01 - Final Thesis in PDF

PROGRAMME AND ECTS
BACHELOR THESIS
The role of brand trust in online communities
Adrien Dubois Ahlqvist! Michael Popp
Strategic Marketing with independant project! 30.0 hp
Halmstad Hgskolan 2013
BACHELOR THESIS
The role of brand trust in online communities
Adrien Dubois Ahlqvist! Michael Popp
Strategic Marketing with independant project! 30.0 hp
Halmstad Hgskolan 2013
The$role$of$brand$trust$in$online$communities$$
Acknowledgements.
We desire to express our gratitude toward all people who have contributed to our thesis. We want to thank all the people who have helped us to spread the survey and answering it. We would also are grateful for our supervisor: Reinert Venilton who helped us all the way to the end to product this thesis. We also want to thank to our colleagues who offered constructive criticisms that have enabled us to improve our thesis. We also thank Vera and Jrgen Popp as well as Laura Pttmann for the contribution they have made to this thesis. Without them it probably would not be what it is now.
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Title: The role of brand trust in online communities Authors: Adrien Dubois Ahlqvist & Michael Popp Supervisor: Reinert Venilton Level: Bachelor Thesis in Business Administration Key words:
loyalty, brand Brand trust, online communities, eBook, Internet, retailing, brand
Purpose: The purpose of this paper to understand how brand trust is built in online
communities
Method:
A quantitative, descriptive study conducted on 286 people. A
questionnaire has been used.
Theoretical framework: Conclusion:
The framework consists of theories and models
about online communities and brand trust It was found that certain factors influence brand trust: Knowledge
about the eBook market, sunk cost, non-overlapping attributes, functional promises, past experience with the brand, past experience of other community members with the brand and information about the eBook retailer Brand trust in online communities spreads in a similar way like information. Most people in online communities join them to consume information and only a relatively small amount of people provides the information about brand trust. The framework of a community influences the way brand trust spreads with roles of members, their evolution and social identity as most important mechanisms.
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Table.of.Contents.
Acknowledgements. ............................................................................................................1$ Introduction..........................................................................................................................6$
Background....................................................................................................................................6$ Problem...........................................................................................................................................8$ Purpose............................................................................................................................................9$ Delimitations:................................................................................................................................9$
Theoretical.framework..................................................................................................10$
Brand.Trust.................................................................................................................................. 10$ Definition$of$Brand$...............................................................................................................................$10$ Definition$of$trust$..................................................................................................................................$10$ Definition$of$Brand$Trust$...................................................................................................................$11$ Development.of.brand.trust................................................................................................... 11$ Why$brand$trust$is$needed$................................................................................................................$11$ How.brand.trust.is.built.on.an.individual.level............................................................... 12$ Brand$trust$develops$over$time$......................................................................................................$12$ Brand$trust$development$and$promises$.....................................................................................$13$ Main$factors$influencing$brand$trust$development$................................................................$13$ The.Role.of.Brand.trust.in.online.communities............................................................... 14$ What.is.a.Community................................................................................................................ 14$ Difference$between$communities$and$segmentation$............................................................$16$ Social.identity.............................................................................................................................. 17$ Reasons.why.people.are.ready.to.involve.themselves.in.communities.................. 17$ Sharing$knowledge$...............................................................................................................................$17$ Celebrating$similarities$and$distinction$from$the$outside$world$.....................................$18$ Shared$rituals$..........................................................................................................................................$18$ How.are.communities.organized.and.Membership.life.cycle..................................... 19$ Types$of$classification$.........................................................................................................................$19$ Evolution$in$the$role$of$people$........................................................................................................$20$
Methodology. ......................................................................................................................20$
Method........................................................................................................................................... 21$ Qualitative$or$quantitative$................................................................................................................$21$
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The$role$of$brand$trust$in$online$communities$$ Type.of.research......................................................................................................................... 22$ Exploratory$$Descriptive$$Explanatory$....................................................................................$22$ Population.and.sample. ............................................................................................................ 23$ Population$................................................................................................................................................$23$ Type$of$sample:$Randomly$and$nonPrandomly$........................................................................$24$ Sample$Size$..............................................................................................................................................$25$ Instrument.to.collect.the.data:.Questionnaire................................................................. 26$ Advantages$and$disadvantages$of$online$research$.................................................................$26$ Reasons$for$choosing$a$questionnaire$.........................................................................................$28$ Data$collection$........................................................................................................................................$29$ Statistical$Methods$used$for$analysis$...........................................................................................$33$
Empirical.Study.................................................................................................................35$
Preliminary.questions.............................................................................................................. 35$ Questions.relative.to.eBooks..and.eBook.retailer.......................................................... 36$ Question.related.to.brand.trust............................................................................................ 41$ Questions.relative.to.communities...................................................................................... 45$ Multivariable.analysis.............................................................................................................. 48$
Discussion.of.empirical.data. ........................................................................................50$
Why.brand.trust.is.needed.for.eBook.retailer................................................................. 50$ Brand$trust$and$the$absence$of$full$information$.....................................................................$50$ Is$brand$trust$related$to$the$knowledge$of$the$market?$ .......................................................$50$ Brand.and.sunk.costs................................................................................................................ 53$ Brand.trust.and.nonToverlapping.attributes.................................................................... 54$ How.brand.trust.is.built.on.an.individual.level............................................................... 55$ Brand$trust$and$different$types$of$promises$.............................................................................$55$ Brand.trust.and.factors.which.influence.the.individual.level.of.brand.trust........ 56$ Influence$of$the$three$main$factors$of$brand$trust$ ..................................................................$56$ Findings$of$questions$related$to$past$experience$ ....................................................................$58$ How.the.spreading.of.information.influences.brand.trust.......................................... 58$ Experience$of$other$community$members$.................................................................................$58$ Relationship$between$membership$of$a$brand$community$and$brand$trust$..............$59$ Goal$orientation$of$communities$....................................................................................................$59$ Mechanisms.of.online.communities.which.influence.the.way.brand.trust. spreads.......................................................................................................................................... 60$
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The$role$of$brand$trust$in$online$communities$$ Different$roles$in$an$online$community$ .......................................................................................$60$ Evolution$of$People$in$an$online$community$............................................................................$61$ Most$important$places$for$online$communities$to$meet$......................................................$61$
Conclusion...........................................................................................................................63$
Contribution.to.research.and.practice................................................................................ 64$ Further.studies........................................................................................................................... 64$ Limitations................................................................................................................................... 64$
Bibliography.......................................................................................................................65$
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Introduction.
Background.
This thesis is going to discuss the role of brand trust in online communities for eBook retailer. In this first part of the introduction the importance of brand trust and online communities is shown. Furthermore it is pointed out how these concepts belong together and why the eBook retailing market has been chosen. Apple is with more than 416 billion the most valuable company in the world (Forbes, 2013). Companies like Wal-Mart, McDonalds, IBM or Coca-Cola are also valued billions. What do they have in common? They are respected and well-known brands. One thing which they all have in common is that they have created brand trust. Brand trust has many advantages like loyalty, elevated expectations and is sometimes more important than the product itself. Brand trust creates loyalty that makes the customers stay with the brand, even though competitors product might be more favorable according to objective criteria (Ruparelia, White, & Hughes, 2010). Trust can sometimes be more important than the product itself. Positive experience can strengthen belief to overconfidence resulting into liking and trusting brand products irrationally (Wright & Lynch, 1994). Additionally it is clear that brands make promises and raise customers expectations about the product (Anker, Kappel, Eadie, & Sandoe, 2012), which then is associated with more benefits. Brand trust, however, is not a natural state of customers but has be established in them somehow. Online communities play an important part in spreading brand trust through the internet (de Valck , H. van Bruggen , & Wierenga , 2009) with for instance having Facebook having 250 thousand members in Europe (Internetworldstats, 2012). With Facebook just being one of many online communities the amount of members and therefore also their great influence can be seen well. Communities are now an essential social component that marketing has to
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take into consideration: they have empowered buyers as never did before, creating new challenges for marketing: communities are more engaged, more active and more powerful than individuals and having them trusting in the brand is essential for its success (MUNIZ, Albert M. and O'Guinn, Thomas, 2001). Communities are also a great way to reach a massive amount of people that are already highly engaged with certain products or topics (SEO , Jangwon et al., 2011). Having communities trusting a brand and spreading this trust might be far superior traditional ways of advertising. Brand trust in an online community spreads the same way any information will spread and will use the same mediums to do so (V. Kozinets, de Valck, C.Wojnicki, & J.S.Wilner, 2010). Most of the time new information is given to the community by the most influential persons in the group, usually those considered as the "elders" (ToderAlon, Brunei , & Schneier Siegal , 2001): they are leader of the community who then spread the information or brand trust to the rest of a community (Toder-Alon, Brunei , & Schneier Siegal , 2001). At some point information can become viral and then reach the whole community and even spread beyond the realm of the online community (de Valck , H. van Bruggen , & Wierenga , 2009). Organizational structures of communities went from a society of hierarchy to a society of networks; this has an important impact on its peoples mentality and on organizations as they are now more flexible, more reactive, more goal driven and they also focus much more on performance and control than ever before (Raab & Kenis , 2009). The Internet has increased the power of communities by allowing form groups to put companies under pressure. Today communities are able to make a big organization bow because they for instance didnt like the end of a computer game (EA and Mass Effect 3 (BBC, 2012)), because they want a TV show to continue (Hero Corp (Allocin, 2012)) or simply shutting on or off companies or countries from the internet just because they agree or disagree to their policies such as the PSN Gate where the company saw its services being shut down by a group of hackers from the Anonymous movement (Eudes, 2011).
