Benefits of Multi-Stakeholder Groups for Participating in Gladmat Festival
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Submitted By yahyam0084 Words 31825 Pages 128
FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES, NORWEGIAN SCHOOL OF HOTEL MANAGEMENT
MASTER’S THESIS
STUDY PROGRAM: THESIS IS WRITTEN IN THE FOLLOWING SPECIALIZATION/SUBJECT:
Festival and Event Management IS THE ASSIGNMENT CONFIDENTIAL?
MSc in International Hotel and Tourism Leadership
No TITLE: Benefits of multi-stakeholder groups for participating in Gladmat festival
AUTHOR
ADVISOR:
Prof. Reidar Johan Mykletun
Student number: 215519 ………………… 214504 …………………
Name: Ambassador Rezene Meretse ……………………………………. Muhammad Yahya …………………………………….
ACKNOWLEDGE RECEIPT OF 2 BOUND COPIES OF THESIS
Stavanger, ……/…… 2013
Signature administration:……………………………
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Abstract
This paper investigates the benefits of multi-stakeholders from participating in the Gladmat festival in Stavanger. The findings of this study can help festival and event managers to understand which major factors can attract group of stakeholders to the festival. It could help them to formulate policies, to offer suitable segment focusing on the marketing field. Stakeholder theory, the benefit segmentation theory, push and pull motivation theory, and Maslow’s hierarchy theory were applied to find the benefits of stakeholders for participating in the festival. Mixed method research have been used to collect the data, three qualitative studies and one quantitative study is carried out to explore and describe the benefits from the festival. The outcome from the qualitative shows owners benefits by positioning and marketing their product, supporting the local business, creating destination image and other factors. While, the exhibitors benefit by creating brand loyalty of business, increase sales, promotion of the business, gathering knowledge and competitive information, and innovation in product development and process. Municipality benefits in terms of corporate social responsibility, and creating the destination image. The results from the quantitative analysis of the visitors reveals that, seeking for novelty; local tradition and celebration; buying and tasting; food enjoyment and atmosphere; networking and socializing; and personal privilege and destination image have strong influence on visitors to participate in the Gladmat. Theoretical, managerial and marketing implications of the study is discussed at the last part of the paper, by providing relevant findings which are helpful for managers in providing the desired benefit to particular stakeholder group. Finally, we concluded the by providing the limitations and topics for future research. Key words: festivals; benefits; stakeholders; motivation; benefit segmentation
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Acknowledgement
This thesis is masters degree in the Norwegian Hotel School (NHS), and it is two years education in International Hotel and Tourism Leadership. The research was conducted in 2013 in Stavanger city. Our main motive behind this thesis topic is that because we are as students in NHS, to organize festivals and events is also part of the field of course in the education. We are very interested and eager also to investigate the benefits of different stakeholder group participating in festivals. For our thesis we selected the Gladmat festival which is the biggest food festival in the Scandinavian region. The visitors and other stakeholders to the festival also grown from year to year. It will offer economic benefit and destination image for the city and the whole region. There is no any research have been carried out before about multi-stakeholder groups benefits from the Gladmat festival. This thesis is really interesting and also challenging, through the lectures from classes and our endeavors we have gained a great deal of knowledge. This encourages us to work hard on this interesting topic to research, read with full devotion. We would like to express our deepest appreciation and gratitude to our supervisor Professor Reidar Mykletun, for his immediate feedback, comment, and motivation in every stage of our research. Further, we want to thank to all staffs in NHS for their support and services. Specially, we want to thank also to our beloved families for all of their effort and helps us to reach at this level. Stavanger, 2013 __________________ Ambassador Rezene Meretse & Muhammad Yahya
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Contents
1. INTRODUCTION……….........................................................................................................8 1.1 Purpose ......................................................................................................................10 1.2 Contribution.................................................................................................................11 1.3 Outline.........................................................................................................................13 2. Festival and Food festival……………………………………………………………………..14 2.1 Festival……………………………………………………………………………….14 2.2 Food………………………………………………………………………………….16 2.3 Food festival………………………………………………………………………….17 2.4 Gladmat festival……………………………………………………………………...18 3. Literature review………………………………………………………………………………19 3.1 Stakeholders.…………………………………………………………………………19 3.2 Stakeholder theory…………………………………………………………………...24 3.3 Motivation……………………………………………………………………………30 3.4 Benefits- what are they?...............................................................................................35 3.4.1 Benefit Segmentation………………………………………………………………37 4. Methodology…………………………………………………………………………………..44 4.1 Mixed methods research……………………………………………………………..44 4.2 Research Design……………………………………………………………………...45 4.3 Qualitative research method…………………………………………………………47 4.4 Quantitative research method………………………………………………………..56 5. Analysis of data……………………………………………………………………………….68 5.1 Brief introduction of qualitative analysis…………………………………………….68 5.2 Coding the qualitative data…………………………………………………………..69 5.3 Analysis of results……………………………………………………………………72 5.4 Brief background of Gladmat festival……………………………………………….72 5.5 Owners……………………………………………………………………………….74 5.6 Review of items……………………………………………………………………...82 5.7 Findings on motivations and benefits of owners…………………………………….82 5.8 Summary……………………………………………………………………………..86 5.9 Exhibitors…………………………………………………………………………….87 5.10 Review of items…………………………………………………………………….94 5.11 Findings on motivations and benefits for exhibitors……………………………….95 5.12 Municipality……………………………………………………………………….103 5.14 Analysis of quantitative research………………………………………………….110 5.15 Factor analysis…………………………………………………………………….113
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5.17 Correlation………………………………………………………………………...120 5.19 Multiple regression analysis………………………………………………………123 5.20 Summary…………………………………………………………………………..134 5.21 Review of items…………………………………………………………………...134 5.21.1. Findings and results of quantitative analysis…………………………………...134 6. Discussion…………………………………………………………………………………..138 6.1 Discussion of qualitative analysis…………………………………………………139 6.2 Discussion of quantitative analysis………………………………………………..141 6.3 Theoretical implications…………………………………………………………...143 6.4 Managerial implications…………………………………………………………...146 6.5 Marketing implications…………………………………………………………….147 7. Limitations and Future research…………………………………………………………….149 7.1 Limitations and validity…………………………………………………………...149 7.2 Conclusions and future research…………………………………………………..150 8. References…………………………………………………………………………………..152 9. Appendices………………………………………………………………………………….161 9.1 Interview guides…………………………………………………………………...161 9.4 Questionnaire for visitors………………………………………………………….163 9.5 Stakeholder's interviews…………………………………………………………...167
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List of models
Model 1. Stakeholder groups at Gladmat…………………………………………… 23 Model 2. Modified model of stakeholder groups.........................................................34 Model 3. Theoretical Framework Model of stakeholders…………………………….41 Model 4. Conceptual framework model for owner…………………………………...76 Model 5. Conceptual framework model for exhibitors……………………………….88 Model 6. Conceptual framework model for municipality…………………………….104 Model 7. Conceptual framework model for visitors………………………………….135
Chapter 1. Introduction
Historically, the festivals, carnival procession and pageant have always provided meanings and experience for the festival visitors (Picard & Robinson, 2006). Festival is usually based on local cultural event having some basis in history, i.e. it has some meaning for the attendees to take part in. It is something that you can tie down to a particular time and place, not something that happens all over the world (Jackson, 2001). For years, the festivals have played a significant role in attracting visitors, from both national and international basis. Since the late 1960s, it is noted that, there is a steady growth of newly created festivals in different countries of the world (Arnold, 2000; Chako & Schaffer, 1993; Getz, 1997). According to Getz (2012), the festivals are themed, public celebrations occurring in different parts of the world, and are still growing in numbers. Today, a tremendous amount of festivals are being celebrated around the world each having their own stories to attract the participants. The study of festivals have gain importance because of their contributions in political (Kaplan, 2008; Larson, 2002; Larson & Wikstrom, 2001), economical (Crompton, 2006; Crompton & Lee, 2000; Crompton & McKay, 1994; Dawson, 1991) and, socio-cultural (Delamere, 2001; Delbosc, 2008; Iso-Ahola, 1980; Picard & Robinson, 2006; Quinn, 2005b) advancements within the region. Furthermore, festivals help in building the image of the country or region, which becomes prestige for the local community. Gladmat festival in the Stavanger region, is an example or illustration of the above mentioned points. Since its establishment in 1998, the festival has provided the strong basis for businesses in the food industry, encouraging the exhibitors to take part in it and, introducing their products to their target audience. The popularity of the festival is not limited to the Stavanger region only,
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but is well known in other parts of the country. Gladmat is the biggest food festival not just in Norway, but also in the whole Scandinavian region by having more than 250 000 visitors nationally and internationally (Einarsen & Mykletun, 2009). The organizers of the festival have make tenacious effort in innovation and new food product development. Due to the success of Gladmat in the region, it has gained attention of the researchers from the field of festivals and event management, mainly focusing on motivation of the visitors, the exhibitors, safety issues and, the success of the festival. But until now as far as we have searched, there has not been a single research in a comprehensive setting comprising the benefits of multi-stakeholder perspectives for attending the Gladmat festival. Therefore in this thesis, we will investigate the benefits for multi-stakeholder perspective in the Gladmat festival context. Recently, the Gladmat festival is growing gradually and, the number of visitors have increased dramatically, both from local and international arena to the festival. With the increasing number of visitors, the other stakeholder groups such as exhibitors, owners, municipality also escalates their participation and contribution in the festival. Finally, this master thesis will search the core benefits for each stakeholder group participating in the festival and for doing so, we will apply both the qualitative and the quantitative methodologies. The outcomes of the research will contribute to the discipline of social science, marketing agencies and, management in targeting and segmenting the stakeholders on the basis of benefits sought. Segmenting the population on the base of benefits sought is the most effective and efficient marketing strategy (Frochot, 2005; Frochot & Morrison, 2000; Haley, 1968; Lee, Arcodia & Lee, 2012).
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1.1. Purpose
In this research paper, we want to investigate the benefits gained by the multi-stakeholders for their participation in the Gladmat festival. These multi-stakeholder groups consists of management, visitors, municipality, owners and, exhibitors. The choice of stakeholder groups have been proposed by Mossberg & Getz (2006) as the key stakeholders within a festival. In order to get the outcome a scale is developed and has been tested for its effectiveness. Previous researchers in the field have used the 'benefit segmentation' for visitors (Frochot, 2005; Frochot & Morrison, 2000; Lee, Arcodia, & Lee, 2012; Li, Huang & Cai, 2009; Liang, Illum, & Cole, 2008), but there is not a single benefit segmentation research for exhibitors, owners, and, municipality, up to this date, while searching in the literature. Therefore, in this thesis, we will answer four research questions by employing in both qualitative and quantitative research methods. The first objective seeks to answer the following question: RQ1: Which benefit factors can influence the visitors to attend the Gladmat food festival? We wish to map the core benefit factors that are important for the visitors to attend the Gladmat food festival. We have used the benefit segmentation to describe the most important variable sought by consumers for their participation to the festival. Therefore, quantitative research method has been applied for the description of the key benefits. The previous literature review in event and festival management signifies that, the benefits sought by visitors indicate the most underlying affective factors of various segments to attend festivals. Understanding the visitation benefits of tourist can help to better segment the visitors, that will enable the management to provide exact benefit to the particular segmented group.
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Benefit segmentation technique has been used primarily as to orientate the advertising messages, predicting and understanding the buying behavior of customers (Frochot, 2005; Haley, 1968). And to date, the benefit segmentation was seen as a technique to segment visitors, but in this thesis, we will apply the benefit segmentation methodology on other stakeholder groups. If the visitors aim to get some benefits for their participation in the festival, so as the other stakeholder groups have certain aim to take part in the festival. And, we believe that if management of the festival classify these stakeholders into different segments related to their particular benefit, it will help in the growth and success of the festival. Therefore, our other research question are: RQ2: What are the benefits that exhibitors, owners and, municipality are getting for their participation in the Gladmat festival? In our second research question, we will explore the key benefits obtained by these three stakeholder groups for their participation in the festival. As discussed earlier that, there is no previous research done on the exhibitors, owners and, municipality. Therefore, the qualitative research method is being used to gain the insights and ideas and, it is an appropriate technique to use in the phenomenon, "when the subject is very new, we know little or nothing about it, and no one has yet explored it" (Churcill & Iacobucci, 2005; Neuman, 2011: p. 38).
1.2. Contribution
The field of event and festival management with focus on benefits of multi-stakeholder perspectives are fairly unexplored as far as research is concerned. Research articles and books describe that, a festival cannot achieve success without the collaboration of stakeholder groups, and also stresses on the effective management of stakeholder groups. However, the available
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research is limited in the literature concerning visitors benefits and, for the remaining stakeholder groups, there is no previous research available. The researchers from the discipline of social science believed that, the effective management of different stakeholder groups are crucial for the survival of any organization. Similar ideas have been put forward by the scholars of events and festival management. The results from this study will to some extent be transferred to other types of events and festival, and contribute to further research within the area of multi-stakeholder benefits. For the contribution in theoretical material is to modify the well-known theories for the research purpose of this study. We have used elements from the 'theory of stakeholders' initially proposed by Freeman (1984), Maslow's hierarchy of needs by Maslow (1943), Push and Pull motivation by Dann (1977) and, mainly Benefit Segmentation proposed by Haley (1968), to measure the benefits sought by multi-stakeholders, for their participation in Gladmat festival. The research model and results of the thesis will thus help in contribution of new knowledge within the area of events and festivals, and can become an inspiration to perform further research in future. In broader view, the research outcomes from this paper can be beneficial and valuable for both event managers and brand marketers, as it will map the key benefits for each stakeholder group. By knowing these benefits prior to the festival, the management can customize the theme of the event for the better fulfillment of the desires of each stakeholder groups. It can also help in customization of advertising and promotions for giving the message to the particular segmented groups. Just as important, that by knowing the benefits of each stakeholder group, festival managers can attain and improve some of these factors which they are currently lacking, in order to increase the satisfaction and experience of stakeholders. Gladmat is the biggest food festival in
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the Scandinavian region, so, the results from this research can be valuable for other regions while planning such a festival. As will be discussed in following chapter, that there exist a great deal of festivals around the world, and yet the benefit research for multi-stakeholder perspective is scarce. Our thesis will thus investigate a newer area in the event and festival management, and contribute with novel research within both practical and theoretical perspective.
1.3. Outline of the research
The thesis is structured accordingly into seven chapters. The first chapter is about the general introduction followed by the second chapter where we have given the introduction about the festivals and food festival. The third chapter of the study presents the literature review of the relevant theories, which helps in proposing the theoretical framework models for the stakeholders participating in the Gladmat food festival. In the chapter four, we describe the methods used in this study for collecting the qualitative and quantitative data. The chapter five presents the analysis and the findings of both qualitative and quantitative research methods. In the chapter 6, we discusses the findings of research in relation to the findings of the previous literature, followed by the research implications. The last chapter concludes with the remarks on limitations and future research. At the end of the study, we have provided with the list of references and the appendixes used for the support of this research.
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Chapter 2. Festival and Food festival
In order to clarify the frames of the thesis, this section will present the facts and information about the topics investigated and discussed in the thesis. Firstly, the section will provide the general information about festivals, followed by, the role of food and its importance in our life will be discussed. Furthermore, the chapter will describe about the role of the food festivals for a particular region. At the end, this section will conclude with the discussion about Gladmat food festival, as this is the core concern in our research.
2.1. Festival
At the present time, a mass number of scholars in Nordic countries share a strong interest in the event and festival studies. The researchers are focusing on the attractiveness and innovativeness in festivals and events for the better development of the region, which will provide a strong destination image in the mind of stakeholders, mainly visitors (Andersson, Getz, & Mykletun, 2012). From the mid of 1980s, the study of festivals and events motivation have been carried out in the discipline of social science related to tourism and recreational activities (Crompton & McKay, 1997; Formica & Uysal, 1996; Johnston & Twynam, 2006; Kim & Chalip, 2004; Lee, Lee & Wicks, 2004; Seungmo, Greenwell, Andrewa, Leeb, & Mahony, 2008; Uysal, Backman, Backman & Plotts, 1991; Uysal, Gahan & Martin, 1993). Festivals are comprised of significant features from the cultural life of modern societies. In the western world, there has been a tremendous increase in the number of festivals over the last three decades and the figures are still increasing. Of course, arranging a festival, by no means a new idea. The existence of festivals can be traced back to ancient times, and the word itself is derived from the Latin language and commonly means cheerfulness and public joy (Falassi, 1987). In the
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late modernity, even peripheral and small municipalities may produce significant stage events, inviting acknowledged performers, attracting a huge number of visitors, getting lots of media attention and, hence, become the cultural centers, may be for a limited period and time every year. According to Andersson & Getz (2008), the festivals are considered important because of their social and cultural roles, and they are increasingly being created and promoted as the tourist attractions. They are also viewed as the tools in destination image making and place marketing, and are regarded for their ability to animate the resorts, attractions and cities. Several scholars have proposed different definitions of festival among those Falassi (1987: 2) defined the festival as, "a periodically recurrent, social occasion in which, through a multiplicity of forms and a series of coordinated events, participate directly or indirectly and to various degrees, all members of a whole community, united by ethnic, linguistic, religious, historical bonds, and sharing a worldview. Both the social function and the symbolic meaning of the festival are closely related to a series of overt values that the community recognizes as essential to its ideology and worldview, to its social identity, its historical continuity, and to its physical survival, which is ultimately what festivals celebrate". Getz (2012) have defined a festival as the, "themed and public celebrations". According to Picard & Robinson (2006), "festivals are rapidly shifting collages of color, the beautiful juxtaposed against the ugly, three-dimensional performance of the wild, the strange and the taboo are presented to the eye, and are essential for the social relationships mediated by images". Festivals and events have benefits in sharing values between the locals and visitors. Festivals contribute a very conducive environment for the participants to come together and have fun, thus it can improve the quality of life with social togetherness. Festivals attract tourists and visitors, and thus is beneficial for the development of region both on economic and cultural basis (Cetinel & Yolal, 2009). Frisby & Getz (1989) have highlighted the similar findings that, festivals are
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generally viewed by the host communities and the organizers as being social and cultural celebrations. Andersson & Getz (2008) stressed on the findings that, festival is universally relevant for social and cultural enrichment and, attracting domestic and international tourists. Long & Robinson (2004) findings indicated that, with the growth in festivals, the professionalism in the field also increases and this will contributes for tourism development, participation of the community in the programs and, also it offer pride and image to the destination.
