You are asked to include the following elements in your outline: (1) A clear working title for your proposed study and a short introduction, (2) A clear research aim, (3) A brief literature review, (4) A consideration of the methods that you may be adopting for data collection and analysis, (5) A note on research ethics, (6) A reference page that consists of atleast 15-20 References.
Your assignment should be 1,800 words ±10%. The word count excludes the list of references at the end of the document. In-text citations, however, are included in the word count.
Your research outline should be heavily referenced using credible academic literature.
What the assignment should consist of in terms of structure –
1) Working title & Introduction
2) Research Aim
3) Brief literature review
4) Methodology
5) Research Ethics
6) References
ResearchPhilosophyandPracticeC11BUCoursework2ResearchOutline.pdf
Previousyearexamplewithoutreferences.pdf
Research Philosophy and Practice– C11BU Coursework Two: Research Outline
Your second assignment for this course is to write a Research Outline. Your assignment
should be submitted through Canvas only, in Week 15 (Date and Time to be confirmed). Details of how to do so are provided on the ‘Assessment on this Course’
module on Canvas. Submissions must be uploaded via Canvas. Your assignment should
be 1,800 words ±10%. The word count excludes the list of references at the end of
the document. In-text citations, however, are included in the word count. Documents
must be submitted in Word (.doc/.docx) format.
Your task:
The Scenario
You plan to conduct a research study on a topic of interest to you. You discuss your plans
with a potential research mentor, and they ask you to put your ideas down on paper and
present them in the form of a research outline. Your mentor expects your research outline
to be succinct and rigorous and present a clear idea as to the WHAT, WHY and How of
your research plan. You are asked to include the following elements in your outline:
1. A clear working title for your proposed study and a short introduction
A Short overview explaining what this study is about and why it is important and
interesting [250 Words].
2. A clear research aim
Make sure to state your research aim(s) which summarises what you want to
achieve with the entire study [50 Words].
3. A brief literature review
From your initial and engaged reading of the literature, what previous research has
been carried out in your chosen area of research? Specify and discuss which
theoretical body of knowledge you are basing your study within [500 Words].
4. A consideration of the methods that you may be adopting for data collection
and analysis
Explain the methods you expect to use. Are they qualitative or quantitative or a
mixture of both? How are you getting your data and which tools for data collection
are you using? [700 words].
5. A Note on research ethics
How will your research comply with the principles of ethical research? [300
words].
6. References
References should be cited appropriately throughout to help support the Research
Outline and to demonstrate that you have read and understood the work of
others. In doing so, students are expected to use Harvard Style referencing
accuracy. This relates to both the in-text citations and the reference page.
Information on Harvard Style referencing can be found on Canvas.
Concluding Notes
Students are expected to demonstrate understanding of and ability to apply the research concepts they have learned in this course. This assignment will enable you to explore and reflect on the process of developing a research plan (and eventually a proposal) as you progress to the next stage in your studies.
N.B. CW2 is not marked in reference to CW1; they are marked independently. Therefore, students are free to either keep their topics from CW1 and take forward into their CW2 or to make changes to their topics when working on CW2.
Please refer to the Coursework Two rubric on Canvas for the weighting of each section.
,
Title and Introduction
The impact of Instagram influencers on brand awareness and purchase intentions.
A case study of the beauty industry in Dubai.
Over the past decade, the upsurge in social media platforms has resulted in the growth of social media
influencer marketing, with outstanding opportunities for brands to communicate and bond with their
consumers (Glucksman, 2017; Lou & Yuan, 2019). Social media influencers are not only performing an
integral role in educating and engaging beauty consumers, but also act as a means of empowered female
customers (Euromonitor, 2019). There has been an exponential growth in the beauty industry, wherein
experts at the Euromonitor credit a substantial increase in these sales to social media marketing, with a
combined consumer spend of US$24.2b in 2018 in the MENA region alone (Beauty Business Journal, 2019).