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As the role of brand trust in online communities cannot be studied in the vacuum it was decided to focus on an area with great potential which has not yet been studied much in this regard: the eBook retailing market. This market is, new, big and growing: the US market for instance, reached 3,371 Billion in 2012 and has a forecasted market volume of 5,571 billion in 2015 (PricewatershouseCoopers, 2013). Furthermore some segments are especially attractive, like the export sales of eBooks by American retailer which grew from 4,9 million in 2010 to 21,9 million in 2011, an increase of 333% (Greenfield, 2012) EBook retailer have also been chosen because brand loyalty is important in highly competitive industries where costs of entrance are low (Elena & Munuera-Alemn, 2000) as eBooks can be everyone who has the right website. Brand trust may create a substantial entry barrier for competitors, leading to a higher revenue and market share (Elena & Munuera-Alemn, 2000). This market fits very well to online communities because when buying an eBook the buyer has to rely on the experience of other community members (A. Chevalier & Mayzlin , 2003).
Problem.
Convincing individuals of buying a certain brand is not easy and convincing a group of people is even harder. However a brand, who succeeds in doing so, will transform the community into an ambassadors of the brand who will then convince more people around them with a reduced need for the brand to actively reinforce that trust (Steve Blank, 2012). Compared to brand trust, brand distrust spreads much faster in online communities because bad buzz becomes viral much easier than positive information about the brand and can quickly have highly destructive effects on a it (Arnaud De Bruyn, 2008). Distrust would have high consequences: customers would switch more easily to other brands, be more prices sensitive and this would result in a lower market share and a decrease in revenue. (Chaudhuri & Holbrook, 2001) Distrust also leads to close-mindedness, which makes influencing the customer more difficult (Ruparelia, White, & Hughes, 2010) and as a consequence of that values projected by the company are not accepted and the unique symbolic benefits that they want to convey will not be seen by the customer (Chaudhuri & Holbrook, 2001).
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If brand trust, however, can be established then the great benefit is that the brand is more likely to be chosen first in the product category (Muthukrishnan, 1995).
Purpose.
The purpose of this paper is to understand how brand trust is build and how it spreads in communities. To accomplish these four need to be covered: -The need of brand trust for eBook retailer -How brand trust is built on an individual level -How brand trust is spreading in online communities -How the organization of communities can influence the spreading of brand trust Therefore the research question is: How is brand trust build in online communities?
Delimitations:.
This thesis researches why brand trust is needed, how it is built on an individual level, how information the information about brand trust spreads in online communities and how the mechanisms which define the framework of an online community influence the way brand trust spreads. It is not talked about the benefits of brand trust, if brands are needed or the importance of online communities. It is also not talked about the role of brand trust for magazines, scientific articles or other written information, even though it is assumed that findings in these areas might be similar.
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Theoretical.framework.
In this part brand trust will be defined, by defining Brand and Trust individually and putting these definitions together. Then it is defined in detail what an online community is, what they are after and the big picture will be painted of how communities organize themselves in order to reach their goals. This analysis is crucial to understand how information is transmitted in a community and consequently how brand trust spreads in online communities. These definitions are important to understand how online communities develop and understand implications for the advantages which brand trust might bring.
Brand.Trust.
Definition.of.Brand. A brand is a set of symbolic values that differentiate products, services, persons or places from other functionally equivalent entities (Anker, Kappel, Eadie, & Sandoe, 2012). A brand also triggers these associations in other people, letting them recall the presented values and ideas of the brand, attaching them to the company (Valatoutsu & Moutinho, 2008).
Definition.of.trust. Trust is more difficult to describe as it is a complex construct that has many dimensions, variables and that is not easy to quantify (Rousseau, Sitkin, Burt, & C., 1998). The most precise definition is a psychological state comprising the intention to accept vulnerability based upon positive expectations of the intention or behavior of another under conditions of risk and interdependence (Ruparelia, White, & Hughes, 2010). This definition gives a true, yet vague idea of what trust is. Trust is also described as the belief, that someone fulfills his obligations or relying on an exchange partner who one has confidence in (Schurr & Ozanne, 1985). Another definition of trust is the willingness of the average consumer to rely on the ability of the brand to perform its stated function (Alam & Yasin, 2010). The main
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commonality these definitions have is that trust is about a belief of the fulfillment of a promise. Consequently it is important to understand what a promise is. According to Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary, [] the most basic meaning of making a promise is to assure somebody that one will do or not do something (Anker, Kappel, Eadie, & Sandoe, 2012).
Definition.of.Brand.Trust. Combining these two Ideas brand trust is the belief that the projected symbolic values of the company will be given with the product or service. The trust in the promise is important up to the point where the customer decides to try the product and then makes up his own mind about it and then the trust gets approved or disapproved (Anker, Kappel, Eadie, & Sandoe, 2012). Trust is not confidence in the performance of the company, not the belief that the company is fair minded or truthful, not a statement about the high quality of the companys products, not predictability of future performance, not positive personal experience, yet these factors highly correlate with trust (Ruparelia, White, & Hughes, 2010).
Development.of.brand.trust.
Why.brand.trust.is.needed. One of the reasons why brand trust is needed is the absence of full information (Alba & Wesley, 1987). People have an imperfect memory and therefore cannot know everything. They either do not know exactly all features of all retailers or do not know everything about the products, the eBooks available. Another problem is that brands sometimes possess non-overlapping attributes (Slovic & MacPhilammy, 1974). Some eBook retailers might have certain features like better customer service, better data security or very user-friendly websites. As a consequence of that customers, even when having full information, cannot objectively decide which retailer is better as they all have different and non-comparable attributes. Even though this does not directly creates a need for brand trust, having brand trust in a company would in this case make it easier for the customer to decide
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where to buy, because he knows what he values and where he gets it. Customers also decide to build brand trust if sunk costs are involved (Samuelson & Zeckhauser, 1988). In the case of eBook retailer the sunk-costs would be representing by the time and energy which a customer has spent in entering has data in the website, learning to navigate fast through the website and other aspects. He sometimes would chose to trust the brand instead of taking the effort to switch the eBook retailer. Regret avoidance also plays a big role in showing, why trust is important (Muthukrishnan, 1995): people have a tendency to avoid regret instead of gaining similar amounts of pleasure (Muthukrishnan, 1995), therefore preferring to stay at a trusted eBook retailer instead of changing and risking to be disappointed. Now that brand trust and the need for brand trust have been explained it is to show how brand trust is build inside of individuals and how these individuals will spread this trust trough online communities
How.brand.trust.is.built.on.an.individual.level.
Brand.trust.develops.over.time. Brand trust does not occur immediately but is rather growing over time when customers expectation of the product are met and they consequently are willing to use it again (Ruparelia, White, & Hughes, 2010). This means that when purchases are made at the eBook retailer and the customer is for instance satisfied with the quality of the transaction, the eBook and the data security trust is building up. Even though it takes time to build trust, trust can be lost very quickly when consumers are disappointed and it is very hard or even impossible to get them trusting the brand again (Ruparelia, White, & Hughes, 2010). This means that eBook retailer have to work consistently because mistakes destroy trust quickly.
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Brand.trust.development.and.promises. Promises of eBook retailers shape the expectation of the customer (Ruparelia, White, & Hughes, 2010). EBook retailers make three main types of promises: functional, symbolic and experiential. Functional promises focus on solving a clear problem or on fulfilling a task, for instance when an eBook is bought because it contains certain information (Anker, Kappel, Eadie, & Sandoe, 2012). Symbolic promises are those where beyond the eBook other advantages are promised to be given like becoming fit from reading a book about sport or being more liked by other people. These symbolic promises usually involve the participation of the customer to keep them (Evans & Hastings, 2008). The last type of promise is an experiencial, a promise which addresses to the need of the customer of stimulation or variety (Chandler & Vargo, 2011), for instance the story or information contained in an eBook. Understanding the types of promises is crucial, as their nature influences the way trust is developed. Finding out which promises influence trust the most could be helpful for building brand trust.
Main.factors.influencing.brand.trust.development. The three main factors influencing brand trust are word of mouth, information about the brand and past experience (Ruparelia, White, & Hughes, 2010). It is important to notice that in the case of eBook retailers companies do not have full influence on these 3 factors. Word of mouth is created by customers for customers, information is also found in different sources and past experience is relative. It would be important to understand how much each of these 3 factors influence brand trust to be able to take actions against negative sources of influence.
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Need$for$brand$ trust$ $ Absence$of$full$ information,$ Sunk$cost,$ regret$ avoidance$
Brand$trust$ builds$over$ time$through$ kept$promises,$ satisfaction,$ word$of$mouth$ and$ Information$ about$brand$
Figure 1: Chart which illustrates the development of brand trust based on the information of the theoretical framework (Michael & Adrien, 2013) Now that it is explained how brand trust is established in customers as individuals free of any context it is to show how this trust will spread in communities. In the following it is explained how communities are organized and why people are inside of them. These two aspects are the most important ones to understand how brand trust spreads in an online community.
The.Role.of.Brand.trust.in.online.communities. What.is.a.Community.
Definition(of(an(online(community( In a first part it is defined what a community is in general and then specified in which ways online communities may differ. ( A community can be defined as a body of individuals who have a sense of common identity may be defined as a community. They may share geographic, political, religious or social similarities (Slack, 1998). This definition clearly puts people and identity in the center of the definition a community but it is also a common purpose, which bounds individuals to improve their lots and that of their fellows (Slack,
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1998). Since communities are created by people for people new ones appear every day and there are as many of them as there are differing opinions (a political community), hobbies (sports club), ways of life (the gay community), places to live (local communities) or beliefs (Christian communities) (Hoon Kim , Hoon Yang , & Kyung Kim , 2009). The definition of community doesnt imply any limits of size nor age or limits to how many people can be in the community as long as they have something that binds them together. For example any individuals can be part of a family community, take responsibility in a private boat club where people are close to each other, go to a science fiction book convention and from time to time join a poker club: all these different groups are communities and one person can be part of dozens of communities (Hoon Kim , Hoon Yang , & Kyung Kim , 2009). Communities can be used in marketing. It is then possible do distinguish between two types of communities: subcultural communities and brand communities (De BurghWoodman & Brace-Govan , 2007). Subcultural communities are social oriented, escapist of mainstream norms, based on non geographical interactions, they exists outside commercials interests and draw from many different inspirations (Zaglia, 2013); a good example of a subcultural community would be the hippie or the geek community (Hovy, 2005)) whereas a brand community is defined by being a specialized, non-geographically bound community, based on a structured set of social relations among admirers of a brand (Muniz & O'Guinn, 2001). Some of the most known brand communities are Apple users, Harley Davidson bikers or dungeons & dragons players. For the term online community, however, many different definitions can be found. For our purpose the definition of Howard Rheingold (1994) is suiting very well. He wrote that virtual communities are cultural aggregations that emerge when enough people bump into each other often enough in cyberspace. A virtual community is a group of people who may or may not meet one another face-to-face, and who exchange words and ideas through the mediation of computer bulletin boards and networks (Rheingold, 1994). What Rheingold means with that definition is that an online community is, as the name implied, a community with the distinction that interactions are made online. This definition clearly shows that in online communities
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information, ideas and beliefs are exchanged. One important theory that our thesis is going to test is if brand trust can spread in online communities in the same way as information does.
