Brazil Culture

Comparison between marriage customs in America and Nigeria Research design It is often said that marriages are made in Heaven, and therefore, a suitable partner is very much of a necessity so as to lead a very happy and satisfied life. We often witness two types of Marriages, mainly, love marriages and arranged marriages. In love marriage, two adults decide to involve themselves in the holy bond of matrimony and in the other the families of the groom and the bride, or the third parties, a very active role in determining the match.

In earlier days arranged marriages were the norm; this research provides a comparative analysis of the different practices and beliefs in marriage in the American and Nigerian contexts. The research contends that in effect, marriage rituals are characterized as dynamically developing to include or allow social changes that happen in terms of looking for a potential domestic partner . Marriage is the most important event in a persons life and the ceremony and tradition involve dare an integral of the day. Marriage customs and ceremony are based on the religion and the country the person is in.

There are lots of difference in the marriage customs between Nigeria and America, like in country “Nigeria”, marriage procedures follows step by step which depends on where the man comes from, either from the eastern part (called the Ibos), western (called the Yoruba’s) and the northern part of Nigeria (called the Hausas), in this research I would be talking about marriages only in the western region. Marriage in the western region of Nigeria involves various stages before the couple can be declared as husband and wife.

Before a man can marry a woman he ought to go through some traditional rituals and process which involves quality time and money. This involves three different stages, firstly is the “momimo” meaning “introduction” in Yoruba language, then the “idanaadehun igbeyawo” meaning “engagement” and lastly the main event called “ayeye igbeyawo” meaning wedding, after this last process then the couple can now called regarded as husband and wife. The first stage: “THE INTRODUCTION” is the part of the occasion whereby the man and his family goes to the woman’s family to ask of approval of their daughter’s hand in marriage.

The procedure involves the groom and his family, and a person called “olopa iduro” meaning standing policeman. The standing policeman is the one who speaks on behalf of the groom’s family, he might be a family member or hired for the occasion. This same procedure also applies to the bride’s family but in this case the appointed speaker is called “olopa ijoko” meaning sitting policeman in Yoruba language. The whole procedure takes place in the bride’s family house where everybody will gather around waiting for the groom’s arrival, meanwhile preparations like food and other things would be made down by the bride’s family.

The bride’s family is supposed to be dressed in the native attire which implies respect for the culture. The groom and his family are expected to come on the time appointed but there is a concept called “African Time” where no one is expected to arrive at the actual time appointed for the occasion, nevertheless if the groom and family arrive too late and keep them the bride and family waiting for short while, they might be asked to leave or probably allowed to appeal to the family by paying a traditional fine to the bride’s family before they could be accepted. hen the groom and his family gets to the brides place, as soon as the enter the house the men prostrate to the brides parents while the bride kneel down to the groom family, this is a respectful way of exchanging greetings according to Yoruba culture. After all the cultural greetings they take their seats whereby both families sits on opposites sides of the room with the bride and groom in the center while the olopa ijoko and olopa iduro take the seats in the middle so as to be get a close attention of everybody closely.

The “olopa iduro” (the standing policeman) starts by introducing the groom and his family to the bride and her family then he brings out a proposal letter from the groom’s family and gives it to the brides family through “olopa ijoko” (the sitting policeman). The proposal is then read out orally to the bride’s family, since it is already comprehended that the couples are going to be married, the proposal is not usually rejected at this point. The groom also ays an amount of money called “owo ori iyawo” meaning bride price and this goes directly to the bride. When various introductions have been made, the proposal is accepted on the spot then they make arrangements for the second process of the marriage which is the ENGAGEMENT. THE ENGAGMENT is the part of the occasion whereby the bride and groom are tied together traditionally based on the Yoruba culture, this also takes place at the bride’s house and again they are responsible for the refreshments and other necessary preparations for the occasion.

This part of the occasion, both families are meant to wear Yoruba traditional attire called “aso oke” which are more elegant and expensive, later on some prayers are said and some symbolic items of food are passed around by the “olopas” (The two policemen) and it’s then passed around to the guest, which is then used to bless the bride and groom in a prayer said in Yoruba language.

The first item is “obi” (kola nut) then elder says “won ma gbo” meaning they will ripen Won ma to meaning they will eat and not go hungry Won ma d’agba meaning they will grow old. The second item is “Ata ire: this consists of many seeds, and it is opened up, and the superstition is that the number of seeds that fall out is the number of children the couple will bear. The third item is Oyin (honey), sugar, ireke (sugar cane): these all symbolize that the union will be sweet.

The grooms family also bring lots of other thing like yam, drinks, wine, palm oil, during all these before she shows up, she usually waits in her indoors until she’s called for, she comes out wearing a veil made of plaited hair which represents reserve and accompanied by one of her friends and taken to her parents then kneels down before so they can give her their blessings, she then sits near the groom, this is when she becomes unveiled.

The couple jumps over a brush covered with flowers which symbolizes the stating of a domestic life, the groom then kisses her then everybody begins to eat and rejoice till the end of the occasion. The third and final stage of the marriage is the main wedding which is held in a church or mosque depending on the religion. This is the part of the occasion where they are joined by God and exchange vows. They can now be called husband and wife and go on a honeymoon if they could afford it but not really necessary, start living together and raise a family.

On the other side American marriage are held upon high standards and based upon strong values that are shared between the two parties being wed, these two are brought together to form their sacred bondage of love and life with each other. Weddings in America are known to be the most flexible and varied in the entire world due to the variation of race and ethnic backgrounds that the American culture embodies. In America, a man and a woman meet in the most casual and social way like a bar, restaurant, events and other lots of places, they don’t need to do too much introduction to get married as long as they love one another.

There is only one procedure in getting married in the United States which is mainly in the church. Friends and family assemble, soft slow romantic and the vows add to the charm of the marriage customs. In America, before the marriage the bride have a little get together called bridal night where only her and her female friends have a last night of all alone fun before her matrimonial life begins and also the groom also have his own party called bachelors party is going out with his male friends to have fun before his marriage.

In an American marriage, the bride wears a pure white gown and the groom wears a black tuxedo. Since the weeding takes place in church, it is usually conducted by a priest who ask the people in the church if they have any problem with the joining of the man and woman as husband and wife or keep silent forever, then if nobody talks, the priest then ask the couple to kiss as a symbol of the union, sealed with love from God. It’s the custom for the newly wed to on a honeymoon and have a period of intimate time alone, like a vacation.

It’s clearly seen that both marriage customs between the two counties are totally different, which has been the standard in as long time. Refrences and bibilographic source Marriage Customs in Many Lands (Hardcover – Jan 2005) by H. Hutchinson Marriage Customs of the World: From Henna to Honeymoons (Hardcover – 2004/11/30 Knot Tied: Marriage Ceremonies of All Nations By William Tegg African Ceremonies by Carol Beckwith Culture and Customs of Nigeria (Series – Culture and Customs of Africa) By toyin falola

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Entertainment + Engagement: The Key To Getting An Audience On Mobile

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Living in a digital ecosystem, where 80% of the population is on mobile, has given rise to a new market for apps. Almost , inconsecutively of course, and 2.5 hours on different apps daily. This shift of attention from mass traditional media to smaller screens in the palm of your hands is dramatic, and account almost 40% of marketing budgets going to digital campaigns.

From billboards to mobile display banners, and from television to mobile video, branded online content, click-on ads on YouTube, and mobile apps are shifting customer attention and changing the advertising industry radically, as now brands are required to engage with customers on mobile every minute. But now, customers want this to be done every second!

Advertising is now dead, and content is growing strong. The time has come where brands must turn from the powerful copywriter David Ogilvy, and look instead toward the powerful scriptwriter Quentin Tarantino to create storytelling content. The brands’ attention must also shift from using traditional advertising to developing entertainment/content, as customers’ attention has shifted dramatically.

Entergagement

This is where what I call brand entergagement comes into play.

Entergagement = entertainment + engagement.

Entergagement (that’s the noun; entergage is the verb) is the name I give for this new integrated marketing mechanism or digital brand activation for marketers to , in an uncalculated entertaining and engaging manner on one platform.

Brands must now entergage, rather than engage with customers through mobile vision (instead of television) by speaking with the customers, and not speaking to the customers as 3000 or so advertising messages do on a daily basis.

Entergagement consists of the following below brand activation or marketing tools, which must run simultaneously with user engagement features such as real-time chatting, call-to-action, voting, collecting, redeeming, following, liking, sharing and other engaging elements, all in one platform. The entertainment tools necessary for brand entergagement are as follows:

  • Branded content
  • Product placement
  • Program sponsorship
  • Script development

Content is king when it comes to entertainment to connect with customers’ minds and win their hearts. Ask Hollywood! They will tell you how content has helped create movie franchises and loyal fans globally, as Hollywood films reach more than 300 million viewers across their distribution channel globally. Movies have become a huge brand licensing industry. So what can we learn from Hollywood? Product placement has become an original marketing tool to as well as branded content where stories in various genres such as drama or comedy has been found favorable for global brands such as Starbucks in The Devil Wears Prada, Sony in the James Bond movies, or Mini Coopers in The Italian Job.

Who can forget that branded fueled content?

Emirates has been sponsoring major football leagues on a global scale, connecting with a wider audience and athletes.

Now, that you have your relevant entertainment strategy planned, marketers must start thinking of ways to not just entertain the customer, but also engage with them simultaneously, increasing feedbacks, customer retention, and conversion rates from mobile to sales. Brands must now start speaking with customers by engaging with them the same way they already engage on mobile through various known features- for instance, one of the most popular app features is the act of collecting coins. Users love to collect and redeem vouchers or special discount coupons. If brands can entertain users through original content and not advertising, as well as interacting by chatting or sharing some mobile app elements, then brands can quickly climb the advertising ladder from brand awareness, brand liking, brand preference, brand conviction to brand purchase, all at the same time. Now that is what I call creative-efficiency and cost-efficiency!

Marketers must now develop platforms rather than creative briefs. The way for marketers to entergage is on mobile apps or website by partnering with entergagement platforms such as Entergage by, the world’s first entergaging platform, where brands, users and celebrities come together. A less sophisticated and easier way for marketers can adopt the brand entergagement in their strategy is by creating storytelling content with engagement features to connect with an audience hosted on your website, powered by user engagement features to keep your customers intrigued and interacting with your brand.

Marketers must comprehend the user behavior, user trends, app market, and why users use what they use on mobile, in order for brands to without disrupting their customer experience, but rather entertaining them and enhancing their journey. If you don’t, they will simply skip your ads! Also, with the rise of ad blocking, users have become much more sophisticated with technology, more than digital agencies. We don’t have to outsmart them; we must join them by speaking their language through not advertising, but entegagement.

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Civic engagement at Northeastern State University

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We have identified civic battle as a top degree campus-wide precedence through our strategic planning procedure. Our primary barrier to progressing civic battle is a deficiency of campus-wide substructure to back up and capture civic battle activity happening in curricular and co-curricular scenes. The intent of this white paper is to supply a snap shooting of current activity related to civic battle, place a mensurable long-run aspiration, and offer recommendations for traveling frontward.

