留学生毕业dissertationproposal
在这一章节里,研究人员对研究项目进行了相关的背景分析,以确保足够了解这个研究项目。也对研究这个课题的原因和问题进行解释和说明。此外,研究问题和研究目标就像一个路线图,为研究人员提供了方向来确定最终的研究成果。最后,数字的潜在利益和本课题研究的贡献将在研究时显示其重要性。
研究背景
目前由于环境问题,食品消费模式正在迅速改变,关于食品和健康问题的营养价值值得关注。质量安全的食品就会引起消费者的兴趣,比如无农药和化学残留物的有机食品(Fotopoulos与Krystal’s,2002年)。因此,有机食品市场近年来快速增长,2006年,亚洲市场的有机食品零售销售额约7.8亿美元(Willer & Yussefi-Menzler, 2008)。Guadiana, Merriam, Harniza, Mona and Rizaimy (2010) 表示,在东南亚有机消费平均每年约增长20%。
如今,有机食品的需求在马来西亚大幅增长。这个习惯来自于面临快速发展的世界,人们的生活方式也快速变化着,他们已经看到了一些传统的食品安全的缺乏(Rizaimy et al., 2010)。
In this chapter, some background analysis related to the research title has been done to ensure a throughout understanding for this research project. Reasons to conduct this research topic will be stated and analyzed in problem statement. Furthermore, the research questions and research objectives which act as a roadmap, providing researchers direction to the right final research results will also be determined and listed clearly. Finally, numeral potential benefit and contribution of this research project will be presented in the significance of study section.
研究背景———Research Background
Food consumption patterns are changing rapidly nowadays as a result of environmental issues, concern about the nutritional value of food and health issues. Issues such as quality and safety in food attract consumer interest in organic food that is free from pesticides and chemical residues (Fotopoulos & Krystallis, 2002a). As a result, the market for organic food products has grow rapidly in recent years with production and consumption of organic food in Asian market, retail sales were about 780 million US Dollars in 2006 (Willer & Yussefi-Menzler, 2008). Guadiana, Merriam, Harniza, Mona and Rizaimy (2010) stated that the average organic consumption growth was approximately 20% per year in South East Asian.
Nowadays, the demand for organic food is dramatically growing in Malaysia. The habit comes from the changes in lifestyle of the fast faced world which has been seen some lack in the conventional food safety (Rizaimy et al., 2010). Former Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin in his speech at the one-day National Organic Farming Seminar 2007 said; “Malaysia has the potential to develop and tap into massive global market for organic produce.” (New Straits Times, April 25, 2007).
According to the national study carried out by United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (2002), Klang Valley is the main market of organic products in Malaysia. Major importers, distributors and more than half of the dealers are reportedly located in Klang Valley (Ong, 2002). Moreover, there were approximately 101 organic outlets in Klang Valley on Nov 2009 and increased to 300 in May 2012 (Testad, 2012). Hence, this research chose Klang Valley as its research location as people in these areas have higher exposure, contact and understanding to organic related matters or issues.
Although the concept of "organic food" seems to be well known to many consumers (Alvensleben, 1998), those who never bought (non users) any of organic products have made up 50.3% of the sample and signified that contained about equal number of organic product users and non users (Bayaah & Juhdi, 2010). Therefore, knowing the factors affecting consumers’ consumption of organic food products is important in order to promote advantages of organic food products and better protect consumers from harmful and fake organic food.
问题陈述———Problem Statement
In Malaysia, organic food products can only be sold to the market if it is certified organic and carries the Malaysian organic logo (United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, 2002). Producers will have to raise the price of the products to cover the cost incurred to gain the accreditation (Zakaria & Vimala, 2002). However, according to Chen (2007), although Ministry of Agriculture and Agro-based industry has launched the Malaysia Organic Scheme (SOM) in 2004, the awareness of consumers on organic food products are generally not increasing. Malaysians are less likely to take risks in consuming organic food products if they are not assured of the benefits and genuineness of these products. They are also less likely to switch products due to their risk avoidance (Voona, Ngui, & Agrawal, 2011). Hence, it is a challenging task for government to successfully convince investors that organic food products have a bright potential market and the future profits might be able to cover the cost invested.
There are inconsistent result obtained from prior study such as Tarkiainen and Sundqvist (2005) state that there is no relationship between subjective norm and purchase intention of organic food ,whereas there proved to be negative relationship from the study of Dean, Raats and Shepherd (2008). Apart from that, this present study also emphasize on identify the most significant factor that influent the most on the purchase intention of consumers since there is just few researches done on this area. It may not be appropriate to apply the results that conducted in other countries or states in Klang Valley. Hence, this research aimed to examine the relationship between the selected independent variables and dependent variable as the final result may not be the same.
