Assignment Sample on 7BUS2002 Business Research Method
Introduction
Background
Achieving sustainability in the present generation has become quite significant and especially in markets where consumer behaviour and decision making is changing constantly. The automobile sector accounts for a significantly higher amount of carbon emissions and waste that is generated due to the production process and therefore receiving sustainability in the automotive sector is quite essential for long term sustainability (Giampieri et al. 2020). In this regard organizations like Toyota have taken several steps to ensure that their operations are sustainable and do not further the aid to climate changes due to greenhouse gas emissions. The following study is based on Toyota and would therefore reveal strategies and steps taken by Toyota to achieve sustainability while also addressing changes in consumer behaviour in the development of new vehicles (Olabi et al. 2021).
Aims and objectives
The aim of this research is to identify how the changing patterns in consumer decision making and buying behaviour affect the sustainable ways of operating in Toyota and the strategies that the company takes to avoid any activities that might lead to emissions and wastes
- To identify how consumer decision making influences the production and development of products
- To find out if organizations can influence consumers decision-making process to achieve sustainability
- To evaluate steps taken by Toyota to achieve sustainability while also addressing changes occurring in consumer decision-making patterns in the market.
Research questions and specific research hypothesis
- To what extent are consumer buying behaviour responsible for achieving sustainability?
- Are the strategies adopted by Toyota to address sustainability issues in the automotive sector effective in the long run?
Research hypothesis
H0 Consumer decision making and buying behaviour impacts sustainability and leads to carbon emissions which can be controlled and reversed
H1 Consumer decision making and buying behaviour is not linked with sustainability and therefore is not under the control of the organisation
Rationale
Carbon emissions and pollution that is generated due to the automotive industry and its operations has become a major concern for the global community. 15% of the global carbon emissions are due to the result of road transport which needs to be controlled (Oica, 2022). In this regard, automotive companies like Toyota and other competitors are striving to popularize electric vehicles and their development.
Considering the present context of the global market, not every country is equipped with the necessary infrastructure that can support electric vehicles and therefore the growth of electric vehicles in the global market is considerable is lower than that of regular vehicles. However, to address this issue companies like to have adopted other strategies which aim to minimise the number of emissions generate from their newly developed vehicles (Akimoto et al. 2022). Even though such strategies do not completely eliminate carbon emissions however they have been put forward as a transition strategy before the global community is ready for electric vehicles and has the necessary infrastructures. In this regard consumer decision making and buying behaviour plays a major role which to some extent can be influenced by Toyota with the help of marketing strategies and awareness campaigns (Yu et al. 2018). However, the effectiveness of these strategies only depends upon the amount of value that the company can generate at the consumer end which can successfully influence consumer buying behaviour (Held et al. 2018).
Literature review
Significance of consumer decision making process for achieving sustainability
The necessity for business sustainability, green marketing, and ecological marketing is becoming recognised all around the globe, giving the research topic the same significance. Green challenges are becoming a major driver of sustainable transformation for a rising number of organisations as societal and governmental awareness of environmental issues develop. This tendency, in turn, has complicated ramifications for information systems security development and strategic advancements. Acknowledging the judgement pattern of consumers is critical for recognising both obstacles and possibilities. It is critical to match business brand awareness to the processes people take when making buying decisions (Foroudi, 2019). Shoppers do not simply consider purchasing something. Many diverse elements influence individual purchasing decisions, one of them is sustainability. The opinion of youth of today will only enhance the urge for sustainable practises as social platforms begin to increase. It is worth noting that perhaps the organisation to determine procedure is known by many numerous labels, such as the buying procedure and the consumers’ buying information about procedures (Zhang et al. 2018).
Marketers can build distinctive marketing and sales strategies that persuade greater buyers to order their items over a rival company by analysing customer buying behaviour in their business. The customer decision-making approach could be used as a reference for future marketers, commercials, or new products by businesses (Alvarez-Milán et al. 2018). Furthermore, it has been identified that this helps in motivating businesses to think over what a customer wants first, the channels of communication they have been using to locate things, as well as what consumers appreciate in terms of value for money, appearance, and durability. Many people want corporations to perform a beneficial function in society and believe that companies are just as responsible as authorities whenever it comes to developing genuine development.
According to an investigation, 66 % of all consumers, including 75 % of millennials, think about sustainable development while buying a product. Adding to this, in China, 41% of buyers seek eco sustainable items. People transfer products and services whenever a firm contradicts their principles (Close, 2021). There has been undeniably expanding market structure for investors who are willing to react, particularly those that produce efficient and environmentally friendly items or stand out against diminishing quality of the environment.
Influential factors that drive towards sustainability depending on consumer behaviour
Different influential factors can be highlighted that adequately force an organisation to consider consumer decisions and behaviour as an integral part of achieving sustainability. Concerning the attributes of the automotive industry, both direct and indirect influence of consumer behaviour can be highlighted behind the generation of sustainability concerns among respective industrial players.
