2019年度 博士学位論文

2019

Value Cocreation in International Sports Tourism:

A Qualitative Study of a Regional Revitalizing Marathon Event in Japan

立教大学大学院観光学研究科博士後期課程 陳慶光

2019

Value Cocreation in International Sports Tourism:

A Qualitative Study of a Regional Revitalizing Marathon Event in Japan

指導教授 佐藤大祐

立教大学大学院観光学研究科博士後期課程 陳慶光

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ABSTRACT

Drawing on the concept of value cocreation, this study identified and categorized value cocreation practices engaged by different groups of actors (event organizers, event stakeholders, international participants) in an international sports tourism context. Qualitative data were gathered during a period of 18 months covering two consecutive editions (2016 and 2017) of Tohoku Food Marathon & Festival, an annual two-day event that has a substantial regional revitalization focus and a high ratio of international participants compared with marathons of similar scope and scale in Japan. Data collection included several rounds of interviews and onsite surveys, which involved participant observations both as a marathon runner and as a supporting member of the event organizers. Data analysis proceeded with a three-step coding process done by using NVivo 12.

Value cocreation practices are categorized as follows:

⚫ Event organizers: (1) developing value propositions; (2) communicating value propositions; (3) directing value cocreation.

⚫ Event stakeholders: (1) enabling and enhancing value propositions; (2) providing sports tourism elements.

⚫ International participants: (1) acquiring and propagating value propositions; (2) personalizing value propositions; (3) consuming sports tourism elements; (4) sharing and reinterpreting sports tourism experience.

The temporal variations in the actors’ roles and behaviors prompted a further discussion to present value cocreation in a three-phase value cocreation process model, during which value was assigned a temporal dimension in the form of value-in-expectation, value-in-experience, and value-in-retrospect. This study contributes to the sports tourism literature in identifying actor-specific value cocreation practices by extending the C2C (customer-to-customer) interactions to include the interactions between international participants and event stakeholders. Moreover, rather than adopting the traditional host-guest dichotomy, the research introduced event stakeholders as an independent category of actors in value cocreation to explain their specific roles in directly interacting with participants through service offerings of sports tourism elements. The results are expected to help sports tourism planners in implementing a platform that motivates actors to become more engaged in value cocreation.

One of the limitations of this research is that domestic (Japanese) participants were not

included as one of the main actors. Nevertheless, results of this study are expected to provide

a basis for multiple case studies to present a more complete analysis of value cocreation in

sports tourism or event tourism in general.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Doing a Ph.D. has been a long journey. It has not always been smooth, but it has always been fascinating and inspiring.

The journey actually started well before I enrolled at Rikkyo University. Along the way there were dots being connected, connections being broken, and linkages being reconnected.

Sometimes I feel lost, but luckily the journey has never been alone.

First, I would like to thank my supervisors Prof. Sato and Prof. Du for supporting me through the Ph.D. research process and for leaving me the freedom to pursue my ideas while providing useful comments and guidance. I would also like to express my gratitude toward Prof. Sato for allowing me the space and flexibility to complete this thesis alongside many other responsibilities.

I am very much indebted to the late Prof. Frank Go for inspiring me in several aspects of doing research. In addition, I need to thank Prof. Masutani and Prof. Senju for providing valuable guidance in qualitative research methods. Similar words of thanks need to be addressed toward Atsuko Hanyu, Amber Lee, and Erik van 't Klooster for their valued input and feedback. I also thank all the faculty members at the Graduate School of Tourism and of course the program director Prof. Ono. Also the management and staff members require mention as they have been instrumental to building an amicable academic environment.

Similar expressions of appreciation need to be directed toward my fellow Ph.D. students.

My survey in Tohoku has brought me in contact with many interesting people. I really appreciate all the interviewees for their time and information they provided.

Lastly, I need to thank my parents. Every wonderful experience and achievement over the years would not happen without your love and support.

July 2019, Tokyo

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CONTENTS

1. Introduction ... 1

1.1 Research background ... 1

1.2 Literature review ... 4

1.2.1 Sports tourism and its international aspects ... 4

1.2.2 Value and value cocreation... 10

1.2.3 Applications of qualitative research methods ... 18

1.3 Research objectives ... 21

1.4 Research methods ... 23

1.4.1 Research setting ... 23

1.4.2 Data collection ... 32

1.4.3 Data analysis ... 38

2. Value Cocreation from the Perspective of Event Organizers ... 45

2.1 Developing value propositions ... 45

2.1.1 Incorporate destination resources ... 46

2.1.2 Incorporate social issues ... 50

2.1.3 Incorporate international elements ... 55

2.2 Communicating value propositions... 59

2.2.1 Communicate face-to-face ... 59

2.2.2 Communicate through marketing channels ... 61

2.3 Directing value cocreation ... 67

2.3.1 Facilitate service encounters ... 67

2.3.2 Incentivize active participation ... 72

2.4 Facilitators and barriers ... 75

2.4.1 Personal and organizational resources ... 75

2.4.2 Social contexts ... 78

3. Value Cocreation from the Perspective of Event Stakeholders ... 83

3.1 Enabling and enhancing value propositions ... 83

3.1.1 Provide complementary expertise ... 84

3.1.2 Invest additional resources ... 87

3.2 Providing sports tourism elements ... 92

3.2.1 Collaborate across organizational boundaries ... 92

3.2.2 Engage in intercultural communications ... 95

3.2.3 Interpret the experience ... 100

3.3 Facilitators and barriers ... 104

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3.3.1 Personal and organizational objectives ... 104