2.2. Food
From the beginning of life on earth, the basic necessity of life which is essential among all the species is, 'Food'. It is obvious that food and the human are interrelated with each other since the beginning of humanity. According to Counihan & Esterik (1997), food is the foundation of all the economies, whether the country is underdeveloped, developing or fully developed, food is the crucial factor in that economy. It acts as a central pawn for political strategies of households and states. Food creates the cultures, social differences, boundaries, bonds and, contradictions in societies. Maslow (1943) has considered food as the most essential element while he proposed the five hierarchies of needs, it is always been the first priority of human being to have something to eat and drink. Without food, there would not be any history of human at all, and the earliest human was more ape, living on the food provided by the tree-tops (Bode, 2000). From the Stone Age hunter to the modern man of the current society, human always tries different mythologies on food to make it more tastier. Due to the continuous change in environment and with the development of modern life facilities, human go beyond the boundaries of their specific environment and with this shifting to other lands and countries, they
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develop new lifestyles and, cultures, and alongside, there came the change in tastes of food (Remmington & Yuksel, 1998). Now a days, human is interested in tasting the food and dishes of other cultures. Food is an integral part of different cultures; food usages are prescribed by explicit and implicit rules. Just as social trends can produce changing food habits, so when changes in food usages occur, there may result widespread, and unexpected changes in other aspects of society. Food is fundamental element in any celebration, whether it is small party, wedding, or funeral. Food habits satisfy social needs, because food represents as a symbolic value in relationships (Fieldhouse, 1986). Food and eating habits are banal practices of everyday life; we all, as living being, must eat to survive (Lupton, 1996). Food also contributes other advantages like for instance, food production in a society helps for the population growth and the development of cities and towns, economy, trade, and other essential elements of human progress (Katz, 1997). Food is present at majority of festivals (Getz, 1991). And in many cases, food acts as the primary reason for festival celebration. Destinations organizes food festivals for creating the destination image and identity, developing economies, and, enabling the local to promote their cuisines to a broader range of audience.
2.3. Food Festival
Food festivals may be celebrated with one particular ingredient, or as a single dish, or an entire culinary culture. Their orgiastic consumption, public display, or their playful way to deal with the food provide us with some illustrations, such festivals helps in the well development of the culture (Katz, 1997). The food festivals can enhance the position and prominence of local products in the market and enhance sales on short travelled products, add brand values, build
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customer relationships and attract tourist to the area (Einarsen & Mykletun, 2009). It is relevant in creating good reputation and image around the region in order to attract new domestic visitors and tourist from abroad. Moreover, it provides important activities and spending outlets for locals and visitors, and enhance local communities image (Getz, 1993). Food events or festivals are not only for external promotion to attract visitors and consumers outside of the host region, but it also helps to the local communities for demonstrating their local food products for the festival visitors (Hall & Sharples, 2008 a, b). Food festivals can contribute to regional food and destination branding, with the uniqueness and enjoy ability of being in different cooking programs and, especially trying new foods.
2.4. Gladmat festival
Gladmat festival is the biggest food festival in the Scandinavian region (Einarsen & Mykletun, 2009). The festival attracts around 250,000 visitors, locally and internationally to participate in the food festival. The festival was developed first in 1998, to promote the locally produced foods and products for domestic and international visitors/tourists. According to NCE (2007), the main aim of Gladmat festival is to create innovation, business development, to interact with tourists and other exhibitors and, launching new products. The Gladmat festival provides a platform to exhibitors for interacting with the customers, which enables them to gain the views of visitors about their products. Tourists are always in search of new experiences and, they move from one place to another to attain that experience and 'strangehood' (Franklin, 2003). Therefore, through the innovation and acquainting new food products and styles, we can satisfy the current visitors and in attracting the prospective visitors.
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Chapter 3. Literature review
The purpose of this chapter is to present the theoretical framework for this thesis. In order to understand which benefits attract different stakeholder groups to participate in a festival, there exist a range of theories explaining the roles of stakeholder, the motivation behind their participation and, the outcome of this participation in terms of benefits. Therefore, in the following, the stakeholders concept will first be presented, followed by stakeholder theory alongside with the three perspectives and attributes of stakeholder theory. A brief introduction of motivational theory will be given and reason for its use in this thesis. A detailed explanation of benefit segmentation will be presented as it is the major adopted theory. This section will conclude with an explanation of the model, that will be used to clarify the relationships of stakeholder groups and, the role of motivation and benefit to these groups.
3.1. Stakeholders- What or Who are they?
As the name suggest, a stakeholder is someone who has stake in something. Researchers have argued that, successful festivals creates value that not only organizers, but as well as the business sector in the region and the visitors of festival gain surplus from (Einarsen & Mykletun, 2009; Falassi, 1987; Getz et al., 2007; Hall & Sharples, 2008 a). Therefore, the skilful management of the festival is valuable for many stakeholders. Though, the experiences of festival visitors is the core factor in the success of a festival (Einarsen & Mykletun, 2009; Chhabra, 2004), and provides the potential for the survival of the festival over the long term. But it is vital to know that, without the collaboration of different groups of stakeholder, the festivals cannot even meet their objectives over the short run (Getz, 2007; Getz et al., 2007). Accordingly, festivals are totally dependent on the support from stakeholders for survival. The interaction of stakeholders
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leads towards the constitution of a festival and its image, through the outcome of which, the festivals may able to attract the visitors (Hall & Sharples, 2008a). According to Gummesson (1996), this interaction between different actors are characterized by both collaboration and competition. This elaborates that, the stakeholders compete with each other over their specific products to attract visitors. Therefore, a central location (festival) is more attractive to stakeholders than a peripheral, where the actors have similar or different, and sometimes oppose in each other's interest, marketing strategies and, goals (Larson, 2002; Wood & Gray, 1991). According to Mossberg & Getz (2006), there are six major stakeholders that are commonly identified within a festival: owners, employees (Management), suppliers (Exhibitors), the local community, customers, and the public sector (Municipality). While, the local community and the customers in general can be considered as the visitors (Einarsen & Mykletun, 2009; Getz, 2007). The role of each stakeholder group in accordance with the festival is describe below and can be seen in the theoretical framework model.
3.1.1. Visitors
Visitors are considered as one of the most important stakeholder group participating in the festival. A number of researchers have stressed and researched on the motivation and satisfaction of the festival visitors. According to Einarsen & Mykletun (2009), one of the determinant for measuring the success of a festival is the number of visitors the festival is attracting. Getz (1991) have highlighted on the need of understanding the motivation of visitors for attending the festivals. Visitors of festivals can be classified in terms of locals, domestic, and international, depending upon the facts that, the festival is providing the attendants to fulfill their desired needs and wants. The increase number of visitors to festivals help in the betterment of economy,
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growth and development of the region, increase in business activities, enabling small firms to sell their products to a large target audience, etc. In a nutshell, the festival visitors are considered as the key stakeholder and, the short term as well as the long term success of a festival depends upon the number of visitors the festival able to attract (Einarsen & Mykletun, 2009).
3.1.2. Exhibitors
The exhibitors constituting of food, beverages and meal producers acts as one basic stakeholder of food festivals. Their companies may vary from small part-time activity firms to a large multinational companies, in production, for a small scale to wide number of audience, and in quality from general main-stream to gastronomic eminence. Creative ambitions, economic interests and passion related to food, meals, related entrepreneurship and beverages are their denominators. These denominators provides the base for the creation of entrepreneurial development and networks of their leadership and structures, which are needed for organizing a food festival (Einarsen & Mykletun, 2009). It is worth mentioning the exhibitors role in the success of the festivals. In accordance with the visitors, the exhibitors are as well the most fundamental and influential stakeholder and, thus quantity and quality of exhibitors are key factors influencing the satisfaction of the visitors. Exhibitors arrange different product designs to create the factor of innovation in the festival, which helps in the attraction of current and prospective visitors. It is important to note that, the good relationship or networking between different stakeholders in a festival helps in the development of the region (Andersson & Getz, 2008; Getz, 1991). This means that, it helps in creating the bond between exhibitors and, this can help in achieving their personal goals and objectives. In contrary, the lack of coordination and cooperation between the exhibitors can lead to misunderstanding and can also affect the festival motto.
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3.1.3. Owners
Owners are considered as the most obvious of all stakeholder (Doyle & Stern, 2006). Because, they act as the base for the festival, by providing the initial funds and resources, they start the festival. Though, the participation of visitors and exhibitors are crucial for the success of the organization, but without the support of owners the festival would not even begin. And, the management can no longer assumes that, the primary concern of those, who are owning shares in an organization is just to get the return on investment (Freeman, 1984). Now a days, the owners are institutional investors, who are taking part within the decisions of the organization, and they can even step in and can change the management (Doyle & Stern, 2006).
3.1.4. Municipality
A municipality acts as a local authority and plays a major role as both service providers and government agencies. Based on usage of employment, the municipalities is particularly significant within the sector of health, social, technical and educational operations. The individual municipalities are now freer in organizing their own businesses for the development of the region. Municipality is a 'territorial administrative unit', having its own democratically elected governments (www.lovdata.no). Municipality acts as one of the key stakeholders among the six stakeholders of festivals, stressed by Mossberg & Getz (2006). Municipality provides the services like place, security, transportation facilities, cleaning facilities, sustainability of the environment, etc. for the festivals. Therefore, it plays an important and key role within the success of a festival.
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3.1.5. Management
In most of the studies, the management is treated as 'hub' of stakeholder model. The management of the festival plays an odd and unique stakeholder role, because they help in the collaboration and interaction of all the stakeholder groups under one platform. Management handles the task of coordination, between all stakeholder groups participating in a festival, so that the success and best outcome from the festival could be achieved. The organizers of the festivals tend to create surplus from each stakeholder relationship in order to fulfill each stakeholder group's desired need, for their participation in the festival (Andersson & Getz, 2008).
3.1.6. Explanation of model
The Management acts as the central body within any organization and festival (Getz, 2007; Getz, Andersson & Larson, 2007). The management creates the environment to gather all the stakeholder groups under an umbrella (festival). Therefore, in this model, management have been placed in the centre as the coordinating body between different actors of the stakeholder groups.
Model 1: The stakeholder groups at Gladmat festival
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The rest of the stakeholder groups acts as the key players within the festival, that without the participation of any of these groups, the festival would cease to exist. The relation of stakeholders can be explained well with the example of a car. If we consider the whole festival as a car, then management acts as its engine and body, while the rest of the stakeholder groups acts as its tires. And, without the mutual collaboration of these parts, the car would stop moving. Similar is in the case of festivals, without the mutual interdependence of the stakeholder groups the festival would lose its existence. This relationship between the different players within a festival have been well addressed by the stakeholder theory.
3.2. Stakeholder Theory
Stakeholders of an event and festival can be described as those, 'who have personal and compelling interest in the success of an event' (Hoyle, 2002). The pioneer of the stakeholder theory, Freeman (1984) suggested that, the organization are characterized and distinguished by its relationships to various individuals and groups, including customers, employees, exhibitors, government, suppliers, municipalities and, members of communities. In order for the organization to get a concrete yield and achieve success, the management should manage well the relationship between the stakeholder groups (Freeman, 1984). The stakeholder theory discusses about groups having stakes in an organization and, which of these actors are considered and addressed by the organizations (Mitchell, Agle, & Woods, 1997). Since its origin, a number of researchers have used this approach to highlight the relationship between different groups of stakeholders, because organizations are totally dependent on stakeholders. Anderson & Getz (2008) wrote about the stakeholder theory that, it relates to a
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wider environment of entities and people that can affect, or be affected by, an organization's actions. Basically, the approach was developed to know about individuals and groups who can affect organization, and also about the managerial behavior that should be taken in response to those individuals and groups (Freeman, 1984: p. 48). Freeman have advocated a broad definition of stakeholder as, “any group or individual who can affect or are affected by, the accomplishment and achievement of the organization's objective and purpose” (1984: p. 25). As discussed earlier that, the stakeholder groups are the key players in any festivals, without their involvement the event or festival cannot even exist. According to Donaldson & Preston (1995), a group can be classified as a stakeholder if it has legitimate interest towards the activities of the organization and, thus, has either stake in organization or the power to affect the organization's performance (Freeman, 1984). Bradley (2010) defined stakeholder as, "any individual, group or organization, who will be affected by, or have influence over, the proposed investment in change". Freeman (1994) clarifies between the two types of change in an organization or firm i.e. internal and external. The internal change has been referred to owners, suppliers, customers and employees, while the external change arose by the emergence of new groups, events and issues which is not clearly known in the framework. He added that this conditions creates vagueness in the organization. Environmentalist for example they create huge effect for the business if the firm is polluting or misusing the environment. The fundamental and essential basis of the stakeholder theory is thus 'normative'. It redefines an organization as 'stakeholder interests' coordinating and optimizing, requiring a firm to accept the two basic concepts. First, the stakeholders are persons and groups, having their legitimate
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interests within the procedural and substantive aspects of an organization's activities. And secondly, interests of the stakeholder groups have their intrinsic values i.e. a particular stakeholder group merits the consideration basing on their own interest (Donaldson & Preston, 1995). Similarly, the theory submits that, it is the key responsibility of a manager, to select activities for obtaining the optimal benefits for all the identified groups of stakeholders, without prioritizing one stakeholder's interest over another (Donaldson & Preston, 1995; Freeman, 1984; Mitchell, Agle & Wood, 1997; Sautter & Leisen, 1999). The stakeholder theory mainly focuses on the relationship between organization and the stakeholders. The festival or organization is in the center and the cooperation and relation of the stakeholders to the festival is the key point (Getz, Andersson & Larson, 2007). Donaldson & Preston (1995) argues that, the effective management of stakeholder groups can enhance organizational wealth, and the economic benefits can be generated by positive relationships between an organization and its stakeholders (Fletcher et al, 2003).
3.2.1. Stakeholder perspectives
Donaldson & Preston (1995), had offered a taxonomy of different stakeholder theories, placing them to three separate categories. Jones & Wicks (1999) argued that, this typology can help in delineating the intellectual areas which are covered by the stakeholder theory's two founding schools: empirical stakeholder theory (basing on descriptive and instrumental perspectives); and normative theory (basing on ethics). The explanation of these three stakeholder perspectives are briefly discussed below.
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3.2.1.1. Descriptive Perspective
In this perspective, the theory is being used for describing specific behaviors and characteristics of stakeholders and usually includes the firm's nature, describing how the management of the firm should conceive of different stakeholder groups and, explaining how the different organizations are actually being managed. It focus on the mutual thinking and the common interest of the board members. Finally, it clarifies that, how the organizations should be managed, but it only allows the exploratory propositions (Donaldson & Preston, 1995). This approach does not enables any specific connection that is to be made between the traditional business objectives and stakeholder management (earnings, growth, etc.).
3.2.1.2. Instrumental Perspective
The instrumental perspective tends to apprehend the bond between the mutually beneficial outcomes and stakeholder approaches. In general, this approach is used for exploring the causal relationships i.e. the cause (the stakeholder management) and effects (performance of the organization) (Donaldson & Preston, 1995). It discusses about the need of stakeholders for doing good business (Jones, 1995). The core idea, that instrumental perspective stressed about is, the firms practicing the stakeholder management can perform the better outcome in stability, profitability, growth, etc. Increase in the profitability and securing the financial growth of the firm is the main strategic purpose of the instrumental perspective (Donaldson & Preston, 1995).
3.2.1.3. Normative Perspective
The normative perspective of the stakeholder theory stresses the relations between stakeholder and management on their philosophical principles and ethical aspects. This view defends the
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stakeholders with having an intrinsic value (Berman, Wicks, Kotha & Jones, 1999; Freeman, 1994; Jones & Wicks, 1999; Ogden & Watson, 1999). According to Donaldson & Preston (1995), this perspective helps in specifying and distinction basing on moral obligations rather than stakeholder positions. The normative perspective emphasizes on ethical obligations that a firm faces, and how it can satisfy the stakeholders without denying its interest in achieving the economic success. Furthermore it helps in explaining, how the objectives are being pursued by actors themselves (by organization and the stakeholders) and can mutually reinforce.
3.2.2. Stakeholder Attributes
The stakeholders have three attributes, through which they influence the decisions of the organization. Mitchell, Agle, & Wood (1997), have stressed on interactive importance of these three attributes of stakeholders. The concepts of "Power" and "legitimacy" were well established, but they introduce the concept of "urgency" for the first time. They proposed that the salience of stakeholders can be well determined by their attributes of power, legitimacy, and urgency.
3.2.2.1. Power
In most of the definitions of stakeholders, there is some element of power involved. That is the reason most of the researchers have focused on defining this concept to provide the better understanding of its relations to various stakeholder groups. According to Mitchell et al., (1997: p. 862), "Power" can be defined as 'the ability of one party to require another to do something which would not otherwise be done'. Power can also be defined as 'the potential of obtaining a desired result in relationships where the factor of interests opposed' (Willer, Lovagila & Markovsky, 1997). A stakeholder with the factor of power have the ability to influence the decisions of the organization. Power is not steady, maybe at one stage a certain stakeholder
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group have the power to influence the decision of the organization but on another point some other group would have the same influencing power (Jawahar & McLaughlin, 2001; Mitchell et al., 1997).
3.2.2.2. Legitimacy
The concept of "legitimacy" has been defined by Suchman (1995: p. 574) as a, 'gneralized assumption or perception that the certain actions of stakeholder groups are proper, appropriate, or desirable within some socially constructed system of values, norms, definitions and beliefs'. The attributes of legitimacy are mainly focuses on the normative perspective of the stakeholder theory. Legitimacy explains the fact that, 'which stakeholders really counts' (Mitchel et al., 1997) determining the claims of stakeholders are appropriate, desirable or proper in regards to the social values, norms, and beliefs (Suchman, 1995). Stakeholder's legitimacy can increase the stakeholder's salience for instrumental reasons. It is a behavior that is socially recognized and accepted throughout the society and is accompanied with power that examines the relationships in the society. Together, the force of power and legitimacy can establish authority, that is a legal way of exerting decisions in organization (Mitchell et al., 1997).