A recent beauty survey revealed that 1 in 7 customers attributed their choice of cosmetics to social media
marketing (Euromonitor, 2017). Research supports these statistics by suggesting that the value of the
content generated by the social media influencers in terms of entertainment and information is
instrumental in positively influencing brand awareness and purchase intention for the brand they promote
(Dehghani et al., 2016; Sheldon and Bryant, 2016).
Statistics suggest that 90% of marketers believe that Instagram is the most effective advertising platform
with its innovative features and shoppable Instagram functionalities for influencer marketing activities,
with nearly 5m sponsored posts and 2.38b worth of global brands investment in 2019 (Mediakix, 2019).
Therefore, beauty brands use Instagram as the preferred channel to create awareness, through brand
mentions and enhance positive customer attitude and purchase intentions amongst their target audience.
Research that evaluates the effects of influencer marketing from the perspective of branding is scarce,
especially about Instagram (Hollebeek et al., 2014). This research contributes to prior literature by
presenting a comprehensive study of how Instagram influencers impact brand awareness and purchase
intention. This study will also explore an under investigated context, Dubai’s beauty industry.
The Research Aim
This research aims to explore the impact of Instagram influencers on brand awareness and purchase
intentions in Dubai’s beauty industry.
Literature Review
Social media has transformed the style and technique of how brands content with consumers (Jones and
Williams, 2021), and is an ideal approach in developing brand awareness (De Vierman et al., 2017). Social
media offers an opportunity for consumers to engage with a brand, accumulate information, and draw
inspiration upon which to build their purchase decisions (Evans et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2012). Social
media sites, such as Instagram, are currently experiencing a continuous rise in active-users, with beauty
posts being amongst the most prevalent and aspiring forms of content, luring massive audiences and user
engagement (Sokolova & Kefi, 2020; Statista, 2019). With the marketing transition from traditional WOM
to eWOM, influencer marketing emerged as a new phenomenon associated with social media marketing
(Brown and Hayes, 2015). This marketing strategy utilizes the influence of key individuals with expertise
and experience as a stimulus to enhance brand awareness and stimulate purchase intention (Lin et al.,
2018; Sokolova & Kefi, 2020). The social media influencer is an online personality that creates distinctive
content and impacts consumers within their online communities (Breves et al., 2019). Their reach may be
assessed with the number of their followers and engagement; that includes comments, likes and active
traffic (De Veirman, 2017). They build interactive relationships with their followers and then, using their
capability, exert a meaningful impact on the consumer’s attitude and purchase behaviour (Delia & Maria,
2019). These social media influencers are deemed to be trustworthy, unbiased and relatable; as their style
of endorsing brands is seamlessly woven into their routine personal narratives, using Instagram features
of stories, posts and IGTV (Kim and Kim, 2018). There is extensive evidence of these myriads of
characteristics discussed above in the literature for the source-credibility theory, that has revealed the
essential attributes of source credibility as trustworthiness, expertise and attractiveness (Dedeoglu, 2019;
Ohanian, 1990). These qualities are used as a benchmark to validate the credibility and effectiveness of
the brand endorsed. Therefore, most studies have established that high credibility of the source who is
the Instagram influencer in this context, leads to a positive brand attitude, and enhanced behavioural
compliance of the consumers (Icha and Edwin, 2016).
One of the principal objectives of influencer marketing is brand awareness, which subsequently plays a
mediating role in purchase intention (Macdonald and Sharp, 2000). Brand awareness is one of the critical
building blocks of brand equity that includes two important aspects: brand recall and brand recognition
(Zaif and Alina, 2018). Brand awareness is imperative for brand knowledge and ensures that the brand is
incorporated into a consumer’s consideration set while making a buying decision (Aaker, 1992). It
demonstrates the strength and forte of the brand in the consumer memory, such that it is immediately
recalled and preferred among its product category (Barreda et al., 2015). Literature also suggests that a
product with high brand awareness will enjoy improved quality assessment and enhanced brand
preference, particularly for low involvement consumer goods (Huang and Sarigöllü, 2012 Social media
influencers have a charismatic style that subtly creates brand awareness, as they use their individual styles
to share their authentic experience (Uzunoğlu and Kip, 2014).