Difference.between.communities.and.segmentation. It is important to point out the difference between communities and segments, because these two concepts on the first glance might seem identical. Kotler, Armstrong, Wong & Saunders (2008) define segmentation as being the need to dividing a market into distinct groups of buyers who have distinct needs, characteristics, or behavior and who might require separate products or marketing mixes, in practice segmentation is usually done by demographic criteria such as the age, the gender of the person, where they live but also behaviors and psychological factors (Martin, 2011) but in the end a good segmentation is one where each person fit in one and only one segment (Kotler, Armstrong, Wong, & Saunders, 2008). Smith considers that market segmentation involves viewing a heterogeneous market as a number of smaller homogeneous market in response to differing preferences attributable to the desires of customers for more precise satisfaction of their variations (Wedel, 2011). Based on this analysis it can be said that people never being two times in different segments is the most important thing in an effective segmentation. It was seen earlier that communities can be based on many different common elements in many different domains that can be shared by individuals and that people are often part of several communities at the same time: family is a community, a town or a country is another one, then people can have several passions and can choose to be part of each community that have been built around this hobby or interest. Researches have defined actives communities as shared cultural, socials and intellectual values (Seraj, 2012) involving self-governed community culture, co creation and interactions.
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Through these two definitions it becomes really clear that these are two completely different concepts that imply two differing approaches on marketing to these groups. Segmentation takes away the freedom of choice to its future customers whereas a community based approach lets the people say to what group(s) of people they want to be assimilated. The difference is that in one case individuals are passive whereas in the other one they are already active, already interact together and have clearly defined rules and behaviors. There cant be a community if there is no conscience of a kind (Muniz & O'Guinn, 2001), a mindset which is shared by all of them.
Social.identity.
Sharing(values(and(norms( Values are defined as principles or standards of behavior; ones judgment of what is important in life by the oxford dictionary (Oxford University, 2013). Communities dont only stand for a goal, an objective but sometimes for values (Belton, 2012). A great example for this is the amazon.com community. People not only buy products but also discuss and express their opinion (Knappenberger, 2012). In case of eBooks that means that they discuss about the eBook and give recommendations to buy or to avoid it.
Reasons.why.people.are.ready.to.involve.themselves.in.communities.
Sharing.knowledge. Knowledge is the reason why most communities are gathering: to exchange information and receive support in receirch (Sharratt & Usoro , 2003). What people are after in these networks is the satisfaction of helping or to know that having helped they will be rewarded for it when they will need help themselves (Chao-Min , MengHsiang , & Wang , 2006). This exchange is crucial for a community to survive because it gives users a purpose to meet and motivate them to continue their efforts. Mutual exchange in a community is called the justice theory and it refers to the fairness of the outcome that an individual gets considering what he has been giving
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(Bies & Moag, 1986). This fairness paradigm in communities is essential: if the mutuality principle is not respected then the whole organization is at risk because individuals would not be seeing the benefits of giving sharing valuable information. (Seo , Croft , & Smith , 2011).
Communities not only value information from other members, but also from companies. When customers interact with companies they might absorb the companies values and perceive the company as trusted advisers (Fller , Matzler , & Hoppe , 2008). This, however, only happens the customer perceives the information given by the company as valuable (Fller , Matzler , & Hoppe , 2008).
Celebrating.similarities.and.distinction.from.the.outside.world. As it has been said before communities are a place where people sharing a common trait (like reading), a common passion (like eBooks) or a common objective (like learning) can be found to unite and meet other people like them: they identify themselves with or distinguish themselves from other people (Bagozzi, Bergami, Marzocchi, & Morandin, 2012). Many talks in communities are based around a joyful recognition and identification; sometimes members will talk about how they came to the community or whatever brought the community together which results in tightening their bonds (de Valck , H. van Bruggen , & Wierenga , 2009). According to Bagozzi (2012) they will also create a differentiation between them as a homogeneous group and others; This barrier will be reinforced by the mutual bonds and links they share inside the community. The close relationship of community members inside the group causes their values to merge and amplify the trust or distrust for a brand.
Shared.rituals. People among communities also share certain rituals that have an important role in a practical sense but also beyond it. They reinforce the feeling of being part of something bigger than oneself and that is different from the rest of the world (Muniz & O'Guinn, 2001). They involve the recognition of the people inside the community
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and of people outside of it as well: it can be about reading the same books or comparing ones library to another community members collection (Muniz & O'Guinn, 2001). Some rituals just involve telling each his or her own story of how they joined the community or discussing about the experience of products (Zaglia, 2013). This means that rituals are an important part of online communities to spread brand trust, as experience and information are exchanged on a regular basis.
How.are.communities.organized.and.Membership.life.cycle.
Types.of.classification.. Communitys actors have a specific life style, in the way they integrate themselves and interact inside the group. These steps can be related to the importance the person will acquire in this specific group: It is distinguished between visitors who will read but not interact and are quite outside of the community from novices and regulars (the main difference between these two groups is that the former spends less time in the community and has less knowledge), leaders who will bring new ideas to the community and elders whose role is mainly to regulate the group (Toder-Alon, Brunei , & Schneier Siegal , 2001). There are, however other approaches to categorize community members lie the one of De Valk (2009). He distinguishes between core members and peripheral members. Core members are people who intensively use the knowledge reservoir of a community and will also supply massive amount of it. They are extremely active and are usually less than 10% of a community. Peripheral members can be divided into other groups: Conversationalists and informationalists. The conversationalists are people who will come often but for short visits during which their interactions are intense. Informationalists are people who highly use and supply information contained in a community; their interactions are comparable to those of conversationalists but they come less often and spend less time talking to others. Hobbyists are people who love to come often to see what is new in the community but who wont spent much time supplying new knowledge to the group, they come even more often that conversationalists and spend even more time. They usually spend their time uploading music, pictures or cartoons; they will often represent around 20%
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of a community. The last groups in this approach are the opportunists: they are the least frequent visitors whose visits are the shortest, they only use the community as a giant knowledge reservoir from which they drain but dont supply anything useful for others. Understanding the composition of the community is important to understand how brand trust spreads in it. Finding out for instance the rate of participation gives a great insight in how many percent of people are spreading the brand trust in the community and how many are receiving the information.
Evolution.in.the.role.of.people. According to Kozinet (1999) a more dynamic approach has to be used to make distinction about the different actors of a community. He argues that people not only have a predefined role but rather dynamic perception of their role in the community. This distinction is important because it is possible to not only identify the way brand trust is spread but also gives the possibility to predict how it will spread in the future, assuming that the rate of change can be calculated.
. . . Methodology..
In this part of the thesis, it is shown which methods have been used to collect the information needed. The following tools have been chosen because they fit best to the purpose. As the main objectives are to understand how brand trust develops and how brand trust spreads in communities the most suitable approach to our purpose has been chosen.
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Method.
Qualitative.or.quantitative. When collecting data, two different types of data can be found: qualitative and quantitative data (Clarke, 1999). Quantitative analysis is about variables, measured with numbers, and analyzed with statistical procedures, in order to determine whether the predictive generalizations of the theory hold true (Sogunro, 2002). According to this definition it can be said that quantitative research is more about the numerical analysis of relationship, using statistical tools and quantifying theories. Qualitative research on the other hand is an inquiry process of understanding [] a problem, based on building a complex picture, formed with words, reporting detailed views of informants, and conducted in a natural setting (Sogunro, 2002). Qualitative data consequently is used to describe the attributes of a situation or create a detailed report of a situation. A qualitative research has the risk of being subjective as the participants are asked to give their opinion (Caillet & Guimbi, 2010) instead of receiving objective descriptions of the reality. Moreover in qualitative analysis data is often taken from a small number of subjects, as the analysis of the data of an individual takes more time than in a qualitative analysis (Clarke, 1999): a lower survey sample size means a lower objectivity. In the theoretical framework the forces which are important about for role of brand trust in online communities have been pointed out and therefore it is important to understand the importance of different aspects instead and analyze, how strong they are and how the correlate, for which a quantitative approach is more appropriate. Concluding it can be said that a quantitative analysis fits better to our demands regarding the data and also to the population, as access to many potential participants
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is available and therefore data can be collected from a great number of subjects, get more objective results and therefore have more profound findings.
Type.of.research.
Exploratory..Descriptive..Explanatory. There are three different types of research: descriptive, exploratory and explanatory (Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2007).
Exploratory research is a research that is often made when no clear definition or boundaries of a problem exist (Shields & Tajalli, 2006). This type of research is mostly conducted when a theory or hypothesis is needed because there is not enough information about this topic (Shields & Tajalli, 2006). The purpose of such a research is commonly to formulate new hypothesis in order to be able to investigate more efficient in the future (Shields & Tajalli, 2006). The second type of research, explanatory research, and aims to understand how certain aspects of a topic or phenomenon are relating to each other. (Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2007). Exploratory studies aim to analyze relationships and patterns as in of certain phenomena, as almost everything does not exist in a vacuum but rather in an interrelated system (Grimaldi & Engel, 2007). Descriptive research on the other hand is used to describe attributes and characteristics of the group or phenomenon that is analyzed (Shields & Tajalli, 2006). This type of research does not aim to give explanation of causalities and relationships, not answering why, how or when certain attributes occurred (Shields & Tajalli, 2006). Quantitate descriptive research goes even further; It not only describes the situation as it is but also uses numerical or graphical techniques to organize this data to give a better description (Fisher, 2009).
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Looking at the three different types of research, two types of research seems to be the most suitable one to our situation. Exploratory research does fit very well to the theoretical framework of our thesis, as there has been no clear hypothesis formulated yet. Explanatory research does not fit because the role of brand trust for eBook retailer has not been studied much before and it is not clear that the theories are correct. Therefore looking for explanations for them does not make sense. Descriptive research, however, fits very well to the purpose: describing the situation is a good way to fill the void that exists due to the lack of data about this topic: by gaining clarity about this topic insights can be gained which might be used for further research in for instance explanatory research.
Population.and.sample.
Population. The population of eBook reading community members has not yet been studied and therefore no numbers for this exist. It, however, can be said that 21% of all Europeans read eBooks (Rainie, Zickuhr, Purcell, Madden, & Brenner, 2012) and 518.512.109 people use the internet in Europe (Internetworldstats, 2012). It can be said that every internet user is a community member because practically everyone who collects and/or shares information online has a social identity and can associate himself with other people online, which is the criteria for being a member of an online community (Slack, 1998). It is impossible to find out exactly how many people are community members and also read eBooks because both aspects are constantly changing but estimations can be made. Assuming that the reading of eBooks and the Internet connection are independent elements it can be said the population is of eBook reading community members is of about 108000000 people by taking 21% of all European internet users. This assumption is rather unrealistic because Internet usage and eBook consumption are very likely related but this is the only option available for determining the population. Even though it might not be accurate it gives a rough estimate of the size of the population.
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Type.of.sample:.Randomly.and.nonKrandomly. In this part the sampling choice will be explained Two types of sampling are possible: Random sampling and non-random sampling (Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning, 2003) Random sampling has a clear definition: each individual in the population of interest has an equal likelihood of selection (Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning, 2003). This means that all subject of the population have to have the same probability to be participate in the survey. On the other hand, in a non-random sample is used when the likelihood of occurrence of a certain element is not known (Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning, 2003). This might happen when the population is not known (Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning, 2003) Four main types of non-probability sampling exist: availability sampling, quota Sampling, purposive sampling and snowball sampling (Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning, 2003). The availability sampling is a method to choose a sample by convenience (Business Dictionairy, 2013). The advantage of this method is that it is easy to get volunteers as there are not so strict criteria that have to be met compared to the other sampling methods (Business Dictionary, 2013). The biggest disadvantage of this method is that the sample might be biased: as by choosing an easy accessible group the whole population might not be perfectly represented by them (Business Dictionary, 2013). The second type of non-probability sampling is the quota sampling. When using quota sampling the elements of the sample are chosen according to certain criteria that will make them representable for the population (Heinz, 1998). An advantage is that it is more reliable then the availability sampling, because the way of choosing makes the sample size more resembling to the population (Heinz, 1998). The biggest disadvantage of this sampling method is that the subjects are chosen according to specific criteria that always involve the risk of having a non-representative sample. (Heinz, 1998)
