BE969 Research Methods in Management & Marketing Report Sample

BE969 Research Methods in Management & Marketing

This is an individual assignment in which you will apply the quantitative research methods concepts learnt during your lectures as well as apply your own understanding/research.

Please follow the guidelines below to develop your answer:

• Select a topic of your choice and identify a research problem.

• Write research objective(s) (not more than two) and research question(s) (not more than two) related to your selected research problem. Given this is a quantitative research design coursework, you should develop your research problem(s), objective(s) and question(s) accordingly.

• Provide a brief theoretical background, citing relevant theoretical foundations.

• Develop and draw a conceptual model (preferably based on a relevant theory such as Theory of Planned Behaviour, Theory of Reasoned Action etc.) with the following specifications: it should have at least one independent and one dependent variable. Additionally, the conceptual model must have one mediating, one moderating, and at least one control variable (that is, your model must include all these variables).

• Write relevant hypotheses for each underlying relationship in the conceptual model (No explanation required).

• Research methodology - Briefly describe the research methodology that will be used to investigate the research problem — for example, you may provide the specifics of the survey or experiment design, sample size, etc. In addition, you should briefly discuss any relevant ethical considerations.

Solution

Introduction

In the garments market of the United Kingdom, the rapid importance of using Green labels is increasing. It has become an essential aspect for all clothing lines to increase the value of sustainability in the garment industry. The garment business sectors have undergone multiple changes in the past few years. As per the MBA Assignment Expert,

It has become essential in making people aware of making eco-friendly choices and encouraging them to buy sustainable products. Using green eco-labels helps customers make greener choices, and they opt for good purchasing decisions (Rahman et al. 2020). The fashion industry is considered one of the most polluted due to its vast waste and ample social impacts. Using green labels on garments helps customers raise general awareness and increases the production of bio-degradable products.

Importance of green label

In the United Kingdom, multiple companies claim themselves as one of the most sustainable companies. They have taken various approaches to developing a greener and safer world. Green labelling is an unimportant initiative that effectively addresses environmental issues, the deterioration of human surroundings, and the scarcity of natural resources (Rausch and Kopplin, 2021). It is crucial to use biodegradable products to increase the sustainability of the garment sector.
Taking the initiative to develop a sustainable company is easy. However, green label invitation deals with a wide range of activities which refers to the production line maintaining specific standards of green label authorities.

Governmental initiatives

The government of the United Kingdom has taken multiple initiatives to encourage companies to take appropriate initiatives to use the green label to make their company sustainable and developed company (Khare, Sadachar, and Manchiraju, 2020). Taking approaches for building green initiatives is essential. The garment industry in the United Kingdom is one of the broadest industries which provide job opportunities to thousands of people. Positive initiatives of the government will undoubtedly help to modify the garment industry and increase its approaches to sustainability.

Research objective

For this research paper, the chosen research objectives are:

● To understand the impact of green labels in the Garment industry in the UK.

● To understand how the green labelling system is changing the buying perception of the consumers of the UK garment industry.
With the help of these two objectives, the researcher will examine the "how" factor that is creating a significant impact on the buying perception of the customers of the United Kingdom. The researcher aims to understand how green labels are impacting consumers. These objectives will undoubtedly help the researcher obtain the study's expected result.

Research Question

The research questions for this research paper are:

● What are the impacts of green labels on customers buying perceptions?

● How do garment manufacturing and retail companies use green labels in their products?

Theoretical Background

Customer Buying Perception

According to Ajzen (2020), in this contemporary era, the preferences of customers are changing rapidly, and it has become an important factor for garment customers in the UK to develop an initiative for green purchases. Customer perception is important as it has the power to influence the bottom line of a business's activities. In simple terms, customer buying perception is simply referred to as the customer's intention to buy a product by assessing the overview of a brand. Multiple elements are included in the customers buying perceptions. Customers' thoughts, emotions, and opinions about the brand and its service. For different brands, the customer shares different perceptions, and these can be positive or negative. There are four elements that effectively share an insight into the customer's perception, and those are sensation, attention, interpretation, and retention.

Apart from a topic of discussion, customer buying perception is one of the best methods to understand, explain and analyse customers buying behaviour. As per Varadarajan (2020), customers are the pillars of any business activities, which help them to leverage revenue and spread the business activities. To better understand customer buying perception, two subsequent theories need to be understood: the theory of planned behaviour and the theory of reasoned action.