3.2.2.3. Urgency
The concept of 'urgency', as discussed earlier have initially proposed and defined by Mitchell et al., (1997: p. 867) as, "the degree to which stakeholder claims call for immediate attention". Urgency was thought as to reflect how managers prioritize the stakeholder claims, basing on the facts and assessments of time sensitivity and criticality (Mossberg & Getz, 2006). According to Mitchell et al., (1997), two pre-requisites should be fulfilled before taking into consideration the concept of urgency. Firstly, the claim or relationship is sensitive to time, and secondly, the claim
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or relationship is critical or important to the stakeholder. With the addition of 'urgency' in the stakeholder attributes, the model have moved 'from static to dynamic' (Mitchell et al., 1997: p. 867).
3.3. Motivation
In order to clarify and explain the concept of benefit, we need to use the concept of motivation. Because, motivation acts as the starting point which initiates the decision process in stakeholders to participate in the festival. According to Middleton (1994: p. 51), motivation is "the internal, psychological influences affecting individuals". The motivation comprised of biological/ psychological needs and wants, that arouses a person's activity and behavior (Dann, 1977; IsoAhola, 1980). Crompton & McKay (1997) have indicated three reasons for understanding the motivation to attend festival and, one of these indicates that, understanding the motives have close relationship with the benefits (satisfaction). Therefore, a clear understanding of consumers' motive is pre-requisite to designing and tailoring offerings in particular market (Park et al., 2008). There are three renowned theories present in the literature of tourism motivation to explain the tourists' motives. These includes Maslow's hierarchy of needs (1943), Push and pull motivation (Dann, 1977) and, escape-seeking dichotomy (Iso-Ahola, 1982). Two of these have been employed in this thesis, because of their relevance with the research topic i.e. Maslow's hierarchy of needs and, Push and Pull motivation.
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3.3.1. Maslow's Hierarchy of needs
Abraham Maslow is a psychologist and, the pioneer of the hierarchy needs theory which is popular among researchers of social sciences. He contributed to the research world, by segmenting the human needs into five levels and categorized them as lower and higher needs (1943). The lower needs include three layers which he called as, the physiological, safety, and love/belonging needs. While, the higher needs consist of the esteem and self-actualization. In the explanation he stated that, when the lower needs or the deficiency needs are being fulfilled then man progresses to the higher or growth need (Noltemeyer, Bush, Patton & Bergen, 2012). Physiological needs are the basic necessities to human beings, this includes the need for food, air, water, shelter, and the need to be active, to rest and sleep. These needs are the physical requirement for the survival of any human being. In the absence of any of these requirements, the human body would not work properly and will ultimately collapse. With the satisfaction of physical needs, the safety and security needs take dominance and preference in the behavior of human being. Maslow explained it in relevance to certain situations, such as, with the absence of physical safety i.e. family violence, childhood abuse, natural disaster, etc. people may experience stress, trauma, etc. The lack of economic safety i.e. lack of job opportunities and economic crisis will enforce the person to have job security, saving account, etc. After the fulfillment of physiological and safety needs, the third segment of human needs are interpersonal needs i.e. the feelings of belongingness such as, family, friends, relatives, etc. According to Maslow, humans are in need to feel a sense of acceptance and belonging among
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their social groups, co-workers, professional organizations. He further stressed that, people may became susceptible due to loneliness or, in the absence of belonging or love element. With the accomplishment of lower needs, the humans move to the fourth level of hierarchy i.e. the need of having self-respect and self-esteem. This need presents on the typical desire of human to be valued and accepted by others. People engage to certain hobbies and professions to gain recognition and, this enables the sense of value or contribution. Maslow highlighted two kinds of esteem needs i.e. lower (respect from others) and, higher (need for self-respect). This final tier of Maslow's hierarchy is the self-actualization that refers to realization of person's potential i.e. what the person is and what he can be. Maslow proposed that, the desire for selffulfillment i.e. the need to become, what one is or what one is capable of. Maslow used self actualization to be described as desire rather than as driving force. In brief, the Maslow’s need hierarchy have provided the base for others to conduct and driving new motivational theories. Among those theories, the push and pull motivation is one of the key theory, proposed by Dann (1977), to understand the core factors that influence tourist to visit a certain festival, event or, region.
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Fig 1: Maslow's Hierarchy of needs
3.3.2. Push and Pull Motivation
Dann (1977) proposed the push-pull motivation framework to understand these needs and motivation of visitors for traveling. These concepts involve theory that visitors travel because they are being pushed and choice of destination depends upon the pulled forces (benefits) through which they choose a particular destination. According to Crompton & Mckay (1997), this model is mostly used for discussing the motivation especially in the tourism context. Push factor or motivation are related to the emotional or internal aspects, such as escape, relaxation and rest, social loneliness or boredom. The push motivation is an event or feature that encourages and pushes a person to leave his/her current country, city, residence, etc. According to Dann, the person in this state wants to 'escape' from his current situation or lifestyle (1977).
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According to Dann (1977), 'pull' factors are the key elements that attract the tourist to a particular destination and whose value have seen to reside in the object of travel. The pull factors are the external factors that the visitors associated with the destination, such as cultural image, the climate of a destination or the landscape, which induce a tourist for traveling for a certain location. These pull factors are linked to situational, cognitive, or external aspects, of which, the attributes of chosen destination, natural or cultural features, leisure infrastructure are examples. All in all, push and pull factors helps the scholars of social sciences for the better understanding of tourist's motivation for visiting certain destination. In addition, it provides the distinction between the two types of motivation i.e. intrinsic which is related to the personal internal motive and, extrinsic motivation which enhance the findings that why they prioritize a destination over the other.
Model 2: Modified model of stakeholder groups with the inclusion of Motivation
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3.3.3. Explanation of Model
According to Crompton & McKay (1997: p. 425), 'motives are the starting point that launches the decision process'. This clarify the use of motivational factors in the outer layer of theoretical framework model. The stakeholder groups have certain motives in their mind to participate in the festival or to visit a destination and, 'the decision to visit a festival is a directed action which is triggered by a desire to meet a need' (Crompton & McKay, 1997: p. 425). The identification of motive is the starting point, which further leads the management to amend the contexts and practical settings of the festival and provide the stakeholders with the benefits they sought for their participation. According to Mayfield & Crompton (1995 b), the organizers of festivals have multiples reason for staging an event and identifying the benefits sought by different stakeholder groups. Applying the Benefit segmentation technique on stakeholder can enables the management to provide the desired benefit to the particular group and enhance their satisfaction. In the prospective section of this chapter, we will highlight on the concept of benefit and benefit segmentation to propose our core and final theoretical framework model.
3.4. Benefits - What are they?
Festivals are attracting tourists who otherwise might never visited the area (Getz, 1991; Lee & Arcodia, 2011; Lee et al., 2012; Li et al., 2009). Thus, the purpose of festivals have extended beyond its 'traditional' basic goal of just generating money, rather, they provide the benefits to the region by strengthening the political, economic, socio-cultural and environmental situations in the region (Chhabra et al., 2003; Edwards et al., 2004; Lee & Arcodia, 2011). Events and
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festivals tourism is growing (Getz, 2007), therefore a number of researchers have placed their interest on finding the significant role of festivals and events in terms of 'visitors motivation' (Bowen & Daniels, 2005; Formica & Uysal, 1996; Kim et al, 2006; Lee et al., 2007; Li & Patrick, 2006; McMorland & MacTaggart, 2008), 'organizers perception' (Gursoy et al., 2004; Hall, 1992) 'Stakeholder roles' (Getz et al., 2007; Getz & Anderson, 2008; Reid, 2007), 'economic gain' (Edwards et al., 2004; Gelan, 2004), or marketing (Grunwell, Ha, & Martin, 2008; Kim et al., 2008; Yoon et al., 2000). But, the research on the 'benefits' attained by different stakeholder groups (visitors, exhibitors, municipality and, owners) is scarce within the literature of event and festival tourism upon searching in the databases. Therefore, it is worthwhile to invest our time and resources to understand the core benefits that coincide with these stakeholder groups. As discussed earlier that, motivation is the starting point of any 'experience'. The experience are the benefits, which is the outcome of motivation. Motivation influences a person for certain action, but the outcome of that action is the benefit which the individual is gaining. The term “Benefits” in general refers to anything which someone receives, that has perceived value. Benefits of tourism for community are in the form of environmental, psychological, social, cultural or economic gains. These benefits may be realized by the entire community or distributed to individual groups or business firms (Jafari et al., 2000). Stebbins (2006: p. 11/12) has defined benefit for leisure tourism as, 'an agreeable outcome, anticipated or not, of a person's participation in a leisure activity, while that outcome may be anything appealing to the participant, whether in terms of physical, psychological, social, or something else'. Lee, Arcodia & Lee (2012: p. 335) have defined the benefits in terms of festival visitors as 'the ultimate value that people place on what they believe they have gained from observation or
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participation in activities and interaction with settings provided by festivals'. Such a definition can be applied to different stakeholder groups with minor modifications. So, according to our understanding, benefit can be defined as, the outcome or the ultimate value gained from an activity, through which the participants' motive of participation is being achieved, enabling them to feel enthusiastic, committed and, satisfied with the observation and interaction in those activities in the festival. In a study Nicholson & Pearce (2001) investigated the motivations of attendee towards four different events in New Zealand: an award ceremony; a wild food festival; an air show; and a food, wine and music festival. And in all these cases the dominant reason for attending is directly related to the theme and specific activities being offered at the event. The benefit each group of stakeholder is seeking would be partially or totally different from the other group, so providing each group with their desired benefit can enhance in the success of an organization (McDonald, 1989). Companies are developing the products according to the benefits sought by customers, and is considered as most practical and useful way to explain the behavior of customers (McDonald, 1989). Similar is in the case of festivals that, by understanding the benefits sought by different stakeholder groups, management can 'stage' the event according to their desires.
3.4.1. Benefit Segmentation
Market segmentation is very important in classifying products that fits to the visitors need. It is focusing on the segment which is most interested on particular product and service, and investing marketing effort on those segments (Cohen, 2003; Formica & Uysal, 1998). From the mid of 1950s, the researchers of marketing have responded towards the needs of management to conduct the market segmentation studies. These researches are differentiated by the descriptive information about attitudes, benefits sought and, beliefs about the purchase volume, geographic
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boundaries, demographic usage, purchasing styles, and so on. However, the focus on benefits as means of segmentation have gained some attention from the early work of Haley (1968). This influences the researchers to look at the segmentation from the perspective of benefits sought by the customers, and is currently being seen as the mainstay of many segmentation studies conducted recently (Cole & Illum, 2006; Frochot, 2005; Lee, Arcodia & Lee, 2012). Haley (1968) measured a product on its benefits, and then the people with similar sets of benefits are termed as 'benefit segments'. Aaker (2001, as cited from Cohen, 2003: p. 1) wrote about the benefit segmentation as, "If there is a most useful segmentation variable, it would be the benefits sough from a product, because the selection of benefits can determine a total business strategy". Several segmentation techniques and methods have been used in marketing to satisfy the needs of the target consumers and each technique have its specific purpose and methods to attract the prospective customers, and satisfying the needs of current customers as well. To employ all those segmentation processes is difficult within one research. So, for the better understanding of the benefits, the 'Benefit Segmentation' approach has been introduced in this research, because of its relevance research topic. The aim of this approach was to provide the marketers with the better understanding and predicting the future buying behavior of customers than the traditional segmentation techniques, such as demographic, geographic, or volume based segmentation (Frochot & Morrison, 2000; Haley, 1995). Benefit segmentation have provide a much wider range of applications than the traditional techniques and segmentation methods as it provides the marketers with a full picture from the view point of customer i.e. from the motivational profiles to socioeconomic and behavioral characteristics which helps in the positioning of a product. The tourism industry can prepare the right products and services for the visitors if it identifies the visitors benefit. (Frochot &
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Morrison, 2000). Loker & Perdue (1992) believed that, benefit sought is a useful tool for market segmentation, because of its tendency in providing the organization with the causal factor placed after the purchase behavior. According to Haley (1995: p. 60) benefit segmentation is an, 'approach to market segmentation, whereby it is possible to identify market segments by causal factors rather than descriptive factors'. Haley believed that, the benefits which people are seeking in the consumption of a given product are the main reasons for the existence of market segments. This segmentation does not refused the importance of the traditional market segmentation techniques, instead, it helps the marketer to have clear picture. This technique helps in classifying the people into segments in accordance to the benefits, then each segment can be further contrasted with other traditional segments in terms of consumption ratio, demographic, brand perception and so forth. By doing this, we can extract a deeper understanding of the people in making up each of the segment. Benefit segmentation is relevant concept to understand the consumers or visitors market in the tourism settings (Frochot, 2005). Haley argued that, the benefits helps in providing the deeper understanding of consumption needs and motivations. Benefits do predict the behavior better than lifestyle and personality, demographic, geographic or volumetric measures, which can merely describe the behavior without explaining it (Haley, 1985; Young et al., 1980). The benefit segmentation is a key tool for capturing prospective customers through modification in the communicational strategies (Haley, 1971). All in all, the benefit segmentation is a tool which helps in improving the communications with groups of consumers selected as target market and, improves the chances of capturing the
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attention of prospective groups. The marketer or organization who can use benefit selling to reach the prospective and current customers is displaying a willingness to meet and understand the buying needs, objectives and, wants of those prospects (Bingham & Raffield, 1994). To be successful in the market, it is crucial for the salespeople to determine, the important benefits customers are placing behind their purchase decision.
3.5. Summary
Four theories have been used in the literature in order to clarify the propose the conceptual framework model. The first theory explains the role of stakeholders within an organization or festival and, how they can affect the performance of an organization. As the stakeholder theory concludes that, effective and efficient management of stakeholder groups are required for the success of any organization or festival. The 'push and pull' factors and Maslow's hierarchy explains the role of motivation for individual stakeholder groups. Followed by, the benefit segmentation approach to undergo the core benefits for each stakeholder groups. These theories are important for management as they reveal the role of each stakeholder group, motivation behind their participation and, the benefits they are getting for their participation. All theories have been used to explain the importance of benefits, and which factors that leads the intention of stakeholders for participation. We will use elements from all the theories above in our research to determine that, what are the benefits each stakeholder group is seeking for their participation in the Gladmat food festival. Frochot & Morrison (2000) stated that, understanding the benefits can help the management for promotional strategies and designing communication, providing appropriate facilities for visitors, and this would be the same for other stakeholder groups.
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3.6. Choice of model
Under this section a complete description of chosen framework for the research will first be given. Followed by, the reasons for choice of motivation and benefit and, reason for their placement in the theoretical framework model. It should be noted that, the aim of this research is to explore and describe the benefits influencing the stakeholder groups to participate in the Gladmat festival.
Model 3: Theoretical framework model of stakeholders
3.6.1. Explanation of the model
As discussed earlier about the choice of stakeholders, the role of management and, the use of traditional concept of 'motivation' in the outermost circle of our theoretical framework model. Before moving to the choice of benefit segmentation strategy, we will first give a brief discussion about these concepts.
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As Mossberg & Getz highlighted that, there are six major stakeholders in festivals (2006). They mentioned the local community and customers as separate stakeholder groups, while in general both local community and customers can be considered as 'visitors' (Einarsen & Mykletun, 2009). The other stakeholder groups surrounding management gives the view of festival. Each and every stakeholder group have certain motivation for participation in the festival. As scholars of social sciences have described that, motivation is the starting point of any action, that is to be taken. As per our understanding, the so-called motivation occur before they come to the particular theme. Therefore, in the theoretical framework model used in this research, we have used motivation in the outermost circle i.e. certain intention occurs in the mind of the visitors before they participate into the 'staged event'. It is important to note that, from the last four decades, understanding the motivational factors have been considered vital by the scholars of event and festival studies. It is true that, understanding the motivation of stakeholders are important. But, the question arises that, what are the benefits they are getting for their participation from that motivation i.e. how are they fulfilling their motive of participation. The motivation leads the person to take certain behavior and the outcome of that behavior can be regarded as 'benefits'. Therefore, as indicated in the purpose of this thesis that, what are the benefits, stakeholders are getting from their participation. Hence, in this thesis we put forward that, by understanding the benefits of stakeholders for their participation, can enable the management to satisfy the stakeholders, which will help in attracting more visitors and exhibitors.
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To understand the benefits, we have employed in the benefit segmentation approach proposed by Haley (1968). According to Greenberg & McDonald (1989), benefit segmentation is better than other forms of marketing segmentation approaches and has stood the test of time. The approach of benefit segmentation was initially been generated to segment the consumers by the benefits they are looking for, in a certain product. And, each stakeholder group used in this thesis considered as individual i.e. a particular visitor, a certain exhibitor, an owner etc. Each of these stakeholder would be participating in the festival for their individual benefit. And, these benefits would only be achieved after they participate in the festival. Therefore, in the theoretical framework model, we have put 'benefits' at the internal layer.
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Chapter 4. Methodology
The discipline of social science consists of quantitative and the qualitative research methods to clarify the link between constructs. According to Neuman (2011), the measurement process and the selection of the methods depends upon the data and concept of study. In this thesis, we have collected the data using both qualitative and quantitative research methods. We have used qualitative research method to explore the benefits of stakeholder groups (Exhibitors, Municipality, Owners) and, quantitative research method to describe the benefits that visitors are seeking for their participation.
4.1. Mixed Methods Research
Mixed method research is the application of both the traditional qualitative and quantitative research at the same time when we conducting a research. The goal of a mixed method research is not to replace either of these approaches but it helps us to strengths and minimizes the weaknesses both in single research studies and across studies. The main strengths of the mixed research are using numbers you can add precision to words, pictures and narrative, it can answer a broad research question because the researcher has more flexibility. This method can offer for the researcher additional strength to overcome of the weakness in one method through the use of both qualitative and quantitative research methods in your study. Further it can increase the understanding of the study and avoid misunderstanding arises due to the use of single method. The generalize-ability of the results also increases. It helps to produce complete knowledge to inform theory and practice.
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Some of the weakness of this method are it could be expensive, more time consuming. It can be difficult for one researcher to carry out both the qualitative and quantitative researches; it may require a research team (Johnson et al, 2004). In the prospective section of this chapter, we will highlight the key ideas in these methods, but prior to that we need to define about the three types of research designs used in the discipline of social science, and briefly discussed the designs used in this paper.