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The third type of non-probability sampling is the purpose or judgmental sample (Tansey, 2007). In this sampling methods elements are chosen because they meet a certain criteria (Tansey, 2007). This type of sampling is very efficient, when studying extreme or abnormal cases, as those can be directly chosen and analyzed (Tansey, 2007). This being said this sampling method can be rejected because the purpose is to study the development of brand trust in an online community and there is no need to focus on special cases. The third and last type of non-random sampling is snowball sampling. In the snowball sampling subjects are chosen to participate in the study and the recruit further participants (Handcock & Gile, 2011). This happens until there is enough data gathered until the sample size is high enough for a reliable research (Handcock & Gile, 2011). This sampling technique is often used to access populations that are difficult to find or are geographically dispersed (Handcock & Gile, 2011) which is the case for members of online communities. Snowball sampling, however, has two main disadvantages. The first is that there is a community bias (Handcock & Gile, 2011). It means that certain members of the population are more likely to be chosen than others, as they might have more contact, be less feared or more liked (Handcock & Gile, 2011). The second disadvantage is that it cannot be know how much the sample size is based through the snowball sampling (Handcock & Gile, 2011). In our case this is a really big problem as role of users in an online community are very diverse: for instance novices have a different role as leaders or elders. After looking at the sampling possibilities it is clear that only one method can supply a perfect, unbiased sample: the random method. From the non-random method none will have sufficient validity because each one of them includes a bias that will make it impossible for us to make a reasonable quantitative analysis.
. Sample.Size. 205 people are needed to have a confidence level of 99% with a confidence interval of 9% and the assumed population (Macorr, 2013). It was decided for this sample size as the data
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will be relatively representative without the unreasonable effort of collecting to many responses. If for instance the confidence interval should be decreased to 7%, 340 responses would be needed (Macorr, 2013). That is too much effort in for this slight decrease in the confidence interval.
Instrument.to.collect.the.data:.Questionnaire.
The instrument to collect data is an online questionnaire. In the following it is going to be explained why it was chosen to be done online and why a questionnaire has been chosen. . Advantages.and.disadvantages.of.online.research. Internet is one of the largest data sources available for market research (Kotler, Armstrong, Wong, & Saunders, 2008). By collecting data in the Internet it is possible to reach a very large amount of people. Internet research, however, not only has advantages. One problem of online surveys is the sampling (Andrews, Nonnecke, & Preece, 2003) since it is very difficult to estimate the population that is surveyed and therefore probability samples are not possible (Andrews, Nonnecke, & Preece, 2003). This could be seen as a problem, if the population was not estimated already. This estimate can be seen in the Population part. Making this online has no disadvantages compared to an offline survey in our case, as still the same community members are interviewed, but just with less effort. Andrews, Nonnecke and Preece (2003) (Andrews, Nonnecke, & Preece, 2003) also say that participants in online surveys are more likely to give bad data, as they might lie about their demographic attributes. Other scientists, however, have discovered that participants in online surveys are more honest (Couper M. P., 2000). It is true, that participants in offline surveys cannot lie about certain aspects of their but it is also fact that participants on offline studies might lie about sensitive attributes because of the lack of anonymity (Couper M. P., 2000).
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Another problem often stated in relation to online surveys it he availability of participants (Andrews, Nonnecke, & Preece, 2003). Even though there is a high amount of potential survey participants, they could still ignore the surveys and therefore no information would be gathered (Andrews, Nonnecke, & Preece, 2003). This is not a problem for this thesis because the data will be collected from Facebook friends and in Facebook groups where we have acquaintances and the risk of not having the surveys answered is dramatically reduced. The same is true for e-mail respondents. There are, on the other hand, many advantages of making the data collection online: it is possible to access target groups, which cannot be accessed otherwise because of their unavailability (Andrews, Nonnecke, & Preece, 2003). Brand trust can spread through online communities over the whole world and the members of online communities can be found, as their name suggests, online. An offline survey would not have any benefit compared to the online survey; the people who could be met there could also be found online, as they have to have a connection to the internet to be a member of an online community. The second factor is time. Online research can reach a great amount of people over a very short time (Couper M. P., 2000). This is important for the thesis as a quantitative analysis is made and therefore a higher sample size during the same time of data collection can be obtained, which is important to make a solid statistical analysis. The third point is probably the most important one: People are more honest when they communicate online (Couper M. P., 2000). This is particularly interesting, as some of the questions in our survey ask sensible information. When people are for instance asked how many books they read, some might over- or understate the number to protect their identity or to keep/get a better image. As can be seen after the analysis of online data collection the advantages of collecting data in this way outweighing the disadvantages by far, furthermore the disadvantages are not a problem for the thesis as they either are not relevant or can be compensated by other means. As a conclusion of this, the online survey is chosen.
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Reasons.for.choosing.a.questionnaire. A questionnaire has certain advantages and disadvantages. Probably the biggest disadvantage is that it cannot be seen how people react to information presented (Popper, 2004). This results in misunderstandings of questions and consequently very subjective results. To avoid this problem two things have been done: First an easy language has been chosen. For example it was written do the group members have a different role in the online community? instead of can heterogeneous roles be found in the online community?. In this way it is more simple for people to answer and the chances that they make mistakes decreases. The second step was to create clear scales. In one example where it is talked about the importance of brand trust in a purchase not just 1 is low and 5 is high was written but a more precise definition has been used : 5 is equally important to product features and 1 does not have any influence at all on purchase. In this way the subjectivity cannot be totally removed, but definitively reduced. Another disadvantage of questionnaires is that it cannot be seen how much time the participant took to complete the questionnaire (Couper, Tourangeau, & Conrad, 2004) This might lead to wrong results, as participants might just read the questions superficially and therefore miss important details, which would result in biased answers. This pitfall has been avoided by making short, pregnant questions that are very hard to misunderstand. Therefore such a bias is unlikely. Popper (2004) also argues that it is not possible to see how truthful the respondents answer to the questions. When too many people are untruthful in the survey this would decrease the validity of the data. Surveys online however are more likely to be answered truly (Couper M. P., 2000). Furthermore every respondent answers us because of they want to help us, which reduce the risk of wrong answers. Questionnaires also have advantages: they are easy and quick to process (Popper, 2004). Which is a very good as a high number of respondents is needed, which can easily be obtained through the use of internet. This allows getting a higher sample size and consequently better, more meaningful results.
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Collecting data with a questionnaire is more objective than collecting data in many other ways (Couper, Tourangeau, & Conrad, 2004). In experiments wrong observations can be made (Popper, 2004) and people are more likely to lie in face-toface and telephone interviews than online (Couper M. P., 2000).
After discussing the pros and cons it can be said that the questionnaire is good way to collect the data. It has been seen that the disadvantages are not relevant for this work and that reliable data can be collected easily and processed for the purpose of this thesis.
Data.collection. In order to collect data the social media platform Facebook and e-mail is used. Using these tools it is possible reach the whole population: About 48% (48,40%) of Internet users have Facebook (Internetworldstats, 2012). The other 52% (51,60%) have been reached by e-mail, where it is assumed that every member of an online community has who buys eBooks has e-mail. This is a fairly sound assumption as active membership or online shopping (of eBooks) is not possible without an e-mail address. This Method of data collection is chosen, because a larger amount of people who are willing to answer can be found there, compared to just sending out an e-mail. E-mail is still used complementary and by using both tools we get access to the whole population. This allows using probabilistic methods. The data collection will be done through Google Drive Survey. It is an easy way to collect and treat data, their survey software is free and they guarantee privacy to a certain extent. Moreover their survey forms are working on almost every computer, thereby increasing the amount of answer can be collected. To reach the potential respondents a Facebook-event has been made. This is a page which where a description can be design and an expiration date can be set. There the
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questionnaire can be described and the potential respondents are given a link to the survey. The second way to collect data is posting our survey in several online communities on Facebook. It has been decided to post them there because these communities have many potential respondents. Furthermore in some of these communities, like regional communities, we have acquaintances which improves the amount of responses. The third way is to send the survey out by e-mail This will be done from the 20.04.2013 to the 24.04.2013. This is a relatively short time period. This, however, is not a problem because the purpose is to describe the role of brand trust which does not have a time component; therefore a short time period is suiting to our purpose. We will also ask some relatives to share this survey by email to their own contact list in order to acquire more answer.
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The data will be collected in four categories:
Category Preliminary Questions Questions about e-book retailer
Information contained Age, How many communities joined, Expectation of brands Favorite retailer, Easy to change retailer, Special attribute, Knowledge about market offering
Questions about brand trust
What influences brand trust the most, how das past experience influence brand trust, how das information by the brand influence your trust
Questions about communities
Why do you join communities, how much influence do you have on communities, are there different behaviors in communities, did your role evolve in the community
Validity(and(reliability(of(the(data( Validity Validity answers the question whether the results obtained by an experiment or survey meets the requirements for scientific work (Shuttleworth, 2008). According to shuttle worth 6 types of validity can found in scientific research: external validity, internal validity, test validity, content validity, construct validity and face validity.
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External validity is concerned with generalization. If an experiment is externally valid the findings about the sample are true for the whole population. This criterion is fulfilled fairly well for this thesis for two reasons. First, the random sample represents the population very well and second our sample size is relatively high. The latter is increasing validity because it can be said that the findings are true for the population in 99% of the cases. An internal validity measure is used to prove the relation of causality between elements so that it is sure that nothing else could have caused the observations. This element is also fulfilled since the questions have been designed to understand each of the people who answered to the survey and no other elements are involved. Test validity is an indicator of how much meaning can be assigned to the findings and is composed out of content validity and of construct validity. Content validity is high since only questions are asked which are based on previous experience of the surveyed interviewed people regarding their eBook buying behavior or community membership. A strong construct validity can also be found as every theory from the framework was used to design the questionnaire: their relation with the theoretical background is therefore high which is the main criteria for construct validity. The face validity also seems good since a clear structure in the survey can be seen which is aiming to understand the way the sample buys and consumes eBooks and how they will spread the trust they acquired to other members of their community. Reliability(( According to Jacobsen (2002) reliability is the fact that the information gathered can be used to provide answers to the questions of the purpose. The data should also be similar when the experiment is repeated The survey was designed so that everyone would understand it by using simple words, by explaining each concept that might be confusing and by explaining each of the questions with a small sentence. The questionnaire has also been tested by sending it to a group of 5 people before sending the survey everyone else to make sure that each question is understandable and it is possible to answer them easily
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Statistical.Methods.used.for.analysis. This part is going to describe the statistical methods used in the discussion part. It will only focus on the more complex methods, leaving out basic ideas like expectancy value, median and others. Chi;independency;test( The chi-independency-test is a test to find out if two variables are dependent (Missong & Mittnik, 2005).The chi Test consists of four steps (Missong & Mittnik, 2005):
! ! ! ! !
1.) Null hypothesis:!! ! ! , ! ! 2.) Test variable: ! =