Purchase intention precedes actual purchase behaviour and has a significant association with social media
influencer marketing and brand awareness (Fitri, 2018; Siti et al., 2019). Purchase intension is the
likelihood of a favourable purchase decision and genuine interest for a specific brand, dependent upon, a
positive attitude for the brand (Lim et al.,2017; Spears and Singh, 2004). According to literature, this
attitude comprises of the interaction of three elements: cognitive, affective and conative (Ajzen and
Fishbein, 1980). The influencer plays an integral role in providing insights and knowledge about the brand,
that forms the cognitive component (Siti et al., 2019). Additionally, through their credibility and social
power, they influence customer’s emotions and feelings to form the affective component (Ngai et al.,
2015). Lastly, the conative component is the probability of purchase intention. However, engaging with
social media influencers for endorsements comes with its challenges (Spry et al., 2011). Marketers have
limited control over the way the source disseminates brand information and the mediums used, compared
to traditional media (Keller, 2009). Moreover, the growth in fake followers and bots pose as another trial
for the source-credibility model (Wang et al., 2017).
There have been limited studies that investigate the role of social media influencer marketing on brand
awareness and purchase intention, since it is still a relatively novel concept, especially using Instagram.
However, similar studies have explored a car manufacturer MINI on Facebook (Hutter, 2013). Moreover,
multiple research papers have studied these concepts independently, and in association with brand equity
(Yoo and Donthu, 2001; Pappu et al., 2005;). Research papers have also studied the role of social media
influencers in different countries like Romania, Germany, Indonesia, Greece, Cyprus and contexts like the
airline and tourism industry (Delia and Maria, 2019; Putri and Purwanti, 2018; Chatzigeorgiou, 2017). This
paper aims to expand the existing knowledge on these vital literature concepts and study them in
conjunction, to focus on the Dubai beauty industry.
Methods: Data Collection and Analysis
In line with the interpretivist paradigm outlined in the previous section, this study will embrace a qualitive
methodological approach. A qualitative approach, ‘adopts a holistic view that seeks discovery from
involvement in the actual experiences and aims to provide an in-depth understanding of social
phenomena by exploring and interpreting collected data’ (Ragab & Arisha, 2018, p.7). In qualitative
studies, researchers can use a number of data collection tools such as interviews, focus groups, and
observations (Baxter et al., 2008; Saunders et al., 2012). For this study, interviews will be conducted.
Interviews can be structured, unstructured or semi-structured. In order to allow for flexibility and to
collect rich textual data on the subjective understandings of the participants, this research will employ
semi-structured interviews. With the use of an interview guide, the researcher will direct the flow of
conversation with pre-determined open questions, while also allowing for sufficient flexibility so
participants can discuss issues which are important to them (Johnson and Christensen, 2008). This
interview guide will contain questions based on the theoretical underpinnings of the research. Although,
the questions may be adapted, or new questions added if any new data that is of interest to the research
is discovered (Lochrie et al., 2016). The key questions and prompts can be derived from previous studies
done on similar topics related to Instagram influencers, brand awareness and purchase intentions. If the
participants permit, the interviews will be recorded so that interpretation becomes easier (King, 2015).
The benefits of conducting interviews are manifold, and it is applauded for being an ideal method to
assimilate multiple realities of the case, because of its nature of free flow interaction (Flick, 2018).
However, there are limitations with this qualitative approach (Flick, 2018). For example, this approach
may potentially be exposed to the researcher’s bias. Furthermore, the lack of generalizability of qualitative
research is suggested to be a limitation (Wildemuth and Zhang, 2009).