University planning group strategic plan

The University Planning Group sub-committee focused on Culture of Civic Engagement proposed the undermentioned description and definitions to be adopted by the establishment.

Civic Engagement at Northeastern State University is the single committedness to prosecute in a shared duty to take attention of the communities in which we live. This is achieved through the survey, contemplation and action necessary to take personal and societal duty in our single Fieldss of involvement every bit good as in the communities in which we live and serve.

Civic battle is lending to a larger community ; is caring about the remainder of the universe ; is consciousness of societal, political, and economic issues within the U.S. and globally ; is recommending for a cause ; is active in lending to community.

Types of Civic Engagement:

  1. Academic Service Learning – engages pupils in a three-part procedure: schoolroom readying through account and analysis of theories and thoughts ; service activity that emerges from and informs classroom context ; and structured contemplation binding service experience back to specific learning ends.
  2. Volunteerism – committedness and actions to help in a plan or activity that benefits others
  3. Community Service – committedness to turn to and function community demands
  4. Community Building – physique swearing relationships among persons and groups around issues of common concern
  5. Public Education – draw attending to and consciousness of local, national and planetary issues
  6. Community Development – identify and increase the human or economic assets of a community
  7. Voting and Political Participation – mobilize influence on public policy through formal political channels
  8. Civic Leadership – participate in collaborative decision-making for the benefit of the community
  9. Public Scholarship – engage in research that serves the public involvement and has community or social benefits
  10. Grassroots Alliances – mobilize Alliess with a common involvement to organize schemes for alteration

Environment scan

In 2009, NSU participated in two national surveies focused on pupil perceptual experiences and experiences related to civic battle.

The National Survey of Student Engagement ( NSSE ) is an appraisal of freshers and seniors to reflect on single clip devoted to assorted learning activities. NSU 2009 NSSE consequences related to civic battle stated:

  • 7 % of NSU freshman pupils often participate in service-learning or community-based undertakings during a given twelvemonth. 80 % ne’er took portion in such activities.
  • By their senior twelvemonth, 44 % of pupils have participated in some signifier of practicum, internship, field experience, cooperative, or clinical assignment.
  • By the clip they are seniors, 56 % of pupils have participated in community service or voluntary work.

The Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership ‘s ( MSL ) intent is to heighten cognition sing college pupil leading development every bit good as the influence of higher instruction on the development of pupil leading capacities. Participants are undergraduates, freshers – seniors. Following are answering distributions on specific features linked to civic battle from the NSU 2009 MSL.

  • 38.5 % of the respondents identified take parting in community service.
  • 36.4 % experienced an academic internship.
  • 20 % participated in an academic acquisition community.

The 2009 NSU campus stock list for Campus Compact on academic service-learning happening during the 2008-09 academic twelvemonth:

  • NSU semester norm is 20 academic classs that integrate community service with academic content.
  • 402 pupils participated in academic service-learning which averaged 18.1 hours/week across all classs bing 109143 hours.
  • Nonspecific urethritis does non necessitate academic service-learning classs as portion of the class course of study.

Snapshot of activity related to civic battle in academic units.

  • College of Business and Technology – Financial Planning seminars for local community, Volunteer Income Tax Assistance ( VITA ) plan
  • College of Education – Reading clinics for kids, Knowledge is Power Program partnership with Tulsa Public Schools
  • College of Liberal Arts – instructor readying plan focused on the Cherokee linguistic communication and civilization
  • College of Optometry – regional optometry clinics, international service trips
  • College of Science and Health Professions – Speech Pathology clinics

Snapshot of activity related to civic battle in co-curricular environment.

  • American Democracy Project ( ADP ) chapter. ADP rank is chiefly module and staff. A little group of pupils have late engaged in ADP. We have sent ADP members to the national conference the last 2 old ages. ADP has developed a growing proposal for execution get downing autumn 2010.
  • Recognized Student Organizations ( RSO ) . 96 pupil organisations are recognized by NSU. 38 % of the organisations organize community service activity as identified in their organisation description.

Populating Learning Community. Housing hosts a life larning community focused on service.

Large Event. The Senator Rozell Scholars coordinate the one-year Big Event, a 1-day community service undertaking. Over 600 pupils participated in Large Event in March 2010.

Center for Student Leadership Development and Community Engagement. Student Affairs has designated an office in the University Center lower degree to function as a cardinal location for a freshly formed Center for Student Leadership Development and Community Engagement. A alumnus helper is dedicated to resource and plan development under the supervising of the Director of Campus Involvement.

Campus Compact. NSU is a member of Oklahoma Campus Compact. Our activities over the last 4 old ages with Campus Compact include an AmeriCorps VISTA voluntary, MLK Volunteer Project grant receiver, and one-year study of service.

Cherokee Nation Community Service Program. Cherokee Nation requires pupils having fiscal aid to finish a set figure of service hours per semester. Several service plans coordinated by Cherokee Nation and NSU entities are presently underway.

2015 Aspiration: Carnegie Community Engagement Classification

The Carnegie Community Engagement Classification standards require the followers:

Infrastructure: a campus-wide coordinating substructure ( centre, office, etc. ) to back up and progress community battle, establishment have a definition and a procedure for placing Service Learning classs

Budget: internal budgetary allotments dedicated to back uping institutional battle with community, external support dedicated to back uping institutional battle with community, and fund-raising directed to community battle

Learning results: institutional ( campus-wide ) larning results for pupils ‘ curricular battle with community, departmental or disciplinary acquisition results for pupils ‘ curricular battle with community, outcomes consistently assessed and used

Integration in curricular activities: community battle integrated into Student Research, Student Leadership, Internships/Co-ops, Study Abroad, community battle integrated with course of study on an institution-wide degree – Core Courses Graduate Studies, First Year Sequence Capstone ( Senior degree undertaking ) , In the Majors General Education

Faculty scholarship: associated with their curricular battle accomplishments, module scholarship associated with their outreach and partnerships activities ( proficient studies, course of study, research studies, policy studies, publications, etc. )

Outreach and Partnerships: Outreach focuses on the application and proviso of institutional resources for community usage with benefits to both campus and community. Partnerships focal point on collaborative interactions with community and related scholarship for the reciprocally good exchange, geographic expedition, and application of cognition, information, and resources ( research, capacity edifice, economic development, etc. , mechanisms to consistently supply feedback and appraisal to community spouses and to the establishment

Recommendations for traveling forward

Make a NSU Civic Engagement Council dwelling of representative from the American Democracy Project, Student Affairs – Center for Student Leadership and Community Engagement, each academic college, Futures Institute, Herb Rozell Scholars ( Big Event ) , NSGA, and Housing – Living-Learning Community on Civic Engagement, Continuing Education and Athletics. Interested campus community members beyond the identified representatives may go to council meetings. The intent of the council is to strategically incorporate civic battle through:

Identifying University-wide ends related to % of pupils who participate in civic battle while at NSU.

  • Develop University pupil larning nonsubjective ( s ) linked to civic battle.
  • Create systematic campus-wide trailing or certification mechanisms to enter and/or path battle with the community
  • Develop a systematic campus-wide appraisal mechanisms to mensurate the impact of institutional battle
  • Provide professional development support for module, staff, and pupils who engage with community
  • Supply the community with a cardinal mercantile establishment for a “ voice ” or function for input into institutional or departmental planning for community battle
  • Serve as a cardinal communicating hub for civic battle activity happening throughout campus.

Develop an academic enterprise that includes the followers:

  • Get down a conversation on the feasibleness of necessitating service acquisition in every major and minor.
  • Create an interdisciplinary child in civic battle with the aspiration of going a major. 12 credits required for a minor to get down with, so construct a major that is interdisciplinary on top of the minor. Necessitate that all pupils must finish at least one class in service larning leading and finish a service larning undertaking as portion of that class… and all of those classs have a service larning constituent available so that pupils could take the class they want.
  • Create a Service Learning Center that includes full-time module who teach required lower division classs in service larning leading, community development, squad and interpersonal relationships, societal and political motions throughout history, societal organisations and societal action, non-profit leading, etc. etc. The basic thought is a section with a major/minor in countries that may pull new pupils, supply a path to hold bing pupils take part in service acquisition.

American Democracy Project creates a particular involvement path or certification within the civic battle major and/or child.

Designate shared infinite for civic engagement academic and co-curricular plans coordinated through Academic Affairs and Student Affairs in the installations maestro program.

This designated infinite could go a paradigm for interdisciplinary plans and services.

Long-run end could be a new edifice dedicated to Making Place Matter through acquisition, invention, and outreach.

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Traditional Ways of Meranao Courtship

TRADITIONAL WAYS OF MERANAO COURTSHIP Introduction: Marriage in Meranao society is not just a simple romantic one-to-one relationship between boy and girl; rather, it is a fusion by defiant ties of two families seeking to establish socioeconomic and political relations with one another. I. Courtship A. Selecting a mate B. Courtship prior to marriage C. Manifesting the intent for marriage D. Deliberation of the proposal E. The engagement period

F. Training to assume rights and duties INTRODUCTION Marriage in Meranao society is not just a simple romantic one-to-one relationship between boy and girl; rather, it is a fusion by affiant ties of two families seeking to establish socioeconomic and political relations with one another. Traditional marriage has therefore always been contracted through parents, although the practice is slowly becoming modified to conform to the times.

It is, therefore, clear why the reckoning of the salsila genealogical record, occupies a significant niche in the Meranao mind. In fact, in considering marriage, what the pananalsila ‘salsila expert’ says or reveals about the lineage of the parties concerned can become crucial in the decision to proceed with the marriage or not. It is part of one’s group consciousness or pride (maratabat) to see the individual’s marriage establishes strong family relations.

The study will only focus to the traditional ways of courtship and marriage of Maranao and on how courtship and marriage happen. The objective of this study was to know more about the traditional ways of courtship and marriage of Maranao man and woman because the time is now escalating the western influences and it causes forgetfulness of Maranao culture. The study was made possible to the internet websites, books, magazines, and news. I. Courtship A.

Selecting a mate The Meranao courtship may start either prior to or after marriage. There are proofs to show the existence of courtship prior to marriage. There are a number of cases in which the couple does not see each other until their wedding day because their selection of a partner is usually undertaken by parents, kin, or the community. In some cases, children may be betrothed as infants or promises may be made between families regarding children still unborn.

Even children who are allowed to confide to their parents their wish to marry, because of personal attraction, is subject to the decision of the parents or kindred. Arranged marriage is prevalent in Meranao society because of family social and economic factors which are given prime importance, that is, marriage is seen as an institution establishing a union between two families. It is a bond uniting two families in which the sharing of problems and happiness is the major consideration.

Thus children to be “married off” are always told the practical reasons for the union such as: the other family can give you happiness, or can bring up; it has many members who help one another, who do not bother their in-laws, who belong to the royal blood; the intended spouses will be a good wife or a husband, responsible one, and many others. These social and economic considerations subordinate the romantic factors in marriage, although the latter is not totally ignored. The marriageable children have themselves no much choice in the marriage.