! ! !!
! !"#$%"&'$(!
! (! !" ! !" ) ~ ! (! ) ! !! ! !"
With -I and j being the columns -h(ij) as the observed number of real answers -h(ij) the numbers which would be observed in the table if i and j where independent -m the being the degree of freedom (Kx-1)*(Ky-1)=1 -Kx and Ky being the number of columns for the x and y variable 3.) Realization of the variable Q 4.) Decision and interpretation: If q> qm1- then the Null Hypothesis can be refused to with a probability of percent.
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With q being the test variable Q qm being the realized variable of the chi distribution with m degrees of freedom and at the point 1-
Cohens(w(( Cohens w is a measurement of correlation between two variables which is derived from Cramers V(Cohen, 1988)
Cramers V is defined as with: k, l being the number of columns (Missong & Mittnik, 2005)
! =!
2
! min[ ! 1 , (! 1)]
with: = !
! ! ! !! ! (! !" ! !" ) , ! !! ! !"
-k, l being the number of columns, -V ranging from 0 to 1 -and h and h defined as previously
Knowing Cramers V, Cohens w can be derived (Cohen, 1988). !=!

!
min !, ! 1!
Cohens w has the advantage that it is possible to interpret it better then Cramers V: A result from 0,0-0,3 is a weak correlation, a result from 0,3-0,5 is a medium correlation and a result from 0,5-1 is a strong correlation (Cohen, 1988)
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Empirical.Study.
In this part the results from the online survey are going to be shown and explained 107 Answers from Facebook and 148 from the e-mail survey where collected initially. As a 52% of the answers should be from e-mail respondents and 48% from Facebook respondents for every member of the population to have the same chance for every member of the population to be chosen, data was collected until 143 Facebook answers where received. Then the first 138 where taken, so the sample would meet the condition, that every individual has the same chance to be chosen was met and therefore a probabilistic sample was obtained.
Preliminary.questions.
This first row of question was designed to help to restrain the sample to people being part of communities and reading eBooks so it is possible to separate them from those not reading any eBooks and/or not being part of communities who are not the targets of our thesis. If people did not read eBooks or where community members, they have been ordered to leave the survey.
In.how.many.online.communities. are.you.part.of?.
19$ 32$ 27$ 39$ 77$ 92$ 1$ 2$ 3$ 4$ 5$ More$than$5$
This graph shows that most people in our sample have in general one to two communities in which they interact since they represent 59% of the asked population.
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How.many.ebook.did.you.read. last.year?.
34$ 47$ 13$ 126$ From$1$to$5$ From$6$to$10$ From$11$to$15$ From$16$to$20$ 66$ More$than$20$
It can clearly be seen that two big groups emerge from this graph: On the one hand those who read eBooks occasionally (less than 10 eBooks a year) are about 67% of the sample. On the other hand the compulsive eBook readers can be seen who represent roughly one third of the population who read more then 10 eBooks.
Do.you.expect.more.when.you. buy.a.branded.product?.
89$
Yes,$the$product$or$ service$has$to$be$better$ somehow$better$ 197$ No,$I$decide$on$a$ productPbased$level$
About 2/3 of the sample expects more when buying branded products.
Questions.relative.to.eBooks..and.eBook.retailer.
The second part of the survey was dedicated to understanding how our sample has been consuming eBooks, what they were expecting form their eBook retailers and how consumers related to their eBook retailer.
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Do.you.have.a.favorite.ebook. retailer?.
6$ 38$ Amazon$Kindle$ Apple$iBook$ 71$ 171$ Barne$&$Noble's$Nook$ else$
60% of the sample use amazon kindle, which is the most important eBook retailer for the sample. Some people also told that they mostly used piracy and peer to peer in order to get their eBooks.
Why.are.they.your.favorite.ebook. retailer?.
else$ Availability$ Extra$services$ Quality$/$Price$of$ePbook$reading$ Price$ Choice$ 0$ 20$ 40$ 49$ 60$ 80$ 18$ 46$ 76$ 48$ 49$
It can be seen that price is the most important criteria when buying eBooks before choice, availability or the quality and price of the devices. The extra services seem to be unimportant to the European eBook consumer since only 6% of them said it was what made their eBook retailer their favorite.
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How.much.do.you.trust.your. ebook.retailer.with.reading. suggestions?.

200$ 150$ 100$ 50$ 0$ 1:$not$at$all$ 2$ 3$ 4$ 5:$a$lot$ 21$ 68$ 33$ 17$ 147$
This graph shows that people have a relatively positive opinion about their eBook retailer's suggestions: on 286 people 198 say they trust the suggestions (ratings from 3 to 5) their online eBook retailer offer.
Is.it.easy.for.you.to.change.ebook. retailer?.
100$ 80$ 60$ 41$ 40$ 21$ 20$ 0$ 1:$yes$ 2$ 3$ 4$ 5:$no$ 92$ 69$ 63$
Of 286 persons 203 consider that changing their eBook retailer is not an easy thing to do (rating from 3 to 5). This indicates that people tend to stay with one eBook retailer for some time and not change retailer each time they want to buy a book.
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Do.you.have.any.bonuses.arising. from.your.membership.with.your. ebook.retailer?.

200$ 150$ 100$ 50$ 0$ 1:$no$ 2$ 3$ 4$ 5:$yes$
This graph clearly shows that people don't feel that much of a difference from one eBook retailer to another and that customers choice seems to be much more driven by their habits rather by rational choices and decisions.
Which.of.theses.promises.are. fullYilled.by.your.ebook.retailer?.
Experiential$(Great$ experience,$"pleasure$ obtain$by$reading$the$ book")$ Symbolical$("Makes$ people$like$you$more,$ gives$you$status,$makes$ you$cooler")$ Functional$("Give$you$ information")$
99$ 37$ 150$
0$
50$
100$
150$
200$
This graph is shows us that the most of the promises which the eBook retailer fulfills are of functional and experiential nature. Symbolic promises play a rather minor role.
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Did.it.take.much.effort.to.reach. the.status.of.comfortability.at. your.eBook.retailer?.

120$ 100$ 80$ 60$ 40$ 20$ 0$ 1:$a$few$hours$ 2$ 3$ 4$ 5:$more$than$2$ months$ 23$ 96$ 65$ 88$
14$
It varies how much effort it took to reach comfortability status but for most of the sample it was easy.
Does.your.ebook.retailer.have. special.attribute?.
59$
Yes$ No$ 227$
This graph shows that most of the eBook retailer do not have a specific attribute which sets them apart from others.
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How.well.do.you.think.you.know. the.market.of.ebook.retailers?.
160$ 140$ 120$ 100$ 80$ 60$ 40$ 20$ 0$ 1:$not$at$all$ 2$ 3$ 4$ 76$ 51$ 22$ 0$ 5:$a$lot$ 137$
This graph allow us to say that people don't know much about the eBook retailer market and it might be one of the reasons why they don't change their retailer.
Question.related.to.brand.trust.
This part has been dedicated to understanding each person from the sample in relation to brand trust: what was most important to them, how their trust could be influenced but also the importance of repeated interactions with the brand or the company for the establishment of their trust in the brand.
How.much.does.YOUR.past. experience.with.the.brand. inYluence.your.trust.in.it?.

120$ 100$ 80$ 60$ 40$ 20$ 0$ 1:$not$at$all$ 2$ 3$ 4$ 5:$a$lot$ 31$ 34$ 77$ 38$ 106$
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This graph shows the importance of own past experience. For 255 people past experience has an influence on brand trust.
How.much.does.past.experience. OF.OTHER.COMMUNITY. MEMBERS.with.the.brand. inYluence.your.trust.in.it?.

150$ 100$ 50$ 0$ 1:$not$at$all$ 2$ 3$ 4$ 5:$a$lot$ 48$ 21$ 8$ 122$ 87$
This graphs shows that communities play an important role in building brand trust for individuals trough past experiences of other members of the same community.
If.an.ebook.retailer.had.lost.your. trust,.could.it.be.restored.without. great.effort?.

23$ Yes$ No$ 263$
This graph shows that most people, if they feel betrayed by an eBook retailer, would consider that trust cannot be regained easily.
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If.you.would.belive.in.the. promises.of.a.brand,.which.one.is. the.most.attractive.to.you?.