Theory of Planned Behaviour

The theory of planned behaviour is one of the most effective psychological theories which enable researchers to understand customers' preferences. Ajzen propounded the theory of planned behaviour, and the theory stresses human intention. The core factors of this theory state that one's intention best predicts the individual's behaviour and those intentions are predicted by one's attitude, behaviour, nature, and other aspects (Rausch and Kopplin, 2021). Multiple internal and external factors have had an influence on people. Different people share different buying perceptions, and market researchers need to understand what sort of buying perceptions they want to examine. The theory of buying perceptions can be showcased in multiple segments, such as feminine and masculine traits, understanding the geographical influences, economic influences, and other factors. One of the examples of the theory of planned behaviour is the practising sustainability traits by multinational companies. Several multinational companies claim that they practice the best method for developing a sustainable company, and it is associated with developing a green supply value chain and inculcating green practices. It might sound like a big company intends to practice sustainable practices, but it is not true that they are practising the trade on their own.

Theory of Reasoned Action

According to Khan and Idris (2019), the theory of reasoned action examines the relationship between attitudes and behaviours that occur within human actions. The core factor of this theory is mainly trying to explain the reason why individuals act in such a way and its impacts on their behaviour. To understand the perception of customers, it is important to understand the perceptions and the core components that work on behalf of the theory. The components of the theory of reasoned actions are behaviour, intention to play the behaviour, observing attitudes, and influence of external variables.
Conceptual model

Figure: Conceptual Framework
Source: (Self-made)

Hypotheses

A hypothesis can be defined as a set of suppositions that can be true or false, and a researcher must test the hypothesis (Mertens and Recker, 2020). The hypothesis is divided into two segments: the null hypothesis and the alternative hypothesis.

H1: There is a relationship between the use of green labels of garments and the change in buying perceptions of customers in the UK.

H0: There is no relationship between the use of green labels of garments and the change in buying perceptions of customers in the UK.

Research Methodology

Research Design

Research Design is the blueprint of required steps and procedures that help a researcher develop a paper effectively. There are multiple components in research design, and the researcher needs to design the study effectively to reach its optimum result. For this research paper, the chosen research design is exploratory. The core trait of exploratory research design is that it works to explore the issue which is not defined clearly and precisely (Hunter, McCallum, and Howes, 2019). The researcher explores the causes and shares the phenomenon. The chosen topic understands the impact and changes in customers’ buying perceptions in the garment market of the United Kingdom. The researcher feels that it is important to explore the changing nature of buying perceptions of the customers and understand the “how” factors that encourage customers to move towards green-label products.

Data collection method

This paper's chosen data collection method is a secondary method of collecting data. In the secondary data collection method, the researcher collects data from secondary sources such as governmental articles, journals, scholarly papers, and from such other sources where the matter was pre-published. The chosen research topic is wide, and the researchers need to gather a large sum of data. The reason for choosing secondary data is that the researcher can access a wide range of data from various authentic sources.

Data analysis procedure

The method of analysing data is a systematic process that requires applying statistical techniques to illustrate and describe data evaluation. For this paper, the chosen data analysis process is the qualitative data analysis process, where the research will share the phenomenon's factors and the perspective of the customers (Linneberg and Korsgaard, 2019). The researcher tries to maintain sync with the chosen topic, and the qualitative analysis is the best for illustrating the thoughts and intentions of the customers.

Ethical considerations

Ethical consideration can be described as a set of principles which help the researcher maintain the authenticity and reliability of the study. Ethical considerations are research guidelines and principles that help the researcher maintain ethical practices while developing the study. Some parameters enable the researcher to develop the study: voluntary participation, informed consent, confidentiality and anonymity (Zapata-Barrero, and Yalaz, 2020). Maintaining these four parameters will help the researcher develop this paper effectively while maintaining all the essential characteristics.

Reference

Ajzen, I., 2020. The theory of planned behaviour: Frequently asked questions. Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies, 2(4), pp.314-324. Available at:https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Icek-Ajzen/publication/342077056_The_theory_of_planned_behavior_Frequently_asked_questions/links/
5fb6609aa6fdcc6cc64a2e53/The-theory-of-planned-behavior-Frequently-asked-questions.pdf(Accessed on 14 April 2023)

Hunter, D., McCallum, J. and Howes, D., 2019. Defining exploratory-descriptive qualitative (EDQ) research and considering its application to healthcare. Journal of Nursing and Health Care, 4(1). Available at:https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/180272/7/180272.pdf(Accessed on 14 April 2023)

Khan, M.L. and Idris, I.K., 2019. Recognise misinformation and verify before sharing: a reasoned action and information literacy perspective. Behaviour & Information Technology, 38(12), pp.1194-1212. Available at:https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/94455236/0144929X.2019.157882820221118-1-m7ujgz-libre.pdf?1668776436=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DRecognise_misinformation_and_verify_befo.pdf&Expires=1681462329&
Signature=FXJM4oQSF8-2KlqxM6kEkAzuy~lvwNLua9Kv83oGTly9nVfr8qT2bJW8dASx5okRzgbTtcVxb~~H4CBfStvxBVhvM635iZ7