Meranao parents who “marry off” their children usually do not ask for their approval. The prospective spouse is usually chosen first from among the relatives. If no relative qualifies the search movies on to the neighborhood and if there is no one there either continues on to other people elsewhere. Meranao do not like their children to marry non-Meranao women, but especially non-Meranao men. Deviats of this norm have been made almost outcasts of the society. Consciousness of kind is very strong among Meranao.

Because of the practice of arranged marriage, actual courtship of the individual bride herself may continue or begin after the wedding ceremony. This is the boy’s task, with his parents and in-laws acting as the pressure group for the girl’s acceptance of the marriage. The mechanism or procedure is not established, as it is based on individual personal ability or patience. B. Courtship prior to marriage Courtship prior to marriage is given importance in Meranao society. It is highly regulated, which practically makes it a very delicate task to handle.

There are norms that must be followed. Violation of these norms brings violence in the community. As already stated, courtship is either an individual or group endeavor. As an individual work, it is expected of a man not of the woman and, traditionally, the act is not primarily directed at the latter herself. It is may be directed at her guardians, kin or any other influential person who has the say in the conduct of her marriage. If ever it is directed at the girl, her influential kin must not be disregarded or the boy will meet obstacles when his marriage is proposed.

In the rural areas, it is usually done at a nocturnal visit in the house of the girl, in a gathering, or in the working place. The boy must behave in the most acceptable manner without showing any aggressiveness to the girl. When he comes up in the house, he is not entertained by the girl but any old folk in the house, particularly the girl’s mother. He may be served cigarettes or a betel quid or, nowadays, a snack. This encounter is usually characterized by a display of skills in pananaroon or tobad-to-bad (short poetic love poem in classical Meranao language) by both parties.

In most instances, this tobad-to-tobad triggers the boy’s emotion to propose marriage by requesting or confiding to his parents or to his close relatives about his wish to be married off. It may also scare him so that he will disappear from the house especially if he finds the situation not suitable. In the past aside from the vocal renditions, musical instruments have been employed to convey the sentiment of the both parties. In this case, the boy and the girl enjoyed themselves but they were left alone since the activity was a group endeavor. The girl had her company; so had the boy.

Her parents would even participate. The musical instruments were either the insi (bamboo flute) or a three-string guitar called kotiyapi or the musical activity could have been a kalilang (playing of musical instruments composed of two big gongs, 7 small graduated gongs and a drum). A boy may also express his love by sending a kirim (highly poetic love letter) to the girl. This kirim, however, is not kept confidential. The girl shows it to her companions, to her mother or to other old folks, not only because there is pride in having received it but also to solicit opinions on how to handle it.

Aside from nocturnal visit, a boy can also court in any appropriate gatherings, as in a kanggawi or a vigil or in group games by boys and girls; or in a kalilang, where boys and girls exhibit their expertise (a practice inhibited since Martial Law). C. Manifesting the intent for marriage When the parents like to marry off their son, they usually look for a go-between to do preliminary negation, called the kapangakap o kapanokatokay (literally, “knowing”). This go-between talks secretly to the parents of the girl regarding the intent.

As go-between, he may be frankly told by the parents of the girl not to pursue the intent in some reasons, or he may be made to feel their openness to the proposal. Whatever may be the result, the go-between conveys it to the parents of the boy in euphemistic language. If the result of his preliminary talk is negative, he does not openly tell the parents of the boy so, in order to avoid embarrassment. He finds other reasons to explain why their intent is not viable. But if the result has been a positive, he tells to pursue their intent.

Thus the next move of the parents and kin of the boy, accompanied by the go-between, is to visit the girl’s parents. In this visit, they may not mention anything about their intent, or formally propose the marriage of their son. This procedure is called kapangilaylay (citing). In opening the proposal, the spokesman of the boy’s parents, usually the go-between, states their intent by saying: “We come here because of our intent to let [mentioning the name of the boy] live with you, if you do not mind. ” Later, he states the betang they can afford.

He does not say it explicitly in plain language but expresses it as a lot (potluck) of the boy. The girl’s parents or their representative makes a response, which is neither acceptance nor refusal, but a deferment of their decision on the matter. The delay may be days, weeks or months, depending upon the time they need to convene their relatives who will decide the matter. But, before they make the response, they claim the kawasa tig or diyalaga. This is an amount ranging from P100 and up for the opening of the discussion for marriage; some say it is a token of honor to the bangsa (descent) of the girl.

But actually, the amount is used to defray expenses incurred during the discussion of the marriage proposal. D. Deliberation of the proposal and the taalik After the girl’s side has decided on the betang, it conveys the decision to boy’s side, or both parties come on a set date to formally deliberate on the matter. If they meet on cetain date to deliberate on it, both parties bring their maongangen (a person who has wisdom in public speaking). In this open meeting, both parties display their poetic and oratorical skills.

The girl’s side formally states its response to the proposal. The boy’s side may ask for postponement in order to study some point in question, say the betang, or bargain secretly if there has been no prior bargaining made. Usually, however, they readily accept the response of the girl’s party. This smooth agreement in the open is made possible because there usually has been already a previous underground negotiation and agreement made with the go-between before the formal opening of the public ceremony.

Everybody knows that what is publicly displayed has been already privately agreed upon. When both parties have agreed on the betang, the taalik is set. It is usually chosen by the boy’s side with the consent of the girl’s kin. It is may be several days, months or years hence, depending upon the capabilities of the boy to put up the demanded betang and/ or the maturity of prospective bride and groom in the case of children marriages. When the taalik comes and the boy’s parents wish to move it for some reasons, they may ask for postponement.

They are allowed postponement three times but for each one, they are required to put up part of the betang to make sure they do not back out of the agreement.. The interim before the taalik is time for both parties to observe one another’s characters, and the boy and his parents’ opportunity to prove their best to their prospective in-laws so that when the wedding comes, they may be able to reduce the betang if they connot completely put it up. It is also time for them to pool together resources to meet the betang, that is, to collect the expected share of every relative in the betang no matter how poor the may be.

If the boy’s side fails to put up the betang on the final date, the marriage proposal is annulled, especially if the girl’s parents do not give it any further chance. If this happens all the expenditures of the boy’s side are forfeited. On the other hand, if the girl’s side rejects the proposal before the taalik has came it shall refund all the expenses of the boy and pay a fine imposed for the breach of contract, unless there is a grave offense committed against the girl of the family honor and integrity, such as oral defamation, slander or some other insult.

The fine shall be determined by the taritib and igma or by amicable settlement by the go-between through the kokoman a kambatabataa. E. The engagement period While waiting for the taalik to come, many things are expected to happen. The relatives of the boy may perform the kapaniwaka or siwaka. This is a gift-giving of raw food by the parents of the boy to the parents of the girl. In the past, it is composed mainly of betel nut and leaves, lime, tobacco (or imbama) and other items in bundles or sacks. Kapaniwaka is believed to be determinant of status of both parties.

It carries with it prestige: the greater the items given, the higher is the prestige of the giver and receiver. Kapaniwaka actually is a courtship mechanism designed to win the love of the girl and her kin. Aside from the kapaniwaka, the boy may start eating with girl, a ceremonial act and status called kaatoang. The prospective bride and groom eat from a brass tray (tabak); in the urban area a table is used. During first meal together, chaperons accompany them. After sometime, the two are left alone at the meal, but they are always under watch secretly by the people in the house.

This situation makes the boy extra careful in his dealing with his sweetheart. Before the boy can eat with the girl, however, a leka sa dulang (literally, opening of the food on the tray) is asked of him by the guardians of the girl. This is an amount which varies from one place to another and the family of the girl. It ranges, however, from P100 to a few thousands. In the past the claim is isa tao (literally, one person) or one person which can be substituted in cash (paras). F. Training to assume rights and duties

When the proposal for marriage is accepted, rights and duties of both parties defined by the tradition take effect. Neither of them can back out the agreement, otherwise a fine shall be imposed on the violator without a substantial ground. The boy has the right to sleep in the house of the girl and show his best behavior to the girl and her parents, not only to win their love (so that if there is a little difference in the betang he can bargain for it), but also as a kind of training for him be treated with even more difference than one’s own parents.

During the boy’s first night in the house, he is given the best available malong (circular blanket with openings at both ends) as his souvenir which he uses during the engagement period and keeps for himself. The gesture symbolizes honor and welcome. The boy’s permission must be sought when the girl goes out to attend some gathering or to some important business. He is expected to accompany her not only to ensure her safety but to provide for her financial expenses, if any.

If the girl is attending a social gathering like kalilang, he must go with her, because if she plays the kolintang he is expected to accompany her on the agong, otherwise he will be demeaned if some other boy plays the accompaniment. This practice appears to have died out since the Martial Law period. The girl’s failure to seek the permission of the prospective husband can be a ground for breaking the proposal, or else the parents of the girl are fined a certain amount (sala) to be negotiated by the go-between or to be determined by the datu in the community, in accordance with the taritib and igma.

This practice is not strongly adhered to in recent time especially in the City. The boy may help this prospective parents-in-law in their work. This is highly recommended in order that he would gain their esteem and appreciation. He is also expected to provide some assistance in the form of foodstuff, like rice or money. If the girl smokes, he has to bring her cigarettes.

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Customer Engagement on Facebook

Individual Research “Customer engagement of commercial brand community on Facebook” Ms. Benchawan Phumphuengsri ID: 543-9374 iMBA Batch 3 Section 19 BP6993 Individual Research Submitted to Assistant Professor Dr. Kriengsin Prasongsukarn Graduate School of business Assumption University Submission date: 12 April 2013 Word count: …….. words Abstract The rise of the Internet in worldwide there are opportunities and challenges have emerged for marketing brands and products.

In its early days, the Internet was seen as an opportunity for marketers to communicate with consumers, and even to engage the customer in two-way communications. However, consumers are becoming overcome by marketers’ attempts to engage them in relationship marketing strategies. The marketing managers and planners should apply new ideas in order to make their brand community more effective because traditional web sites are no longer motivating customers to return and interact to the site.

So it is important for the marketer to find out the strategy that involves the development of a virtual community around the brand by focusing on perceived benefits such as social benefits, entertainment benefits and economic benefits to the customer by using online media and social network which are more powerful marketing tools in the current day. In addition, interactions among members can influence the selection of brands, making effective communities very important for the company.

In order to get a better understanding of the important factors of community engagement behaviour, this study will show which factor lead to successful online strategies for the marketing on Facebook fan page by using Product Moment Coefficient Pearson Correlation (Bivariate) to analyse the variables and explain that how social benefits, economic benefits and entertainment benefits have a relationship on customer community engagement behaviour. Acknowledgements To complete my individual research, I would like to thank you my advisor Assistant Professor Dr.

Kriengsin Prasongsukarn for all helpful advices and guidance since the beginning up to the individual research completion. Moreover I have learned many things from him during the consulting time and he motivated me to try harder to understand and apply his teaching to real practice. I would like to thank to all of my friends, iMBA section 19 for their advice and encouragement which supported me to finish this individual research. Thank you to respondents of my questionnaires.