3.3.2 Social contexts ... 105

4. Value Cocreation from the Perspective of International Participants ... 111

4.1 Acquiring and propagating value propositions ... 111

4.1.1 Search and receive information ... 112

4.1.2 Process and share information ... 115

4.2 Personalizing value propositions ... 119

4.2.1 Participate in side events and activities ... 119

4.2.2 Combine marathon running with traveling ... 120

4.2.3 Engage in activities related to sports and running ... 123

4.2.4 Train and prepare mentally and physically ... 124

4.3 Consuming sports tourism elements ... 129

4.3.1 Engage in intercultural communications ... 129

4.3.2 Interpret the experience ... 136

4.4 Sharing and reinterpreting sports tourism experience ... 140

4.4.1 Share across time and space ... 140

4.4.2 Reinterpret through sharing and recollecting ... 142

4.5 Facilitators and barriers ... 145

4.5.1 Personal objectives ... 145

4.5.2 Social contexts ... 146

4.5.3 Destination image ... 147

5. The Mechanism of Value Cocreation ... 155

5.1 Value cocreation: a holistic view across actor roles ... 155

5.1.1 Event organizers and event stakeholders ... 155

5.1.2 Event organizers and international participants... 156

5.1.3 Event stakeholders and international participants ... 159

5.2 Value cocreation: a three-phase process ... 160

5.2.1 Cocreate value-in-expectation ... 161

5.2.2 Cocreate value-in-experience ... 162

5.2.3 Cocreate value-in-retrospect ... 163

6. Conclusion ... 165

6.1 Toward a sustainable value cocreation cycle ... 165

6.2 Implications and contributions ... 167

6.3 Limitations and future research directions ... 168

References ... 169

Appendix ... 174

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1-1 Classification of value concept ... 14

Table 1-2 The number of overseas runners for major marathons in Japan (2017) ... 25

Table 1-3 Number of participants in Tohoku Food Marathon (2014–2017) ... 28

Table 1-4 Composition and roles of event organizers ... 29

Table 1-5 Composition and roles of event stakeholders ... 31

Table 1-6 Place of residence composition of international participants (2016–2017) .... 32

Table 1-7 Summary of data collection procedures ... 33

Table 1-8 Composition of the main informants ... 37

Table 1-9 Data volume by actor type and language composition ... 38

Table 1-10 Coding methods applied in data analysis ... 39

Table 2-1 Specialty foods and drinks served at refreshment stations and finish ... 48

Table 2-2 Awards received by Tohoku Food Marathon (2015–2017) ... 77

Table 2-3 Value cocreation practices engaged by event organizers ... 81

Table 3-1 Value cocreation practices engaged by event stakeholders ... 108

Table 4-1 International participants’ travel itineraries ... 121

Table 4-2 Experience sharing by international participants ... 141

Table 4-3 Value cocreation practices engaged by international participants ... 151

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1-1 Example of open-coding ... 40

Figure 1-2 Example of pattern-coding ... 41

Figure 1-3 Example of the coding process in NVivo 12 ... 42

Figure 2-1 Value cocreation from the perspective of event organizers ... 82

Figure 3-1 Value cocreation from the perspective of event stakeholders ... 109

Figure 4-1 Course map showing the foods served at refreshment stations ... 125

Figure 4-2 Value cocreation from the perspective of international participants ... 153

Figure 5-1 Information delivery among international participants ... 157

Figure 5-2 Three-phase value cocreation process model ... 160

Figure 6-1 A sustainable value cocreation cycle... 166

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LIST OF PHOTOS

Photo 1-1 Runners participating in Tohoku Food Marathon ... 26

Photo 1-2 The Food Festival of Tohoku Food Marathon ... 27

Photo 1-3 The Sake Festival of Tohoku Food Marathon ... 27

Photo 1-4 Participant observation as a marathon runner ... 35

Photo 1-5 Participant observation as a supporting member of the event organizers .... 36

Photo 2-1 The English website of Tohoku Food Marathon ... 57

Photo 2-2 An example of email newsletter sent to international participants ... 62

Photo 2-3 An example of earned media publicity ... 64

Photo 2-4 Promotion booth of Tohoku Food Marathon at Medoc Marathon ... 65

Photo 2-5 International ambassadors from Taiwan ... 66

Photo 2-6 Reception for international participants ... 68

Photo 2-7 A bilingual signboard ... 68

Photo 2-8 A bilingual interpreter volunteering at the Minami Sanriku tour ... 69

Photo 2-9 International participants posing for the costume competition ... 73

Photo 2-10 Souvenirs brought by participants ... 74

Photo 3-1 Brochure and leaflet of the Tohoku Food Marathon tour package ... 85

Photo 3-2 Promotion booth of Tohoku Food Marathon at Taipei Marathon Expo ... 86

Photo 3-3 Intercultural communications enabled by staging side activities ... 97

Photo 3-4 Intercultural communications facilitated by food served in side events ... 101

Photo 4-1 An international participant wearing special costumes ... 127

Photo 4-2 An international participant joining in side events and activities ... 130

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Photo 4-3 An international participant giving high-fives to the cheering crowds ... 134

Photo 4-4 An international participant taking photos of the cheering crowds ... 135

Photo 4-5 An international participant taking photos of other runners ... 135

Photo 4-6 Water used for brewing sake ... 137

Photo 4-7 Memory recollecting: Tome-grown rice sold in Hong Kong ... 143

Photo 4-8 Memory recollecting: Tome-breed pork sold in Hong Kong ... 143

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1. Introduction

1.1 Research background

Sports tourism plays an increasingly important role in providing a strategic toolkit for places to develop, convey, and sustain their place brand equity. Among various types of sports tourism activities, traveling to participate in sports events has attracted significant attention from practitioners and academia (Getz & Page, 2016). Sports events are believed to contribute toward place marketing (Chalip, Green, & Hill, 2003), urban development (Carlsen & Taylor, 2003; Clark & Huxley, 2009) and city re-imaging (Smith, 2005). In particular, mega sports events such as the Olympics and FIFA World Cups have received the most attention with respect to their economic impacts and country re-imaging effects (Kasimati, 2003; Chung &

Woo, 2011).

While mega sports events consist of a small number of elite athletes and large number of spectators, non-elite sports events such as city marathons in contrast have a participatory character. Rather than focusing on competitive results, non-elite sports events focus on participation and social engagement with the overarching aim of social inclusion. Coleman and Ramchandani (2010) investigated the economic impacts of non-elite sports events in Western countries and argued that city marathons can generate economic impacts similar to elite sports events, while putting less burden on public finance. In addition to the economic and city branding benefits, city marathons also contribute to a healthier population through long-term sports participation (Long, 2004; Lechner, 2009). Moreover, the active participation of volunteers and local residents in the staging of a marathon manifests that when positioned on a decentralizing continuum such an event is important to them. In particular, the involvement of citizens young and old signals their pride of the event and such bonding may give affordance to bridging the generation gap (Coleman & Ramchandani, 2010), and by extension fostering social cohesion.