4.2. Research Design
A research design is the framework or plan for a study, used as a guide to collect and analyze data (Churchill & Iacobucci, 2010).The research design helps the researcher to ensure that the study will be important to the research problem as well as it will use economic procedures (Churchill, Brown & Suter, 2010). A research design builds up the foundation for conducting a research, and we can differentiate between three types of designs as, exploratory, descriptive and causal research design (Neumann, 2011). As the main aim of this research thesis is to explore the 'benefit' variables for stakeholder groups (Owners, Exhibitors, Municipality) and, to describe the phenomenon of 'benefit segmentation' for the visitors to participate in the Gladmat festival. While, the causal research helps to determine the cause and effect relationship between the variables (Iaccobucci & Churchill, 2010). Furthermore, it is not of any interest to investigate the cause and effect relationship in this study. Therefore, the best research designs for this thesis will thus be exploratory and descriptive design. Exploratory research design helps the researcher to undergo the problem when the subject of study is new or not yet been explored (Neumann, 2011: p. 38). An exploratory research would be conducted in order to obtain a greater understanding of concepts. It also helps in identifying
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important variables that should be studied (McDaniel & Gates, 2004). In the discipline of social science, the researchers prefer the exploratory research design in combination with the qualitative method to provide detailed information about the subject to be explored and, this enables the scholars to collect information in detail (Neumann, 2011: p. 39). According to Malhotra (1999), the information needed at this stage would be loosely defined, and the research process which is being adopted would be unstructured and flexible. The findings from exploratory research would be regarded as input to further research or as tentative. With the implementation of exploratory research design together with qualitative research method, we can explore the benefits of stakeholder groups. Descriptive research design helps us in describing the relationships, such as functions or the characteristics (Malhotra, 1999). This design sometimes follow the pattern of an exploratory research assuming that, the researcher has great deal of knowledge related to the problem under investigation. The descriptive research design is based on the already formulated research questions, and the results are numbered. Therefore, this design is based on large samples and is highly structured (Malhotra, 2007). Descriptive design would be utilized in situation where one, two or several variables are to be correlated, and then to describe this correlation between the variables. According to Merriam (2009), the descriptive studies requires a clear specification of who, what, when, where, why, and how of the research. The descriptive research will help us in describing the benefits, considered by visitors, as crucial for their participation to the Gladmat festival.
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4.3. Qualitative Research Method
We have employed in the qualitative method, to answer the question, what are the benefits, stakeholders (Exhibitors, Municipality, Owners) are getting to participate in the Gladmat festival. The research to understand the benefits of these stakeholder groups lacks in the literature. Therefore, in order to explore the benefits which these stakeholder groups are seeking, we have used qualitative research method. The qualitative research method helps in gaining ideas and insights, and it is the most appropriate technique to deploy in situations, where there does not exist a great deal of knowledge (Churchill & Iacobucci, 2010). By conducting the qualitative method, we can explore the variables that have not been researched prior to this thesis. The qualitative research method is a flexible approach, because it not only help in producing the list of predictive variables or factors, but it also gives us an insight on, why certain variables are prioritized (Churchill & Iacobucci, 2010). We have conducted 'In-depth' interview in order to explore the benefits of stakeholders for their participation in the Gladmat festival. According to Neumann, face-to-face interview is the most common form used for interviewing (2011). This type of interview enables an environment of trust between the researcher and therefore, most likely the respondent will answer honestly. The interviews conducted are unstructured and, this allows the researcher in asking for elaborations and descriptions, that would be harder to obtain from the written survey (Churchill & Iacobucci, 2010). Qualitative method is demonstrated by written or spoken words and it leaves the data in un-standardized forms, shape and size. In qualitative method the analysis follows up through extracting themes or generalizations from the evidence and demonstrates in a coherent and consistent image (Neumann, 2011, p.174).
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All the qualitative interviews started in the same way, with the same questions and context. However, when the respondents started to answer the questions, a two way conversation may arise about the motivation and benefits concept. In the research sense, this technique is called as 'laddering' and can help in discovering the differences and relationships between the motivation and benefits (Churchill & Iacobucci, 2010). This technique enabled us in achieving more depth answers and information related to the core topic of thesis.
4.3.1. The interview guide
The interview guide will show, how interviews were conducted, and it can be found in the appendix (Number). We start the interview by thorough instructions of how interview will be conducted, stressed on the confidentiality and anonymity of interview. Respondents were encouraged to think deeply before answering and, take pauses to think, as recommended by Supphellen (2000). We have explained the contexts of the study, prior to asking questions from respondents. It is considered as of great importance that respondents able to understand what is being asked and that the question and information would be clear and, it is important to use the familiar language that the respondent will understand (Churchill & Iacobucci, 2010). Therefore, with some respondents, the questions were clarified with the help of Norwegian language and, in some contexts the whole interview was conducted in Norwegian language. The way question are asked and formed are crucial in obtaining the required information (Merriam, 2009). In addition, the researchers must consider the differences in response styles and that a particular technique would not perfectly work on all the respondents (Neumann, 2011). As the qualitative method is used to explore the benefit variables. Therefore, respondents were being
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asked similar questions from different perspectives in order to extract the benefit factors for their participation. At the end of each interview, respondents were asked about their motivation and benefit again. In order for us to gain some more information related to the researched topic. The information helped us in extracting more detailed information about the concerned topics from the stakeholders.
4.3.2. Pre-test of qualitative interview
According to Churchill & Iacoubucci, it is vital to conduct pre-test in order to understand how the questions and definitions would undergo in the real circumstances during the collection of data (2010: 590). A pre-test is considered as crucial, because it can reveal misunderstanding and ambiguity in the questions. This technique helps the researcher to control the items, to clarify the questions, to avoid difficult terminologies and phrases on the list (Neumann, 2011). During this research, we conducted the pre-test on two respondents before going for the actual interviews, to avoid problems in understanding of questions and, to fill the existed gap. prior to conduct the pre-test, we have elaborated to the respondents about their role and activities, which they are performing during the Gladmat festival. The situation was been explained to the each respondent separately to avoid biasness in the answers. The overall purpose of pre-test interviews was that to have the right questions to the interviewee, improve the interviews in order to obtain the information which can answer for the topic under investigation. The pre-tests have provided positive results, and did not required any significant change in the interview guide. The results indicated the introduction text is understandable, and does not require any change.
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4.3.3. The Interviews
A total number of 14 respondents were interviewed from different stakeholder groups for the purpose of this research apart from the pre-tests. The pre-test interviews were positive as they were indicating the relation of answers with the purpose of the study. All the interviews were conducted through face to face methodology in their offices and in conductive environment, as it has been stressed by the scholars of social sciences to be the best way of conducting qualitative research and, permits the interviewer to present long and variety questions (Churchill & Iaccoubi, 2010; Neumann, 2011). Face to face interviewed helped us in gaining the trust of the respondents as they were being told about the privacy of their information. It is important to maintain the privacy of information while conducting the interviews for avoiding the biasness in responses (Neumann, 2011). Respondents were informed in advance that interviews would take approximately 45 minutes, but can go longer depending upon the information. Besides that, a brief introduction and purpose of the research was been provided to each of the respondent, prior to the beginning of the interviews. All interviews were recorded and then transcribed shortly after being recorded. In most of the cases there were a need to ask follow-up questions about the importance of certain factors, or what actually respondent meant by what was being said. As the main objective for conducting these interviews was to explore the list of benefits that stakeholders were obtaining for participating in the Gladmat festival.
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4.3.4. Respondents
The respondents of our qualitative research consisted of both men and women. All the respondents are attached to top ranked positions in different fields of businesses. We have choose convenient samples in order to get the information from the stakeholder groups (owners, exhibitors, and, municipality). But, as they were attached to different lines of businesses, so it was expected different and valuable information from them. A total number of 14 in-depth interviews were conducted to gather the information about benefit. For confidentiality purposes, the name and company of the respondents will not be submitted and respondents will be simply named as A, B, C, etc. under their particular stakeholder group.
4.3.5. Reliability and Validity
The outcome of the qualitative research is in terms of words rather than numbers like in quantitative research. Therefore, as compare to quantitative research method, it is hard to provide the evidence of reliability and validity in the qualitative research (Hill, 2012). Because, firstly, the scholars of qualitative research have no shared 'short hand', estimates of inter-rater reliability, p values, and the variance of error on which to rely, which makes it difficult to attain the construct of validity. Secondly, the struggle in adopting the language and approaches from quantitative research i.e. no statistics involvement (Hill, 2012). All in all, unlike quantitative researchers who mostly seek the prediction, causal determination, and generalization of findings, the qualitative researcher would seek understanding, extrapolation, and illumination to similar situations (Golafshani, 2003). Also, the results of qualitative analysis came in different type of knowledge depending upon the compatibility of the research method used.
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Thus, scholars of social sciences have proposed different methods to proof the presence of reliability and validity in the qualitative research. From those techniques, we have drawn out the most vital, and those will be discussed in the prospective section in support with their implementation in the thesis.
4.3.5.1. Reliability
Although the term of reliability is used for evaluating or testing of quantitative research, but the idea is feasible in all kinds of research. But, if we see this idea of testing as the way of information elicitation, then providing the quality is the most important test in any qualitative study (Golafshani, 2003). According to Eisner (1991), a good qualitative research can enable us in understanding the situation which would other be confusing or enigmatic. In the quantitative research, the concept of reliability would be used for the 'purpose of explaining'. Whereas, in relation to the qualitative research, the concept of quality would refer to the 'generating of understanding' (Golafshani, 2003). The term of 'reliability' in a qualitative research is been used as 'dependability', which is closely related with the notion of 'reliability' in quantitative research (Golafshani, 2003). The dependability in the qualitative research enables us to examine the product and process of the research for consistency. Flick (1999) have further clarified the concept of reliability and highlighted the presence of two key factors for evidencing it. Firstly, the genesis of data needs should be explicated such a way that would make it possible to check, what is the statement of a subject on one hand and where researcher's interpretation is beginning on the other. Secondly, procedures in the interview or field and with the needed text to be made explicit in rechecking and training to improve the comparability of different observers' or interviewers' conduct.
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In our thesis, we have explicitly provided all the necessary evidences which indicates the presence of reliability in this research. Alongside with that, the questionnaire for the qualitative interview and the answers from the respondents have been attached in the appendix (NO.).
4.3.5.2. Validity
In the discussions about the foundations of qualitative research, the concept of validity receives more importance than that of reliability (Flick, 1999; Golafshani, 2003; Hill, 2012). This concept is not fixed, universal or single idea, rather, it is a contingent construct, which is inescapably grounded in the intentions and processes of particular research projects and methodologies (Hill, 2012). Guba (1981) have stressed that, the qualitative researcher In the 'qualitative research methods', different terms are being used for validating the study, such as, trustworthiness, Credibility, Transferability, Dependability, and Conformability (Lincoln & Guba, 1985).
4.3.5.2.1. Trustworthiness
Researchers mainly associated the trustworthiness with the validity. It is being argued that, for establishing a good qualitative studies through reliability and validity, "trustworthiness of a research report lies at the heart of issues conventionally discussed as validity and reliability" (Seale, 1999: p. 266). According to Hill (2012), if the results found are consistent across studies, we can be more certain that the individual studies were been conducted in a trustworthy manner. According to Mishler (1990), validation is social construction of knowledge, by which we can evaluate the level of trustworthiness of the reported interpretations, observations, and generalizations.
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In order for us to provide the trustworthiness in our qualitative research, we have selected the sample by taking into consideration the factor of variance. So that, our data would not overlap due to the similarity of respondents and that reflects the level of trust in the selection procedure. But this concept of trustworthiness in relation to each of its paradigm will be discussed further to provide the clear understanding of each.
4.3.5.2.2. Credibility
The criteria of credibility involves in establishing the facts that the results are believable or credible from the participant's perspective in the research. This paradigm stresses on the need to describe and understand the phenomenon from the participant's eyes and that the data collected from the respondents are the only way to provide the credibility (Hill, 2012; Merriam, 2009). Therefore, to provide the credibility in the findings the data was collected from the respondents who could provide detail view about the 'benefits' for their firm to participate in the Gladmat festival.
4.3.5.2.3. Transferability
The idea of transferability refers to the certain degree to which the outcomes of the qualitative research could be transferred or generalized to the other settings or contexts (Hill, 2012). It is being stressed by the followers of the qualitative research that, the issue of transferability is prime responsibility of the one carrying out the generalizing of research. The researcher of qualitative method can enhance this 'transferability' by thoroughly describing the research assumptions and the contexts, that were considered crucial to the study. Therefore, the person who wanted to 'transfer' the findings and results to different context is responsible for judgment of how effective and efficient the generalizing is.
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Therefore, in this thesis, we have thoroughly described the research context and the problem. As, food festivals have the similarities around the globe (Getz, 2007) and, the analysis and results will be discussed in detail in the proceeding section of this thesis. The researchers may able to transfer the analysis and findings, of this thesis into other related festivals.
4.3.5.2.4. Conformability
In the qualitative research, researcher tends to assume that he would bring a unique and new perspective to the discipline or study. Conformability indicates that, to what degree the findings and the outcomes can be corroborated or confirmed by others (Hill, 2012). However, there are certain strategies for improving or enhancing the conformability in the research. Firstly, the researcher can enclose all the procedures for checking and rechecking of the data in the study. Secondly, the researcher can search for 'negative instances' that can contradict with the prior observations. Finally, he can do the auditing of data, which examines the analysis and the data collection procedures and then make the judgments about potential for distortion or biasness. Therefore, during the data collection for this thesis, we were in contact with the respondents. And, once the interviews were transcribed, we take the transcribed information to the particular respondent for the verification of the information. Once the transcribed information was
verified, then we have discussed the information with the advisor of the thesis. The data collection time varied as well from respondent to respondent, as for some respondent it took only 15-20 minutes to gather the necessary information. While, in some cases the duration goes over an hour to have the clear understanding about the researched topic. Therefore, it was necessary for us to verify the information from the respondents after it was transcribed.
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4.3.6. Summary of Qualitative research method
The qualitative research method helps us in developing an insight on the issue, which we know very little or nothing about. Therefore, in this thesis, the qualitative research method alongside with the theories will help us to look into the issue of 'benefit'. Though, a number of researchers have focused on the cause and effect relationship of the visitors' motivation for participating in the Gladmat festival. And, some of the researchers have focused on the motivation of exhibitors to participate in the festival. But, up to date, there is not a single research that would be focusing on the 'Benefits' of exhibitors, municipality and exhibitors as a whole. With the implementation of qualitative research method in this thesis, we would have an idea and insight into the newly developed research problem. All in all, the qualitative research method and especially in-depth interviews will provide us a guide for the topic under investigation. Though, the main purpose for introducing the qualitative research in this thesis is to explore the context of the problem, but this may, up to certain extent, will let us in describing the achieved relationship between the extracted factors.
4.4. Quantitative Research Method
Quantitative research method is contrast of the qualitative research method. As discussed earlier that, the qualitative research is the examination, interpretation and analysis of observations for discovering the underlying patterns and meanings of relationships, the classification of entities and phenomenon, without the involvement of mathematical models. While, the quantitative research helps us in determining the research problem and classify the outcomes in numerical analysis.
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In the quantitative method, the researcher knows what he is looking for and due to that, all aspects of research is carefully carried out before collecting the data. In a quantitative study, we rely on the language of variables and hypothesis, and on the positivist principles (Neuman, 2011). Basically, the objective of using the quantitative research method is to employ and develop mathematical models, hypothesis and theories, that can explain the phenomenon under investigation. The quantitative method moves deductively from abstract idea to generate numerical information and specific technique for data collection relevant to the topic under investigation. The procedure of analysis is supported with the help of tables, charts and statistics.
4.4.1. Questionnaire
Constructing a good survey questions requires the mixture of science and art. The questionnaire should be integrated as a whole, with the smooth flow of questions and the follow up introductory instructions and remarks for clarity and ease of entry (Neuman, 2011). The questions would be equally relevant, meaningful, and clear to all the respondents. There are two key principles to consider while preparing the questionnaire. Firstly, avoidance of complex sentences and any possible confusion, that could lead to the biasness in the answers from the respondents. Secondly, we should have an understanding about the respondents perspective i.e. the respondents would be a heterogeneous group of people. It would be of great importance to provide the reliable and valid measure, because with this the respondents would grasp the question's meanings as you intend them (Neuman, 2011). The questionnaire for this thesis have been adopted from the research conducted by Gyimóthy (2009) as "Casual Observers, Connoisseurs and Experimentalists: A Conceptual Exploration of Niche Festival Visitors". The researcher have developed the questionnaire by taking into
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consideration, the motivation and the segmentation. Therefore, the questionnaire have been amended according to the "benefits sought" by visitors for their participation in the Gladmat festival. The duration of the interview is considered as important issue for a study as this might influence participation rates and can cause respondent fatigue (Merriam, 2009). As an average, it took not more than 10 minutes for each respondent to answer the questionnaire. The respondents read one question from the left side and they replied on the right side labeled from 1-5 Likert scale, listing as 1= unimportant and 5= very important. Because most of the questions or statements are short and easy to understand, and all our respondents filled the questionnaires easily. The questionnaire is attached in the appendix (No.). Before applying the questionnaire to the actual population, we pre-tested the amended questionnaire from 10 respondents to see the outcome. Furthermore, the results were then discussed with the advisor of the thesis, before filling the questionnaire from the visitors of Gladmat festival.
4.4.2. Data collection
When the research problem is defined and identified well, then the next step is data collection. There are two types of data collection techniques namely: the secondary and the primary data. Secondary data refers to the source of data previously collected for some other purpose. While, the primary data is used in this thesis to describe the 'benefits' visitors sought to participate in the Gladmat festival (Churchill, Brown & Suter, 2010: p.136). Primary data can be collected through the use of communication or observation methods. Communication techniques include a questionnaire or survey, oral or written. In contrast,
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observation technique it does not involve asking questions instead, facts or behaviors are recorded for investigation (Churchill & Iacobucci, 2010: p186). The questionnaire is structured and undisguised, and it is the most widely used communication tool by the scholars (Churchill & Iacobucci, 2010: p. 188), and this is the method used in this thesis. Structured means that the questionnaire is standardized with a scale from one to five and, undisguised means that the respondents have a good knowledge about the purpose of the study.