Lastly I would like to thank my family who always believe in me that I could do study and work at the same time. I hope this research will be benefits the business towards understanding ways to enhance customer engagement with their brands. Table of Contents CHATER 1………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 1 INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………………………. 1 1. 1 Background of the topic……………………… …………………………………….. 1 1. 2 Statement of the problem……………………………………………………………. 3 1. Research Objectives…………………………………………………………………. 3 1. 4 Scope of Research ………………………………………………………………….. 4 1. 5 Limitations of research ………………………………………….. …………………. 4 1. 6 Significant of study …………………………………………………………………. 5 1. 7 Definition of terms …………………….. …….. ……………………………………. 5 CHATER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW…………………………………………………….. ……… 5 2. 1 Theoretical Literature ……………………………………………………………….. 5 2. 2 Related Literature Review …. ……………………………………………… …………. 7 2. 3 Summary table of findings of previous researches……. …… ……….. ……………… CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK …………………………………… 11 3. 1 Theoretical Framework …………………………………………………………… 11 3. 2 Conceptual Framework………………………………………….. ………….. …… 12 3. 3 Research hypothesis …………………………………………….. ………….. ….. …13 3. 4 Operationalization of the variables ……………………………………………….. 14 CHAPTER 4 DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULT………………………………………………………………….. 15 4. 1 Method of Research …………………………………………………………………………………… 15 4. Source of Data …………………………………………………………………….. 15 4. 3 Research instrument …………………………………………………………… …. 15 4. 4 Data Analysis ………………………………………………………………. …… 16 4. 5 Summary of Hypotheses Testing …………………………………………………. 22 CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION. …………………………………… 23 5. 1 Conclusion ………………………………………………………………….. …… 23 5. 2 Recommendation ………………………………………………………………… 24 5. 3 Future Study ……………………………………………………………………… 25 REFERENCE………………………………………………………………………. . 26 Appendix A Analysis …………………………………………………………………. 28 Appendix B Questionnaire ……………………………………………………………. 2 Customer engagement in a Facebook commercial brand community CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1. 1 Background of the topic The reason to select the studying community engagement behaviors in a Facebook brand community of customers is because nowadays Facebook is a very famous social-networking website that has impacts on daily life and it socially influences the people’s choices. The world is moving toward the cyber world is which internet connections are easily access and reachable for every households and businesses.

This study will show how the customer community engagement behavior affects perceived benefits of the Facebook commercial brand, and user of its services and applications. We will focus on both male and female respondents who are Facebook users and fans of at last one brand on Facebook, because these people can respond to our questionnaire effectively as they already experience social-networking. The company is looking for ways to brand loyalty among customers as the brand community offers both companies and customers new ways to engage with each other.

Whilst companies aim at engaging with influencing members’ perceptions, loyal customers about the brand, sharing information, and learning from and about customers (Algesheimer et al. , 2005), customers perceive value through the variety of practices that they execute offline and online (Schau et al. , 2009). Although originally, an online brand community referred to a community on the www, recently social media network has been added to companies’ marketing and brand building activities (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010).

Attracted by the great number of users of Facebook so, the creative marketing activity in Facebook brand community will draw people to participate and make the brand succeed. This study will help the firm understand more about customer engagement in the Facebook brand community. 1. 1. 2 Social Network, Facebook Over the last years, the ways people search, share information and communicate with each other has changed dramatically (Hennig-Thurau et al. , 2010). Social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube are playing a major role and are more important in business communication.

The changes force the company and brand to focus on online services in order to create relationships to customers. Facebook allows companies several services to contact and communicate with their customers. Fan pages are a very interesting tool for companies to use. Usual characteristics of fans are self-identification as a fan, cultural competence, emotional engagement, co-production and auxiliary consumption (Kozinets et al. , 2010). The Internet brought the possibility to overcome geographical restrictions and also help the company build fan communities world-wide.

In practice, Facebook users can be fans of a fan page by pressing the “like-button,” then it identifies that they like this brand and will present their profiles on social network. The content and information of fan page is automatically posted to the customer is Facebook news feed, and the customer can post comments on the fan page, interact with the brand, forward offers from the page as well as the interact with other community members (Jahn and Kunz. ,2012). 1. 2 Statement of problem As a social network, Facebook has affected the social life and activity of people in several ways.

With its availability on many mobile devices, Facebook allows users to continuously stay in touch with friends, relatives and other connections wherever they are in the world, as long as there is access to the Internet. It can also tie people with same interests or beliefs through groups and other pages. This study will help the company to understand more how community engagement behavior in Facebook is important to the company for implementing the technique to create company brand perception and gain market share via Facebook.

In addition, engaging with the brand community in different behaviors, receive different relationship benefits, for example entertainment, may make customers more satisfied. This assumption is based on the reasoning that customers. This study will investigate how a customer engagement behavior affects consumers perceived benefits, and assume a positive relationship between the constructs. (Gummerus et al. , 2012) 1. 3 Research objectives The research objective is to study the affects of community engagement behaviour of Facebook commercial brand on perceived benefits.

The company can know more insight of customer behaviour especially the company who focuses on social network marketing activities. This study will help the company create marketing and content to their page on Facebook effectively to increase perceived benefit of the brand. * To study community engagement behaviour has a positive relationship on social benefit * To study community engagement behaviour has s positive relationship on entertainment benefit * To study community engagement behaviour has a positive relationship on economic benefit 1. Scope of research The research studied the affects of community engagement behaviour on three factors of perceived benefits. The three independent variables of perceived benefits factors are social benefit, entertainment benefit and economic benefit. The respondents of this research are male and female Facebook user in Bangkok. This research result would be advantage to the marketing department of the company who has community page of their brand on Facebook they can apply more attractive activities for their members.

This study will help them to monitor their Facebook fan page effectively after they understand the fact that the brand community will help a firm draws individual customers and to create relationships with those customers, and also establishing long-term relationships. 1. 5 Limitations of research There are some limitations to this study of customer community engagement behaviours of commercial brands on Facebook. The study is limited to the engagement behaviour in a Facebook commercial brand community, while customers also engage with the brand in other ways.

The limitations that need to be considered are first, self-selection of respondents affects the results which may come from inactive community users. Second, the behavioural measures were reported by the respondents themselves, and do not know that the answers are from actual behaviour or not. Finally, because the findings are based on commercial brand on Facebook page and the respondent have to be both Facebook user and commercial brand community page so this will represent only some portion of target customer of the company not the whole market 1. Significant of the study The findings in this study have several implications for social media strategies, and help the company to understand why customers participate in the Facebook brand community which is important to increasing more numbers of Facebook users to become brand community members and towards develop marketing on Facebook, which is lower cost than other commercial media. Firms may want to encourage and reward consumers to become more active on the site to receive maximal perceived benefits from the community (Gummerus et al. 2012). 1. 7 Definitions of Terms Fan pages the important tool on Facebook for brand communication. The company can use to integrate and interact with the customers effectively (Dholakia et al. , 2004). Community engagement behaviour is the customer behaviour that is more value than purchasing the product or service, and can be defined as a customer’s behavioural manifestations that have a focus as motivational drivers rather than purchasing by the brand or firm (van Doorn et al. , 2010).

Social benefits results from interaction among the company and consumer and mention to recognition and also friendship (Gweinner et al. , 1998). Entertainment benefits is the relaxation and fun which customer perceive and could encourage community participation (Dholakia et al. , 2004). Economic benefits refer to people joining brand communities in order to get discounts and time savings, or to take part in marketing activity campaign and competitions (Gwinner et al. , 1998). CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2. Theoretical Literature Customer engagement in brand communities Customer engagement in brand communities causes the customer’s interactive experiences direct to the brand, is context-dependent, and develops consumers’ experience of brand value (Brodie et al. , 2011). Customer engagement is sometimes used to represent the highest form of loyalty (Bowden, 2009; Roberts and Alpert, 2010), but as behavioural indicator it comprises all kinds of behaviours, not only those that are characteristic of high degrees of loyalty (Libai, 2011; Narayandas, 1998).

The customer engagement consists of five dimensions. First, customer engagement can be defined in a different ways depending on customer time, interest or preference this called customer’s resources. Second, it can generate in different of outcomes for the customer such as improvement in the service. Third, it can be different in scope and be momentary, for example on going behaviour or issuing a complaint. Fourth, it has various impact on the company both negative and positive impact. Fifth, customer can engage in the behaviours for specific purposes (van Doorn et al. , 2010).

Consumers engage in a number of behaviours that tie their relationship with the brand. For example frequency of visit, buying behaviours, and intended behaviour which go beyond the traditional measure of the loyalty of the customer (Gummerus et al. , 2012). Perceived benefits of customer engagement in brand communities Before the existence of Web 2. 0, the customers did not consider social benefits important in an online context. They sought to experience trust benefit and special treatment benefit such as saving time and receiving special service rather than experience social benefit (Yen and Gwinner, 2003).

The previous research studied on practical benefits which included informational and instrumental benefits (Dholakia et al. , 2004) which are often achievable through a Facebook fan page set up by the company. This study is focused on social, entertainment and economic benefits which we called perceived benefits. The reasons that people use social networking site are social connections such as keeping in touch with their friends and exchanging information such as events or gossip, (Raacke and Bonds-Raacke, 2008). In similar interest, Foster et al. 2010) found the important motivation of people to participate the social network is the perceived information value from the community and the connection to their friends. The experiential value that derives the satisfaction of the customer of using online services is entertainment (Mathwick et al. , 2001; Nambisan and Baron, 2009; Nonnecke et al. , 2006). Entertainment benefit can be expected as an important more than e-commerce in a brand community context. The Facebook fan pages spend their time with the community page such as game applications (Gummerus at al. 2012). Many previous researches also show that entertainment plays an important role as shared and consumed content on social networking sites (Sheldon, 2008; LaRose et al. , 2001). Economic benefits (Gwinner et al. , 1998) mention to people connecting brand communities because they want to get discounts and time savings, or to be a part in awards and competitions. 2. 2 Related Literature Review Brand Community The companies aim to engage with the loyal customers, influencing the member to have good perception toward the brand, distributing information and earning form and about customers (Algesheimer et al. , 2005), customer perceive value from the variety of practice that they perform online and offline (Schau et al. , 2009). An online brand community referred to a community on the World Wide Web, recently social media has been added to companies’ marketing and brand building activities (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). In this study, brand community is defined as a group of people who possess a particular brand or who have a strong interest in a brand, and who are active both online and offline (Muniz and O’Guinn, 2001; Jeppesen and Frederiksen, 2006).

Research on brand communities found several different dimensions, including geographic concentration, social context, size, and temporality (Dholakia et al. , 2004; McAlexander et al. , 2002). Regarding the size, Dholakia et al. , (2004) found the differences between small group-based communities and big communities in terms of motivation to join the communities. Another dimension is their temporality in communities, some are unchanging and others are short-term.

The temporal stability of community members can be benefit to marketers as well as longevity associates with a long-term, stable market. Finally, geographically concentrated or scattered are considered as a dimension of communities (Hur at el. , 2011) The keys of brand community participation are hedonic and functional. Functional goals mention to information sharing among community members, while hedonic goals lead customer to have a positive experience over the interactions among the member (Holland and Baker, 2001).