For successful interviews, it is critical to find the right people. Therefore, sampling is crucial because these
potential candidates influence the credibility and reliability of the study (Alsaawi, 2014). In this study,
judgement sampling will be used and is defined as ‘a type of purposive sampling in which the researcher
judgementally selects elements to conform to some criterion’ (Herbst & Coldwell, 2004, p. 81). This
approach outlines that the researcher believes that they can produce a representative sample through
good judgement (Saunders et al., 2012). Approximately 20 interviews will be conducted, and before
initiating each interview, participants will be briefed about the objective and goal of the interview
(Castillo-Montoya, 2016).
After substantial volumes of data has been collected, in the form of interview transcripts and recordings,
the next step is to reduce the data for analysis through coding (Brooks et al., 2015). The coding technique
that will be embraced for this research is template analysis, which is a system of thematic analysis that
reiterates the use of hierarchical coding. It organizes data in the form of codes and emerging themes that
are meaningfully clustered (King, 2004). These new themes, also known as posterior, may also be further
investigated in the subsequent interviews; perhaps it is highly recommended to perform coding at the
earliest to allow for this opportunity (King, 2012).
The template analysis technique will be initiated with some priori themes, that will be identified in
advance and drawn out from the literature according to their relevancy to the research (Crabtree and
Miller, 1992). The initial template will be applied to further data and modified as posterior themes are
incorporated as and when the investigation moves forward, and existing themes may also be revised.
These posterior themes are integral to the research, as they add a plethora of new and valuable
information. Perhaps, the predefined template will be formulated and articulated with careful
consideration to ensure that there is no restriction in the investigation (Braun and Clarke, 2006).
Moreover, the data will be coded and analyzed manually as it best fits the interpretivism paradigm. The
analysis involved in template analysis does not stipulate a fixed sequence or delineated stages, it is an
iterative process that offers the flexibility of moving back and forth between stages before the analysis is
accomplished (King and Brooks, 2016). Once the data has is coded, a conceptual model will be established
to accumulate related themes, organize them as higher-order codes and lower-order codes, and theorize
relationships relative to the data. Additionally, the concerns related to reliability and validity of this
qualitative research, to augment its generalizability will be improved by using the triangulation of
researchers as a validation strategy (Denzin, 2012). The use of multiple researchers and sources of
information will help to eliminate bias and its associated risk on the quality of the study (Carter et al.,
2014).
Research Ethics
It is vital to address the ethical aspects of the research to ensure that the research is deemed credible.
Some ethical concerns are anticipated, but more often, they emerge as the research unfolds. Therefore,
ethical issues will be assessed at each phase of the research, from before initiating the research, until the
research is published (Kanuka and Anderson, 2007). This research will employ the ethics of care approach,
wherein ethical decisions are principally based on compassion and consideration towards the participants,
who are central to the research (Wiley, 2012).
Some of the prevailing ethical norms include avoiding partiality with a neutral tone, maintaining the
confidentiality of participants, obtaining consent, safeguarding privacy and elimination of risk for harm.
(Scheyvens et al., 2003). Confidentiality will be maintained by anonymizing the participants; instead, they
will be presented as p1, p2 (Lincoln, 2009). Further to the potential risk of identity breaches, is the risk of
harm; physical, mental, financial, social or monetary that will be consciously diminished as the participants
will be reminded that their support is voluntary and they can retract from the interview whenever they
desire, without any pressure or consequence (Hughes, 2008). Additionally, written consent will be
obtained to safeguard evidence, using a consent form that will include critical information, such as the
genre and purpose of the research and how the participants’ responses will be recorded and
disseminated, supported by consent to agree/disagree to being recorded, option to agree or refuse to
participate, amongst others (Collier, 1995). Furthermore, to protect and honor reliability on both sides,
the researcher will maintain honesty during the discussion with the interviewees in terms of all
information provided to them (Roberts, 2015). Lastly, as an additional measure of addressing all ethical
apprehensions, this research will adhere to the ethical approval required by Heriot-Watt University before
conducting the interviews.
Reference Page
Students must incorporate an accurate reference page.
Harvard Style referencing must be used
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