Functional$("Give$you$ information")$ 101$ Symbolical$("Makes$ people$like$you$more,$ gives$you$status,$makes$ you$cooler")$ Experiential$(Great$ experience,$"pleasure$of$ using$the$product")$
128$
57$
This graph shows that the most important promises are functional and experiential for the sample if they would believe them.
How.much.does.information. provided.by.the.brand.inYluence. your.trust.in.it?.

120$ 100$ 80$ 60$ 40$ 20$ 0$ 1:$not$at$all$ 2$ 3$ 4$ 5:$a$lot$ 15$ 40$ 15$ 112$ 104$
This graphs shows that brand trust is also built through the active efforts of the brand to provide more information to their customers since 80% of our sample is telling that it has an important influence (rating 3 to 5).
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Are.you.more.loyal.to.brands.if. you've.had.many.interactions. with.them?..

120$ 100$ 80$ 60$ 40$ 20$ 0$ 1:$not$at$all$ 2$ 3$ 4$ 5:$a$lot$ 18$ 25$ 72$ 106$ 65$
It can be seen that for all but 18 people brand loyalty is built through many interactions.
Is.your.social.identity.closely. related.to.the.communities.you. participate.in?.
135$ 151$
Yes$ No$
This graph allow us to say that for 47% of our sample relate closely their social identity to the communities they are in but to the 53% else they declare that it is not one of the prior element of their identity.
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Why.do.you.join.communities.for?.
else$ Discuss$with$a$bigger$group$of$people$ about$interest$ Participate$in$something$bigger$than$ yourself$ Obtain$an$identity$ Be$with$people$having$the$same$ interests$as$you$ Sharing$and$accessing$knowledge$ 0$ 20$ 40$ 60$ 80$ 5$ 41$ 13$ 16$ 109$ 102$ 100$ 120$
This graph is particularly interesting since it shows the main interest people have to join an online community: for the biggest majority it's about sharing and accessing knowledge with people that are similar to oneself.
Questions.relative.to.communities.
This last part of the survey was made so it was possible to understand how people from our population interacted in their community, why they implicated themselves in such time consuming activities and how todays communities are organized.
Are.you.part.of.a.brand. community?.
64$ Yes$I$am$ No$I$ain't$ 222$
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This graph shows us that only a bit more than 1/5 of our sample considers being part of a brand community and for close to 80% they say that they are not inside any of them.
How.often.do.you.interact.with. brands.or.companies?.
120$ 100$ 80$ 60$ 40$ 20$ 0$ 1:$not$at$all$ 2$ 3$ 4$ 5:$a$lot$ 17$ 6$ 87$ 64$ 112$
This graph shows us that even tough some people take advantage of the new ways to communicate directly with companies the biggest majority of people just don't have any use in interacting directly with brands or companies.
How.much.inYluence.do.you.think. you.have.in.your.community?.
120$ 100$ 80$ 60$ 40$ 20$ 0$ 1:$not$at$all$ 2$ 3$ 4$ 5:$a$lot$ 9$ 2$ 72$ 92$ 111$
Most people declare having only a small impact to their community and only a small part of our population declares that they have a major impact in their group.
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Where.do.you.go.most.often.to. meet.with.your.community?.
else$ Chat$rooms$ Online$forums$ Social$networks$ 0$ 50$ 100$ 150$ 13$ 18$ 61$ 194$ 200$ 250$
It can be seen that social networks are the most often visited community.
Are.there.many.different. behaviours.in.your.community?.
120$ 100$ 80$ 60$ 40$ 20$ 0$ 1:$not$at$all$ 2$ 3$ 4$ 5:$a$lot$ 12$ 52$ 26$ 107$ 89$
This graphs shows that a variety of different behaviors is observed by the sample in all but 12 cases.
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How.much.did.your.role.in.your. community.evolved.last.yeat?.
120$ 100$ 80$ 60$ 40$ 20$ 0$ 1:$not$at$all$ 2$ 3$ 4$ 5:$a$lot$ 37$ 3$ 56$ 83$ 107$
In here it can be seen that for a big part of the sample doesnt change their role strongly in their communities but it can still clearly be seen that there are movements inside communities since 88% of asked people said their role changed inside of the community.
Multivariable.analysis.
In some cases it has been important to see the data in two dimensions to extract relevant information.
Are you in a brand community Yes (I)/Social Identity closely related to community Yes No Sum 28 107 135
no
Sum
33 118 151
64 222 286
This table gives an insight in the relationship the trait Member of a brand community and Social identity is closely related to that community.
[48]!
Trust suggestions of eBook 1 till 2 retailer (i) / Knowledge about market offering (j) 1 2 till 5 Sum 39 50 89
3 till 5
Sum
98 99 197
137 149 286 (Total)
This table shows the relationship between Trust in the eBook retailer (vertical) and Knowledge about market offering(Horizontal)
Difficulty to change retailer (i)/ Amount of Bonuses (j) 1 2 3 4 5 Sum
Sum
57 7 17 7 4 92
25 4 9 3 0 41
39 6 18 4 2 69
38 5 15 3 2 63
12 1 6 1 1 21
171 23 65 18 9 286
This table shows how the aspects Difficulty to change retailer and Amount of bonuses arising from membershipuses arising from membership.
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. Discussion.of.empirical.data.
Which role does brand trust play for eBook retailer? This part is going to focus discuss the role which brand trust plays for eBook retailer and the hypothesis related to that.
Why.brand.trust.is.needed.for.eBook.retailer.
Brand.trust.and.the.absence.of.full.information. In the following part a chi-square independence tests will be made to find out if brand trust and the absence of full information are related to each other, as Alba and Wesley (1987) suggested. . Is.brand.trust.related.to.the.knowledge.of.the.market?. This question will be answered by making a chi square analysis of the relationship of the questions How much do you trust your eBook retailers reading suggestions? and How well do you know the eBook market? In order to have a reliable chi-square independence test it is important to have at least 5 answers in each column (Missong & Mittnik, 2005). Therefore the table from the analysis part is taken which is suitable for the chi- independency-test:
[50]!
Trust suggestions of retailer (i) / 1 till 2 Knowledge offering (j) 1 2 till 5 Sum 39 50 89 about market
3 till 5
Sum
98 99 197
137 149 286 (Total)
Another table is necessary for the chi-square independency test: the values which would occur if both variables where independent. Trust suggestions of retailer (i) / 1 till 2 Knowledge about market offering (j) 1 2 till 5 Sum 42,6 46,4 89,0 3 till Sum 5 94,4 102,6 197,0 137,0 149,0 286,0
With these information the chi-square test can be done in 4 steps:

! ! ! ! !
1.) Null hypothesis:!! ! ! , ! ! 2.) Test variable: ! =

! ! !!
! !"#$%"&'$(!
! (! !" ! !" ) ~ ! (! ) ! !! ! !"
With -h(ij) as the observed number of answers in the table -h(ij) the numbers which would be observed in the table if i and j where independent -m the being the degree of freedom (Kx-1)*(Ky-1)=1 -Kx and Ky being the number of columns for the x and y variable
[51]!
Realization of the variable Q i, j (i=1, j=1) (i=1, j=2) i=2, j=1 (i=2, j=2) Sum Q is therefore 171,88 Decision and interpretation: If q> qm1- then the Null Hypothesis can be refused to with a probability of percent.
h(x(i), y(j)) 98 137 99 149 483
h(x(i), y(j)) 42,6 94,4 46,4 102,6 286
( ) !
72,0460094 19,2241525 59,6284483 20,9840156 171,882626
qm1- = q11-0.01= 2.71 < 171,88
Therefore it can be said that with a probability of error of less 1 percent the null hypothesis can be refused. This would mean that there is a relationship between the knowledge about the eBook market and the trust in eBook retailer. There seems to be a very strong relationship between these two aspects but it is important to be suspicious when looking at this high number and look at this data critically: First of all the summary of the data might have influenced the result as the columns and therefore lost a part of the information that existed in the primary data. Then the extreme (no trust) was measured against other degrees of the attribute trust in the suggestions of eBook retailer. This also might have influenced the result as for instance people who have very high standards for trust and knowledge about the market has chosen the lowest ends of the spectrum because in their opinion it requires much more to fulfil these criteria. Nonetheless the result is remarkable and the relationships of these two aspects should be analysed further. It would be interesting to find out why the relationship is so
[52]!
strong and if it is possible to pinpoint certain aspects of information or brand trust which are mostly responsible this high q-value.
Brand.and.sunk.costs..
Brand trust is needed when there is a high risk involving in changing brands (Samuelson & Zeckhauser, 1988). To find out if this is the case for eBook it is important to know if there is a relationship between the questions How easy is it for you to change eBook retailer? and Do you have any bonuses arising from your membership at a certain eBook retailer? The sunk costs, in this case, are represented by the membership benefits as they are lost when changing the eBook retailer. To answer of this question Cohens w (Cohen, 1988) will be locked at. For Cohens W, however first Cramrs V is needed. The table of the observation from the analysis part together with this table is used to determine Cramers V. This table shows what would be observed if these aspects where totally independent. Difficulty to change 1 (i)/ 1 2 3 4 5 Amount of 53,196 7,0928 20,3918 5,3196 2,6598 25,74 3,432 9,867 2,574 1,287 42,9 5,72 16,445 4,29 2,145 37,752 5,0336 14,4716 3,7752 1,8876 13,728 1,8304 5,2624 1,3728 0,6864 Bonuses (j) 2 3 4 5
Cramers V is defined as with: k, l being the number of columns