Regardless of which aim is established before a participation, the effect of brand community on private lives has been growing, for example over actual product consumption and purchasing, or the formation of opinions toward products or brands (Hagel and Armstrong, 1997), since they have been changing the role performed by existing reference groups (Constant et al. , 1996). The firms have begun to use brand communities for the strategic purpose of getting closer to a specific target market segment.

Members of a brand community define the outline and particular community activities by the inter-relationships between members who like the same brand, and as they share information about the brand (Muniz and Schau, 2005), they set up brand-centered sub-culture (Schouten and McAlexander, 1995), which could be applied for companies’ brand-building strategies. Then, the interaction between brand communities and companies is helpful for the firms to analyse customers’ characteristics and needs more accurately, so that firms can achieve long-term customer relationships at a lower cost. . 3 Summary table of findings of previous researches. There are many researchers who studied about the customer engagement, brand community, social networking, social benefit, entertainment benefit and economic benefit. The researcher name, objective and result are as follow: Table 2. 1 Previous empirical studies CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK 3. 1 Theoretical Framework From previous research two engagement behavioural factors were found, one being community behaviour and one being transactional behaviours as independent variables (Gummerus et al. , 2012).

The variable measuring how often customers visit the page and react to the brand on Facebook. Therefore, the three constructs were social benefits, economic and entertainment benefits as mediator. The dependent variables were relationship outcome, one is satisfaction and one is loyalty. Figure 3. 1 Model of study on relationship benefits mediate the effect on customer engagement on relationship outcomes Source: Johanna Gummerus, Veronica Liljander, Emil Weman, Minna Pihlstrom, (2012),”Customer engagement in a Facebook brand community”, Management Research Review 35 (9), 857 – 877 . 2 Conceptual Framework The theoretical framework of relationship benefits mediate the effect on customer engagement on relationship outcomes (Gummerus et al. , 2012). The researcher adjusted the conceptual framework to study the relationship on customer engagement behaviour and perceived benefits as follows Figure 3. 2 Conceptual Framework There are three independent variables which are social benefit, entertainment benefit and economic benefit. The dependent variable of this conceptual framework is community engagement behaviour. . 3 Research hypothesis The hypotheses studies the relationship between customer engagement behaviour which is community engagement behaviour about the brand community on Facebook and perceived benefit which are social benefit, economic benefit and entertainment benefit and demonstrate that there is positive relationship of customer community engagement behaviour on perceived benefit for Facebook users in Thailand. Customer engagement in brand communities

From previous studies, the researcher examined the customer behavioural engagement in a brand community relationship on perceived relationship benefits of Game Club in Facebook. For this study we will study a customer community engagement behaviour relationship on perceived relationship benefits of Facebook user in Thailand who are members of the commercial brand’s fan page. Perceived benefits of customer engagement in brand communities From previous studies, the researcher examined the relationship benefits mediation of customer engagement on satisfaction and loyalty of Game Club in Facebook.

For this study we will research the relationship of customer community engagement behaviour and perceived benefits which are social benefit, entertainment benefit and economic benefit of Facebook user in Thailand who is fan page of the commercial brand. Hence, the hypothesized model can be summarized as shown below: H1: Community engagement behaviour has a positive relationship on social benefits. H2: Community engagement behaviour has a positive relationship on entertainment benefits. H3: Community engagement behaviour has positive relationship on economic enefits. 3. 4 Operationalization of the variables CHAPTER 4 DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULT 4. 1 Method of Research The Facebook user who is a member of the fan page of the brand on Facebook is defined as a target group to distribute the questionnaire in order to test the hypothesis. The questionnaires are available into two methods; one is online questionnaire and second is questionnaire paper. The respondent who answered the questionnaire of this study is all Thai Facebook users and also being a fan page of commercial brand on Facebook.

The questionnaire combined 4 constructs which are customer community engagement behaviour construct, social benefit construct, entertainment benefit construct and economic benefit construct and consists of 23 questions which this research applied the question from the previous study base on this research objectives. 4. 2 Source of Data This research was applied from the previous study of customer engagement on Facebook. The information was collected from 208 respondents who are Facebook users and members of a commercial brand fan page and were tested to prove the hypotheses.

The researcher collected data by distributed 58 questionnaires in Siam Square, Assumption University and Thai Summit Tower building in Bangkok, and posted a questionnaire online for Thai Facebook users and there is 150 respondents from online questionnaire. The date duration to collect the data is 24th February 2013 to 12th March 2013. 4. 3 Research instrument The instruments for gathering the data for the research are online questionnaire and paper questionnaire.

To test the hypothesis the question paper consists of varies specific questions to measure the relationship of community engagement behaviours on three perceived benefit, social benefit, economic benefit and entertainment benefit. The questionnaires consist of four constructs. The Community engagement behaviours the perceived benefit statement was measured on a Five-point Likert scale with the anchors “Strongly agree” – “Strongly disagree”. Table 4. 1 Measurement Scale 4. 4 Data Analysis In this research, there are three types of data analysis.

First, this study uses descriptive analysis to analyse the frequency and percentage of the data in screening question and demographic information. Second, this research use reliability analysis to test the reliability of each question for dependent and independent variables. Finally, this research use inferential analysis to analyse the correlation between variables by using Pearson correlation (Bivariate). Descriptive Analysis After screening question of the questionnaire from 208 respondents there are 200 respondents who are Facebook users and be a member of brand fan page and 8 respondents who are not Facebook user.

The following table shows the frequency and percentage of demographic by using descriptive analysis. Table 4. 2 Screening question Facebook user From table 4. 2 of 208 respondents, we found 200 respondents are Facebook users 96. 2% (200) and 3. 8% (8) are not Facebook user. Brand fan page on Facebook From table 4. 2, after the first screening question we got 200 respondents who are members of a brand fan page on Facebook. Frequency of visit fan page From the table 4. 2, the highest percentage of visits to brand fan page on Facebook of the respondents is 1-3 times per week and the lowest percentage is once a month or seldom.

There are 37. 5% (75) of respondents who visit 1-3 times per week, 29. 5% (59) of visit daily, 20% (40) of 4-6 times per week, 7% (14) of 2-3 times per month and 6% (12) of once a month or seldom. Table 4. 3 Demographic information Factor of Gender From the table 4. 2, the highest percentage of respondents was female. There are 56. 5% (113) of female respondents and 43. 5% (87) of male respondents. Factor of Age From the table 4. 2, the highest percentage of respondents was age 25-29 years old and the lowest percentage is age below 20 years old.

There are 69% (138) of age 25 to 29 years old, 16% (32) of age 21 to 24 years old, 12. 5% (25) of age 30 and above and 2. 5% (5) of age below 20 years old. Factor of education level From the table 4. 2, the highest percentage of respondents was college/university level and the lowest percentage is high school level. There are 66. 5% (133) of college/university level, 31. 5% (63) of advance degree level and 2% (4) of high school level. Table 4. 4 The Analysis of Descriptive statistics of constructs by using Average Mean and Standard Deviation Reliability Analysis

The purpose of testing the reliability is to measure the question of each variable by using Cronbach’s Coefficient Alpha test. The results of each variable are as follows: Table 4. 5 The reliability Analysis of Research Instrument From table 4. 5, the results show that the reliability of all variables is greater than . 6 so all questions are reliable to use for this study. Inferential Analysis There are 3 independent variables which are social benefit, entertainment benefit and social benefit to analyse the relationship with community engagement behaviour by using Coefficient Pearson Correlation (Bivariate).

Each independent variable has a positive relationship to community engagement behaviour and significant value is less than 0. 01 which means all hypotheses are fail to reject (supported). Hypothesis 1: Community engagement behaviour has a positive relationship on social benefits. Table 4. 6 The Analysis of relationship between Community engagement behaviour and Social benefit As the result in table 4. 6, the sig. is equal to . 000 which is less than . 01 (. 000 <. 01). It means that null hypothesis is rejected. Then there is a relationship between community engagement behaviour and social benefit at the . 01 significant level.

At . 260, it means that there is a weak positive relationship between community engagement behaviour and social benefit. It can conclude that two variables move to the same direction or if the customer has high community engagement behaviour their perceived social benefit is high. Hypothesis 2: Community engagement behaviour has a positive relationship on entertainment benefits. Table 4. 7 The Analysis of relationship between Community engagement behaviour and Entertainment benefit As the result in table 4. 7, the sig. is equal to . 011 which is less than . 05 (. 011 <. 05). It means that null hypothesis is rejected.

Then there is a relationship between community engagement behaviour and social benefit at the . 05 significant level. At . 180, it means that there is weak positive relationship between community engagement behaviour and entertainment benefit. It can conclude that two variables move to the same direction or if the customer has a high community engagement behaviour their perceived entertainment benefit is high. Hypothesis 3: Community engagement behaviour has a positive relationship on economic benefits. Table 4. 8 The Analysis of relationship between Community engagement behaviour and economic benefit

As the result in table 4. 8, the sig. is equal to . 000 which is less than . 01 (. 000 <. 01). It means that null hypothesis is rejected. Then there is a relationship between community engagement behaviour and social benefit at the . 01 significant level. At . 257, it means that there is a weak positive relationship between community engagement behaviour and economic benefit. It can conclude that two variables move to the same direction or if the customer has high community engagement behaviour their perceived economic benefit is high. 4. 5 Summary of Hypotheses Testing

There are three hypothesis of this research to test relationship between independent variables that are social benefit, entertainment benefit and economic benefit and dependent variable that is community engagement behaviour of a brand fan page on Facebook by using Product Moment Correlation Coefficient. Table 4. 9 Summary of Hypotheses Testing The result from these hypothesis state that perceived benefit which are social benefit, entertainment benefit and economic benefit are important factor of customer engagement. All hypotheses are supported and positive related to customer engagement behaviour.

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION 5. 1 Conclusion The findings in this study have practical implications for marketing practices. First of all, there is a positive relationship between community engagement behaviour and perceived benefit that are social benefit, entertainment benefit and economic benefit. The effectiveness of creating marketing on a Facebook fan page of the company can increase the customer engagement successfully. Second, the more customers interact to the brand on Facebook the more they perceive social benefit, entertainment benefit and conomic benefit. This research found that social benefit has the strongest relationship toward community engagement behaviour. The customers are likely to interact with the brand because they like to exchange information and experience and community with people who has the same interest. Entertainment benefit is also has a relationship to the community engagement behaviour when the customer has high attention to the brand fan page on Facebook can be indicate that they perceive the entertainment benefit value.

There is a high customer engagement level when the entertainment benefits that the customers perceive are high. The study also found that the relationship of economic factor and customer engagement behaviour is positive so the interactive of customer toward the brand on Facebook is high when the customer perception of the economic factors is high. The important role of developing brand community on Facebook of the company should make every effort to actively manage social, economic and entertainment benefit respectively in order to engage the customer on online communities successfully. . 2 Recommendation A significant issue of great interest to the brand is how participants in online communities become associated with a brand over time. The building of online communities is supposed to be an effective means of marketing communication which create multiple benefits; for example, improving brand awareness and target marketing. The providing of social, economic and entertainment benefit to online communities will encourages community members to jointly engage to the company effectively.