4.4.2.1 Data Collection method
As discussed earlier that, we have used a questionnaire for obtaining the needed information from the respondents. Respondents were asked to fill out the questionnaires during the Gladmat festival in 2012, which is a quantitative technique to gather data. Handing out the questionnaire is an effective and efficient method, and the respondents are more willing to answer the questions than in case of e-mail, telephonic survey, etc. As the festival lasts for four days every year, therefore, the data was collected during all these four days of the festival.
4.4.2.2. Participants
The survey was conducted during the Gladmat festival in the year 2012 (from date to date). A total number of 350 respondents were taken as sample through random sampling technique. The respondents were local people, tourists from other countries, and visitors from surrounding region of Stavanger.
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4.4.2.3. Scale of measurement
Neuman (2011: p. 226) defined scale as “a class of quantitative data measures often used in survey research that captures the intensity, direction, level, or potency of a variable construct along a continuum; most are at the ordinal level of measurement”. Self-report scales are one of the most common tools used to measure the perception of respondents. Likert scale is a type of self-report scale and is the most popular attitude-scaling in the research arena (Churchill, Brown & Suter, 2010). Likert scale was developed in the 1930s by Rensis Likert to provide an ordinal-level measure of a person’s attitude (Neuman, 2011: p. 226). The respondents can easily describe their feelings intensity towards the questions, their level of disagreement to agreement on the scale ranges typically from 'Strongly disagree' to 'strongly agree' (Churchill, Brown & Suter, 2010: p. 270). It has an advantage of easy to use and simple to understand (Neuman, 2011: p. 230). The respondents will show their feelings of agreement or disagreement with the number of statements (Ibid: p. 270). The scale can be applied in the thesis to examine the level of agreement or disagreement with the statements concerning the independent variables that influence the visitors in the Gladmat festival. In this thesis, a five point Likert scale is used and it ranges ‘unimportant’ from the left to 'very important' to the right. The researchers used five point Likert scale as the correct scale for measurement, because the questions are short and easy to understand and it does not take a lot of time to answer. In addition to that, the reliability is high on the scale of 1-5, while it reduces when the scale goes over 11 points (Nunnally, 1978: p. 521).
4.4.3. Sample procedure
The main objective of the quantitative research in this thesis is to obtain data from one part of our population of study. As discussed earlier, that the population of this thesis consists of
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stakeholder groups and, the subject of study in this section are visitors participating in the Gladmat festival. According to Churchill, Brown & Suter (2010), sample is the selection of a subset of elements from group of objects while population is a large collection of units. The choice of sample is crucial for the outcomes of the research, as this may depict the false generalization to the population. There are two types of sampling techniques, probability and non-probability sampling (Malhotra, 2007). Non-probability sampling technique is based on personal judgment of researcher i.e. which of the correspondents should be considered in the survey. While, probability sampling technique refers to choose the sample, regardless of any personal opinion, views, or thoughts. Therefore, we have used the probability sampling technique to gather the data from visitors and, according to Neuman (2011: p. 241), if the sample is being chosen correctly then there are much chances to generalize the findings of sample to the whole population. It is very efficient and yields highly accurate and identical results (Neuman, 2011: p.241).
4.4.3.1. Random sampling
Random sampling is a type of probability sampling technique and has been stressed as important by most of the scholars. According to Neuman (2011: p. 248), random sampling means unexpected, unpredictable or unusual. Random sampling is defined, as each unit or element has equal opportunity or chance of being selected from the given population. The choice of random sample gives us an accurate representation of the whole population in the study. Therefore, to provide the efficiency and effectiveness in the research outcomes, we have deployed in the approximation random sampling technique. Furthermore, this technique will increase the
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inference and the external validity of the study. Thus, the outcomes from this research can contribute and use for other food festivals.
4.4.4. Factor analysis
Factor analysis is referred to procedures for reducing and summarizing the data, and can seen as data reduction tool. It simplifies the data analysis by taking the correlation among the variables and extracting the overlapping information and deducts the problem down to the few core factors (Iacobucci & Churchill, 2010: p. 278). In the factor analysis, we search for the third variable which is the factor underlying between the correlations of two or more variables (Brace, Kemp, & Snelgar, 2003: p.278). According to Malhotra (2007), factor analysis helps us in reducing the large number of variables which are correlated to each other into a smaller number of underlying factors. To carry out factor analysis the number of participants is a determinant factor. The more participants you add, the more likely it is that any factors that do underlie the measured variables will be revealed, and thus a sample size of 200 is a sensible minimum target to carry out the factor analysis (Brace, Kemp, & Snelgar, 2003: p.286). In our study we have collected the data from 350 respondents visiting the Gladmat festival during 2012, and since the number is more than 200, thus we can apply the factor analysis on the collected data. Factor analysis is being used to find the convergent and discriminant validity in our data. Convergent validity indicates that the scale positively correlates with the other measures of same variable (Malhotra, 2007). While, discriminant validity refers to situation, where the constructs must be different from the other construct, which indicates that the measure must not highly correlated with the measure that are not supposed to be related (Iacobucci & Churchill, 2010: p.
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258). Therefore, it is vital that the respondents should be systematic and consistent in their answers on the items that does measure the same construct. For factor analysis to be appropriate, the variables must correlate. Factor loadings are the outcome from the factor analysis, which indicates the correlation between a variable and a factor (Iacobucci & Churchill, 2010: p. 587). Factor loadings are very important in our analysis, because it indicates that which variable is likely to explain by which factor (Brace, Kemp, & Snelgar, 2003: p. 288). Factor loadings should have the values above 0.5 to determine that which questions are related (Malhotra, 2007), and the minimal value to be accepted is 0.3 (Peterson, 2000). Factor analysis assumes rating and normality on continuous basis (Embretson & Reise, 2000). Therefore, the questions on Likert scale 1-5 is appropriate to run the factor analysis. The outcomes generated from the factor analysis will be presented and discussed in detail in the next chapter.
4.4.5. Reliability and Validity in Quantitative research
The quality and correctness of the data is important before we can implement the findings to other contexts. As, we are living in the real world and mostly study the real world phenomenon with the support of research world. Therefore, we need to provide sufficient evidence for the research world to proof this 'consistency' and 'trueness' in our measurement procedures. In the research world, we use the terms reliability and validity for providing these evidences in our research.
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4.4.5.1. Reliability
Reliability can be defined as the extent to which our questionnaire, observation, test, and measurement procedures able to produce similar results while repeated (Churchill & Iacobucci, 2010). According to Burns & Bush (2000: p. 329), "Reliability is the consistency of responses to a question i.e. reliable measures obtain identical or very similar responses from the respondent". Therefore, evaluating the reliability of measuring instrument consists of determining the fact that, how much of the variation in score is due to inconsistencies in measurement (Churchill, 1996: p. 405). The consistency in reliability can be determined across time, tasks, and markets, and higher level of consistency indicates that, the results would be more reliable. There are a number of methods available to researchers for determining the reliability. A brief explanation of these options are given below in order to provide the evidence of reliability in our research.
4.4.5.1.1. Stability Reliability
It is one of the most popular way to establish the reliability of measures. According to Churchill (1996: p. 405), the stability reliability is the evidence of reliability that is "determined by measuring the same objects or individuals at two different points in time and then correlating the scores". Stability reliability is also known as the 'Test-Retest reliability'. In this option, we assumes that, the individuals or objects have not been changed and that the two scores correlate perfectly with each other. The stability reliability will be clarified further with the help of cronbach's alpha as it is one of the core indicator of providing the stability reliability.
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4.4.6. Validity
The concept of validity is being used to differentiate and reduce the errors from the measurement instrument i.e. systematic error and random error (Churchill, 1996). Validity is known for the accuracy in measurement or responses to a particular measure (Burns & Bush, 2000). Churchill (1996: p. 402) have defined in detail the concept of validity as, "The extent to which differences in scores on a measuring instrument reflect true differences among individuals, groups, or situations in the characteristic that it seeks to measure, or true differences in the same individual, groups, or situation from one occasion to another, rather than constant or random errors". And to accomplish the requirement of validity, the researcher must ensure that the questionnaire actually does measure what it is intended i.e. benefits on this subject. There are different types of validity used by the researcher for providing the trueness in their research. A brief description of these techniques are presented in the following section and its connection with our research.
4.4.6.1. Face Validity
Face validity is mainly concerned with the degree to which the measurement "looks like", what it was designed to measure (Burns & Bush, 2000). In short, it should looks as it is indeed measuring what it was set out to measure. In this research, the adopted questionnaire have been amended according to benefits sought by the visitors. Therefore, it is more obvious that the measurement instrument in this thesis is measuring the concept of benefit and thus, provides the presence of 'face validity'. Churchill (1996) presented the face validity as content validity i.e. the adequacy with which domain of characteristic is captured by measure.
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4.4.6.2. Convergent Validity
According to Churchill (1996: p. 405), if the construct or the trait exists, it should be also measurable through more than one method. The methods should be independent of each other as possible. And afterwards, if they all measures the same construct, the measures would have high level of correlation. This indicates the presence of convergent validity and is defined as "the confirmation of relationship through independent measurement procedure". According to Malhotra (2007), the positive correlation of scale with other measures of same variable.
4.4.6.3. Discriminant Validity
According to Churchill & Iacobucci (2010: p. 258), the constructs must be different from the other constructs indicating that measure should not correlate highly with the measures it suppose to be different. Discriminant validity refers to the fact that, the measures must not correlate too highly with the measures from which it should be different (Churchill, 1996). He also suggested that, too high correlations means that the measure is not capturing an isolated or distinct trait.
4.4.7. Summary of Quantitative research method
The quantitative research method helps us in describing and explaining the relationship between dependent and independent variable. And, it is useful in the situations we have prior data about. Therefore, under the given circumstances, several researchers have tried to study the benefits of visitors for participating in the festival (Frochot, 2000; Lee, Arcodia & Lee, 2012). They have highlighted on the need to conduct the research problem of benefit in other contexts and situations. Therefore, in relation to their findings, it would be interested to employ the
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descriptive research design with the help of quantitative analysis. This will lead us in describing the phenomenon of 'benefit' in the Gladmat context. The data was collected on the random basis to provide the external validity in the research. Also, the data was collected during the four different days of the festival to check the consistency in the findings. Finally, the collected data have been encrypted into the SPSS software to apply the statistical analysis on the data. A factor analysis is being deployed on the data, because the factor analysis helps us in reducing the number of different independent variables into a fewer and the most useful, which can affect the dependent variable. Furthermore, the correlation analysis and the multiple regression analysis is used, to see the relationship of independent variables with the dependent variable. The regression analysis will help us in predicting the dependent variable.
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Chapter 5. Analysis of the data
In this chapter, we will provide the analysis from the qualitative interviews in order to give the detail about the exploratory factors found during interviews. According to Wolcott (1994), the real mystique in the qualitative research lies in process of using the collected data, rather than in process of 'gathering data'. Secondly, the analysis of quantitative data will be given to describe the benefits that visitors sought for participating in the festival. In the prospective section of this chapter, we will first put forward the method used for interpretation of gathered data, followed by, the analysis of the qualitative data. Finally, a detailed description of the extracted exploratory factors will be discussed. The outcomes for each stakeholder group, in accordance with their motivational and benefits factors will be discussed separately. Furthermore, the outcomes from the factor analysis, the correlation analysis, and the multiple regression analysis will be discussed.
5.1. Brief introduction of qualitative analysis
In the field of research, we collect the qualitative data to explore and describe about actions, events, and people in the social life. The collected data from the qualitative researches are in form of observational notes, documents, open ended interview transcripts, audio- or visual tapes, physical artifacts, and photos or images. But as discussed earlier that, it is not enough just to collect the data; we must analyze the gathered data (Neuman, 2011). In the qualitative approach of research, the analysis begins while we are gathering the data, but those analysis are tends to be incomplete and tentative. Therefore, in the research sense, the analyzing of data means, to organize, integrate, and examine; and for doing this, we search for
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relationships and patterns among specific details (Neuman, 2011). Analysis of data helps us in the improve understanding of patterns and concepts, and provide us with advance knowledge about the topic. Because, to analyze, we use to connect the data with the concepts, identify broad themes or trends, and advance generalization. In essence, the analysis involves looking for the patterns and certain relationships in the data. Among these, some may be the patterns, which we see because of research questions that we are trying to answer. While, some patterns may be extracted through the theoretical framework, and some patterns are completely unanticipated, but they emerges out from the data. Thus, the analyzing of data as we collect it is essential for shaping the research project (Belk, Fischer & Kozinets, 2013). According to Neuman (2011), Qualitative research method allows to be logical and systematically rigorous but in different ways from that of statistical analysis. There are different techniques for the data analysis for qualitative research method. In the prospective section, we will briefly describe different ways of analyzing the data, and a detailed description about the choice of analysis method used in this thesis.
5.2. Coding the qualitative data
When we code the quantitative data, we arrange the measures of variables into machine-readable format for the statistical analysis. But, coding of data has different meaning in the qualitative research than in that of quantitative research. In the qualitative research method, we organize the raw data into the conceptual categories and create concepts or themes. Qualitative coding of the data is an integral part of the data analysis. Coding of data enables you to look into details of raw data and it encourages you to think about them at higher level (Neuman, 2011). In the approach of coding, the interpretation of data cannot be regarded independent of collection or sampling of
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material (Flick, 1999). The interpretation of data is the anchoring point for making the decisions about the cases or data to integrate next in analysis. Strauss (1987: p. 55) warned that, "Coding is the most difficult operation for in experienced researchers to understand and to master" (quoted in Neuman, (2011: p. 511)). All this concludes that, coding is a constant comparison of cases, phenomenon, concepts, constructs, and formulation of question which is addressed to the text (Flick, 1999). There are three types of qualitative data coding which is mostly used by the scholars, which suggests us to review the data on three different occasions, using different coding each time. They are termed as 'open coding', 'axial coding', and the 'selective coding' (Flick, 1999; Neuman, 2011). In the 'open coding', we locate the themes and assign the variables with initial codes to condense the mass of data into the smaller categories. Open coding aims to express the phenomena and data in the form of concepts. In the second form of coding, which is 'axial coding', it helps us in differentiating and refining the categories which is resulted from the open coding. The concepts that are included in each category can become a certain phenomenon. In this coding, the developed categories and relations that are treated as essential would be verified over and over against the data and the text. In simple words, the categories that would be most relevant to research question are selected from the related code notes and the developed codes (Flick, 1999). Finally, the 'selective coding', it helps in scanning of the previous codes and data and select the data that help in support of conceptual coding categories which were developed. Under this type, we reorganize the specific themes which are identified in the earlier coding types and elaborate or illustrate more than one core theme (Neuman, 2011).
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As the research question raised in this thesis is new and there is 'no previous research' have been carried on benefits of multi-stakeholder groups. Therefore, in this thesis, we will employ the 'open coding', which will help us in categorizing the data into codes for explanation. A detailed explanation of 'open coding' will be provided, before going into the analysis of results and the discussion of outcomes from the qualitative interviews.
5.2.1. Open coding
Depending upon the data collection and taking into consideration, the previous researches, the method of 'open coding' is the most suitable to apply on this thesis. Open coding will help us to look into the newly introduced theme and idea and will helps us in bringing forward the exploratory factors related with the 'benefits' that the stakeholder groups are seeking. The open coding is being performed during the first pass on the collected data. In the open coding, we locate the themes and then assigning them with initial codes in order to condense the data into categories (Neuman, 2011). Open coding aims to express the phenomenon and data in the form of concepts. To carry this out, the data collected is first 'disentangled'. The expressions are further classified by the 'units of meaning' i.e. single word or in short sequence of words, in order to attach the annotations and above 'concepts' (codes) to them (Flick, 1999). The pre-requisite of open coding is that, you have to remain open to create new ideas and themes and to changing these initial codes in subsequent analysis (Neuman, 2011). It indicates that, when we use open coding, we bring out the themes to surface which is otherwise located deep inside the data. Open coding can be applied to various degrees of details. A text can be coded sentence by sentence, line by line, or paragraph by paragraph, or a code can be linked to the whole text
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(Flick, 1999). According to Neuman (2011), the degree of detail in the process of coding depends upon the research question, the "richness" of the data, and the purpose of the research. Therefore, applying the 'open coding' to this thesis will enable us to get insight into the new field of research. As discussed earlier that, historical researchers have focused on the motivation of different stakeholder groups, while they were ignoring the fact that there are certain benefits that would be the result of motivation. The findings of the qualitative research will be discussed in the prospective section of this chapter to support our research question.
5.3. Analysis of results
As discussed earlier, the data for qualitative research have been gathered from different stakeholder groups (owners, exhibitors, municipality). Each stakeholder group have their certain motivation and benefit factors, which they are looking for to participate in the Gladmat festival. Therefore, considering the circumstances, we need to analyze the results for each stakeholder group apart from the other. Thus, under forthcoming sections, we will analyze the results and the findings of the each stakeholder group included in the qualitative research.
5.4. Brief background of Gladmat festival
The festival is being staged on the annual basis since the year 1999, usually during the last four days of July, starting from Wednesday. The festival history can be traced back to the year 1989, when the Stavanger region was well re-known only for the oil business. Since then, the main actors in food and beverage industry have set the new base to present the region as the 'food county'. According to Owner A (see Appendix No. 9.5.1), "the food industry and the food mindset and occupation is fairly big in Stavanger region, but nobody knew, so what we said to
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have something, that can expose the meaning in the first place to the local people and that was actually the reason Gladmat came into existence". As discussed earlier that, with a dynamic and international profile, Stavanger region is well known as 'the oil capital of Norway'. While, on the other hand, Stavanger region is a leading producer of agricultural food in the country. Therefore, "in the late 80's, local agricultural and meat producers wanted a platform to act as a showcase for their products and the same showcase further took the form of Gladmat festival" (Owner C, Appemdix No. 9.5.3.). And, currently, the Gladmat festival claimed to be the largest food festival in the whole Scandinavian region in terms of attracting visitors (Einarsen & Mykletun, 2009). Since its establishment, the festival is growing gradually in terms of number of visitors and stationary in terms of exhibitors. And, due to that, the festival is creating a positive image of the destination, as well as, it is providing the economic stability to the region. Back in the 1990s, the businesses use to be close down during summer because there were no people around (Owner A; Owner, B, Appendix No. 9.5.2.; Owner C), and since then, due to Glamat festival, "new businesses gradually came about to reflect the multi-ethnicity from all parts of the world" (Owner, A). The Glamat festival was founded as non-profit organization. Like other joint stock companies, the organization has separate legal entity represented by 32 stockholders (Management, A, Appendix No. 9.8.). The organization is running by eight board of directors and a chairman, who takes the major decisions in the Gladmat festival. The festival is well supported by the exhibitors, who play major role in the success of the festival. Their numbers are changing from
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year to year, and during this year, a total number of 110 exhibitors are expected to take part in the Gladmat festival (Management, A). The primary objective for establishment of Glamat festival, from the interviews of owners, was to promote the region, the regional products, food culture and concept, and food related environment of Stavanger. And, on the current progress report of Gladmat festival, it has lead Stavanger region in recognizing its establishment as 'food county'. In the following section, we will discuss in detail about the participation motive of stakeholder groups and the benefits they are gaining for participating in Gladmat festival.