Starting with the New York City Marathon in 1970, a marathon has evolved from elite

competition to mass participation as well as a form of active sports tourism that has

international appeal. In Japan, while there were many mass participation marathons catering

to health-conscious civic runners in secondary cities and suburbs, marathons held on main

roads and areas in major cities such as Tokyo, Osaka, and Fukuoka were reserved exclusively

for elite runners (Havens, 2015). This dichotomy has been converging since 2007, when the

hugely successful Tokyo Marathon was launched and became the category forerunner in

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Japan. The number of annual applicants for Tokyo Marathon rose from 95,044 in 2007 to more than 300,000 in the 2010s, while the total number of runners was capped at around 36,000 (Tokyo Marathon, 2018). Despite its relatively short history, the Tokyo Marathon has joined Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago, and New York City as one of the six most renowned marathons in the world (Abbott World Marathon Majors, 2019).

Observing the huge success of Tokyo Marathon, major cities in Japan such as Osaka, Kyoto, and Kobe among others, have started hosting their own city marathons, not only to promote sports participation and destination image, but also to attract sports tourists and revitalize the local economy. However, while many cities may desire to achieve those aims, they find themselves surrounded by an increasingly competitive environment and therefore face daunting challenges should they decide to enter the arena.

The first challenge is heightened competition with existing city marathons. Despite the growing demand from runners to participate in marathons, the time-frame and slot to host a marathon is constrained by both time and climate. Since most marathons take place on weekends in seasons with suitable weather conditions, city marathons are inevitably facing competition from both established and new events. The second challenge regards the macroeconomic environment. In a time of economic uncertainty and budget constraints across public and private sectors, the impending resource scarcity and decrease in investments from both public and private sector are forcing city authorities and marathon organizers to intensify their search for dependable resources, where inputs from relevant stakeholders might be intelligently pooled under a sound governance structure, in accordance with a sustainable business approach. The third challenge concerns the aging and declining population in Japan.

Though cities have been trying to counter this demographic trend by attracting non-resident populations to participate in their city marathons, it would be a zero-sum game for Japanese society as a whole if their focus is limited to a domestic scope. This implies that city authorities and marathon organizers would have to shift their perspective from competing with each other to expanding the participant base to overseas runners.

Despite all these challenges, some city authorities and marathon organizers actually see a

silver lining in the crowded sports tourism market. Traveling from overseas to Japan to run

marathons is an emerging sports tourism phenomenon and many destinations across Japan

have been aiming to capitalize on this opportunity by promoting their city marathons as an

important element of tourism destination competitiveness. As the number of marathons

continues to grow, heightened competition forces event organizers to expand their participant

base internationally and provide unique value for their participants. Different motives and

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behavior patterns between domestic and international participants, along with the multiplicity of actors involved in a marathon, call for the need to investigate international sports tourism with a holistic approach that acknowledges the different perspectives held and different roles played by different categories of actors.

Accordingly, this research responds to the growing demand for understanding international

sports tourism in the marathon event context by applying the marketing concept of value

cocreation (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004) to investigate how relevant actors cocreate value

in an international sports tourism setting. The study aims to explore in depth the phenomenon

of value cocreation by investigating the interactions between event organizers, event

stakeholders, and international participants involved in a mass participation marathon that has

a substantial regional revitalization focus and a high ratio of international participants

compared with marathons of similar scope and scale. The results are expected to provide a

blueprint for city authorities, sports event organizers, and tourism stakeholders to put forward

a value cocreation space that allows all involved actors to benefit from participating in it.

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1.2 Literature review

This section presents a systematic review of the concepts and current state of research on sports tourism and value cocreation, with a specific attention given to studies on international sports tourism. In addition, applications of qualitative research methods are reviewed to provide a basis for developing research design and data analysis procedures for the current study.

1.2.1 Sports tourism and its international aspects

The history of people traveling for sports can be traced back at least to the ancient Olympic Games in 776 BC; however, academic study on the phenomenon of sports tourism has started only in very recent years (Hinch, Higham, & Sant, 2014). Before the 1990s, sports tourism research tended to treat the sports component as sport-based activities or events that occur within a broader context of tourism. Insights in the relationships between sports and tourism were mainly provided through related fields such as hallmark events, health and fitness, and outdoor recreation. Though these studies contributed to our understanding of sports tourism, research in the 1990s remained isolated and did not focus on the interdependent relationship between sports and tourism (Hinch & Higham, 2001).

As the body of literature started to accumulate, the publication of the Journal of Sport Tourism

in 1993 marked a first step toward the establishment of sports tourism as an academic research field. As with other emerging academic disciplines, the study of sports tourism started with discussions on its conceptualization and typology. In their article proposing a research framework for sports tourism, Hinch and Higham (2001) discussed how sports tourism was defined by researchers from related fields. Though the various definitions differ in wording and focus, they often included activity (sport-based activity), spatial (travel away from the usual environment), and temporal (temporary, leisure time, or during holidays) dimensions that collectively define sports tourism. A typical definition of sports tourism reads:

“All forms of active and passive involvement in sporting activity, participated in casually or in an organized way for noncommercial or business/commercial reasons, that necessitate travel

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Renamed to the Journal of Sport & Tourism in 2006.

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away from home and work locality” (Standeven & De Knop, 1999, p. 12). By extension, sports tourists refer to individuals engaging in sports tourism.

One of the most common ways of classifying sports tourism is by the active/passive typology.

Active participation in sporting activity such as skiing, surfing, and running marathons is classified as active sports tourism (Gibson, 1998). In contrast, passive spectatorship of sporting activity such as watching a baseball game is classified as spectator sports tourism (Gibson, 1998). Alternatively, sports tourism can be classified based on the spatial dimension.

Sports tourism that involves spatial movement across national borders is classified as international sports tourism (Funk & Bruun, 2007).

Related to the definition of sports tourism, a seemingly trivial but spirited debate focused on the terminology issue regarding the “sport” or “sports” aspects of the term. Weed (2009) argued for the use of “sports tourism” over “sport tourism” because it implies “a focus on diverse and heterogeneous activities” that form the basis for “the interaction of activity, people, and place” observed in sports tourism phenomenon. In contrast, Gibson (2002) championed the use of “sport tourism” because the term signifies the uniqueness of sport tourism over other forms of tourism. Researchers use the two terms interchangeably and no definitive resolution on this debate has emerged so far. For the purpose of this study, the author chooses the term sports tourism to acknowledge that marathon, the topic under investigation, is one of the various sporting activities carried out by sports tourists.