As Facebook became a successful tool of the companies to promote the brand and create customer relationship online and widely broadcast as there is the largest number of user in social media network so, the companies should focused on creating their brand community on Facebook by developing the factors of social, economic and entertainment benefit in order to get customer attention and interaction toward the brand and go beyond the transaction then it can generate loyalty of the brand successfully. 5. 3 Future Study For this study we focused on the customer community engagement behaviour of ommercial brand on Facebook for and as the brand communities in social media increases on customer behaviour towards multiple community sites so the next research we can study about the customers engagement behaviour towards other social media brand communities, and compare what are the important factors of customer who joins these communities. Moreover we can study the differences of customers’ point of view between the Facebook brand communities and other popular online brand communities such as Twitter, You Tube and Instagram to find out whether customers engage in both, or they prefer using one over the other social media network.

Finally, we can study customer’s engagement in different behaviours such as transactional behaviour and find out their expectations on the online communities. REFERENCE Algesheimer, R. , Dholakia, U. M. and Herrmann, A. (2005), “The social influence of brand community: evidence from European car clubs”, Journal of Marketing, 69,19-34. Brodie, R. J. and Hollebeek, L. D. (2011), “Advancing and consolidating knowledge about customer engagement”, Journal of Service Research, 14 (3), 283-4. Constant, D. , Sproull, L. and Kiesler, S. 1996), “The kindness of strangers: the usefulness of electronic weak ties for technical advice”, Organization Science, 7 (2), 119-35. Dholakia, U. M. , Bagozzi, R. P. and Pearo, L. K. (2004), “A social influence model of consumer participation in network- and small-group-based virtual communities”, International Journal of Research in Marketing, 21 (3), 241-63. Dholakia, U. M. , Bagozzi, R. P. and Pearo, L. K. (2004), “A social influence model of consumer participation in network- and small-group-based virtual communities”, International Journal of Research in Marketing, 21 (3), 241-63. Gwinner, K.

P. , Gremler, D. D. and Bitner, M. J. (1998), “Relational benefits in service industries: the customer’s perspective”, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 26 (2), 101-14. Hur, W-M. , Park, J. and Kim, M. (2010), “The role of commitment on the customer benefits-loyalty relationship in mobile service industry”, Service Industries Journal, 30 (14), 2293-309. Johanna Gummerus, Veronica Liljander, Emil Weman, Minna Pihlstrom, (2012),”Customer engagement in a Facebook brand community”, Management Research Review, 35 (9), 857 – 877 Kaplan, A. M. and Haenlein, M. (2010), “Users of the world, unite!

The challenges and opportunities of social media”, Business Horizons, 53, 59-68. Mathwick, C. , Malhotra, N. and Rigdon, E. (2001), “Experiential value: conceptualization, measurement and application in the catalog and internet shopping environment”, Journal of Retailing, 77 (1), 9-16. Muniz, A. M. and O’guinn, T. C. (2001),“Brand community”, Journal of Consumer Research, 27, 412-32. McAlexander, J. H. , Schouten, J. W. and Koenig, H. F. (2002), “Building brand community”, Journal of Marketing, 66 (1), 38-54. Schau, H. J. , Mun? iz, A. M. and Arnould, E. J. (2009), “How brand community practices create value”, Journal of Marketing, 73, 30-51. an Doorn, J. (2011), “Comment: customer engagement: essence, dimensionality, and boundaries”, Journal of Service Research, 14 (3), 280-2. van Doorn, J. , Lemon, K. N. , Mittal, V. , Nass, S. , Doree? n, P. , Pirner, P. and Verhoef, P. C. (2010),“Customer engagement behavior: theoretical foundations and research directions”, Journal of Service Research, 13 (3), 253-66. Won-Moo Hur, Kwang-Ho Ahn , & Minsung Kim (2011) “Building brand loyalty through managing brand community commitment”, Management Decision, 49 (7), 1194-1213. Yen, H. J. R. and Gwinner, K. P. 2003), “Internet retail customer loyalty: the mediating role of relational benefits”, International Journal of Service Industry Management, 14 (5), 483-500. Appendix A: Data Analysis FREQUENCY AND DESCRIPTIVE Demographic Gender: Gender| | Frequency| Percent| Valid Percent| Cumulative Percent| Valid| Male| 87| 43. 5| 43. 5| 43. 5| | Female| 113| 56. 5| 56. 5| 100. 0| | Total| 200| 100. 0| 100. 0| | Age: Age| | Frequency| Percent| Valid Percent| Cumulative Percent| Valid| Below 20| 5| 2. 5| 2. 5| 2. 5| | 20 – 24| 32| 16. 0| 16. 0| 18. 5| | 25 – 29| 138| 69. 0| 69. 0| 87. 5| | 30 and above| 25| 12. 5| 12. 5| 100. 0| | Total| 200| 100. | 100. 0| | Education: Education| | Frequency| Percent| Valid Percent| Cumulative Percent| Valid| High school| 4| 2. 0| 2. 0| 2. 0| | College/University| 133| 66. 5| 66. 5| 68. 5| | Advance degree| 63| 31. 5| 31. 5| 100. 0| | Total| 200| 100. 0| 100. 0| | Visit fan page on Facebook: Visit times| | Frequency| Percent| Valid Percent| Cumulative Percent| Valid| Once a month or more seldom| 12| 6. 0| 6. 0| 6. 0| | 2-3 times per month| 14| 7. 0| 7. 0| 13. 0| | 1-3 times per week| 75| 37. 5| 37. 5| 50. 5| | 4-6 times per week| 40| 20. 0| 20. 0| 70. 5| | Daily| 59| 29. 5| 29. 5| 100. 0| | Total| 200| 100. 0| 100. 0| | Descriptive Statistics| N| Minimum| Maximum| Mean| Std. Deviation| Read| 200| 1| 5| 4. 08| . 953| Like| 200| 1| 5| 3. 02| 1. 149| Write| 200| 1| 5| 2. 44| 1. 226| Because I want to get to know other commercial brand community members| 200| 2| 5| 4. 09| . 775| To provide information to other brand community members| 200| 2| 5| 4. 04| . 693| To share my ideas with other commercial brand community members| 200| 2| 5| 4. 01| . 716| Because I want to stay in touch with other brand community members| 200| 2| 5| 4. 03| . 698| To help other community members| 200| 2| 5| 3. 83| . 751| To feel needed by brand or other community members| 200| 1| 5| 3. 8| . 843| To get help from other community members| 200| 2| 5| 3. 91| . 727| To get entertained| 200| 1| 5| 3. 81| . 861| To relax| 200| 1| 5| 3. 81| . 835| To pass time when I am bored| 200| 2| 5| 3. 80| . 837| To get bonuses| 200| 2| 5| 3. 90| . 874| To get better service| 200| 1| 5| 3. 60| . 972| To get fast responses| 200| 1| 5| 3. 63| . 979| To participate in brand activity| 200| 1| 5| 3. 73| . 868| Valid N (listwise)| 200| | | | | RELIABILITY Customer community engagement behavior Reliability Statistics| Cronbach’s Alpha| N of Items| .933| 3| Social benefits Reliability Statistics| Cronbach’s Alpha| N of Items| 883| 7| Entertainment benefits Reliability Statistics| Cronbach’s Alpha| N of Items| .889| 3| Economic benefits Reliability Statistics| Cronbach’s Alpha| N of Items| .839| 4| INFERENTIAL ANALYSIS Relationship between Customer engagement behavior and Social benefits Correlations| | MeanCEB| MeanSB| MeanCEB| Pearson Correlation| 1| . 260**| | Sig. (2-tailed)| | . 000| | N| 200| 200| MeanSB| Pearson Correlation| . 260**| 1| | Sig. (2-tailed)| . 000| | | N| 200| 200| **. Correlation is significant at the 0. 01 level (2-tailed). | Relationship between Customer engagement behavior and Entertainment benefits Correlations| MeanCEB| MeanETB| MeanCEB| Pearson Correlation| 1| . 180*| | Sig. (2-tailed)| | . 011| | N| 200| 200| MeanETB| Pearson Correlation| . 180*| 1| | Sig. (2-tailed)| . 011| | | N| 200| 200| *. Correlation is significant at the 0. 05 level (2-tailed). | Relationship between Customer engagement behavior and Economic benefits Correlations| | MeanCEB| MeanECB| MeanCEB| Pearson Correlation| 1| . 257**| | Sig. (2-tailed)| | . 000| | N| 200| 200| MeanECB| Pearson Correlation| . 257**| 1| | Sig. (2-tailed)| . 000| | | N| 200| 200| **. Correlation is significant at the 0. 01 level (2-tailed). | APPENDIX B: QUESTIONNAIRE

Customer Engagement in a Facebook brand community IBM Business Research Methodology (BP 6902) Master of Business AdministrationAssumption University ————————————————- ————————————————- As part of our Master Degree studies, we are in need of collecting some data that Customer Engagement in a Facebook brand community. It will be highly appreciated if you could spend few minutes with us to complete this questionnaire. Your information will be kept as confidential and this only we use for our research purpose. Thank you very much for your cooperation.

