Project Specification Form
Note: The PSF is an online submission. Use this form to discuss your proposal with your supervisor. Please complete all sections before meeting your supervisor so that relevant comments can be furnished.
A. Project Title.
The working title of this research is initially drafted as – A Comparative Study of Consumers’ Attitude and Behaviour towards Online Fashion Shopping: Cross-Cultural Study of Malaysia and United Kingdom.
B. Brief description on project background. (.i.e. problem context, rationale, description of problem area, nature of challenge)
Project Background
This study will look at the differences between Malaysia and United Kingdom with respect to the consumers’ attitude and behaviour towards online fashion shopping. In this proposal, how culture makes differences on the behaviour and attitude of a customer given the same channel which is the internet will be examined. Moreover, how the online buyers’ attitude and behaviour are influencing the e-retailing industries in both selected countries will be investigated.
Statement of the Problem
This paper seeks to answer the questions like what prevailing attitude and behaviour does a customer has despite the differences in culture, what are the distinct cultural behaviour a Malaysian has that an English do not have and vice versa and finally, what are the cultural and social attributes we can get in a Malaysian or English attitude and behaviour during their access to online fashion shopping.
C. Brief description of project objectives. (i.e. scope of proposal, constructs used, limitations and significance)
Project Aims and Objectives
The main purpose of this study is to investigate the consumers’ cross-cultural attitude and behaviour towards online fashion shopping in two selected countries, Malaysia and United Kingdom. In lieu with this, the study will address the following specific objectives:
§ To evaluate how the online fashion shoppers in Malaysia and United Kingdom differ in internet fashion and sites choices
§ To investigate the perceptions of consumers’ in buying the online apparels in Malaysia and United Kingdom
§ To identify the consumers’ motivational factors and concern factors towards online fashion shopping in Malaysia and United Kingdom
§ To differentiate the behavioural outcomes of online fashion buyers’ in Malaysia and United Kingdom
Significant or Justifications
This study gives new thoughts in understanding the behaviour and attitude of customers. What makes this study significant is the fact that it takes a quite difficult task of understanding inductively the behaviour of customers using a cross-cultural approach.
Scope and limitations
The study will particularly focuses on selected customers in Malaysia and UK. In order to come up with such scheme, the study will also select dominant online fashion shopping websites in which customers from United Kingdom and Malaysia are permanent subscribers.
D. Brief description of the models/theories/concepts that will be used in this proposal. (I.e. consumer behaviourism model, CSF and etc.)
· Model of buying behaviour
· Consumer environmental analysis
· a theoretical model of culture’s influence on behaviour
· relationship model between culture and subculture
· Three elements of consumer analysis
· structural models of attitudes
· motivation links needs and objectives
· Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
· behavioural learning theories
· Consumer decision process model
E. Academic research being carried out and other information, techniques being learnt. (i.e. literature – what are the names of books you are going to read / data sets you are going to use)
Books and e-books
The author of the thesis will mainly look for the consumer behaviour, marketing, online shopping, e-commerce, understanding consumers, worldwide retail industry, microeconomic and behaviour as well as any other books or e-books, that related to the selected topic, to gather beneficial information for the research.
Online resources’ names
Types of e-resources
Name of the e-resources
Journals
Emerald Fulltext, Informaworld, SAGE Journals Online, Cambridge Journals Online, SwetsWise, Taylor & Francis Journals, and Web of Knowledge
e-books
Gale Database, Dawson Books, Informaworld, Ebrary, NetLibrary, and Biz/ed premier
Articles
Informaworld, WARC.com, and METAPRESS
Academic and professional publications
IngentaConnect, and EBSCOhost databases
Key words
The key words below will be use by the researcher to effectively and exactly search for the data in books, journals, articles, websites, newsletters, as well as in other professional and academic publications.
[Consumer attitude, consumer behaviour, Malaysia, United Kingdom, worldwide retail industry, retail industry in Malaysia, retail industry in United Kingdom, consumer behaviour analysis, demographics, personal choices, consumer motivations, learning and knowledge, the elements of consumer learning, behavioural learning theories, cognitive learning theory, measures of consumer learning, culture and subculture, social class, family and group influence, consumer decision process, online fashion shoppers identity, age, gender, income, education, the dynamics of motivations, types and systems of needs, the measures of motives, concern factors towards online fashion shopping, structural models of attitudes, attitude formation, strategies of attitude change, cognitive dissonance theory, attribution theory, the measurement of social class, cross-cultural consumer analysis, and the models of consumers].
F. Brief description of the materials/methodologies needed by the proposal. (I.e. data collection methods, sampling, sample size and target group etc.)
The author of the thesis will firstly gather secondary data from online resources, books, journals, articles, newsletters, and in any other professional and academic publications to clarify the current situation of e-retailing industry in Malaysia and United Kingdom as well as English consumers’ analysis towards online fashion shopping. Subsequently, the author will make a general overview about the Malaysians’ e-fashion shopping behaviours and attitudes by using primary data from the direct surveys. The direct surveys are only targeted for 150 trial, occasional, frequent, and regular e-shoppers in Malaysia. Moreover, the author planned to conduct a direct interview from 10 to 20 minutes with five to seven e-retailers in Malaysia to gather functional and valuable information about their customers’ cultural behaviours.
G. Brief description of the evaluation and analysis proposed for this project. (i.e. project deliverables and hypothesis, correlation test etc)
Project deliverable
The things to be accomplished are illustrated in the following Gantt chart.
TASK
MONTH
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th
8th
9th
Select topic
Undertake preliminary literature search
Define research questions
Write-up aims and objectives
Select appropriate methodology and locate sources of information. Confirm access.
Write-up Dissertation Plan
Undertake and write-up draft critical literature review.
Secondary and Primary Data Detailed
Sources
Consulted
Research Findings:
Analyzed
Evaluated
Written-up
Discussion:
Research findings evaluated and discussed in relation to the literature review
Methodology written-up
(including limitations and constraints)
Main body of the report written-up and checked for logical structure
Conclusions drawn
Recommendations made
Introduction and Executive Summary written-up
Final format and indexing
Hypothesis
HP1 Online fashion shoppers in Malaysia and United Kingdom differ in online buying behaviour
HP2 Online fashion shoppers in Malaysia and United Kingdom have similar and different cultural attitude and behaviour towards online fashion shopping
HP3 Online fashion shoppers in Malaysia and United Kingdom have similar and different perception when defining online apparels
HP4 Internet fashion shoppers in Malaysia and United Kingdom have similar and different motivational and concern factors towards e-fashion shopping
HP5 Home fashion shoppers in Malaysia and United Kingdom have similar and different e-fashion choices
HP6 Electronic fashion shoppers in Malaysia and United Kingdom differ in e-shopping site choices
H. Illustration of how this project will benefit the future employability.
As a result of the inadequate consumer researches in Malaysia and constantly changing trends among English people, this study can assist the e-retailers to follow up the updated information on consumers’ buying behaviour and attitude in Malaysia and United Kingdom. Besides, this comparison study or research can give an idea about cross-cultural studies to other researchers or scientist in the upcoming days.
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
Having the potential to turn the sails in favour of neophytes and bring down incumbents, Digital Disruption is reshaping markets with the speed and force that has no match in history! Survivors are those businesses that are pro-actively adopting digital, but in order to thrive, they must also innovate new business models to keep pace with the digital age! Nicolas Krafft
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