Consumer beliefs, attitudes and responses toward organic foods will affect the overall product development and marketing strategies that developed by the business. However, this condition may be vary according to different regions in the world (Bonti-Ankomah & Yiridoe, 2006). The conception of consumer decision–making towards organic food products must be understand by marketers (Bonti-Ankomah & Yiridoe, 2006) to avoid problems of wrongly develop of marketing plans. Unfortunately, there are only a little research available regarding the demand of organic food products in Malaysia (Musdiana et al., 2010). Thus, this recent research able to made contribution of knowing the current organic food market condition and the preferences of consumers toward organic food products. This helps marketers able to compete with each other with the use of effective marketing plans.
总目标———General Objective
The general objective of this research is to examine the relationships between factors and consumer purchase intention toward organic food products in Klang Valley, Malaysia.
具体目标———Specific Objectives
The specific objectives of this research are:
To examine the relationship between attitude toward organic food products and consumer purchase intention toward organic food products in Klang Valley, Malaysia.
To examine the relationship between subjective norm and consumer purchase intention toward organic food products in Klang Valley, Malaysia.
To examine the relationship between perceived behavioral control and consumer purchase intention toward organic food products in Klang Valley, Malaysia.
To examine whether there is any difference in consumer purchase intention toward organic food products between genders.
To examine whether at least one group (income level) differs significantly from the other in term of consumer purchase intention toward organic food products.
To examine whether at least one group (education level) differs significantly from the other in term of consumer purchase intention toward organic food products.
总问题———General Question
The general question of this research is “What are the relationships between factors and consumer purchase intention toward organic food products in Klang Valley, Malaysia?”.
具体问题———Specific Questions
The specific questions of this research are:
What is the relationship between attitude toward organic food products and consumer purchase intention toward organic food products in Klang Valley, Malaysia?
What is the relationship between subjective norm and consumer purchase intention toward organic food products in Klang Valley, Malaysia?
What is the relationship between perceived behavioral control and consumer purchase intention toward organic food products in Klang Valley, Malaysia?
Is there any difference in consumer purchase intention toward organic food products between genders?
Is there at least one group (income level) differs significantly from the other in term of consumer purchase intention toward organic food products?
Is there at least one group (education level) differs significantly from the other in term of consumer purchase intention toward organic food products?
研究假设———Hypotheses of the Study
H1: There is a relationship between attitude toward organic food products and consumer purchase intention toward organic food products in Klang Valley, Malaysia.
H2: There is a relationship between subjective norm and consumer purchase intention toward organic food products in Klang Valley, Malaysia.
H3: There is a relationship between perceived behavioral control and consumer purchase intention toward organic food products in Klang Valley, Malaysia.
H4: There is a difference in consumer purchase intention toward organic food products between genders.
H5: At least one group (income level) differs significantly from the other in term of consumer purchase intention toward organic food products.
H6: At least one group (education level) differs significantly from the other in term of consumer purchase intention toward organic food products.
研究的意义———Significance of the Study
This research tends to provide people a better understanding about the factors that affecting customer purchase intention toward organic food products. It attempts to allow organic food products companies to gain knowledge from our research about the consumer’s attitude toward organic food products. Thus, their companies can develop sales plans that are suitable for them to increase their sales.
Moreover, this study can provides better picture to those companies that wish to venture into this sector. It would probably provide better insights for marketers and help them to establish a proper communication plan to the buyers of organic food products by using the information given in our research.
This research also aims to provide information about factors affecting customer’s purchase intention which can help government authorities such as Ministry of Agriculture and Agro-based industry and Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute to formulate sound public policies in order to attract investors to invest in this sector. The empirical results would also help government authorities to establish appropriate market strategies to form a health food industry in Malaysia and boost this industry in future.
Lastly, this research provides conceptual and empirical supports for future studies basis on the construct and can be useful for future researcher on the subject of forecast and analysis market trend in organic food area.
章节安排———Chapter Layout
Chapter 1 provides an overview of the research background and explains about the research problem in the problem statement. This chapter also includes the research objectives, research questions, developing relevant hypotheses and the significance of this study.
Chapter 2 will conducts a comprehensive review on the secondary data and developed conceptual framework. This chapter also explains the dependent variable and independent variables.
Chapter 3 is the research methodology. It describes how the research is carried out in terms of research design (qualitative or quantitative research), data collection methods (primary or secondary data), sampling design (target population, sampling frame, location, elements, technique and size), research instrument, constructs measurement, data processing and data analysis.
Chapter 4 will presents an overall of the result and the finding from the analysis of the data collected. Other than that, Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) is use in this research to illustrate the chart and tables.
Chapter 5 includes discussion and conclusion of this research. Research findings will be summarized and major findings in this research will be discussed. Besides, researchers will point out the limitations of this research for further improvement as well as provide some recommendations for future research.
结论———Conclusion
Contents in Chapter 1 have portrayed the brief picture of research conducted and readers will be more understand about what organic food products is and the current market condition of organic food products. Research objectives and research questions provide a clearer direction to complete this research. Besides, issues that affect the purchase intention of customers in Klang Valley are further discussed in problem statement and the relationship will be examined. The independent variables will be further explained in Chapter 2 with the literature review, conceptual framework and the hypothesis in this study.
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