5.5. Owners
As discussed above that, there are 32 stockholders in the Gladmat festival, and those were the firms who initiated the concept of Gladmat festival in Stavanger. Therefore, firstly, understanding their motivation behind the initiative of Gladmat festival and then to have a deep insight into the benefits they are attaining is necessary. The owners of Gladmat festival are the companies running their businesses both at national and international level. The qualitative interviews have generated a list of 177 motivational and benefit items, that influence the owners to start and participate in the Gladmat festival. The identified items then further segmented on the basis of their motivation and benefits. After segmenting these items into the applicable quadrants of, either motivation or benefit, the researchers found similarities in the segmented items. The same item might be mentioned more than once, or two or may be more items may be of similar wording, during the interviews. Therefore, it is possible to reduced the number of items generated from the interviews, by simply merging in those items, that represent the similar concept, into one joint item. The most important factors were then took out based on
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the interviews, to draw the model for owners (see model no. 4). Whereas, the detail of items can be seen is the appendix (No. 9.5.).
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Motivation 1. Marketing
a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. Introduction of food industry showcase for the products of region Showing the brand of company promotion for small businesses Meeting place for food producers and consumers Increases in cooperation among exhibitors Promotion of local food products Building the food mindset Attraction from media
Benefits 1. Positioning
a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. j. k. Increase the value as a company Positioning in the mind of customers Positioning of the area Increase in competency Increase our power in market Building the reputation Attach the business with the story of festival Provides a push to new products Brand image Positional promoter Fascination among the people
2. Innovation
a. b. c. d. e. f. Arena for innovation of new products Development within the products and processes Expression and philosophy of products Help in innovation for small companies Immediate feedback for new products Value change for food production
Owners of Gladmat festival
2. Marketing
a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. More tourists during summer Strong relationship with consumers Strategic plan for marketing Different regions of Rogaland can present their products Important market for companies A lot of people in under platform Immediate consumer reaction Promotion of products Growth of business
Model 4: Conceptual framework model for owners
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3. Development of food businesses
a. b. c. d. e. f. Food is big business in Stavanger Support the efforts of small companies Part of the whole chain of production To be part of meal and eating habits Build the network in Stavanger Cooperation between exhibitors
3. Support for local businesses
a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. Help to other businesses in the region Bring up small exhibitors Increase in sales Money for small exhibitors Economic support of the region Cooperation between small and large exhibitors Business for hotels Helps to generate money during summer
4. Socializing
a. b. c. d. e. Create a social event Food professional environment Technical forum for food and beverages To be part of Gladmat Bringing people together
Owners of Gladmat festival
4. Destination image
a. b. c. d. e. Rogaland as food county Good reputation of area Stavanger to be more visible than other parts of Norway Business development strategy for Stavanger region create a positive image of the region Push the region as a profile of food region
5. Other factors
a. b. c. d. Festival for food and fun Joy for the people living in Stavanger Big party in Stavanger during summer Boost for business activities during summer
f.
5. Other factors
a. b. c. d. e. f. Corporate Social responsibility Being part of the society Friendly competition between exhibitors Privilege for people of Stavanger Educating the people Consistent meeting strategy
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5.5.1. Owner A
The interview was conducted with the first owner, who is currently working as the senior executive of the company. The respondent stated the motivation for the initial of Gladmat festival as, "it would give a lift to the product, provides the possibility to expose yourself in the market place". He further stated that, "Just to put matfylke (food county)Rogaland on the national map, it is more on marketing and positioning function". The respondent also discussed about the pre-history of Gladmat festival, which have been discussed in the previous section of this chapter. The main motivation items for them to become one of the owner of Gladmat was, "to introduce the food industry, building the food mindset, increase the cooperation between the organizations, creating something new for the county". The respondent expressed about the benefits, "Businesses have grown, that is why in the first place, I decided to buy the symbolic share of Gladmat". He further added that, "it shows the goodwill of the company, that we have special interest in the food industry and the food market of the region". The core 'benefits' they attained for participating in the Gladmat festival are, "helped us in attaining the position of food county in Norway, growth in businesses, increase in profitability for small exhibitors, economic development, consistent meeting strategy, generated money not only for exhibitors but for the surrounding businesses as well, corporate social responsibility of the firm".
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5.5.2. Owner B
The interview was conducted with the second owner, who is working as senior advisor in the company. The respondent stated that, "we have started to participate in Gladmat, because of the strategic discussion in our company, that, we have to be in the chain of food production". He further added that, "it was thought to be an arena for new products from food industry, to show new ways of producing different kinds of products". The respondent discussed about the motivation of his company to participate in Gladmat as, "our strategy as a part of whole chain of products that is the main reason, because we wanted to see the Gladmat as an arena for showing nice products from the region". Respondent further added that, "it was meant to be an arena for new products for innovation for farmers and other product producers to come with their products and new way of producing innovative products". In general, their motivation factors were, "create a social event, cooperation with other stakeholder groups, support the efforts of small companies, promoting their own chain of products". The respondent discussed about the benefits as, "we don’t get any measurable benefit in terms of money, but our value as a company increases and we get a position in the customers mind, it increases our competency and power in the market, we get more customers so that is the way it benefits us, it is more kind of omdømme (reputation)". He also mentioned some other 'benefits' that they are getting due to participation in the festival such as, "promotion of Rogaland as a food county, helps in bringing up small exhibitors enabling them to sell their products from the stores, positioning of the area, Stavanger becomes more visible than other parts of Norway, corporate social responsibility of the firm".
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5.5.3. Owner C
The third owner is working as a senior manager in the company. The respondent stated that, "Gladmat was started as a showcase to show the food products from the local region, it was to develop a network in Stavanger to show what is produced in Stavanger". The respondent discusses about their motivation to participate in Gladmat as, "during summer time, there were no tourists and local people go on holiday and due to that some hotels even trying to close in the summer time. The food festival have resulted to create a situation where a lot of people would come to Stavanger". He further added that, "it is not a process to selling goods, it is more to show where the food business is to be in the society". In general their core motivation was, "to show the local products, to meet consumers, introducing new products, supporting the whole food industry and to create a new system where small exhibitors can show their products to a large number of audience". The 'benefits', they are getting from participation are, "we are contributing to the society which enables us to build a good image in the minds of customers. We see the immediate consumer reaction towards our product. It also enables good business for the hotels in Stavanger, which is a very good symbol". The overall benefits they are achieving are, "satisfaction of the owners, help in taking the competitive edge, created an image of the region, promoted business of small exhibitors, built strong social relationships, development in economy during summer".
5.5.4. Owner D
The respondent is the senior consultant for the company, working across their national boundaries. The core motivational items for their participation are, "we wanted to be part of the
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Gladmat organization and to do something for food sales in Stavanger, we wanted to have an arena where we could present our products for the public and a marketplace where exhibitors would meet directly with the consumers of the products". Their further motivational items are, "to be part of meal and eating habits, to get publicity, social responsibility, interaction between employees and customers, showing customers our new products and fun for employees". On the perspective of 'benefit' the respondent mentioned that, "we are not earning money on selling the products at the festival, but we have the benefit that several thousands of people are meeting our products at one time, it creates an image in the minds of the consumers that our company is taking the social responsibility of being at the festival, we receive publicity due to the presence of huge number of visitors".
5.5.5. Owner E
The respondent explain their motivation for the initial of Gladmat festival as, "Food is one of the strategic area in the development plan for the region, there are two strategic areas i.e. oil and food. And, this is the main reason we as a company supporting the Gladmat festival". He further added that, "the festival would bring a lot of people from other parts of the country to Stavanger, this will enable us to get recognize the Stavanger as food city. Gladmat will be the window for small producers to bring forward their products. People will come in town and will invest in local business". The respondent discussed the 'benefits' as, "Fun for the local people, boosted the business activities around the region, a lift in economy during summer, it helped in bringing forward the Stavanger. We brought together the businesses and it build strong cooperation between small and large exhibitor groups".
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5.6. Review of items
The list of items was reviewed by two scholars of social science discipline at NHS, and reduced the items to a list containing 31 motivational items and 40 'benefit' items. The extracted list of items can be seen in the model (No. 4). As mentioned earlier that, several respondents have repeated some of the items, and, therefore scholars have grouped those items explaining the same or similar constructs into one item. A complete list of item before the review can be found in the appendix (No. 9.5.). The motivation items "marketing", "innovation", "development of food businesses" and "socializing" contains the largest number of factors. The concepts under these items were mentioned by more respondents than the "other motivational" factors. It is therefore more reasonable to assume that, the factors in these items have the significant explanatory power for further studies to understand the motivation of owners for participating in food related festivals. Whereas, on the other hand, the "benefit" items of "positioning", "marketing", "support for local businesses" and "destination image" were extracted as the most important factors considered by the owners. The items under these constructs were mentioned by more of the respondents than the "other factors" in benefits. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that, these factors in the items have significant power for exploring further about, the "benefits" of owners for participating in a food or wine festival.
5.7. Findings on motivations and benefits for owners
Owners are one of the main actors participating in the Gladmat festival, strengthening the position of the Gladmat and to provide the unique festival experience for the audience. The
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findings in relation to the owners' motives and benefits reveals an insight into the concept that there are wide range of different reasons behind their participation in the Gladmat festival. The findings also indicate that, an important concept have been overlooked by the scholars of events and festival studies, which could enable the management of a festival to undergo certain changes in relation to these motivation and benefit items. The findings on motivation, to initiate the festival will be given first, before going towards the benefits. These findings on the motivational items that lead the owners for the initiation of Gladmat festival is briefly described as follows:
5.7.1. Marketing
The owners of Gladmat festival wanted to create a showcase which could enable them to show their products to broad public. Before the initial of Gladmat festival, the Stavanger was well reknown only for the oil city of Norway. Therefore, the large businesses related to food and beverages of the region, wanted take this initiative to get the region recognize as oil and food region. The owners were motivated to change the traditional mindset of the people. The Gladmat festival was created as a window to look at the food and beverage industry of the region. It would enable them to get the attraction from the media as there is nothing else happening during that particular time of the year.
5.7.2. Innovation
The owners of the festival wanted to have an arena under which they could test their product before producing it to a larger scale. The instant feedback on the product from the consumer can
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enable them for the further development within the product and the processes. This can enable them to understand the expressions and philosophy from the consumers point of view.
5.7.3. Development of food businesses
The festival would enable the small producers to bring up their products and promote it to a large number of audiences. The owners wanted to facilitate small exhibitors to produce their products over the large scale. This would bring some new themes in the product from the small scale producers. The presence of large scale exhibitors with small scale producers would satisfy them to be part of the meal and eating habits and it can create a strong relationship between them.
5.7.4. Socializing
The owners wanted to create an event for socialization to both the local community and for the exhibitors. It would be an environment where the professionals of the food industry would come together for friendly competition. It would be a festival for fun and joy for the people living in Stavanger. The 'benefits' they have attained for the initiative of Gladmat festival is briefly described below and as well as shown in the model (No. 4).
5.7.5. Positioning
The participation in the Gladmat festival have increased the value as a company. Though, they are not achieving any measurable benefit in terms of money, but they have achieved the position in the mind of the customers. Not only this, the Gladmat festival have brought forward the position of Stavanger in the national map as "oil and food county". This have increased the
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competency of the firm and the build their power in the market, which is the core aim for any big company, to attain the position in the mind of consumer. It also enable them to build their reputation, not only in customer mind, but also in the society they are contributing in. It gives the Stavanger region a competitive edge over the other tourist destinations in Norway.
5.7.6. Marketing
With the strong position in the minds of the visitors, the 'Stavanger region' achieve its position as tourist destination during summer. This enables the companies to build strong relationship with the consumers of the product. The immediate consumer reaction about the products enables them to create immediate innovation in their products and processes. This enables the positive growth in the business, because they are valuing the customer's preferences. It also created an opportunity for the small exhibitors to market themselves over a larger number of audience.
5.7.7. Support for local businesses
The success of the Gladmat festival enable the small exhibitors to bring forward themselves and their products in the market. The Gladmat festival have given a boost to their sales and revenue, which in turn provide the economic support to the region. Under the umbrella of Gladmat festival, the small and large exhibitors work together and this increases the cooperation between them. It is a great source for generating money during summer.
5.7.8. Destination image
The Gladmat festival have provided good reputation to the area of Stavanger. The business development strategy of the companies enable them to earn money during summer and this
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creates a positive image of the region and a competitive edge over the other counties. It make Stavanger as more visible than other surrounding regions of Norway.
5.8. Summary
The owners took the initiative to bring forward Gladmat festival as a window to show the food products of the region. They want the region to be recognized as the oil as well as the food capital of Norway. Therefore, at the first place, they were motivated to introduce the festival of Gladmat, which would also enables the local producers to promote their products over a larger number of audience. The success of Gladmat festival have not only promoted the region as food region, but it also encourages the small exhibitors to get increase in sales and build themselves. The 'benefits' of Gladmat festival have grown beyond its boundaries of getting recognized as food county on national level. Rather, the 'benefits' of Gladmat have lead it to achieve the position of the 'largest food festival of Scandinavian region'. The festival is not only attracting tourists from the other cities of the country, but also brining the tourists from other countries.
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5.9. Exhibitors
As discussed above that, there are a total number of 110 exhibitors expected to participate in the Gladmat festival during the year 2013. A steady growth have been observed in their number since its beginning. At the beginning of festival in the year 1998, a total number of 40 exhibitors took part in the Gladmat festival, which have been rise to 110 in the year 2013. Therefore, at first, to find the motivational factors behind their participation is important, to go in details about the benefits they are obtaining and are looking for in the Gladmat festival. The interviews with owners and management indicated the two different groups of exhibitors i.e. large exhibitors having their business roots beyond the regional or national boundaries, and the small exhibitor groups having their businesses only in the local region of Stavanger. The qualitative interviews have generated a list of 95 motivational and benefit items, this includes both small and the large exhibitor groups. The identified items of motivation and benefits are then separated basing on small exhibitors and large exhibitors. A list of common factors among the two groups of stakeholders were found, both on motivation and benefit, and are being indicated as mutual factors in the model (No. 5). The drawn model shows the picture of the most important factors from motivation and benefit, that have been considered important for the exhibitors to participate in the Gladmat festival. The unique factors for each stakeholder groups have been mentioned under the particular group in the model (No. 5). The details of the interviews can be seen in the appendix (No. 9.6.).
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Small Exhibitors
Large Exhibitors
Unique Motivational factors 1. Marketing
a. b. c. d. e. To advertise ourselves Interacting with the visitors Introduce ourselves in the market To show our talent Creating awareness about the products To have some fun contacting with visitors and other exhibitors To meet people Social gathering Introduce additional taste to the dishes Show our own creation and innovation Creativity in food Instant feedback for products To be part of Gladmat
Unique Motivational factors 1. Social motive Mutual Motivational factors
1. a. b. c. a. b. c. a. b. a. b. a. b. Contribute to Society New ways of educating people Corporate social responsibility Contribute to Society New ways of educating people Corporate social responsibility More investment in local food market Growth in hotel businesses Attract tourist Destination branding Something is going in Stavanger Glad to welcome tourists
2. Social motive Motivation a. Socializing b. Arena for the development of new products c. Enjoying festival mood with others d. Friendly competition between exhibitors e. Having fun during summer
2. Social Motive
a. b. c. d. a. b. c. a. b.
3. Economic development
4. Destination image
3. Innovation
5. Other motives
4. Other motives
Model 5: Conceptual framework model for exhibitors
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Small Exhibitors
Large Exhibitors
Unique Benefit factors 1. Marketing benefit
a. b. c. d. e. f. a. b. c. d. e. f. Attraction from visitors Unique way to promote ourselves to huge number of audience Gaining experience of visitors Learning new ways to satisfy visitors Knowing the visitors attitude towards our products Attracting new customers Earning money Increase in sales Increase in competency Customer loyalty Help in getting more business Increase in profit due to number of visitors Good relationship with local people Interaction with other competitors Employee satisfaction Getting instant feedback on the products a. b. c. d. e. f. g. a. b. c. d. e. f.
Unique Benefit factors 1. Marketing benefits
Gives an insight into competition Brand recognition Build an image in the mind of customers Marketing the existing products Promotion of new products Goodwill from Gladmat Promotion of company Promote the destination for tourists Interaction with visitors Corporate social responsibility Help in economic development Educating the visitors Knowledge about the preferences of visitors Part to be something that is going on in Stavanger Immediate feedback on the newly introduced products Fun to be there
Mutual Benefit factors 1. Benefits a. Brand loyalty of business b. More business c. Promotion of the business d. Gathering knowledge and the competitive information e. creating awareness about the organization f. Innovation in products and processes
2. Social and Economic Benefits
2. Organizational benefit
3. Other benefits
a. b. c.
3. Other benefits
a. b. c. d.
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5.9.1. Exhibitor A
The interview was conducted with the first exhibitor, and his firm is participating in the Gladmat festival since its beginning. The respondent is part of the large exhibitor group of the Gladmat festival. The findings of such exhibitor would be significant to interrelate with other exhibitors. Since the respondent is participating in the festival from the start of festival, it was therefore important for the researchers to first understand their motivation for participation. Also, they are participating every year in the Gladmat festival, that means, they are getting certain outcomes from festival in terms of benefits. The respondent mentioned their motivation as, "The Gladmat festival would show the manufacturing of goods and who are the supplier of goods, we wanted to create something to show what is produced in Stavanger". He further added that, "we wanted to create a big party environment during summer, where all the local people would gather to enjoy". As for other motivational items, he mentioned that, "they wanted to invest in the local food market where they are working in, so that we can contribute something to society". He also stated that, "Gladmat would help us in finding new products and new ideas, and new ways of educating the people about the food and the cooking". The respondent mentioned about the benefits as, "we are not getting any tangible benefits in terms of money, but it is a kind of creative idea for us. We are part of the whole food and beverage industry of the region. We are showing the big players that we are there to stand, and this gives us a competitive edge". The respondent further expressed that, "we have created the image of the destination by giving the region a food festival, so we are kind of taking our liability and paying our social responsibility to be present at the festival". He further stated that, "we
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have encouraged the small exhibitors, we enabled them to be part of the whole chain of food production".