The most essential concern in this context reflects the achievement of financial feasibility by efficiently fulfilling consumer needs and requirements. The automotive manufacturers usually look forward to considering consumer behaviour and their purchasing decision making intention as a subsequent pathway of arranging their products and services (Yang and Gabrielsson, 2017). Moreover, this initiative eventually highlights the provision of a seamless customer experience that can be supportive for the organisation in terms of obtaining explicit customer satisfaction and thereby providing a positive influence upon customer retention and loyalty.
Another influential factor highlights the achievement of competitive advantage in the market by adequately certifying consumer behaviour for achieving sustainability. Respective industrial players from the automotive sector usually experience distinctive market competition. In order to find out the best possible way of achieving financial profitability and increasing market share, the companies consider consumer behaviour that drives an organisation to include technological advancement and others (Wu et al. 2017). This attribute can profoundly differentiate the organisational services and offerings as compared with their existing market rivals. As a result of this, explicit competitive advantage can be ensured for the company along with future growth opportunities.
One of the significant influential factors, in this case, highlights the improvement of brand recognition. An organisation might benefit from deliberate brand awareness by efficiently considering consumer behaviour and decision-making attributes that can eventually improve their brand image for conceptualising a customer-oriented approach (Tajvidi et al. 2021). In this manner, profound brand awareness can help an organisation with future opportunities for business expansion based on prolific consumer engagement.
Theoretical underpinnings
Impulse buying theory
The theoretical understanding highlights the sudden purchasing impulses of consumers that usually fit alongside rational purchasing decisions. In this case, the impulse purchases are largely driven by the external stimuli which consider no existing inter relation to the traditional decision-making concepts. 4 different categories of impulse buying behaviour can be highlighted from consumers perspective including pure impulse purchase, reminded impulse purchase, suggested impulse buying and planned impulse decisions (Wu et al. 2020).
In this current context, the attributes of suggested impulse purchase inspiring from both offline and online platforms can be highlighted from the consumers end that usually drive their purchasing behaviour with the achievement of better services (Assadam, 2019). This attribute largely drives potential automotive organisations to conceptualise technological advancement, product and service differentiation and others for mitigating consumer demands and thereby creating a profound way of achieving sustainability. From this viewpoint, suggested impulse purchasing behaviour can be assumed as a subsequent parameter to justify an organisational achievement of sustainability.
Triple bottom line theory
In context to the present research study, Triple bottom line theory is also being undertaken that will help in comprehending the research topic efficiently. The theory works as a framework which allows the organisation to consider the elements such as people, planet and profit (Hammer and Pivo, 2017).
It has become the most important core of sustainable business to look after three factors. In order to be successful, the organisation needs to depend on their financial stability along with making a strong commitment to the planet and its people. Businesses have traditionally become the most significant contributors to climate change and environmental losses; nevertheless, organisations now have the opportunity to change effectively (Masud et al. 2019). This theory will significantly assist businesses in capitalising on an expanding economy for sustainability products and services while also implementing corporate sustainability strategies.
Literature gap
The present literature has not paid attention to critically explore the consequences of other respective industrial examples for explaining the aspects of consumer behaviour behind the achievement of sustainability. Moreover, the requirement of subscription had also created some obstacles to collect relevant research information for conducting the literature review. This aspect has created a major limitation to this literature outcome.
Discussion of research design
Research philosophy
A research philosophy can be referred to as a belief in regards to the ways the data about a specific phenomenon should be gathered, assessed, and utilised. There are three types of research philosophy such as positivism, pragmatism, interpretivism and realism (Alharahsheh and Pius, 2020). While conducting this research about the impact of consumer decision making for achieving sustainability of Toyota, the research method of interpretivism would be used. This method would be used as it would assist in providing qualitative data, increase the validity of the research and is subjective in nature.
Research strategy
Research strategy can be referred to as the step-by-step plan of action that could be adopted by the research in order to give direction to the efforts and the thoughts for conducting the research systematically. In this research, a secondary qualitative method would be used in order to extract the authenticated data about the phenomena from the various sources of different sites on the internet (Dufour and Richard, 2019).
Data collection method
Data collection method states the exact methods that would be used for collecting the necessary data that would be used while preparing the research. Furthermore, while making this research, secondary sources would be used extensively such as peer reviewed articles, different online sources, journals, and others (Johhson and Sylvia, 2018). In addition to that, news articles would also be used such as BBC, Guardian, and Mintel along with business case studies.
Data analysis
Data analysis can be referred to as the process to inspect the gathered data, cleanse and transform it in order to achieve the goal of discovering useful insights that can direct towards a conclusion. For proceeding with this research, thematic data analysis would be used for analysing the qualitative data which are gathered from various online sources (Castleberry and Nolen, 2018). This would help in analysing the data gathered and understand the recent patterns and trends in regards to the sustainability of Toyota with respect to the consumer’s decision-making process.