Part I: Screening Question 1. Do you have Facebook account? (???????????????????????????????? ) YES (?? ) NO (????? ) 2. Are you a fan of fan page of brand community on Facebook? (??????????????????????????????????????????? ) YES (???? )If yes, please go to the next Question (??????? ????????????????????? ) NO (??????? )If no, end of questionnaire (?????????? ??????????? ) 3. How often you visit commercial brand community fan page on Facebook? ????????????????????????????????????????? Daily (?????? ) 4-6 times per week(4-6 ??????????????? ) 1-3 times per week(1-3 ??????????????? ) 2-3 times per month (2-3 ????????????? Once a month or more seldom (1 ???????????????????????? ) Part II: Measurement of Dependents Variables 1. Customer community engagement behavior (is defined as a Facebook user’s interact to the brand on Facebook fan page) Statements began with: I am a Facebook commercial brand community 5= strongly agree, 4 = agree, 3= neutral, 2= disagree, and 1= strongly disagree 5 = ????????????????? , 4 = ???????? , 3 = ???? , 2 = ??????????? ??? 1 = ???????????????????? 1)You are regularly read message of the brand on Facebook fan page ???????????????????????????????????????????????????? 5| 4| 3| 2| 1| 2) You are regularly press like message of the brand on Facebook fan page ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????? | 5| 4| 3| 2| 1| 3) You are regularly write comment of the brand on Facebook fan page ????????????????????????????????????????????????????? | 5| 4| 3| 2| 1| Part III: Measurement of Independent Variables 2. Social benefit (is defined as a Facebook user’s perception toward social benefit) Statements began with: I am a Facebook commercial brand community 5= strongly agree, 4 = agree, 3= neutral, 2= disagree, and 1= strongly disagree 5 = ????????????????? 4 = ???????? , 3 = ???? , 2 = ??????????? ??? 1 = ???????????????????? 1)Because I want to get to know other commercial brand community members ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? | 5| 4| 3| 2| 1| 2) To provide information to other brand community members ????????????????????????????????? | 5| 4| 3| 2| 1| 3) To share my ideas with other commercial brand community members ????????????????????????????????????????????? | 5| 4| 3| 2| 1| 4) Because I want to stay in touch with other brand community members ???????????????????????????????????????????? 5| 4| 3| 2| 1| 5) To help other community members ???????????????????????????????? | 5| 4| 3| 2| 1| 6) To feel needed by brand or other community members ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? | 5| 4| 3| 2| 1| 7) To get help from other community members ?????????????????????????????????????????????? | 5| 4| 3| 2| 1| 3. Entertainment benefit (is defined as Facebook user’s perception toward entertainment benefit ) 5= strongly agree, 4 = agree, 3= neutral, 2= disagree, and 1= strongly disagree 5 = ????????????????? , 4 = ???????? , 3 = ???? 2 = ??????????? ??? 1 = ???????????????????? 1) To get entertained ???????????????? | 5| 4| 3| 2| 1| 2) To relax ????????????? | 5| 4| 3| 2| 1| 3) To pass time when I am bored ???????????? | 5| 4| 3| 2| 1| 5 Economic benefit (is defined as Facebook user’s perception toward Economic benefit) 5= strongly agree, 4 = agree, 3= neutral, 2= disagree, and 1= strongly disagree 5 = ????????????????? , 4 = ???????? , 3 = ???? , 2 = ??????????? ??? 1 = ???????????????????? 1) To get bonuses ?????????????? | 5| 4| 3| 2| 1| 2) To get better service ????????????????????????? | 5| 4| 3| 2| 1| 3) To get fast responses ???????????????????????????????? | 5| 4| 3| 2| 1| 4) To participate in marketing activity campaign ???????????????????????????????? | 5| 4| 3| 2| 1| Part IV: Demographic 1. Gender ??? Male   (??? )Female (???? ) 2. Age ???? Below 20 (??????? 20?? )20-24 25-29   30 and above (30 ????????????? ) 4. What is your education level? ????????????? Middle School ???????????????? High School????????????????? College/University ??????????? Advance Degree???????? ??????????? — Thank You for Your Time —

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High Performance Working and Employee Engagement

The CEO of this J&W PLC Company has asked for a report to senior management on how to improve working system so that overall performance in work can improve. In this report the senior management team is identifying different issues which are leading to low staff work in the organization. This paper provides information about the High performance working and employee engagement which consists of various definitions given by different authors and different types of practices which are helpful in improving organization performance.

The main aim of this project is to provide a framework of how high commitment HRM practices help in improving HPW and employee engagement in organization. There have been many papers and research carried out on HRM and work performance. But many have struggled to keep the concept linked together, thus the main aim to this paper to provide the positive bonding link between high commitment HRM practices to develop HPW and employee engagement in work force.

In recent years companies or organizations in every industry like manufacturing, health care services, financial services, consumer products and services, government agencies and information technology and telecommunications sectors etc. , are focusing on improving organizational performance in both short term and long term basis. Now a day’s companies expecting solid performance over short term period and maintain the consistent performance over the long term time period in order to sustain in this competitive market.

Organizational performance mainly depends on the issues like human resources management practices, high performance working and high level of employee engagement. From the survey of Sunday times newspaper which is based on employee perceptions of their own work place and policies and processes of the employees, it is revealed that our company (i. e. J&W PLC) employees are unhappy and the staff overall performance is very low and staff often get away with doing very little at work and this affects the quality, productivity and profits of organization.

High performance working and employee engagement is the operations like how the employees are managed in work to the management and leadership issues of the organization. The senior management team who is responsible for the strategic planning and decision making process needs to identify the brief review of the every component for building blocks of the organization. In this report the main focus is on how to improve the high performance working and employee engagement in the company. To have a high performance working environment and better employee engagement, management should focus on the key issues of high commitment HRM practices.

As we the senior management team reviewing the survey of “Best Companies to work for 2012” published in Sunday times and researching the important practices to improve the organizational overall performance. Organizational development and performance outcome reflects from how HR practices are implemented to satisfy the goals of company. Martin et al (2010) suggested that organizational development is an approach to dealing with change which incorporates aspects of culture, working atmosphere, employee commitment and conflict in seeking to achieve organizational effectiveness.

The concepts of high performance working and employee engagement are interrelated to the organizational performance and these are the chain practices in the company which are linked with the high commitment HRM practices. Employee engagement is a hot topic in recent years because employers are seeking employee’s motivation, commitment and general support to the business to enhance the organizational performance beyond the normal. The purpose of the employee engagement is to gain the contribution of the mployees than the job expectation. The advantages in implementing the employee engagement practices is to gain the employee interest towards work, feeling of value to the organization and chances of improving personal and career development. Definitions: Employee engagement is an effective practice in the organization which produces a better organizational performance and employee career development. It is possible when there is a proper employee commitment, trust, loyalty and motivation to do work to the organization.

According to the CIPD et al (2011) employee engagement is a combination of commitment to the organization and helping out in solving the issues of their colleagues, it is more than the job satisfaction and not only motivating employee to engage in work. Sue et al (2009) stated in USP Business Development review employee engagement is “the discretionary effort that individuals apply for fully utilizing their skills”. Employee engagement is most important for competitiveness in the contemporary business environment.

As per The Gallop Organization, which studied employee engagement in 7,939 business units in 36 companies, found that employee engagement was positively associated with performance in a variety of areas, including increased customer satisfaction, profitability and productivity, and reduced employee turnover. CIPD et al (2011) identified there are three dimensions of the way of engaging in work by the employees The intellectual engagement shows the employee thinking hard about the job and finding the solutions for the betterment of the job.

The affective engagement illustrates the employee feeling positively doing a good job. The social engagement is an opportunity to interact and discuss the work related improvements with the managers and other employees. Key Factors: Every employer expects to achieve extra mile in work and to help them from issues like lack of product quality from their workforce. The following are the important drivers of the employee engagement which may enhance or decrease the engagement in work. High performance working has been defined by the many authors; according to the Belt and Giles et al (2009) it is a general approach to managing organizations that aims to stimulate more effective employee involvement and commitment in order to achieve high levels of performance. According to the Ashton and Sung et al (2005) a unique definition that is widely accepted is they are a set of complementary work practices covering three broad categories like high employee involvement practices, human resource practices and reward and commitment practices and these are referred as ‘bundles’ of practices.

This is 12th annual publication of Britain’s most dynamic and engaging workplaces. The leading 325 organizations are recognized in the four lists and they are the best organizations to work in Britain and voted by their workers. 1. 100 best small companies 2. 100 best companies 3. 25 best big companies 4. 100 best not for profit organizations Methodology of the survey: The “Sunday Times list of the 100 best companies to work for 2012” is derived from the views of employees and the policies and processes of employers. It identifies best practice and ranks organizations according by their results in eight key indicators of staff engagement.

These implications in the HR management practices will yield good employee trust and commitment towards the organization which helps to build employee engagement. To be successful every organization should have high level of employee’s engagement. This only can be achieved by having a workflow where any employee can see opportunity to advance in career, higher job satisfaction and work-life balance. To gain higher employee engagement the employer must do surveys on the employees and questioners about the work force, this assists the organization to identify the black spots within the organization.

After identifying the key issues in the work force, management needs to focus on the implementing of the practices to improve the employee engagement as mentioned already in the literature review. This procedure may assist the organization to improve the employee engagement and it also depends on the type of the organization and availability of funds. It is witnessed in “The Sunday Times Survey 2012”, the five companies which are selected from the 25 best big companies the practices which in turn yields higher employee engagement.

The survey review shows the critical issues from the employee’s point of view and the issues in work force are mentioned in the tables. For such practices organization should have High Performance Work System through which employees can project on what they are doing and try to improve there working standards by using high commitment and high involvement working practices. For improving HPW in employees, organization should provide proper job training, improve team working, performance related appraisals system and pay, profit sharing to the employees.

It creates the high involvement, security and provides high motivation to perform work and improves the organization performance. These practices are the chain based and the results from the practices are satisfactory. In order to implement these practices management must concentrate on the employee surveys and need to decide which HPW practices will help the organization to improve over all performance. In short the HPW practices difficult to implement and need every part of organization to work in a synchronization and coordinated manner to get maximum output.

As per the discussion and reviewing all aspects of employee engagement and HPWP system there is always a need for an organization to have a personalized model of high performance work system for being more effective and profitable. So the recommended model for HPWP should have main five factors for implementing HPW working practice and employee engagement to withstand competition from competitors. In order to implement this model a full attention of employee is required, for that HRM need to evaluate all the employees and if necessary hire new persons and fire old employees whose performance is very low for long duration.

Employee surveys must be done to identify the issues in their work force. After reviewing the survey management needs to highlight the key areas of improving employee engagement and high performance working in the organization. American Express UK and Homebase are two companies in the 25 best big companies for 2012; these two companies are not there in the “Sunday Times Survey 2011” but rose dramatically to the higher peak in overall performance by 2012, by implementing good HR practices which increases employee engagement and high performance working.

The 70% employees of McDonald’s and 79% of employees in Iceland voted that they love the work. This illustrates the job satisfaction, happy with the compensations and benefits and motivation in work force. This is the reason why Iceland holds Rank 1in the Sunday Times Survey. So, this model will improve work force and make them engage at work. This model can work only when every department is in coordinated with each other and focusing on the company betterment.

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Airline Consumer Engagement Marketing Essay

Table of contents

Abstract

This paper discusses how airline companies engage with their consumers. It discusses the modes of consumer engagement and the process of engagement. Most companies use integrated marketing approach to engage consumers because of the diversity of needs in the market. It also outlines the various theories of decision-making as applied in the airline industry. The aim is to establish how different consumers make their decisions about services and products in the market. Cognitive dissonance theory, maximization utility, the reasoned action and the theory of certainty provide realistic concepts for predicting the behavior of consumers. Companies are more likely to use them in designing and implementing consumer engagement strategies.

Introduction

Customer engagement marketing refers to all the strategies that a company or business use to establish a relationship between the consumers and the operations of the company. Effective consumer engagement strategies are important because they influence consumers towards developing values in relation to companies. Consumers who value the services or products of a particular company tend to be loyal customers (Bowden 2009). Consumer engagement can also be perceived as a marketing strategy that aims at creating and maintaining loyal customer base in the market (Bowden 2009). This paper seeks to discuss how companies in the airline sector engage with consumers of their services in the market. It also seeks to discuss how consumers make decisions using relevant theories.