5.9.2. Exhibitor B
The interview was conducted with the second exhibitor, whose firm have started to participate in the festival from last two years. The exhibitor B is the part of the small exhibitor groups attached to the Gladmat festival. They were motivated to participate in the Gladmat festival because, "we want to participate for some reklame (advertisement) and to have fun. Because we like to contact a lot of people who are coming at Gladmat". The respondent put their benefits as, "we are not now thinking about money, we want to achieve strong position in the minds of customers about our products. From the last two years, we are doing this and we have achieved a good increase in our sales, not only in festivals, but afterwards as well. That is why our focus is on the quality and marketing. We have gained new ways and ideas to satisfy our customers and that is our greatest benefit".
5.9.3. Exhibitor C
The third respondent from exhibitors is working as the branch manager in the company. Her restaurant have started to participate in the Gladmat festival from the last four years. The exhibitor C is also a part of small exhibitor group of the Gladmat festival. She stated the motivation for their participation in the festival as, "First of all, a lot of people come to the festival, and it is fun for the employees". The respondent further added that, "we can meet a lot of other exhibitors participating in the festival".
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The respondent stated for benefits, that her company is gaining as, "With the festival, we have gained attraction from a lot of customers, we created an image in the mind of the customers. We have gained good relationship with the local people of Stavanger". The respondent mentioned further that, "we have gained employee satisfaction, it also increases our cooperation with other exhibitors and more especially, our sales increased during the Gladmat than the rest of the year".
5.9.4. Exhibitor D
The fourth exhibitor is the CEO of a newly opened restaurant. The restaurant is participating for the first time in the Gladmat festival. It would be interesting to have an insight into their motivation and benefit, that they are seeking for participation in the festival. She mentioned the motivations as, "we are going to face 250 000 visitors from outside and inside of Norway. It will be a good opportunity for us, to introduce ourselves in the market. We want to show our own creation and innovation, which is creative in food i.e. something new. We want to show our talent to the visitors, our original taste". She further highlighted that, "Gladmat is a good opportunity for marketing". The respondent mentioned on benefits as, "we can make awareness in the mind of visitors, this will be our primary benefit. Earning money is secondary. Because if people would like our taste, they would like to come to our restaurant and this will give us more business and which will generate money automatically".
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5.9.5. Exhibitor E
The fifth interview was conducted with the CEO of a small company. The respondent mentioned his motivation to participate in the festival as, "we participate in the Gladmat for fun, and to make money of course". He further highlighted that, "it enable us to talk to people, family and friends who come at festival". The respondent mentioned his benefits from participation as, "we make a lot of money by participating in the festival and we are able to socialize with the people and it help us to understand and satisfy their needs".
5.9.6. Exhibitor F
The respondent is the part of the large exhibitors group, having their business in most parts of Norway. They are participating in the festival every year, except for the year 2011. The respondent stated their motivation as, "We want to be a part of that something, which is going on in Gladmat. We want to be visible there, we want to show the guests and the public that we are there. It is more like a sales perspective." The respondent further added about this year's motivation that, "We want to promote our new restaurant, which we are opening this year and Gladmat is the best place to do so, as there are huge number of visitors". The respondent mentioned their benefits from the festival as, "Gladmat is an important festival to have, in order to attract more and more tourists to Stavanger. And unlike the local businesses, we need tourists. The small businesses can generate money from the participation of the local community, but we strongly need tourists for our business". The respondent further addressed
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that, "Being part of Gladmat have provided good will to the company, and we are getting a lot of media coverage as nothing else happened during that time of the year".
5.9.7. Exhibitor G
The respondent is working as the senior advisor for the company, and they are participating in the festival since its beginning. The respondent is part of large group of stakeholders. The respondent reveals their motivation as, "It is the arena for new products and for innovation. It was expected that the festival can bring some change in the traditional environment. We wanted to bring new ways of producing innovative products. Our main motivation was to create the destination image, that could attract tourists". The respondent expressed about the benefits as, "We are not getting any measureable benefit, when we talk about in terms of money. It is a kind of cost to increase the value as a company. We don’t get any money back, but we get a position that we showed ourselves. It helped us to increase our competition and power in the market we are operating in. We have no product to sell in the festival, so it is more related to our reputation in the market".
5.10. Review of items
The list of items then reviewed further by the two scholars and reduced the items to a list containing a list of five mutual motivational items and six mutual benefit items. These items were found related to both the small exhibitor group and the large exhibitor group. These items can be seen in the Model (No. 5) of exhibitors motivation and benefits for participating in the Gladmat festival.
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Furthermore, the researchers reviewed the individual motivational and benefit items of both small and large exhibitor groups. The small exhibitor groups indicated a list of 14 motivational items for participating in the festival. These items were then segmented under the core factors of "marketing", "social motive", "innovation" motive have been prioritized by the small exhibitors. The respondents also mentioned some items that have been put together in the "other motives" factors in the Model (No. 5). Whereas, the generated list shows a number of 12 motivational items, that the large exhibitor groups have considered as important. These motivation items were then segmented and have been listed as follows, "social motive", "marketing", "economic development", and "destination image". The respondents have also indicated some items as motive, which have been compiled under the "other motive" factor. The list generated for the benefits as outcome of motivation indicates a total number of 16 benefit items, which the small exhibitor groups are attaining to participate in the festival. These benefit items have been segmented and been put together under the related segmented factor of "marketing benefits", "organizational benefit", and "other benefits". On the other hand, a list containing 17 items were considered as their participation benefits by the large exhibitor groups. The list is segmented into the factors of "social and economic benefits", ""marketing benefits", and "other benefits". It would be reasonable to assume that, these items in the factors have significant power for exploring about the 'benefits' of exhibitors for participating in the festival.
5.11. Findings on motivations and benefits for exhibitors
Exhibitors are one of the key stakeholder groups participating in the festival. In fact, they are the most closest to the visitors among the other stakeholder groups and providing the novelty in the experience of visitors. Therefore, the findings have given an insight into the idea that, there are
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different motivational and benefit factors for their participation in the Gladmat festival. The findings in relation to exhibitors also unveil that, the concept of benefit was been disregarded by the researchers of events and festival studies. The findings explored the fact that, small exhibitors motivational and benefit factors are somewhat different from the large exhibitor groups. Therefore, the findings will enable the management to satisfy both exhibitor groups, related to their particular motivation and benefit. The findings on mutual and unique motivation will be given first, before moving towards the core topic of benefits.
5.11.1. Mutual motivation of both exhibitor groups
Both exhibitors group have stated that, the motive of socializing is one of key motivational item for participation in Gladmat festival. At the festival, we may able to meet a lot of people, friends and family members. They mentioned that, Gladmat festival is an arena, which helps in the development of new products. The festival will enable us to have fun in summer, as there is not a lot of things happening at that time in Stavanger. This can also be seen in the model (No. 5)
5.11.2. Unique motivational factors for small exhibitors
The findings illustrates that, the small exhibitor groups participate in the Gladmat festival for some unique factors. These factors have been shown in the model (No. 5) and will be briefly discussed as follows:
5.11.2.1. Marketing
The festival will provide the small exhibitor groups with an opportunity to advertise themselves in the market. They are motivated to interact with a lot of visitors, which otherwise is hard for
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them to reach. They have the opportunity to introduces themselves to the market and show their talent. They are also motivated to create awareness in the minds of visitors for their products.
5.11.2.2. Social motive
The second motive which the small exhibitors have prioritize is the motivation of socialization. The festival is a social gathering of stakeholder groups, and it is fun to be there for the employees.
5.11.2.3. Innovation
The third core motive for the small exhibitor group is the innovation. They will show their unique creation and innovation to the visitors. They can also introduce additional taste to the dishes and get instant feedback from the visitors about the product.
5.11.3. Unique motivational factors for large exhibitors
The findings on the unique motivational items for the large exhibitor groups are enlisted in the Model (No. 5) and are briefly discussed below:
5.11.3.1. Social motive
The larger exhibitors are motivated to contribute in the society. The social motive of large exhibitors are different from that of small exhibitor groups. The large exhibitors wanted to discover new ways of educating the people, related to food. As the corporate social responsibility of the firm, the commitment and obligations towards the local people in the society, they are working in.
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5.11.3.2. Marketing
The second core motive is related to the factor of marketing. They are motivated to see the reaction of the people, upon launching of new products. They want to generate new ideas for their products from the festival. This will increase their awareness in the market and will lead them in taking the competitive edge.
5.11.3.3. Economic development
The third motive for their participation is related to the economic development. The Gladmat festival will bring more and more investment to the food market. This will increase the sales and profits of the small exhibitors, which will bring more investment in the economy. The Gladmat festival will bring the people from other regions to Stavanger, which will provide business for hotels in Stavanger.
5.11.3.4. Destination image
The forth motive that large exhibitors have brought forward is destination image. They wanted to promote the region, in order to attract more and more tourists from other parts of the country and also internationally.
5.11.4. Summary
The findings indicates that, the small and large scale exhibitors have different motivations for participation in the Gladmat festival. Though, the factors have been named the same, but the items on both sides are indicating different concepts.
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In general, the small scale exhibitors want to promote themselves. They want to socialize with the visitors of the festival, have fun and get a place in the social gathering of food and beverage businesses. They are motivated to show innovation in their products and show their own creation, to get the self reputation in the mind of the visitors. All in all, the small scale exhibitors think on the individual perspective to sell as much as they can, getting a lot of money and building their own name in the mind of the visitors. While, on the other hand, the large scale exhibitors wanted to contribute something to society. The large scale exhibitors are motivated due to their social responsibility in the community. They are motivated to test their new product from the festival and showing the local public and guests that they are there. They are motivated to invest in the economy, so that the small scale exhibitors would able to grow. They want to create a positive image of the destination, which can attract a huge number of visitors. All in all, the large scale exhibitors think from the community perspective. They don’t want to generate a lot of sales from the festival. But all they want is to express their social responsibility towards the society, they want to help the small exhibitors to grow, they want to attract more and more tourists to the region.
5.11.5. Mutual benefits of both exhibitor groups
In terms of benefits, both stakeholder groups stated that, with the participation in Gladmat festival, they have gained more business. This further benefited them in relation to the brand loyalty, because visitors are purchasing our products, not only at festival, but afterwards as well. The Gladmat have also provided them with the opportunity of promoting their businesses and products over a large number of audience. The large number of audience have helped them in gaining knowledge about their preferences and information that have lead them to gain
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competitive edge over the other businesses. This can be seen in the model of exhibitors (Model no.).
5.11.6. Unique benefit factors for small exhibitors
The findings clarifies that, the small exhibitors have gained some unique benefits, which are bringing them back to Gladmat. These factors can be seen in the model (No. 5) and are briefly explained in the following section.
5.11.6.1. Marketing benefits
The festival have provided them with a unique way to promote their business. They are promoting their business and as well as gaining sales and getting profit from their investment. They have learned new ways and themes to satisfy the current customers and attracting new ones.
5.11.6.2. Organizational benefits
The small exhibitor groups have mentioned that, they are benefiting in terms of money. Because they can able to sell a lot during the Gladmat, and this have increased in our profits. They also stated that, they are getting the benefit in terms of competency, because local people now know them and come to their restaurants after the festival.
5.11.6.3. Other benefits
The respondents also have mentioned some benefits, that have been segmented as other benefits. They stated that, the presence at Gladmat enabled them to have good relationship with the local
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people. They are interacting and cooperating with competitors, which indicates a strong social bond between the exhibitors.
5.11.7. Unique benefits for large stakeholder groups
The unique factors of benefits for large exhibitor groups can be seen in the model (No. 5) and are briefly discussed as follows:
5.11.7.1. Social and economic benefits
Contributing in society is one of the main benefit the large exhibitor groups are attaining from Gladmat festival. It is the responsibility of a firm to do something for the community they are operating in. In this way, they are contributing to society and in return they able to know the visitor's preferences to develop new products. Their participation into the festival have helped to promote the destination for tourists.
5.11.7.2. Marketing benefits
The participation in the Gladmat have given them the opportunity to get their brand recognized. They have able to achieve strong position in the mind of the customers, which benefit them in terms of competitive edge. The small cost associated with Gladmat have lead them to promote their companies. They are marketing their existing products in the festival and the visitors can purchase these products afterwards from the stores.
5.11.8. Summary
The findings on benefits indicates that, the small and large scale exhibitors are attaining different benefits by their participation in the Gladmat festival.
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In general, the small scale exhibitors have gained the attraction from visitors and found themselves a unique way to promote themselves to a large number of audience. They have learned new ways to satisfy their customers. The participation have given them a boost in sales and this helps them to generate money. On the other hand, the large scale exhibitors have promoted the region for the tourists. This enables them to satisfy the locals by fulfilling their corporate social responsibility. The promotion of destination helped in bringing a lot of tourists, who are coming to attend the Gladmat festival. They have gained to create an image in the minds of visitors, which have helped them in building good relations with their customers. The immediate feedback on the new products helped them for innovation in the products.
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5.12. Municipality
The Gladmat festival is being arrange under the municipality of Stavanger. It is the responsibility of a municipality to continuously provide the region with certain events for socialization and to have fun for the local people. But, as a municipality, the firm have certain other motivations and benefits for participating in the festival. It is therefore recommended, to understand these motivational and benefit factors of municipality, for its active role play in the Gladmat festival. The qualitative interview have enabled us to gather 25 motivational and benefit items, that have influenced the municipality to support the Gladmat festival. The extracted items were then separated based on motivations and benefits. The separated items were then further segmented within each construct. This provides the possibility for gathering the similar items under a particular segment. This enable us to draw the model (see model No. 6) of motivational and benefit items for the 'municipality of Gladmat'.
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Motivation
1. Destination image
a. b. c. d. e. a. b. c. d. Business investment policy Technical forum for food and beverage businesses To create something new for Stavanger region Strategic business plan of the region Attracting more tourists Fun and joy for the people Small exhibitors could earn money Support business activities Bringing a change in the traditional environment Meeting place for businesses Bringing businesses together Facilitate the people Would help in developing new proposals for future
Benefits
1. Business development
a. Enabled small exhibitors to sell their products over a larger target audience Increase in profitability for small exhibitors Created a lift up in innovation Economic development during summer Push to businesses Shows our social responsibility Helped in planning of new themes Socialization of people Created a lift-up in innovation Increased the competency of region Reputation among other municipalities A lot of tourists during summer
b. c. d.
2. Corporate social responsibility
Municipality of Gladmat Festival
e. a. b. c. d. a. b. c.
2. Corporate social responsibility
3. Socializing
a. b. c. a.
3. Destination image
4. Other motivation
Model 6: Conceptual framework model for municipality
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5.12.1. Municipality A
The interview was conducted with a senior advisor from the municipality, who is handling all the issues related to the Gladmat festival on behalf of municipality. It is important to note that, the municipality of Stavanger is also one of the owners of Gladmat festival, but here, we have interviewed the respondent to represent the municipality. The respondent stated in detail about the motivation of municipality to participate in Gladmat festival as, "the municipality of the city supported the Gladmat food festival because, food is one of the strategic area in the development plan for the region". He further stated that, "municipality is supporting the festival for many reason, it will attract many people in the town and the festival will provide the joy for the people living here". The respondent was further asked to highlight the 'benefits' municipality is achieving for participation to the festival. The respondent clarified that, "it is not of any importance for the Stavanger municipality to participate in the festival to earn money from festival". He further stated that, "Gladmat becomes a showcase, where the small exhibitors gather with the big exhibitors to introduce their products, and as the municipality of the region, we work together with them to develop the businesses of the region". The respondent further have discussed about the benefits in terms of "economic support of the region, provides fun to the people living here, support of business activities".
5.12.2. Review of items
The list of items was then reviewed by the two scholars and reduced the list to 25 items of which 13 items were indicating the motivation, while the rest 12 items were the benefits attaining by the municipality. The extracted list of items can be seen in the model under their particular segmented factor (See Model No. 6.). The repeated items were merged together to
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remove the overlap in the model. The complete list of items before the review can be found in the appendix No. The motivational factors that were indicated as important are "destination image", "corporate social responsibility", and "socializing". It is therefore more of significance to assume that, these factors have the significant explanatory power for further studies of understanding the motivation of municipality to participate in the food related festivals. While, on the other hand, the respondent stressed on 'benefits' in terms of "business development", "destination image", and "corporate social responsibility". These items under these factors have considered as 'benefits', which they are achieving for participation in the Gladmat festival. The extracted factors can help to the future researchers to look explain theme of 'benefit' from the municipality perspective.
5.12.3. Findings on motivations and benefits for municipality
As discussed in the literature review of the thesis that, the municipality is one of the important actor among the stakeholder groups, and in providing the extraordinary experience for the audience. The findings from municipality have given an insight into municipality's motivation and benefits for participation in the festival. Though, the data have been collected from one respondent. But it provides an opening to the concept of motivation and benefits, that have been overlooked by the scholars of the discipline. The findings can also provides the management to re-organize the staged event in order to provide the municipality with the desired benefits. A brief view of motivational factors will be given first, before moving to the benefits they have gained from the festival.
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5.12.3.1. Destination image
The core motivation of municipality to participate in the Gladmat festival was to create a positive image of the destination. They wanted to create a festival where the surrounding businesses of food and beverages come together, which in turn would bring a lot of tourists. They were aimed to create something new for the Stavanger region, that would enable them to show the competitive edge over the surrounding areas and destinations. They wanted to be part of the festival because of the strategic plan of the region and as well as to create a technical forum for the food and beverage businesses.
5.12.3.2. Corporate social responsibility
The second core motivation of municipality was their responsibility towards the society. They were motivated to provide the fun and joy for the people of the region. The people would come to the festival, and this would enable the small exhibitors to earn money. Therefore, as their social responsibility, they wanted to support the business activities especially related to food and beverages. They wanted to bring the change in the traditional environment, because the businesses use to be closed down during summer.