! =!
2
! min[ ! 1 , (! 1)]
[53]!
with: = !
! ! ! !! ! (! !" ! !" ) , ! !! ! !"
-k, l being the number of columns, -V ranging from 0 to 1 -and h and h defined as previously
Consequently is 0,077347537 and V is 0,139057. With this it is possible to calculate Cohens w with !=! w=0,2781 A w of 0,2781 can be interpreted as a weak to medium correlation between the changes of eBook retailer and membership benefits. This statement fits to what has been said before in the theoretical framework; sunk costs might have an influence on brand trust and loyalty of customers to eBook retailer. It also makes sense that the correlation is weak to medium: Membership benefits are one reason to stay with a trusted eBook retailer but there are also many others reasons that could influence this, like the previously mentioned knowledge about the eBook market.
!
min !, ! 1!
Brand.trust.and.nonKoverlapping.attributes..
When brands possess many non-overlapping attributes than the customer builds brand trust as he can only get certain benefits from his trusted company (Slovic & MacPhilammy, 1974). Most of the people (79%) answered that their eBook retailer does not have any non-overlapping attributes. This makes sense as eBooks are digital goods that, independent of the retailer, bear the same benefits very often. Yet there still are some differences of the eBook retailer in for instance service or website and these, for 21% seem to be non-overlapping, meaning that they are only offered by certain eBook retailers. This leads to an increase of trust because the need can only be satisfied at one retailer.
[54]!
From the question Why do you buy books from your favourite eBook retailer overlapping attributes can be derived. The most important buying criteria for eBook consumer is still the price (26%), followed by choice (17%), instant availability (17%) and the reading device (16%). It can be seen that even though price is the modal value it is only the most important buying criteria for!. This means that consumers might be willing to pay more for attributes, which however do not relate to this aspect of brand trust. It can be seen that some eBook retailer possess non-overlapping attributes and that they are very often (74%) not the main buying criteria.
!
How.brand.trust.is.built.on.an.individual.level.
This part is dealing with the analysis of different mechanism which build brand trust.
Brand.trust.and.different.types.of.promises. Brand trust is built by keeping promises (Ruparelia, White, & Hughes, 2010). In this part I am going to discuss the importance of the three different types of promises for building of brand trust. It can be seen that the most important promise is the functional promise with 150 people; that is approximately 52%. This means that most of the people want an eBook to serve a certain purpose, like getting educated when they buy it and only 12 percent care for the symbolical value of an eBook. This makes sense as eBooks are digital and not many symbolic benefits like social status or powers are gained with the purchase of an eBook. 99 people, about 34% care for the experiential benefit of books. This data shows that the two most important promises are of experiential or functional nature. This might indicate that there are two groups of people: Those who read fictional books for entertainment and those who non-fictional books to get valuable information for themselves. Concluding this would, however, be too fast as other alternatives are possible as well: people might enjoy an experiential benefit from
[55]!
nonfictional
books,
like
autobiographies
or
historical
novels.
Finding out about that could help scientist to understand more about the buying psychology of eBook consumers and facilitate marketing, therefore it might be a good subject for future research.
Brand. trust. and. factors. which. influence. the. individual. level. of. brand. trust
In this part the factors are going to be discussed which are responsible for building brand trust on an individual level. This will be done by discussing our findings about the three main factors for building it: Word of mouth, past experience and information available about the retailer. Then this part will be concluded by discussing past experience in more detail that is, according to the findings, the most important factor for building brand trust.
Brand$trust$in$an$ eBook$retailer$
$Word$of$mouth$
$Past$experience$
$Information$ about$the$brand$
Figure 2: A model which illustrates the understanding about brand trust gained from the discussion (Adrian and Michael, 2013) Influence.of.the.three.main.factors.of.brand.trust. The three factors word of mouth, past experience and information available about the eBook retailer have been important for brand trust in theory (Ruparelia, White, & Hughes, 2010). This part is going to analyse them and compare their expectancy value
[56]!
and modular value to find out which role they play for eBook retailer. Then we will point out some specific findings of questions related to past experience. Expectancy value How much does past experience with 3,19 the brand influence your trust in it? How much does past experience OF 3,04 OTHER COMMUNITY MEMBERS with the brand influence your trust in it? How much information does 3,22 3 provided by the brand influence your trust in it? All three aspects matter for brand trust, as their expectancy values are about 3 on a scale form 1 to 5 where the latter is the highest. The It can be seen that their expectancy values are relatively closely together. 3 Modal value 4
difference between the smallest (3,04) and the biggest (3,22) is 0,18, which is not a big difference. What this data indicates is that these three have a similar influence on the brand trust development of an individual. This is rather surprising because it does not make sense that own experience with the brand is equally, or in this case even lower valued than information provided by the brand. That would mean that people trust brands more than themselves. This paragraph is going to show how this result can be explained. The question is clear and the answers are also very understandable (1-not at all, 5- a lot). There might, however, be the possibility that the respondents did not read the question carefully and might have misunderstood it in a way that for instance means that everything below 3 is a negative influence on their brand trust and everything above 3 is a positive influence. If it would be possible to interview participants of a similar study after they made their decisions more clarity could be gained.
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Which
insights
can
be
drawn
from
the
modular
values?
The good thing about the modular values is that they are not biased very strongly if some outliers happen because people misunderstood the question. The modular value shows on which level of brand trust the highest concentration of people can be found. The modular value for personal experience with the brand is higher (4) than the modular value of the other two (3). This can be an indication that most people actually think that personal experience is the most important factor for brand trust and that the expectation value is biased people who did not understood the question. This, however, is not a fact but just conclusion made from the data and has to be treated as such. . Findings.of.questions.related.to.past.experience. Even though the comparative analysis does not show the importance of past experience, other questions asked in the survey do. The expectation value of the question Are you more loyal to some brands if you've had many interactions with them? is 3,62 with the possible answers 1- not at all and 5 a lot. These 3.62 can be seen as a relatively high value because in this case every answer despite 1 means that past experience has influence on brand trust. Also about 92% of the people answered that their brand trust cannot be restored easily after it has been lost which is a strong indication that past experience matters. Even though the numbers do not clearly show it, it is reasonable that past experience is the most important of these 3 aspects for the development of brand trust on an individual level and that the reason why it cannot be seen clearly is because of an misunderstanding of the readers of the survey. This could be an important subject for further investigation.
How.the.spreading.of.information.influences.brand.trust.
Experience.of.other.community.members. According to Belton (2012) beliefs and values of community members are shared. The belief about brand trust can be seen in the question: How much does past
[58]!
experience of other community members influence you? It has been found that 88% of the sample is influenced by the experience of other community members with an level of influence of 2-5 out of 5. More than 50% of the sample is strongly influenced by the past experience of other community members, with a level of influence of 4-5 out of 5. These findings highlight the importance of the role of communities for the spreading of brand trust. They show that communities are an essential part the amount of brand trust perceived by customers. This findings increase the importance of all following findings about communities as the link between them and brand trust seems to be very strong.
Relationship.between.membership.of.a.brand.community.and.brand.trust. It has been found out that for about 47% of the sample has a social Identity which is closely related to the online community they are in. As Belton (2012) says, that if a person shares an identity with a community he also shares values with this community. Communities, however, often have dispersed values and are not clearly aligned with a certain eBook retailer. To analyse the relationship of membership in a community and a social identity that increases brand trust it has been chosen to analyse the relationship between social identity and brand communities. It can be seen that 28 people who are in a brand community have a social identity closely related to the brand community that are about 9% of all community members. This shows us that brand communities are having an influence on about 10% of the sample. This finding is interesting as it quantifies the amount of the sample whose brand trust is positively influenced by communities and consequently companies, as they have influence on the information given in brand communities. A statement about the general influence of communities cannot be drawn from that as communities, as mentioned before, are very diverse with many different opinions about eBook retailers. It might however be possible, that when brands increase their influence on a community that this might increase brand trust, because this community will stronger resemble to a brand community and the values are going to be shared.
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Goal.orientation.of.communities. Communities are now regrouping around goals (Raab & Kenis , 2009). The sample joined communities to 40% because they wanted to achieve a goal. About 36% wanted to share or gain information and 4% wanted to participate in something bigger then oneself. The 4% of people who want to participate in something bigger then oneself might not be so interesting but those who are in communities for information are. It shows that a big art of community members want information and as it has been found out previously that the brand trust 76% of the sample can be influenced by experience of other members. These two facts together emphasise how important online communities for brand trust are. They also show that even though just 40% of the sample is joining communities for the purpose of gaining or sharing information the brand trust of a much bigger percentage is influenced by them through the information transmitted.
Mechanisms.of.online.communities.which.influence.the.way.brand. trust.spreads.
As it could be seen before certain aspects of an online community directly influence brand trust in eBook retailer. The following part, however, will discuss how the organization of a community influence the way brand trust spreads.
Different.roles.in.an.online.community. Both theories presented in the framework are complex and partly contradicting. They yet have similar components: They both state that there are different roles of community members and that different members have a different influence on the community (Toder-Alon, Brunei , & Schneier Siegal , 2001), (de Valck , H. van Bruggen , & Wierenga , 2009). Our findings are in alignment with the theory and show that only 4% of the sample has a strong influence on the other members. This finding is interesting for brand trust as it points out that only a small amount of people are influencing the other people, who are yet open to influence. Furthermore 96% of the people who were surveyed found perceived that there are different roles in the online community they are in. In the question the participants could choose between
[60]!
no different roles (1), roles with little differentiation (2), middle differentiation (3) and roles with big differentiation (4+5). It is also important to find out that the modal value is 3 with 107 answers. This indicates that in most communities the roles are distinguishable.
Evolution.of.People.in.an.online.community. The role of online community members changes (Kozinet, 1999). Our findings support that, as 88% of the sample has perceived that their role in the community has changed in the last year. This is a surprisingly high because at the first glance it would seem like communities are changing constantly and everyone is involved. This, however, is not the only possible explanation for the data. First, the community members could for instance just leave or enter a new community as this would also change their role from being and outsider to being passive consumers. Second, a big part (68%) of the sample is in many online communities they could just have role change in one. And third only a small part (20%) has a perceived high change in his role which means that the others could just have changed from reader irregular poster which does not a high impact on brand trust. Nonetheless it has to be underlined that evolution in communities is happening and can in some cases have a massive impact on brand trust. If for instance could very dissatisfied customers change their role from passive to active members, joining the small group of influential people and therefore have a strong impact on brand trust.
Most.important.places.for.online.communities.to.meet. Finally the discussion will end with a question which shows the nature of the online communities most people participate in. It has been found that out most of the sample meets with his online community in a Social network (67%) or online forum (21%). A minority meets the community in chat rooms (6%) or anywhere else (4%). This shows a lot about the rituals of the community members (As discussed by Muniz & OGuinn in 2001) which are an important influence on the way brand trust spreads. It can be seen that most community interactions happen in a social network, which shows the nature of interaction: People have contact with other community members who they
[61]!
know, opposed to for instance online forums where the member are anonymous. This might indicate that brand trust might spread fast because the community member know and trust each other.
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Conclusion.
The purpose of this paper has been to understand how brand trust is build and how it is spread in communities. In this final section of our thesis the most important findings related to the brand purpose are going to be presented. It has been found that certain aspects could be identified which influence brand trust: Knowledge about the eBook market, sunk cost, non-overlapping attributes, functional promises, past experience with the brand, past experience of other community members with the brand and information about the eBook retailer. It could also be seen that brand trust is very likely related to knowledge about the eBook market. The higher the cost of switching an eBook retailer, the more likely it is that the customer will develop brand trust. The eBook market has few companies who have nonoverlapping attributes that are an aspect of brand trust. Functional promises are the most important promises eBook retailer can make. Past experience with the brand, past experience of other community members and information given by the brand influence brand trust positively. Brand trust in online communities spreads in a similar way like information. Most people in online communities join them to consume information and only a relatively small amount of people provides the information about brand trust. For most people the purpose of joining a community is to receive information. Some organizational mechanisms have been found out which influence the way brand trust spreads: Different role of community members, changing role of community members and social identity. It was found out that community members took different roles that had a different impact on the way brand trust spreads. These roles, however, are changing over time. Social Identity is can influence brand trust positively but only evidence for this in brand communities was found.
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Contribution.to.research.and.practice.
This thesis is important for both the academical and the business world because the thesis has approached and merged relatively new concepts and applied them in a new market. Moreover not only does it provide a theoretical base but also valid and reliable data where none where available before this work.
Further.studies..
This thesis also opens the way for new studies to be done on the role of brand trust in communities according to different types of literature to see if the importance of brand trust is related them as well. It would also be interesting to conduct studies on other continents than Europe to see how the difference in culture would have an impact on brand trust and communities. Another study which would be interesting to see conducted about the influence of factors such as price or extra services on brand trust and how it would change the spreading of brand trust in communities. It would also be interesting to compare the spreading of brand trust in different type of communities to find differences and similarities..
Limitations.
This thesis is aimed at the European market and consequently is not valid for markets in other continents. We are also aware that this thesis may not be valid in a few years from now since technologies are going to change , the way of life evolve and many other factors will have a an influence in the eBook consumption. The thesis also does not account for the great variety in the communities and we cannot apply the conclusions to particular communities but rather to all communities in general.
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How brand trust spreads in online communities about ebook retailers