The Reasons for Consumer Engagement Processes

Understanding why companies need to engage with consumers in the market is useful in determining how they conduct the process of engagement. Consumer engagement is a crucial aspect of brand management. Brand management is one of the marketing strategies that companies use to establish brand loyalty. It aims at increasing the positive perception of a particular product or services (Ashworth & Kavaratzis 2010). For instance, companies in the airways sector engage in awareness campaigns to inform the public of their services and routes of destination. The awareness campaign is one of the aspects of brand management strategy. Consumer engagement strategies may provide platforms for receiving feedbacks regarding the services that companies offer in the airline sector. The companies can use the feedbacks to improve the nature of their services (Ashworth & Kavaratzis 2010). For instance, an airline company may learn that their flight attendants take relatively longer time to serve customers compared to other companies. The airline company may use the information to serve as a basis of investigation and improvement of all services.
Customer engagement strategies also provide information that a company can use to understand the composition of the market. The information regarding the composition of the market is useful in determining why certain age groups do not use the available services. It also makes the company understand how to change and improve their services to accommodate the interests of other people who do not use the services (Bowden 2009). Companies may also understand their competitions using the feedback they receive from consumers.

Consumer Engagement Strategies Modes of Engagement

Companies use various modes to engage consumers. The suitability of the modes depends on the objective of engagement. For instance, a company that seeks to get feedback on their new product will use Facebook because it provides options for receiving comments. The strength of the methods of engagement lies in the ability of consumers to provide feedback regarding the operations of companies in the airline sector. The market composition for airline services has become complicated. It consists of different groups of people who have varying needs. Each group of consumers requires a different advertisement method. The methods of advertisement include the traditional modes such as televisions, radios and printed articles. Most recently information technology has become the predominant mode of engagement. Information technology supports various social platforms such as Facebook and twitter. Information technology also involves advertisement through mobile phone applications. Most airline companies use an integrated marketing strategy to respond to the challenge of diversity in the market.
Integrated marketing strategy involves using various advertisement methods together. The scheme offers a comprehensive approach for engaging consumers of airline services in the operations of the company (Shakeel-Ul-Rehman & Ibrahim 2011). Media planners in such companies acknowledge the diversity in the market in relation to the interests of people. For instance, the traditional advertisement methods may be helpful in reaching people who might find the use of technology a daunting task (Shakeel-Ul-Rehman & Ibrahim 2011, p. 188). It can be argued tha tthe use of information technology offers more appeal to the younger generation and business people who value time. Consumer engagement through social media works on principles that are different from the traditional methods. It offers a platform for receiving feedbacks regarding the operations of the company.

The Process of Engagement

Bijmolt et al. (2010) maintains that the process of consumer engagement begins from acquisition of the same. The process of acquisition involves selecting prospective customers on the basis of their potential responsiveness and their ability to purchase the services. This aspect is important to airline companies in African countries because of the high rate of charges they impose for the services. Only people with adequate financial resources can afford the charges. The selection criteria might help companies to conserve their resources by focusing on customers who fit the qualification criteria. The selection process helps the airline companies to establish their focus in the market. The companies use the Recently, Frequently and Monetary model to select prospectus customers (Bijmolt et al. 2010). RFM is a strategy that companies use to determine the value of customers. The assumption of the valuation model is that a future customer has the same characteristics as the customer of the past.
The second step in the process involves the management of the acquired customers (Bijmolt et al. 2010). This step also involves a sub-process of allocating resources in relation to the establishment of effective marketing approaches. Media planners select suitable advertisement modes based on the analysis of the characteristics of the prospective customers. Airline companies might, therefore, use an integrated marketing approach to counter the challenge of diversity in the market. A higher proportion of people aged above 65 years and above find technology intimidating and involving. Majority of people aged below 45 years find technology appealing to their interests (Shakeel-Ul-Rehman & Ibrahim 2011). Business people and executives of various corporations prefer direct inquiry because other processes consumes a lot of time. Correspondingly, the consumer management process follows a successful analysis of the characteristics of prospects consumers (Posavac 2012). Other steps involve customer development and retention (Bijmolt et al. 2010). The processes aim at attracting loyalty to the services of airline companies by engaging in vigorous campaigns of the same. In general, airline companies engage consumers through a process that begins from a careful selection of the same and ends at retention. They also engage consumers through carefully planned advertisement techniques (Bijmolt et al. 2010).

Consumer Decision-Making Process

Making a decision involves engaging in a process that would help decide the right course of action in a situation with more than one alternative. Young (2010) people develop risk-benefit frameworks in most situations to analyze the options that are present. An individual would want to make decisions that impact positively on his or her life. The outcomes of situations depend on the nature of decisions that individuals make. Decision-making processes also apply in situations where consumers need to choose between products and services. The airline industry has several companies that offer same or similar services. The theories that explain decision-making processes include cognitive dissonance, consistency theory, commitment, certainty effect, choice-supportive bias, confirmation bias, the scarcity principle, and reasoned action theory (Young 2010).

Cognitive dissonance theory maintains that individuals always seek to minimize the extent of discomfort in contradicting situations (Young 2010). According to the theory, individuals experience discomfort due to the conflicting ideas in their minds (Cooper 2007). It explains that an individual in such a situation is likely to take the easy option of eliminating the source of discomfort (Young 2010). Cognitive dissonance affects how consumers process information in relation to various products and services. Individuals will always have ideas that conflict with their pre-conceived perceptions about certain companies. The diversity in ideas results from the emerging trends, the shifting needs and social circles (Young 2010). In social circles, everyone tends to defend what they believe to avoid the uncomfortable situations. For instance, an individual may experience cognitive dissonance when he receives a message that contradicts the value that he attaches to an airline company (Cooper 2007). A friend may try to convince him that there is another company that offers better services than the company he has been using. Marketers may use the concepts of this theory to present consistent information when engaging consumers.

Consistency theory asserts that lack of constancy in the relationship between beliefs and actions evoke uncomfortable feelings in individuals (Little-John & Foss 2008). It affirms that people wish to engage in acts that are consistent with their belief and cultural system. The discordance in the relationship between the belief system and actions evoke uncomfortable feelings. An individual in such a circumstance is likely to change the belief and value system to accommodate the emerging trends. Human beings have predetermined belief and value systems that they use to evaluate decisions before making them. In other words, the choice that people make should always be consistent with what they perceive as right or wrong (Little-John & Foss 2008). Any slight variation between the belief system and the course of action evokes the feelings of discomfort in individuals. The consistency theory explains why some people are particular about the flight attendants who serve them in an airplane. The theory may not find much application in customer engagement compared to cognitive dissonance theory. Most processes engaged in the provision of airline services do not contradict the belief systems of individuals.

The theory of certainty result discusses how probabilities of outcomes influence the behavior of individuals (Secchi 2011). The theory maintains that people tend to develop less interest in situations which present low probability outcome of the desired results (Loughran et al. 2012). Similarly, an individual will develop more interest in a situation if the probability of achieving the desired results is high (Secchi 2011). Individuals make choices on the basis of the probability of the outcome of the situation. They perceive outcomes based on their past experiences or the experiences of other people. For instance, engaging consumers through social media provides a platform that consumers may use to present their feedbacks. Some of the feedbacks can be critical of a company’s operations. If so many people acknowledge the efficiency in operation of an airline company, then people are more to likely seek the same services. In other words, people want to get a hint of what would happen if they were to make a particular decision. The behaviour pattern is driven by the need to eliminate the negative feelings that come from disappointments. People have various expectations regarding how they want the outcomes of various situations to become (Loughran et al. 2012). Most airline companies use influential personalities in advertisements to create an impression of better past experiences. The personalities convince potential consumers that the services of the company were better. The aim of the advertisements is to influence consumers to develop positive opinions regarding the services of the company.

Maximization utility theory predicts that human beings behave as if they were economists and were business-minded. It asserts that an individual is likely to make a choice of a product that offers the greatest value for the least amount of money possible (Kahneman & Thaler 2006). In extreme circumstances, the costs of products and services are more likely to influence the purchasing behaviour of individuals even if the quality is compromised. Inadequate resources influence this type of a decision-making process (Kahneman & Thaler 2006). In normal circumstances, people will want high-quality result for fewer inputs. It explains why people like to bargain when purchasing products and services. In the airline industry, people tend to go for companies that offer quality services at affordable rates. It can be argued that the understanding of this theory also affects the pricing strategies of various airline companies (Kahneman & Thaler 2006). For instance, most airline companies have different classes of passengers; first class, second class and third class. The first-class passengers can afford high charges for the highest quality of service. The low-class passengers are the people who wish to use airline services, but are discouraged by the high charges.

Choice-supportive bias theory explains that most people twist their memories to convince the present result that the decisions they made were the best (Ross 2009). The theory asserts that most people manipulate their memories to prevent the feelings of disappointment that the result presents. The case happens in situations where an individual has to take an early stand in the matter that involves multiple options. Individuals will always want to remember less negative things about situations that happened (Ross, 2009). In a business environment, the choice –supportive bias theory occurs for consumers who have used a particular product or service for a long time. Such consumers will always talk negatively about other products or services. It is an advanced level of brand loyalty that results from effective consumer engagement strategies. Various companies understand that subjecting prospective customers through effective and consistent consumer engagement sessions influences the way they perceive the services. Consumers would continue to stick even if their services were relatively poor compared other companies (Ross, 2009).

The principle of scarcity affirms that individuals are more likely to go for services and products that are scarce in the market, especially if the demand is high. Individuals tend to associate scarcity of products and services with quality. The notion is that the services or products could be scarce because several people went for them (Siebert 2008). If many people went for them then, they must have been impressive. The abundant supply of a particular service or product may create the impression that it is less desired by people (Siebert 2008). Most people analyze situations to ascertain the behaviours of others towards various products or services (Siebert 2008). The aim is to avoid first-hand experience of disappointing results. Airline companies understand this principle and use it to increase the consumption of their services. They create a demand crisis then offer limited opportunities for utilization of their services. The strategy encourages people to book flights in advance to avoid a last minute rush.

The reasoned action theory explains that individuals engage in certain actions because they planned to do so (Tanachart & Islam 2010). It also explains that the intention originates from his or her attitude towards that behavior (Tanachart & Islam 2010). In this context, the intention serves as the basis for prediction of a behavior pattern. Beliefs and values influence the formation of attitudes regarding certain patterns of behavior (Smith & Biddle 2008). Understanding people’s beliefs system is important in understanding their attitudes. Understanding attitudes helps in predicting what an individual plans to do in a circumstance. An individual is more likely to engage in a particular action if he or she believes that it is the right thing to do in the circumstance. What other people think of the choice plays a central role in influencing the actions of the individual. The theory recognizes that there are factors that limit the influence of people’s intentions towards engaging in a particular behavior (Smith & Biddle 2008). For instance, the airline companies are aware that many people wish to use their services but are incapacitated by the lack of financial resources. The understanding has compelled the airline companies to develop different classes of service; high class, middle class and the low class. Cognitive dissonance theory, maximization utility, the reasoned action and the theory of certainty provide realistic concepts for predicting the behavior of consumers. Companies are more likely to use them in designing and implementing consumer engagement strategies.

Conclusion

Companies in the airline industry engage consumers through an integrated marketing approach. The approach is influenced by the diversified nature of the market. The engagement process begins from the selection stage and ends at retention of customers. There are various theories that explain how consumers make decisions regarding products or services. Such theories include cognitive dissonance, consistency theory, commitment, certainty effect, choice-supportive bias, confirmation bias, the scarcity principle, and reasoned action theory.

References

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