cells in mice at 24 weeks of age but not in the younger mice. Increased GFAP immunoreactivity appeared in the form of clusters and distributed multifocally consistent with hyperplasia of astrocytes that were occasionally associated with Purkinje cell degeneration. Three out of 12 animals at 16 and 24 weeks of age exhibited pre-convulsive clinical signs. Two of these 3 animals also showed increased GFAP immunoreactivity in the cerebellum. Rotarod behavioral assessments indicated decreased performance at 24 weeks of age. Conclusions These results suggest minimal to mild reactive astrocytosis likely associated with Purkinje cell degeneration in the cerebellum at 24 weeks of age in CBA/J mice. These findings should be taken into consideration prior to using this mouse strain for studying neuroinflammation or aging.