Hello everybody and thank you for answering our survey. By doing so you help us with our bachelor thesis which is really appreciated! eBook: an electronic version of a printed book or a document that only exists in numeric format (but you probably know that ;) ) Brand trust, for this survey, is the belief that the company keeps its promises. The questions we are going to ask you will also be about online-communities. When answering these questions please decide for one community and stick to it when answering. A community is in this survey is a group of people sharing or having certain attitudes and interests in common. Thanks for helping us with our thesis!
*Obligatoire
How many ebooks did you read last year? *

0 From 1 to 5 From 6 to 10 From 11 to 15 From 16 to 20 More than 20
Do you expect more when you buy a branded product? *

Should a pair of Nike shoes be better than others because there is a logo on it?
Yes, the product or service has to be better somehow better No, I decide on a product-based level
In how many online communities are you in? *

0 1 or 2
3 to 5 More than 5
Do you have a favorite e-book retailer? *

Amazon Kindle Apple iBook Barne & Noble's Nook Autre :
Why do you buy e-books from your favourite retailler? *

Choice Price Quality / Price of e-book reading device Extra services Instant availability Autre :
How much do you trust your e-book retailler with reading suggestions? *
Are you more sensitive about your book retailer's suggestions or to those from people around you?
1 2 3 4 5 I only trust people I know I believe the information given by the brands
Is it easy for you to change e-book retailer? *

1 2 3 4 5 Yes: I can switch them without problems No: I prefer my favorite brand even if other retailers have better offers
Do you have any bonuses arising from your membership at a certain e-book retailler? *
1 2 3 4 5 No Bonuses Extreme Membership benefits
Which of these promises are fulfilled by your e-book retailer? *

Functional ("Give you information") Symbolical ("Makes people like you more, gives you status, makes you cooler")
Experiential (Great experience, "pleasure obtain by reading the book")
Did it take much effort to reach the status of comfortability (getting used to software, entering data etc.) and membership-level you have at your e-book retailler? *
1 2 3 4 5 Instantly received all features (less than 30min) Took tremendous effort (still not having all the benefits)
Is there anything special attribute (Product feature, Service, E-book reader, price etc) about your e-book retailler which nonone else has? *
Yes No
Do you buy e-books one at a time or as bundle? *

One e-book a time Bundles
IF BUYING BUNDLES, How many percent do you buy as a bundle? *

(0=0% , 10=100%)
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
How well do you think you know the market offering of E- book retaillers? *
1 2 3 4 5 I know very few e-book retaillers I know almost all e-book retaillers
How much does past experience with the brand influence your trust in it? *
1 2 3 4 5 Not at all It is the single most important aspect
How much does past experience OF OTHER COMMUNITY
MEMBERS with the brand influence your trust in it? *

If you believe in the promises of a brand, which one is the most attractive to you? *
Functional ("Give you information") Symbolical ("Makes people like you more, gives you status, makes you cooler") Experiential (Great experience, "pleasure of using the product")
If you had an ebook retailer who has lost your trust, could it be restored without great effort? *
Your expectation have not been met, you have been scammed, could the retailer regain your trust then?
What would influence your brand loyalty most? *

Fidelity programs (Coupons, reductions, membership cards with bonus) Additional content (Personalized Information, personal offers and surprising little gifts) Community Members with positive experience about the brand Autre :
How much does information provided by the brand influence your trust in it? *
Are you more loyal to some brands if you've had many interactions with them? *
No mistakes by the company have been made during that time
1 2 3 4 5 Not at all Definetively Yes
Is your social identity closely related the communities you participate in? *
Do you often define yourself in public as a geek, a sportive or a reader for example?
Yes No
Why do you join communities for? *

What is the main element that decided you to involve yourself in a community?
Sharing and accessing knowledge Be with people having the same interests as you Obtain an identity Participate in something bigger than yourself Discuss with a bigger group of people about interest Autre :
Are you in a brand community? *

Do you often interact within a community of people sharing your passion for some brand or product?
Yes I am No I ain't
How often do you interact with brands or companies? *

Do you often complain, talk, discuss or give your point of vue to companies on Facebook for example?
1 2 3 4 5 Never Weekly or more than weekly
How much influence do you think you have on your community? *

1 2 3 4 5 None at all I'm a leader in my community
Where do you go most often to meet with your community? *

Social networks Online forums Chat rooms Autre :
Are there many different behaviors in your community? *

Is there a main code of conduct that is strictly followed by members of your community or is it more of a guideline no one actually follows?
1 2 3 4 5 Codes and values are important and followed People are completely free to do whatever they want!
Have your role in your community evolved in the last year? *
Do you feel people utility in a community often evolve or do people rather stay at the role they were when they arrive?
1 2 3 4 5 People tend to keep their place

Envoyer
People change a lot of function
N'envoyez jamais de mots de passe via l'outil Formulaires Google.
Fourni par
Ce contenu n'est ni rdig, ni cautionn par Google. Signaler un cas d'utilisation abusive - Conditions d'utilisation - Clauses additionnelles

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PROGRAMME AND ECTS

The role of brand trust in online communities

Adrien Dubois Ahlqvist! Michael Popp

Strategic Marketing with independant project! 30.0 hp

Halmstad Hgskolan 2013

The role of brand trust in online communities

Adrien Dubois Ahlqvist! Michael Popp

Strategic Marketing with independant project! 30.0 hp

Halmstad Hgskolan 2013

A quantitative, descriptive study conducted on 286 people. A

questionnaire has been used.

Theoretical framework: Conclusion:

The framework consists of theories and models

Need$for$brand$ trust$ $ Absence$of$full$ information,$ Sunk$cost,$ regret$ avoidance$

Brand$trust$ builds$over$ time$through$ kept$promises,$ satisfaction,$ word$of$mouth$ and$ Information$ about$brand$

The data will be collected in four categories:

Category Preliminary Questions Questions about e-book retailer

Questions about brand trust

Questions about communities

1.) Null hypothesis:!! ! ! , ! ! 2.) Test variable: ! =

! (! !" ! !" ) ~ ! (! ) ! !! ! !"

Knowing Cramers V, Cohens w can be derived (Cohen, 1988). !=!

Yes,$the$product$or$ service$has$to$be$better$ somehow$better$ 197$ No,$I$decide$on$a$ productPbased$level$

How.much.do.you.trust.your. ebook.retailer.with.reading. suggestions?.

Do.you.have.any.bonuses.arising. from.your.membership.with.your. ebook.retailer?.

99$ 37$ 150$

Did.it.take.much.effort.to.reach. the.status.of.comfortability.at. your.eBook.retailer?.

Yes$ No$ 227$

How.much.does.YOUR.past. experience.with.the.brand. inYluence.your.trust.in.it?.

How.much.does.past.experience. OF.OTHER.COMMUNITY. MEMBERS.with.the.brand. inYluence.your.trust.in.it?.

If.an.ebook.retailer.had.lost.your. trust,.could.it.be.restored.without. great.effort?.

If.you.would.belive.in.the. promises.of.a.brand,.which.one.is. the.most.attractive.to.you?.

How.much.does.information. provided.by.the.brand.inYluence. your.trust.in.it?.

Are.you.more.loyal.to.brands.if. you've.had.many.interactions. with.them?..

Is.your.social.identity.closely. related.to.the.communities.you. participate.in?.

137 149 286 (Total)

Difficulty to change retailer (i)/ Amount of Bonuses (j) 1 2 3 4 5 Sum

137 149 286 (Total)

With these information the chi-square test can be done in 4 steps:

1.) Null hypothesis:!! ! ! , ! ! 2.) Test variable: ! =

! (! !" ! !" ) ~ ! (! ) ! !! ! !"

h(x(i), y(j)) 98 137 99 149 483

h(x(i), y(j)) 42,6 94,4 46,4 102,6 286

72,0460094 19,2241525 59,6284483 20,9840156 171,882626

qm1- = q11-0.01= 2.71 < 171,88

Cramers V is defined as with: k, l being the number of columns

How brand trust spreads in online communities about ebook retailers

How many ebooks did you read last year? *

Do you expect more when you buy a branded product? *

In how many online communities are you in? *

Do you have a favorite e-book retailer? *

Why do you buy e-books from your favourite retailler? *

Is it easy for you to change e-book retailer? *

Which of these promises are fulfilled by your e-book retailer? *

Experiential (Great experience, "pleasure obtain by reading the book")

Do you buy e-books one at a time or as bundle? *

IF BUYING BUNDLES, How many percent do you buy as a bundle? *

How much does past experience OF OTHER COMMUNITY

MEMBERS with the brand influence your trust in it? *

What would influence your brand loyalty most? *

1 2 3 4 5 Not at all Definetively Yes

Why do you join communities for? *