5.12.3.3. Socializing
The third main motivational factor was to create an opportunity for socialization. The festival would not only bring family and friends together, but it would also bring the businesses together. The Gladmat would be the meeting place for the businesses, which would increase the cooperation between the businesses. The local people would be gathered at the festival to meet with family or friends and enjoy the cuisines of the region. The 'benefits' that the municipality have gained due to the Gladmat festival is briefly elaborated below, and the clear segment of these items can be seen in the model (No. 6)
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5.12.3.4. Business development
The Gladmat festival have enabled the small exhibitors to sell their products over a larger target audience. This in turn have increase the flow of money in the community and the municipality as an organization would benefit from every business activity. The Gladmat festival have bring out a new way to create the innovation in the products and the processes of the exhibitors. The good flow in the business activities have also gives a push in the economic development during summer.
5.12.3.5. Destination image
The second benefit the municipality is getting is promotion of the destination image. The Gladmate festival have increased the competency of the region. The Stavanger region have gotten the privilege of showing the positive image to the tourist to visit the area. The increased reputation have shown the Stavanger municipality is doing well for the society.
5.12.3.6. Corporate social responsibility
The third 'benefit' that the community of Stavanger is achieving is the getting done their social responsibility towards the society and the local businesses. The Gladmat festival have created the situation where local people now get the socialization. It has also lifted up the activities for the Stavanger municipality to gather up new themes for the local people. The leading innovation in terms of Gladmat food festival have lead the municipality to promote certain other themes, that would attract more and more tourists.
5.13. Summary
The municipality have participated in the Gladmat festival to promote the positive image of the region. They lead to create an arena under which different actors of food and beverage
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businesses bring forward their products to sell it to larger target audiences. They wanted to be part of the environment where the people would come together and have fun. The Gladmat festival have benefited in the development of businesses, because the small exhibitors now can sell their products to a large number of audience. This push in sales of business have shown the gradual increase in the exhibitors participation in Gladmat festival. The reputation of the Stavanger region have increased than the other parts of the country. Unlike the other regions, the Stavanger municipality is able to attract a huge number of tourists to visit Stavanger during summer. That have given a competitive edge to the county and increased its ability to help the local people.
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5.14. Analysis of Quantitative research
We have used the SPSS version 20 to generate the quantitative results for the Gladmat festival visitors. In this section we have applied the frequency, factor analysis, correlation analysis and multiple regressions in order to have a meaningful interpretation of the figures in numbers. The survey for the visitors of the Gladmat festival was carried on last year in 2012 and during the festival time. Visitors from Rogaland region and from other part of the country came to participate in the festival. The questionnaire comprises of 41 questions and it is written in Norwegian and English, constructed with the five Likert scale of measurement for the first 20 questions. At the time of the festival partial random sampling have been used to gather the benefit related questions from the 350 visitors in the festival. 5.14.1. Frequency analysis of the Gladmat festival visitors Frequency helps to produce frequency distribution tables showing the number of cases who have a particular score on each variable (Brace, et al., 2003). In the frequency section we have covered the analysis about the visitors socio-demographic background detailed information with some of the questioned stated in the questionnaire and their responses. In this thesis 350 questionnaires were distributed and analyzed. The demographic profile of this sample which represents the whole visitors in the Gladmat festival can be seen in the frequency table.
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Table 1. The demographic profile of respondents (N=350). Respondents profile Frequency (%) Respondents profile Gender Male Female Repeat visits Yes No Repeat visit in the future Yes No Visiting other festivals Age Minimum Maximum Mean Region of origin Stavanger Neighbor municipalities Rogaland Other regions Occupation Student Professionals or managers, service workers Retired 42.4 22.0 14.3 21.3 9 83 36.31 Yes No
Frequency (%)
37.6 62.4
78.5 21.5
98.0 2.0
68.2 31.8
Visiting any food festival Yes No
21 79
23.2 65.2 11.6 Participation Alone With friends Partner/Spouse Family/children Other Educational level Primary School High school/Vocational University/College 6.7 34.8 25.0 29.9 3.6
Annual household income < 200,000 200,000-400,000 400,000-600,000 600,000-800,000 >800,000 Reason of visiting Stavanger Gladmat festival Work Education Sommer break
12.8 23.5 20.1 17.3 26.3
13.1 38.9 48
54.2 14.8 3.5 27.5
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In the analysis of the demographic characteristics of the respondents it depicted that there were more females attendees than males (62.4% and 37.6%) respectively. This is an indication of the food festival is popular by female participants. The average age of the attendees was 36.31 and the youngest is 9 years old and the oldest is 83 years old. Around 48% of the visitors were with higher education (university and college degree), 39% high school students, and 13.1% were from primary school. About 65.2% of the visitors are (professionals or managers, service workers); 23.2% students; and 11.6% are retired people. The analysis of the participants of the festival reflects also the social features of them most of the visitors, 34.8% with friends; 29.9% visited with family and children; 25% partner and spouse; 6.7% visited alone and 3.6% other. The annual household income also assessed and it demonstrates that 26.3% of the visitors’ income is above 800,000 kroner and 23.5% between 200,000 and 400,000. The origin of region of the attendees shows that 42.4% from Stavanger; 22% from neighboring municipalities; 14.3% from Rogaland; and the remaining 21.3% from other regions. This is an indication that the local community support and pride for the festival. For the repeat visit to the Gladmat festival, 78.5% replied yes and 21.5% relied no. It indicates that the visitors have early experience and they accustomed to visit the festival. For the future visit to the festival 98% responded yes and 2% no. It shows that how much the local people and people of Norway give a great value and development for the festival in the future. The visitors were asked reason of their visit to Stavanger during the Gladmat festival and 54.2% they said they came for the festival; 27.5% summer break; 14.8% work; and 3.5% education. Further, if they visited other festivals were asked and 68.2% replied yes and 31.8% no. From the attendees of the festival 21% visited other food festivals such as (Båtfestivalen and
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Skadyr festival). This shows the visitors interest to see other festivals within and outside of the region.
5.15. Factor analysis
Factor analysis is powerful instrument for reduction of large amount of data. Before we have started to analyze our data we firstly assessed our data if it is appropriate for factor analysis. Here we take into account the sample size and the correlation among the variables. According to Pallant (2010) the larger the sample the better and also he stated that in small samples the correlation coefficient among the variables is less variable. Therefore, it is recommended to have a large sample size to proceed for the factor analysis. In our case the sample is 350 and this fits with Tabachnick & Fidell (2007) suggested that it is comforting have at least 300 cases for factor analysis. And the correlation of the variables also an issue in factor analysis, according to Pallant (2010) if few correlations are above 0.3 so factor analysis may not be appropriate. In our thesis the correlation between the items is fairly suitable for further analysis. The sampling adequacy in our data were measured by Barlett’s test of sphericity and Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO). Barlett’s test of sphericity should be significant (p < .05) for the factor analysis to be considered appropriate and the KMO index ranges from 0 to 1, with 0.6 minimum value. In our case the data has 0.830 KMO, so it is suitable to continue the items to be factor analyzed. In the extraction process we have used the maximum likelihood to identify the most important factors in our data. The maximum likelihood method of factor extraction was developed by Lawley in 1940s (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007). During the analysis process we extracted six (6) main factors from the 20 items. Varimax rotation was applied, and extracted the above mentioned six factors with 49.9% of the variance. Then we proceeded to the communalities table and in this table the communality it measures of how much variance in
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the data from a particular variable is explained by the analysis (Brace et al., 2003).The higher the extraction communality of a specific variable and more variance is explained by the extracted factor. The Kaiser’s criterion or Eigen value is an important measurement next to communalities; it is the measurement tells us how much variance in all the data is explained by a single factor (Brace et al., 2003). In our case we extracted six factors which have Eigen value above 1 (5.714, 1.876, 1.544, 1.385, 1.196, 1.021), and these six factors can explain a total of 49.919% of the variance. For more confirmation and assurance we have used the Scree plot, which is a graph that shows the Eigen values of all the factors. In the graph prevails the six factors Eigen value over one above the elbow line. The next step is the un-rotated factor loading which is the combination of the variables and the extracted factors. The factor loading could be positive or negative, the larger the factor loading the more likely the factor underlies on that variable (Brace et al, 2003). In our data we have found from the analysis that some of the loadings are positive and some negative. Then, we carried on the rotated factor matrix to explain and interpret of how many factors underlie on our variables. In our analysis higher factor loading was observed in the first and second factor and the loadings were positive. The internal consistency for each of the scales was examined using Cronbach’s alpha. The Cronbach’s alpha for our 20 items is (α = 0.866) this shows with good face validity that is high internal reliability consistency between the variables. The convergent validity of the constructs was high when they measure the same construct and in discriminate validity the measure of construct correlation is low when measuring different constructs. In our thesis all our constructs have good convergent and discriminate validities they captured what they have intended to measure. The Cronbach’s alpha of the sum scores of each factors also analyzed and shown on (Table 2) below.
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Table 2. Factor analysis of Gladmat festival visitors benefits (N=350).Exploratory factor analysis and extraction method: Maximum Likelihood, Rotation Method, Varimax.Factor loadings greater than .300 are included. Sum Sum Item Variance Score Score Cronbach’s Factor Mean Item Explained Mean SD α Factors Loading Value SD Eigenvalue (%) value value 1.Seeking for novelty Cheer at chefs and exhibitors you know Test your own cooking skills Meet with performers in the food and meal businesses Experience shows and competitions in the culinary arts Participate a nish festival Learn new things The diversity of the program 2.Local tradition and celebration It has become a tradition to attend Gladmat Just had to attend the 5.71 .669 .664 .663 2.39 2.49 2.79 1.335 1.310 1.308 14.729 2.98 .86 .813
.608
3.10
1.232
.560 .458 .394
2.94 3.55 3.71
1.252 1.252 1.016
1.876 .964 3.82 1.385
8.595
3.89
1.25
.854
.713
3.94
1.298
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Gladmat festival Item Mean value Variance Explained (%) Sum score mean value Sum score SD value Cronbach’s α
Factors
Factor Loadings
Item SD
Eigenvalue
3.Buying and tasting Buy special food Taste fascinating food Try something different
4.Food enjoyment and atmosphere
Take time off to enjoy good food and beverage Experience Stavanger on its very best The Gladmat festival atmosphere Be with own family 5.Networking and socializing Meet new friends Be with old friends 6.Personal privilege
.503 .441 .357
4.36 4.55 3.95
0.952 0.667 1.208 1.196 5.769
3.70
.99
.530
.622 .488
3.25 4.17
1.353 1.040 1.021 5.486 3.49 1.02
.579
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and destination image The Gladmat profile with local food produce Feel as part of the “Rogaland Food County” Total variance explained (%) Cronbach’s α of all 20 items
.818 .409
3.73 3.25
1.035 1.383
49.919 .866
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The first factor with high reliability coefficient (α = 0.813) for Seeking for Novelty included seven items (“Cheer at chefs and exhibitors you know”; ” Test your own cooking kills”; ”Meet with performers in the food and meal businesses”; "Experience shows and competitions in the culinary arts”; ”Participate a niche festival”; ”Learn new things”; ”The diversity of the program”). The mean score for the these items are above average and with a comprehensive intention to explore benefits (Learn new things, the diversity of the program) which is the highest scores 3.55 and 3.71 respectively. The high score of standard deviation among the visitors shows there are different visitors and part of them involved in the hotel and restaurant industry so they would score high on the factor. The second factor identifies Local Tradition and Celebration, and searching for benefits by the visitors in the Gladmat festival (“It has become a tradition to attend in Gladmat”; and ”Just had to attend the Gladmat festival"), ( and α = 0.854), and the mean ranges from 3.82 to 3.94, this could show visitors willingness and benefiting satisfaction being in the festival. As it has been mentioned the mean is high which reveals that many people visiting the festival. For the third factor is explained by 7.9% of the variance (α = 0.648) for Buying and Tasting of three items (“Buy special food”; ”Taste fascinating food”; ”Try something different”) there is high mean (4.54) shows in taste fascinating food and second high (4.06) in try something different. The third factor could be explained as the visitors’ core benefits to taste new innovated food products during the festival period. The fourth factor, Food enjoyment and atmosphere is a factor mainly stresses up on take time off to enjoy good food and beverage, experience Stavanger on its best, the Gladmat festival atmosphere and be with own family. This factor comprises of 7.6% of the total variance and with internal reliability coefficient (α = 0.558) and in addition to that with very high mean values ranges from 3.95 to 4.55. It reveals the visitors major benefit through high
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participation enjoying the diverse food type and experiencing the cultural city (Stavanger) in combination with the atmosphere of the festival. The fifth factor, Networking and socializing holds two variables and these are meet new friends and be with old friends, with 5.8% of the variance and (α = 0.530). The mean value 3.25 and 4.17 shows the festival is an opportunity for the visitors to meet old and build up new network with new friends coming from local and other places to celebrate the festival. The sixth item Personal privilege and destination image , this factor accounted for 5.5% of the variance (α = 0.579) and it figures out two variables and these are (“The Gladmat profile with local food produce” and “Feel as part of the “Rogaland Food County”), and both holds above average means. This means the high participation and reflection of the local people proud and internal local feelings about the Gladmat festival.
5.16. Summary
The first (seeking for novelty) and the second (local tradition and celebration) factors have shown high factor loading comparing to the other factors. The third, fourth and fifth factor shown high mean value above average which tells us that most benefits factors of the visitor attending the Gladmat festival. The second and the sixth factor also have shown high standard deviation among the visitors of the festival, this means there was some difference in the respondents when replying this questions. People visit the festival to feast and enjoy the food from different places of the country, because it is summer just to socialize with your friends, the atmosphere also by itself it attracts visitors to the event. There are other food events also conduct in other counties but the Gladmat festival is the biggest food festival in the country.
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5.17. Correlation
It is often researchers have used to measure the relationship between two variables. Then if the two variables have correlation, so knowing the value of one of the variables will help you to predict the score on the other variable. The stronger the correlation between the variables the closer scores will fall to the regression line and the prediction also become more precise (Brace et al, 2003). In the correlation matrix between the dependant variables (No.), the values indicates the presence of both convergent and discriminant validity of the quantitative data. In this thesis before we conducting the multiple regression analysis we run our main six factors with the independent variables (age, education, number of visits). From the correlation analysis we have found that four factors which have correlation with the independent variables.
5.18. Summary
Correlation matrix is an important technique for analyzing and observing the relation between different variables from our data. Hence, so as to see the relation between our factors and the predictors, we run correlation analysis for both variables. From the above correlation matrix we can observe that three predictors have moderate correlation with four factors. There is positive and negative relationship between the predictors and the factors. Then from this we can extract these predictors and factors and use them for further analysis that is the multiple regression analysis.
5.19. Multiple regression analysis
Multiple regression is a technique used by many researchers to explore the relationship between dependent variable and a number of independent variables or predictors (Pallant, 2003). For example variable predictors like salary, occupation, experience helps to speculate how an individual is stratified with his or her job. In our case we want to know how much our independent variables predict the benefits or dependent variables. In the analysis of multiple regression we have to stress on some important terminologies which are very helpful in our data prediction process. There are three main types of multiple regression analysis and these are the hierarchical or sequential, stepwise and standard or simultaneous. In the hierarchical or sequential the independent variable is entered into the equation in the order specified by the researcher relied on the theoretical background. The stepwise multiple regression analysis is when the researcher gives the independent variable to the program and the program selects which variables it will enter and in which order they go into the equation, based on a set of statistical criteria (Pallant, 2010).
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In this thesis we have applied the third one that is the standard multiple regression in this type of regression all the independent (or predictor) variables are entered into the equation simultaneously. In this analysis each predictor is evaluated in terms of its predictive power, over and above that offered by all the other independent variables. This is the most widely used multiple regression analysis in the research world (Pallant, 2010). The sample of the size is important if you want to make an inferences or generalize-ability. According to Tabachnick and Fidel (2007) provided us with formula to calculate the sample size adequacy in the multiple regression analysis that is N > 50 + 8m, (m = meaning the number of independent variables). Beta (β) (standardized regression coefficients) is a measurement tool tells us how much strong each predicator variable influences the criterion variable or the dependent variable. It is measured in units of standard deviation. For instance β = 6.5 shows us that a change in one standard deviation in the predicator variable will result in a change of 6.5 standard deviation in the dependent variable (Brace et al, 2003). Therefore, the higher the value of Beta the greater its impact of the predicator on the dependent variable. R,R Square, adjusted R square these are also most important tools in the multiple-regression analysis, R is a measure of the correlation between the observed value and the predicted value of the criterion variable.R2 is the square of the measure of correlation and shows the variance in the criterion variable which is in our model.R2 overestimates our model if we applied in the real world so we use the adjusted R2 which calculates the number of variables in our model and the number of observations. It gives us an important measure of success to our model (Brace et al., 2003). Multi-collinearity is very important to check the correlation between the independent variables and dependent variable. The correlation between them should be above 0.3 (Pallant,
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2010). While the correlation between the independent variables should not be too high over 0.7 in the same analysis, if it is too high it should be considered and remove one variable. In the collinearity diagnostics, the tolerance value less than 0.10, or a VIF value of 10. Tolerance shows us how much one independent variable is not explained its variability by some other independent variable using the formula 1-R2. VIF (Variance inflation factor) which is the inverse of Tolerance value (1 divided by Tolerance). If the value of Tolerance is below 0.1 this indicates that there is high multi-collinearity while if the VIF is above 10 would be a concern showing multi-collinearity (Pallant,2010). When we have finished with the factor analysis we proceeded to multiple regression analysis to identify the predictors which can help us to forecast the dependent variables. But, before we continue the process we have analyzed the correlation matrix between our six factors extracted from the factor analysis and our independent variables (age, education, number of visits to Gladmat festival). Hence, from the correlation matrix we generated four factors which have significant relation with some of the independent variables. Multiple regression analysis 1: The first analysis was between the first factor in the matrix that is the Local tradition and celebration and (Education and Number of times) independent variables. As the tables shown below the multiple regression analysis carried on based on the relation of the factor and the predictors. In the first table shows that there is significance between them. There is positive relationship between the local tradition and celebration and number of times visiting the Gladmat festival while there is inverse negative relationship between the factor and the predicators. Our multiple regression model for the factor and two predicators generates R2 = 0.230, F (2,198) = 29.53, p
