The Effect of Systembolaget's Communication on Swedish
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The effect of Systembolaget’s communication on Swedish students consuming behaviour MASTER THESIS WITHIN: Business Administration NUMBER OF CREDITS: 15 PROGRAMME OF STUDY: International Marketing AUTHOR: Alexandre Crussaire & Shady Shehata TUTOR: Tomas Müllern JÖNKÖPING May 2018 Acknowledgements: We hereby express our gratitude to all the people that were present and helped us during the process or writing this Master thesis. We would like to thank all these persons for their patience, help, and support. First of all, we would like to thank our tutor, Tomas Müllern who helped us in the whole process of choosing a relevant topic, designing the research, conducting the research, and providing the written material in the present document. You provided us with guidance throughout the process and without this, we would not have been able to succeed. Moreover, we would like to express our gratitude to Adele Berndt, professor at Jönköping University, who provided us with guidance in the specific area of consumer behaviour. Systembolaget was also an immense help during this process. More particularly, Åsa Hessel, communication manager for the alcohol retailer, formal student of Jönköping University, offered us feedback on our work and our final thesis document. This was greatly helpful for providing readers with interesting story line and research material. Finally, this thesis would not have been possible without the support of the twenty students that took part in the interviews. Together, they provided a considerable part of the material used to reach the aim of this study. Thank you all for your encouragement, support, advices, guidance, and interest. Alexandre Crussaire Shady Shehata Master Thesis in Business Administration Title: The effect of Systembolaget’s communication strategy on the consuming behaviour of Swedish students Authors: Alexandre Crussaire, Shady Shehata Tutor: Tomas Müllern Date: 21-05-2018 Key terms: Consuming behaviour, Theory of Reasoned Action, Health Belief Model, Systembolaget, Drinking behaviour, Sweden, Students Abstract Background: Systembolaget is one of the distinctive features of Sweden. It is the only store allowed to sell alcohol above 3.5% of alcohol by volume. The aim of this government-owned company is to educate Swedish customers to engage into responsible drinking patterns. To do so, they make use of advertising strategies depicted on several channels with the purpose of increasing individuals’ knowledge and thus, enhance public health. Besides, Scandinavian cultures are associated with high-risk behaviours regarding the average amount of alcohol drunk. Several studies underlined that students regularly engage into binge drinking and other irresponsible behaviours. Purpose: The aim of this study is to emphasize the effect of Systembolaget’s communication strategy on the attitudes, intentions, and behaviour of Swedish students. To fill the research gap and fulfil the objectives, a combination of the Health-Belief Model and the Theory of Reasoned Action is an adequate mean. Method: To gather the material needed for the research and uncover new insights, we chose an exploratory design. The semi-inductive approach allows to investigate the theoretical concepts while being able to use induction and thus, use the theory to both collect and analyse the data. We conducted semi-structured personal interviews on a sample of 20 Swedish students since they are familiar with Systembolaget and considered as a high-risk population in the drinking habits. To distil the data, we selected content analysis allowing the categorisation of the information in the different theoretical concepts. Conclusion: Systembolaget’s communication has a notable effect on Swedish students. It has been uncovered that the messages create favourable attitudes and thus, intentions to reduce alcohol consumption. Nevertheless, individual experiences, beliefs, and other factors of influence imply that there is an important intention-behaviour gap. Systembolaget displays information and appeals to influence the beliefs and knowledge of individual to educate them and not directly triggers specific behaviours. Table of contents: I INTRODUCTION 1 1.1. BACKGROUND ........................................................................................................................ 1 1.2. PROBLEM DEFINITION .............................................................................................................. 3 1.3. PURPOSE & RESEARCH QUESTION ............................................................................................... 4 II FRAME OF REFERENCE 5 2.1. ADVERTISING ......................................................................................................................... 5 2.2. INFORMATIVE ADVERTISING....................................................................................................... 6 2.3. CONSUMERS’ PERCEPTION & ATTITUDE TOWARDS ADVERTISING ......................................................... 7 2.4. DRINKING BEHAVIOUR OF SWEDISH STUDENTS ............................................................................... 7 2.5. ADVERTISING & HEALTH-CAMPAIGNS .......................................................................................... 9 2.5.1. ANTI-DRINKING CAMPAIGNS .................................................................................................... 10 2.6. HEALTH-RELATED THEORIES ..................................................................................................... 11 2.6.1. THEORY OF REASONED ACTION ................................................................................................ 11 a. Attitude towards the behaviour ...................................................................................... 12 b. Subjective norm .............................................................................................................. 13 c. Behavioural intentions..................................................................................................... 13 2.6.2. HEALTH BELIEF MODEL........................................................................................................... 14 a. Perceived susceptibility ................................................................................................... 15 b. Perceived severity ........................................................................................................... 16 c. Perceived benefits ........................................................................................................... 16 d. Perceived barriers ........................................................................................................... 16 e. Self-efficacy ..................................................................................................................... 17 f. Cues to action ................................................................................................................... 17 g. Modifying variables ......................................................................................................... 17 2.7. PROPOSED MODEL FOR HEALTH-RELATED ATTITUDES & BEHAVIOUR .................................................. 18 III METHODOLOGY AND METHOD 20 3.1. METHODOLOGY.................................................................................................................... 20 3.1.1. RESEARCH STRATEGY .............................................................................................................. 20 i 3.1.2. RESEARCH PHILOSOPHY .......................................................................................................... 21 3.1.3. RESEARCH APPROACH ............................................................................................................. 22 3.1.4. RESEARCH DESIGN ................................................................................................................. 23 3.2. METHOD ............................................................................................................................ 24 3.2.1. DATA COLLECTION ................................................................................................................. 24 a. Secondary data ................................................................................................................ 24 b. Primary data .................................................................................................................... 25 3.2.2. SAMPLING ............................................................................................................................ 27 3.2.3. QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN ......................................................................................................... 28 3.3. DATA ANALYSIS .................................................................................................................... 29 3.4. ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS ....................................................................................................... 30 3.5. QUALITY OF THE RESEARCH ...................................................................................................... 31 IV EMPIRICAL FINDINGS 34 4.1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................... 34 4.2. DEMOGRAPHICS ................................................................................................................... 35 4.2.1. GENDER ..............................................................................................................................