H2LeRdhpV1hCa~d3ZS6Oob2ovolcDb0uQCXoWcBnmZkzmP-gDQAqavxiG6Svlfwsr5tGRjKZztIrD7xCpeh4VLyC0RKY2L6ElSNPW3fets8-TgoHY1xB3S5FIxLA8BEctYhBAxoagj8QmALwlmvkxrrFloq5EjrdwrrJM3-F-3~IPNBa8sz8r3LLmjTovtVLhwfZY1meX6F5oF2Qgm4T-vBwPiifAx4J1Cb8kIh3JEVh~94uAqPt8Mg__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA(Accessed on 14 April 2023)

Khare, A., Sadachar, A. and Manchiraju, S., 2020. Investigating the role of knowledge, materialism, product availability, and involvement in predicting the organic clothing purchase behavior of consumers in the Indian market. Journal of International Consumer Marketing, 32(3), pp.228-242. Available at:https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Srikant-Manchiraju/publication/337566866_Investigating_the_Role_of_Knowledge_Materialism_Product_

Availability_and_Involvement_in_Predicting_the_Organic_Clothing_Purchase_Behavior_of_Consumers_in
_the_Indian_Market/links/5ef1fef192851c3d231ea860/Investigating-the-Role-of-Knowledge-Materialism-Product-Availability-and-Involvement-in-Predicting-the-Organic-Clothing-Purchase-Behavior-of-Consumers-in-the-Indian-Market.pdf(Accessed on 14 April 2023)

Linneberg, M.S. and Korsgaard, S., 2019. Coding qualitative data: A synthesis guiding the novice. Qualitative research journal, 19(3), pp.259-270. Available at:https://samspo.github.io/Faq/SkjottLinneberg2019.pdf(Accessed on 14 April 2023)

Mertens, W. and Recker, J., 2020. New guidelines for null hypothesis significance testing in hypothetico-deductive IS research. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 21(4), p.1. Available at:https://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/10006/1/ISP-JAIS-accepted.pdf(Accessed on 14 April 2023)

Rahman, M., Billah, M.M., Hack-Polay, D. and Alam, A., 2020. The use of biotechnologies in textile processing and environmental sustainability: An emerging market context. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 159, p.120204. Available at:https://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/57602/3/TFSC-%20Biotechnology%20accepted%20manuscript.pdf(Accessed on 14 April 2023)

Rausch, T.M. and Kopplin, C.S., 2021. Bridge the gap: Consumers’ purchase intention and behavior regarding sustainable clothing. Journal of Cleaner Production, 278, p.123882. Available at:https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Cristopher-Siegfried-Kopplin-2/publication/343945414_Bridge_the_gap_Consumers'_purchase_intention_and_behavior_regarding_
sustainable_clothing/links/5f55ef91a6fdcc9879d30eb4/Bridge-the-gap-Consumers-purchase-intention-and-behavior-regarding-sustainable-clothing.pdf(Accessed on 14 April 2023)

Rausch, T.M. and Kopplin, C.S., 2021. Bridge the gap: Consumers’ purchase intention and behavior regarding sustainable clothing. Journal of Cleaner Production, 278, p.123882. Available at:https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Cristopher-Siegfried-Kopplin-2/publication/343945414_Bridge_the_gap_Consumers'_purchase_intention_and_behavior_regarding_
sustainable_clothing/links/5f55ef91a6fdcc9879d30eb4/Bridge-the-gap-Consumers-purchase-intention-and-behavior-regarding-sustainable-clothing.pdf(Accessed on 14 April 2023)

Varadarajan, R., 2020. Customer information resources advantage, marketing strategy and business performance: A market resources based view. Industrial Marketing
Management, 89, pp.89-97. Available at:https://fardapaper.ir/mohavaha/uploads/2020/06/Fardapaper-Customer-information-resources-advantage-marketing-strategy-and-business-performance-A-market-resources-based-view.pdf(Accessed on 14 April 2023)

Zapata-Barrero, R. and Yalaz, E., 2020. Qualitative migration research ethics: a roadmap for migration scholars. Qualitative Research Journal, 20(3), pp.269-279. Available at:https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ricard-Zapata-
Barrero/publication/342449850_Qualitative_migration_research_ethics_a_roadmap_for_migration_scholars/

links/606ff52d299bf1c911ba2dc4/Qualitative-migration-research-ethics-a-roadmap-for-migration-scholars.pdf(Accessed on 14 April 2023)