As academic research on sports tourism advanced from its early stage of descriptive studies

to a more integrated and recognized research field, current lines of enquiry have expanded

along the dimensions of activity, people, and place. The expansion in research topics is in

accordance with the suggestions of Weed (2009, p. 618) that “sports tourism is a social,

economic and cultural phenomenon arising from the unique interaction of activity, people and

place.” Consistent with the activity, people, and place categorization, researchers have

approached sports tourism from the perspectives of sports tourists (people) and sports tourism

destinations (place), within a wide range of sports activities and events (activity). Consistent

with the place/people categorization, the following sections present a systematic review of

sports tourism research from the perspectives of sports tourism destinations and sports

tourists. The selected studies cover a wide variety of sports tourism activity/event contexts,

with a specific focus on their international aspects.

6 (1) The sports tourism destination perspective

One of the key themes that emerged in the early stages of sports tourism research entails the economic impacts brought about by sports events to the hosting destination. Weed (2006) identified sports event impacts as receiving the most attention in sports event research, as revealed by his systematic literature review. Hallmark events such as the Olympic Games and FIFA World Cups especially received plenty of attention due to their scale, political implications, and global media attention. The observation was echoed by Higham and Hinch (2009), who summarized sports tourism literature as “largely concentrated on high profile, mainstream and often professional or semi-professional sports, and global or international events that typically take place in the developed world” (Higham & Hinch, 2009, p. 4). Though sports event impacts literature has provided wide-ranging claims about the economic benefits of hosting mega events, the extent and nature of economic impacts remain unclear, given that methodological issues rendered those studies not directly comparable (Weed, 2009).

Apart from hallmark events such as the Olympic Games or FIFA World Cups, smaller, regional, non-elite, and recurring sports events such as city marathons may also hold possibilities for the hosting destinations to generate substantial economic impacts. To evaluate the potential economic impacts of such non-elite sports events, Coleman and Ramchandani (2010) investigated several marathons held in the United States of America and United Kingdom. From a participant expenditure perspective, they gathered economic impacts data published by the marathon organizers of New York City, Boston, Honolulu, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and London. The results showed that city marathons can generate economic impacts comparable to, and in some cases greater than those of elite sports events. From an event organizing cost perspective, Coleman and Ramchandani (2010) argued that non-elite sports events do not place excessive burden on public funds because they require fewer infrastructure investments. Therefore, they proposed that non-elite sports events such as marathons can be self-financing, given that financial contributions from runners and corporate sponsors can cover the costs of hosting a marathon. In addition to economic benefits, they also pointed out that a marathon may attract visitors to the hosting city during an off-peak season, thereby limiting the negative impacts of seasonality and improving the destination image of the city.

Relating to the potential of leveraging sports events to improve the destination image of the

hosting city, Chalip, Green, and Hill (2003) investigated the effects of media and advertising

of a motor sports event (Honda Indy 300 that takes place on the Gold Coast in Australia) on

the spectators’ image toward the hosting destination. Two groups of undergraduate students

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in the United States of America and New Zealand were shown videos of destination advertisements, sports event advertisements, and sports event TV programs. Afterwards they were asked to complete a 40-item destination image scale that measured nine dimensions of their perceived destination image of the Gold Coast. Multivariate analysis of covariance on the data showed that destination advertisements, sports event advertisements, and sports event TV programs each affected different dimensions of destination image. Though the findings were based solely on media influences that occurred during the pre-travel stage, Chalip et al.

(2003) provided empirical evidence that supported the destination marketing effects of hosting sports events. In addition to the media influences which occurred during the pre-travel stage, further investigation into how sports tourists’ onsite travel experience would alter their destination image is warranted.

In additional to the economic impacts and destination marketing effects of sports tourism, the social impacts of sports tourism also gained attention due to the celebratory nature of sports events that can foster social interaction through a sense of communitas (Chalip, 2006).

Drawing on social exchange theory, Waitt (2003) examined the changes in enthusiasm among the residents of Sydney before the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. The author developed a scale to measure residents’ enthusiasm toward the Olympic Games which includes the desire to be a volunteer, feelings of a sense of community spirit, feelings of pride in Sydney, feelings of pride in Australia, feelings of excitement about Sydney hosting the Olympics, and the desire to bid for the Olympics again. Between 1998 and 2000, a socially diverse sample of Sydney residents was asked to fill out a survey, and their responses were analyzed by applying a non- parametric statistical test. The findings showed that residents’ enthusiasm toward the Olympics intensified from 1998 onward and reached euphoria in September 2000. The level of enthusiasm increased significantly in terms of the desire to be a volunteer, feelings of a sense of community spirit, feelings of pride in Sydney, feelings of pride in Australia, and feelings of excitement about Sydney hosting the Olympics. In addition, demographic characteristics were shown to differentiate respondents’ altering attitude. In particular, those who perceived the economic benefits as outweighing personal costs exhibited higher levels of enthusiasm.

In the above-cited studies, the focus was on the impacts of a particular sports event on the

hosting destination. Since a sports event, or any event in general, is part of a destination's

overall mix of tourism products, researchers and practitioners have called for the need to

identify more effective strategies to exploit possible synergies between sports events and

other tourism resources of the hosting destination. Building on this train of thought, Chalip and

McGuirty (2004) investigated the appropriate elements to be bundled with the Gold Coast

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Marathon in Australia. Eight bundle components (Marathon Official Parties, Sport Activity Package, Hinterland Tour, Theme Park, Coaching Clinic, Open Air Concert, Brisbane Day Trip, and Nightlife Tour) were selected and combined into twelve sets of possible bundles using standard protocols for conjoint analysis. The sets of bundles were then presented to a sample of potential participants of the Gold Coast Marathon. Respondents were asked to rank their preferences of the presented bundles, and their answers were analyzed by applying conjoint analysis. The results showed that the Marathon Official Parties and Sport Activity Package were the most appealing components. The Hinterland Tour, Theme Park Tour, and Coaching Clinic were each moderately appealing. The Open Air Concert, Brisbane Tour, and Nightlife Tour had negligible appeal. Moreover, by applying a cluster analysis, the authors identified four distinct market segments that were labeled as dedicated runners, running tourists, active runners, and runners who shop. Different segments were found to be attracted to different attractions. In conclusion, tourism promotion authorities or sports event organizers are advised to develop activities that support the subculture of the sport, as well as activities that are consistent with the values and interests of different segments of event participants.