Research limitation
In the process of coding this research, certain limitations of research can be encountered by the researcher such as the limitation of time (Theofanidis and Fountouki, 2018). It needs to be stated that every research needs an optimum amount of time for presenting valuable research with appropriate data and meaning that could be concluded for making future decisions. However, there would not be enough time to prepare this research. Therefore, research can encounter time limitations. Furthermore, enough information is not present in the secondary sources and therefore, the researcher can face a shortage of data while making this research.
Ethical issues
In the process of preparing or making research, abiding by the ethics can be termed as extensively crucial (Sim and Waterfield, 2019). Therefore, it needs to be said that certain ethical measures would be taken to present authentic research. The researcher would be collecting data from the genuine sources of the internet, would not provide any biased opinion and tampering with the data would not be caused.
References
Akimoto, K., Sano, F. and Oda, J., 2022. Impacts of ride and car-sharing associated with fully autonomous cars on global energy consumptions and carbon dioxide emissions. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 174, p.121311.
Alharahsheh, H.H. and Pius, A., 2020. A review of key paradigms: Positivism VS interpretivism. Global Academic Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 2(3), pp.39-43.
Alvarez-Milán, A., Felix, R., Rauschnabel, P.A. and Hinsch, C., 2018. Strategic customer engagement marketing: A decision making framework. Journal of Business Research, 92, pp.61-70.
Assadam, E., 2019. Online impulse buying: who had suggested you to buy on instagram. MEC-J (Management and Economics Journal), 3(3), pp.231-244.
Castleberry, A. and Nolen, A., 2018. Thematic analysis of qualitative research data: is it as easy as it sounds?. Currents in pharmacy teaching and learning, 10(6), pp.807-815.
Close, C, 2021. The global eco-wakening: how consumers are driving sustainability. [Online] Available at: <https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/05/eco-wakening-consumers-driving-sustainability/> [Accessed on 14 January 2022]
Dufour, I.F. and Richard, M.C., 2019. Theorizing from secondary qualitative data: A comparison of two data analysis methods. Cogent Education, 6(1), p.1690265.
Foroudi, P., 2019. Influence of brand signature, brand awareness, brand attitude, brand reputation on hotel industry’s brand performance. International journal of hospitality management, 76, pp.271-285.
Giampieri, A., Ling-Chin, J., Ma, Z., Smallbone, A. and Roskilly, A.P., 2020. A review of the current automotive manufacturing practice from an energy perspective. Applied Energy, 261, p.114074.
Hammer, J. and Pivo, G., 2017. The triple bottom line and sustainable economic development theory and practice. Economic Development Quarterly, 31(1), pp.25-36.
Held, M., Weidmann, D., Kammerl, D., Hollauer, C., Mörtl, M., Omer, M. and Lindemann, U., 2018. Current challenges for sustainable product development in the German automotive sector: A survey based status assessment. Journal of cleaner production, 195, pp.869-889.
Johhson, E. and Sylvia, M.L., 2018. Secondary data collection. Critical Analytics and Data Management for the DNP, p.61.
Masud, M., Kaium, A., Rashid, M., Ur, H., Khan, T., Bae, S.M. and Kim, J.D., 2019. Organizational strategy and corporate social responsibility: The mediating effect of triple bottom line. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(22), p.4559.
Oica, 2022. International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers OICA is the voice speaking on automotive issues in world forums. [Online] Available at: <https://www.oica.net/category/climate-change-and-co2/#:~:text=Globally%2C%20road%20transport%20is%20responsible,caused%20by%20cars%20and%20trucks/> [Accessed on 14 January 2022]
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Sim, J. and Waterfield, J., 2019. Focus group methodology: some ethical challenges. Quality & Quantity, 53(6), pp.3003-3022.
Tajvidi, M., Wang, Y., Hajli, N. and Love, P.E., 2021. Brand value Co-creation in social commerce: The role of interactivity, social support, and relationship quality. Computers in Human Behavior, 115, p.105238.
Theofanidis, D. and Fountouki, A., 2018. Limitations and delimitations in the research process. Perioperative nursing, 7(3), pp.155-163.
Wu, K.J., Tseng, M.L., Chiu, A.S. and Lim, M.K., 2017. Achieving competitive advantage through supply chain agility under uncertainty: A novel multi-criteria decision-making structure. International Journal of Production Economics, 190, pp.96-107.
Wu, L., Chiu, M.L. and Chen, K.W., 2020. Defining the determinants of online impulse buying through a shopping process of integrating perceived risk, expectation-confirmation model, and flow theory issues. International Journal of Information Management, 52, p.102099.
Yang, M. and Gabrielsson, P., 2017. Entrepreneurial marketing of international high-tech business-to-business new ventures: A decision-making process perspective. Industrial Marketing Management, 64, pp.147-160.
Yu, B., Wei, Y.M., Kei, G. and Matsuoka, Y., 2018. Future scenarios for energy consumption and carbon emissions due to demographic transitions in Chinese households. Nature Energy, 3(2), pp.109-118.
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