After presenting a brief review of sports tourism studies from the perspective of sports tourism destinations, it can be summarized that, while these studies are helpful in understanding the overall impacts brought about by sports tourism activities, insights offered by such approaches are limited to a macro perspective. Moreover, the above-cited studies did not focus on the differences between domestic and international sports tourists. In order to provide complementary insights from a micro and meso perspective, studies approached from the perspective of sports tourists will be discussed in the next section.

(2) The sports tourist perspective

Regarding spectator sports tourism, Nishio, Larke, van Heerde, and Melnyk (2016)

examined the motivations of Japanese international sports-fan tourists. Among the 338 survey

respondents who had watched sports games in foreign countries, one third of them watched

professional baseball games in the United States of America, 12% watched professional

soccer games in Europe, and 7% watched professional basketball games in the United States

of America. The motivations of these international sports-fan tourists were measured by using

two separate motivation scales, one as a tourist and the other as a sports fan. The findings

indicated that escape, nature, shopping, and gourmet dining were among the tourist

motivations. Socialization, achievement, relaxation, and enjoying high level of games were

among the sports-fan motivations.

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With respect to active sports tourism applied to an international marathon context, Funk and Bruun (2007) investigated the motivation of sports tourists who traveled internationally to participate in a marathon held in Australia. Data were collected by questionnaires from 239 respondents among the international entrants of the 2005 Gold Coast Marathon. Structural equation modeling analysis indicated that running involvement, running event motivation, and attitude toward Australia constituted socio-psychological motivation. Moreover, knowledge learning and culture experience constituted culture-education motivation. International sports tourists from cultural backgrounds dissimilar to Australian culture exhibit stronger culture- education motivations, but don’t differ on socio-psychological motivations. The findings suggest that cross cultural differences exist in motivation among international sports tourists.

Focusing on interpreting sports tourists’ experience as traveling fan-supporters, Morgan (2007) proposed a framework to explain the behavior of rugby fans traveling from the United Kingdom to New Zealand to watch and root for the British and Irish Lions rugby team playing against the New Zealand All Blacks. In the proposed framework, interactions between sports event organizers and sports tourists were portrayed in an experience space characterized by social and cultural interactions. While the event organizers engaged in experience management and experience marketing activities, sports tourists’ experience was composed of: “(1) personal benefits of hedonic enjoyment and achievement; (2) social interaction with locals, staff and other tourists, leading to a sense of communitas; and (3) wider symbolic meanings derived from personal narratives and shared cultural values” (Morgan, 2007, p. 367).

Further focusing on the social interactions among international participants of a four-day running challenge held in Cyprus, Shipway and Jones (2007) applied the concept of serious leisure and social identification theory to explore international sports tourists’ behavior and experience. They developed a quasi-ethnographic research design in the sense that the two researchers adopted different roles (an insider and an outsider) in conducting participant observation and interviews at the event. The results showed that the running event functioned as a social gathering for the participants to confirm their social identity as a serious runner, which was shown in the homogeneity of their behavior, appearance, language used, and confirmed by their personal effort, perseverance, as well as running career. The findings in this study show overlap with their study on the London Marathon (Shipway & Jones, 2008).

Though the two destinations (Cyprus and London) where participants engaged in international

sports tourism activities were completely different, behavior and experience of international

participants in the two events were observed as similar. Since their focus was on the

interactions among participants, the research did not allow for the exploration of interactions

between the hosting destination and the participants. In this regard, Funk and Bruun (2007)

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identified cultural learning and experience motives of international sports tourists. Therefore, adopting a more holistic approach by including both interactions among participants and interactions between participants and the destination is required to present a complete picture of sports tourism phenomenon.

1.2.2 Value and value cocreation

The concept of value cocreation was introduced in the early 2000s by Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004). Coinciding with the development of the service economy and the service- dominant logic (Vargo & Lusch, 2004), value cocreation has gained prominence first in the marketing literature (Leclercq, Hammedi, & Poncin, 2016), and has since been applied in various fields including tourism studies (Campos, Mendes, Valle, & Scott, 2018).

A straightforward attempt to understand value cocreation may be approached by examining how Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004) defined the notion: “Value cocreation means joint creation of value by the company and the customer, i.e. both client and suppliers create value”.

In its simplest form, value cocreation suggests that the value of a product is not created solely by the producer during the manufacturing process, but is created jointly with the customers in the consumption process. For example, the value of LEGO bricks is not created in the factory by the manufacturers. The toy bricks would have no value if they stay on a store shelf without being bought and played with. It is the customers who evaluate the value of LEGO bricks by applying their creativity and skill to build finished works with those toy bricks. Therefore, “the customer is always a co-creator of value” (Vargo & Lusch, 2008, p. 7). While the product forms the basis for customers to create value, it is the customer who decides how to use the product, and how useful it could be. In other words, “value is always uniquely and phenomenologically determined by the beneficiary” (Vargo & Lusch, 2008, p. 7).

From its initial development phases, the concept of value cocreation has been adopted by tourism scholars. The trend can be explained by at least two features of tourism studies. First, the inclusionary perspective of value cocreation fits well with the multiple-actor nature of tourism. Value cocreation is not limited to interactions between companies and customers, but also involves stakeholders such as suppliers, public organizations, and other business partners. Secondly, the experiential approach of value cocreation fits well with the tourist experience perspective. Value is cocreated through a series of experiences composed of a vast range of interactions. This experiential interpretation is in line with the assertion that

“tourism is an industry that sells experience” (Campos et al., 2018, p. 369).

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The next section aims to clarify the concept of value before presenting a review of value cocreation research from the perspective of the organization/destination and the customer/tourist. The classification is inspired by Campos et al. (2018), and is in line with the focus of the current research.

(1) Value

Mutual creation of value is the key feature of value creation. However, the definition of value is not free of dispute (Leclercq et al., 2016). Since the term “value” is widely used in daily conversations and discussed in various academic disciplines, a review of how scholars have approached the concept of value is warranted.

Value is a seminal topic in social and human sciences ranging from economics and marketing to philosophy, psychology, and sociology. In people’s daily conversations, talk of values is often about strongly held personal beliefs about what is valuable, important, or acceptable. For example, honesty and diligence may be values held by someone as important in the way he or she behaves (Tappolet & Rossi, 2016). Talk of values is also often about socially-shared notions about what is deemed good or ideal, such as justice and freedom which may be deemed as common values that ought to be promoted in human society (Tappolet & Rossi, 2016). From the above viewpoints, value is understood as “personal values”

or “social values” and these topics have received the most attention from both psychologists and sociologists. Research questions such as “What is the relationship between values and motivation?” (Parks & Guay, 2009) and “How has a certain value emerged within a social group?” (von Scheve, 2016) have been discussed to better understand the nature of value.

Value can also be understood as an individual’s subjective perception of the benefits of doing or owning something. For example, a product may be described as offering good value for money. In this line of interpretation, economists express value with the term “utility” that allows comparing different products or services in a choice situation with limited resources.

Similarly, marketing research defines value as “customer’s overall assessment of the utility of a product based on the perceptions of what is received and what is given” (Zeithaml, 1988).

The focus of marketing research on customer value has its root in the definition of marketing, which is “the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large”

(American Marketing Association, 2013). Since customers choose products or services from

an array of competing offerings, producers and service providers have strived to provide

added value for customers through better value propositions.

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The above discussions show that value can be conceptualized as “values held by someone”

or “values of something as perceived by someone”. Both conceptualizations are inter-related and have implications for tourism research.

First, since personal values (values held by someone) are primarily formed through education and social interactions, people with a similar cultural background tend to possess culturally-shared values (Parks & Guay, 2009). Moreover, personal values tend to change substantially during adolescence and then gradually stabilize in adulthood. However, being exposed to a new and unfamiliar social context was found to facilitate changes in one’s values structure (the order of the importance of values) since values are acquired through social interactions (Parks & Guay, 2009). Therefore, traveling to a different country and experiencing a new culture may alter an individual’s personal values through interactions with local people and customs. Such observations can be linked to the liminality of the tourism experience during which a tourist may be transformed into a new self (Turner, 1969).

Secondly, perceived value (values of something as perceived by someone) has been examined in tourism studies to explore its relationships with constructs such as involvement, motivations, service quality, satisfaction, and loyalty. Gallarza and Saura (2006) provided evidence on the chain effect that starts from quality to value to satisfaction to loyalty.

Prebensen, Woo, Chen, and Uysal (2012) showed that motivation and involvement are antecedent variables of the perceived value of a destination experience.

Though extant studies in tourism and marketing research have focused on perceived value

while treating personal values as an exogenous variable which is expressed as personal or

social context, the two conceptualizations are arguably related to each other. First, personal

values are closely related to one’s motivation in traveling to a destination (Parks & Guay, 2009),

which in turn have an effect on one’s perceived value of a destination experience (Prebensen

et al., 2012). Secondly, just like freedom can be an important personal value shared among

people of a particular society, tourism resources such as history, culture, and landscape can

be shared values held by the residents of a destination. Such values form the identity of a

destination that can be projected through marketing communications or word-of-mouth to

potential tourists and form a virtual destination image (Govers & Go, 2004). These destination

images are consumed before visiting a destination and updated during the actual visit, after

which the tourists’ perceived value of visiting a destination is formed and may be stored or

shared to form a basis for them or others to evaluate travel experiences in the future (Prideaux,

2014).

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Adopting a subjective perspective of customer perceived value, Leclercq et al. (2016) summarized the concept of value by how and when value is cocreated. Value-in-exchange conceptualizes value as the customer’s subjective assessment of the perceived benefits and costs (including monetary, physical, mental, social) associated with purchasing a product or service (Zeithaml, 1988). Value-in-use focuses on the active role of the customer as value cocreator, who consumes the offer by using a product or service, through which value is evaluated and assigned by the customer (Vargo & Lusch, 2004). Extending the sources of value generation to the social and spatial context, Vargo and Lusch (2008) introduced the concept of value-in-context. Since value is “always uniquely and phenomenologically determined by the beneficiary” (Vargo & Lusch, 2008, p. 7), value depends on how it is cocreated within a social context laden with personal meanings, socio-cultural factors, and marketing communications. It suggests that customers may not only perceive value by directly using a product or service, but also indirectly from their own perception and influences of information channels such as media and word-of-mouth (Leclercq et al., 2016). Further extending the scope of value cocreation, value-in-experience conceptualizes value as perceived by an individual over the entire course of the customer experience (Holbrook, 2006).

Tourists may contribute to value cocreation in some or the overall tourism experience, through their participation/interaction in onsite activities and subjective experience (Campos et al., 2018). This viewpoint encompasses value-in-exchange, value-in-use, and value-in-context, as well as direct and indirect interactions carried out during the value cocreation process (Leclercq et al., 2016)

Table 1-1 summarizes the classification of the value concept. Approached from a tourism

research perspective, value-in-context implies that perceived value of visiting a destination

can be derived and partially pre-defined during the pre-travel stage. This conceptualization is

relevant for international sports tourism because whether one travels for spectating or actively

participating in sports activities, itinerary planning and ticketing or registering for the sports

activity are required well in advance. Over the course of the destination experience, one

potentially develops new skills, as well as knowledge about the destination, and may engage

in learning loops that contribute to future cocreation activities (Payne, Storbacka, & Frow,

2008). Take traveling internationally to run a marathon as an example, one searches for

information to decide which marathon and which related events to participate in, and then

trains and prepares according to his or her purposes. During the trip, one interacts with other

runners and elements featured in the marathon. After the trip, one may obtain or confirm his

or her identity as a marathon runner (Shipway & Jones, 2007) and acquire a deeper

understanding of the destination through sharing and recollecting. Taking into account the

14 Table 1-1 Classification of value concept

Value concept Focus Implications for tourism research Value-in-

exchange The customer’s subjective assessment of the perceived benefits and costs associated with purchasing a product or service (Zeithaml, 1988).

Since tourism activities consist of multiple exchanges of products and services, an exchange perspective may be too limiting in terms of time horizon.

Value-in-use The customer consumes the offer by using a product or service, through which value is evaluated and assigned by the customers (Vargo & Lusch, 2004).

Since tourism activities involve consuming a combination of multiple products and services, a broader approach may be required.

Value-in-context Value depends on how it is cocreated within a social context laden with personal meanings, socio-cultural factors, and marketing communications (Vargo &

Lusch, 2008).

Tourists may not only perceive value by actually visiting a place, but also indirectly from their own perception and influences of information channels such as media and word-of-mouth (Govers & Go, 2004).

Value-in-

experience Conceptualizes value as perceived by the customer over the entire course of the customer experience (Holbrook, 2006).

Tourists may contribute to value

cocreation in some or the overall tourism experience, through their

participation/interaction in onsite activities and subjective experience.

Note: Based on Leclercq et al. (2016).

above viewpoints, an investigation of value cocreation in international sports tourism may benefit from examining the formation and transition of value over the course of pre-travel, during-travel, and after-travel phases.

(2) Value cocreation: the organization/destination perspective

This section presents a review of value cocreation studies that were approached from a supplier’s perspective (manufacturers, service providers, or tourist destinations). This stream of research puts more emphasis on managing value cocreation from various theoretical lenses such as destination partnerships, managing the cocreation process, organization capability, and company support.

Focusing on destination partnerships, Mariani and Giorgio (2017) investigated how and why

competing destination management organizations (DMOs) within an area may collaborate to

design and develop event tourism. The research context was set in the “Pink Night” festival

taking place in the Riviera de Romagna area in northern Italy. Because the festival is

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composed of many small events held in different regions, where multiple stakeholders from neighboring regions were involved in staging the festival, it is regarded as a suitable case to investigate destination partnerships in the context of event tourism. To uncover how and why DMOs collaborate, Mariani and Giorgio (2017) conducted interviews, participant and non- participant observations, and collected archival data related to the festival and participating DMOs. Data were analyzed qualitatively to show that events held in each region collectively formed an event portfolio for the wider tourism area. Seeking to rebrand the wider tourism area by use of event tourism, regional DMOs collaborated to create an event portfolio that aligns the interests of competing DMOs. The outcomes of such an approach were increased overall competitiveness and positive impacts on the tourism experience, which in turn contributed to the branding of the tourism area.

With respect to managing the value cocreation process, Buonincontri, Morvillo, Okumus, and van Niekerk (2017) modeled the process as an antecedent-cocreation-consequence chain effect. Constructs were measured by multiple items presented in questionnaires (a total of 382 valid responses from a sample of tourists visiting Naples, Italy). Next, the linkages among constructs were tested quantitatively by applying path analysis. The results indicated that interactions between tourists and service providers, as well as active participation of tourists, positively affected the degree of value cocreation, which in turn led to higher satisfaction, happiness, and expenditures of tourists.

While Buonincontri et al. (2017) proposed a possible roadmap for tourism industries and destination marketing organizations to successfully manage value cocreation with their customers, it remains unclear how organizations can facilitate livelier interactions and a more active participation of tourists. Organizations may need to implement specific actions to facilitate value cocreation. Moreover, a certain capability may be required within an organization in order to successfully execute these actions.

With respect to organization capability, Cabiddu, Lui, and Piccoli (2013) investigated how organizations may apply information technology (IT) capability in managing value cocreation.

Their research context involved a tour operator offering an online platform for tourists to book

hotel rooms from the participating hotels in Sardinia, Italy. To identify how IT enables value

cocreation, they interviewed key persons from the tour operator and managers from hotels

participating in the online reservation platform. The interview transcripts were then analyzed

qualitatively to show that IT readiness, strategic fit, and synergy were the three most crucial

factors in applying IT to manage value cocreation successfully. Hotels that possessed superior

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level of IT readiness, strategic fit, and synergy, were able to achieve higher sales revenues within the online reservation platform.

Focusing on the role of company support in facilitating customer cocreation, Grissemann and Stokburger-Sauer (2012) empirically tested the relationships among constructs including company support, customer cocreation, and customer satisfaction in an Austrian travel agency context. Constructs were measured by multiple items presented in questionnaires (a total of 185 valid responses from travel agency customers). Next, the relationships among constructs were tested quantitatively by applying structural equation modeling. The results showed that company support significantly affected the degree of customer cocreation, which in turn positively affected customer satisfaction, loyalty, and expenditures. Therefore, companies were advised to actively involve customers (through company support) in cocreating travel services, in order to achieve better financial (higher customer expenditure) and non-financial performance (higher customer satisfaction). Due to the survey nature of this study, customer cocreation practices were restricted to those represented in the question items, i.e., the level of customers’ involvement in arranging the trip by using their own experience and time. In addition, customers’ responses to the questionnaire were recorded right after they booked the travel arrangement, but before the trip actually took place. Though the procedure was intended to eliminate the influence of travel experience, such research design practically assumed that cocreation between the company and customers happens only during the pre-travel stage.

While this assumption might be true in a travel agency context, the role of company support during and after the travel deserves further investigation.

It is worth to note Grissemann and Stokburger-Sauer (2012) measured the level of company

support from two sources: company and customers. Employees of the travel agency were

asked to specify their level of support for each customer involved in this study. The support

provided ranged from high (personal assistance and interactions with customers), medium

(occasional phone calls), to low support (standardized customer service via email). In addition,

customers’ perceived company support was also measured in the questionnaire by asking the

customer’s subjective assessment (on a seven-point rating scale from strongly disagree to

strongly agree) of how the company supported them. Though company support and customer

perceived company support were found to be positively correlated, the correlation coefficient

(0.45) showed that there were moderate gaps between company support provided by the

company and as perceived by the customers. The gap is particularly relevant in investigating

the role of company support in an international context, where language and cultural gaps are

believed to play a major role in company-customer interactions.

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Since Grissemann and Stokburger-Sauer (2012) focused on company-to-customer value cocreation, they purposely ruled out the influence of customer-to-customer value cocreation by restricting their samples to customers who entered the travel agency alone. Later studies stressed the role of customer-to-customer interactions in cocreating tourism experiences.

Perspectives from the customer/tourist will be further discussed in the next section.

(3) Value cocreation: the customer/tourist perspective

This section presents a review of value cocreation studies that were approached from a consumer’s perspective (customers who consume products or services, or tourists visiting destinations). This stream of research puts more emphasis on human interactions from various viewpoints such as cooperation between customers and service providers, customer- to-customer cocreation, and resident-to-tourist cocreation.

McColl-Kennedy, Vargo, Dagger, Sweeney, and van Kasteren (2012) explored in-depth health care customers’ value cocreation practices and styles. They conducted interviews, focus group sessions, and field observations over a period of two years at two oncology clinics.

The main subjects under study were patients receiving cancer treatment. The collected data were analyzed by applying a constant comparative method, during which themes were identified from an iterative process of reading and assessing data. Their findings were three- fold. First, health care customers were found to cooperate, collate information, combine complementary therapies, co-learn, change ways of doing things, connect, coproduce, and engage in cerebral activities while cocreating value with each other and with the health care service provider (the clinic). Secondly, health care customers’ value cocreation styles were categorized by using a two-dimension typology based on the level of engagement and number of interactions. The identified styles were: (1) team management (high engagement, high interaction); (2) pragmatic adapting (low engagement, high interaction); (3) insular controlling (high engagement, low interaction); (4) passive compliance (low engagement, low interaction);

(5) partnering (medium engagement, medium interaction). Thirdly, these value cocreation styles were linked to the patients’ perceived quality of life. In particular, team management and partnering should be facilitated by service providers as they are associated with higher quality of life.

While McColl-Kennedy et al. (2012) examined value cocreation in the medical service

context, another empirical study on value cocreation concerned the festival context. Drawing

on the customer-dominant logic in marketing, Rihova, Buhalis, Gouthro, and Moital (2018)

explored customer-to-customer cocreation practices and the related value outcomes by taking

on fieldworks at five outdoor festivals in the United Kingdom that constituted a rich and

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complex social landscape with varied purposes and themes. Data were collected through interviews and participant observations, and were analyzed by applying a five-step qualitative thematic analysis method. The analysis revealed 18 customer-to-customer cocreation practices, which were located on a two-dimensional continuum of autotelic-instrumental and private-public practices. Moreover, the authors discussed four value outcome categories:

affective, social, functional, and network value.

In addition to interactions among tourists, Lin, Chen, and Filieri (2017) expanded the cocreation sphere to focus on value cocreation between tourists and residents of tourist destinations. Specifically, they verified the relationships among residents' life satisfaction, their perceived benefits and costs of tourism development, and their value cocreation with tourists.

Data were collected through online questionnaires conducted in four major tourism cities in China: Beijing, Tianjin, Hangzhou, and Xian. Structural equation modelling showed that residents' perceived benefits of tourism development positively affected both value cocreation and life satisfaction, while perceived costs were shown to have negative effects. Moreover, life satisfaction positively influenced value cocreation.

1.2.3 Applications of qualitative research methods

Broadly defined, qualitative research may refer to any type of research whose results are not based on statistical inference of quantitative data (Strauss & Corbin, 1988). Qualitative research methods involve analysis of qualitative data gathered from various sources such as interviews, observations, and documents. While there are many different approaches to analyze qualitative data, they usually consist of condensing and conceptualizing the data, elaborating the conceptualized variables, and relating those variables to draw and verify explanations and conclusions. These common procedures can be summarized in a sequential process that involves assigning codes to a set of data, sorting through the coded materials to identify similar patterns, and gradually condensing to a smaller set of propositions or generalizations that can be applied to describe and explain the phenomenon in concern (Miles, Huberman, & Saldana, 2014). Such commonality is shown in a review of the following studies.

To uncover how and why competing destination management organizations (DMOs) in the

Riviera de Romagna area in Italy may collaborate with each other within an annual festival,

Mariani and Giorgio (2017) conducted interviews (22 interviewees from DMOs and other

stakeholders in four regions), participant observations (at the 2011-2013 editions of the

festival) and non-participant observations (at meetings during the event planning period), and

collected archival data from brochures and reports related to the festival and participating

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DMOs. The collected data were analyzed qualitatively by using a three-step coding procedure that involved identifying first-order concepts, aggregating convergent concepts into higher- order theoretical dimensions, and inferring the relationships between theoretical dimensions.

In the first step, each researcher independently coded the data to identify terms and patterns, and clustered them into categories of first-order concepts. In the second step, each researcher separately examined relationships between first-order concepts and grouped similar categories into second-order themes, which were expressed at a higher level of abstraction to facilitate theorization. In the third step, they searched for relationships between second-order themes. Overall, they identified six aggregate theoretical dimensions to explain why DMOs may collaborate to achieve increased competitiveness, positive tourism experience, and destination branding.

Similarly, Cabiddu et al. (2013) applied coding procedures in analyzing qualitative data. To identify how information technology (IT) enables value cocreation in the hotel industry, they interviewed three key persons from an online hotel reservation platform and 10 managers from hotels participating in the reservation platform. The interview transcripts and archival data such as business plans and internal memos totaled up to more than 150 pages of text data, which were analyzed qualitatively by using a three-step coding procedure that involved open-coding, cross-case comparison, and pattern-coding. In the open-coding step, three coders (the interviewer and two doctoral students) independently coded units of sentences to conceptualize the data. In the cross-case comparison step, the three coders compared the cases to discuss common and incompatible concepts identified in the first step. Codes were iteratively refined (new codes added, old codes changed or merged, etc.) by repeatedly comparing different cases of transcripts and codes. In the pattern-coding step, they condensed the large amounts of data summarized in the previous steps into a smaller set of constructs to highlight the central concepts surrounding IT-based value cocreation. The results were three categories of concepts (IT readiness, strategic fit, and synergy) that contributed to successfully applying IT to manage value cocreation.

While the above-mentioned coding procedures have root in grounded theory research methodology (Strauss & Corbin, 1998), applications of the coding process are not restricted to developing grounded theory. First, the coding procedures roughly align with the five-phase analytics cycle (compiling, disassembling, reassembling, interpreting, concluding) proposed by Yin (2016) that can be applied to qualitative research in general. Secondly, coding can be applied to confirm or disconfirm an a priori research framework (Shipway & Jones, 2008).

Thirdly, coding can be applied to identify themes and categories of concepts from qualitative

data in general, as shown in the above-cited studies.

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Yin (2016) discussed the tradeoffs of whether or not to code the data. While an experienced researcher may proceed without coding and benefit from the ensuing flexibility, others may prefer to adopt the coding procedures to assure a certain level of academic rigor and consistency in data analysis.

Finally, qualitative and quantitative research methods are not mutually exclusive.

Researchers may combine both approaches to design a research framework that fit their

research objectives. For example, when Waitt (2003) measured the residents’ level of

enthusiasm toward the Sydney Olympics, the author predominantly applied a quantitative

survey method (multiple items measured on a 5-point Likert scale) while also including an

open question (texts that are not quantified) to capture possible explanations for divergent

reactions among the respondents. Regarding the quantitative part, the data were analyzed by

applying non-parametric statistical methods. Regarding the qualitative part, content analysis

was applied to develop explanations for the quantitative findings. Depending on the purpose

of the research, one may design an approach that properly use qualitative and quantitative

methods to complement each other.