An Exploratory Qualitative Exploration of the Personal Values Underpinning Taiwanese and Malaysians’ Wine Consumption Behaviors

Miranda Mirosa,Sharon Tang

doi:10.3390/beverages2010002

Abstract

Augmented buying power of East Asian consumers has resulted in increased interest in these markets. Wine is a particularly promising sector to target as the number of East Asians choosing to drink wine rises. In order to serve these markets, companies must understand factors influencing consumers’ choices. The objective of this research was to understand how Taiwanese and Malaysian consumers’ personal values influenced their consumption decisions about wine. The means–end chain framework and associated semi-structured interview technique, value laddering, was used to elicit consumers’ preferred product attributes, the consequences of these attributes and the values that underpin these consequences. Data collection involved intercepting foreign travelers from Malaysia and Taiwan in New Zealand (20 Taiwanese and 20 Malaysian) to partake in a wine choice interview. The resulting findings are exploratory in nature. Analysis revealed the most preferred wine attributes for Taiwanese were “Price” and “Sensory Aspects”—that these attributes were linked to consequences “Financial Considerations” and “Satisfy Senses”—which in turn were linked to personal values “Self Direction” and “Achievement”. For the Malaysian participants, the attribute “Sensory Aspects” of wine was most important, as was the value “Hedonism”. This study adds to literature related to beverage consumption decision making by exploring cultural aspects. It also offers suggestions for practitioners interested in targeting these consumers.

Highlights

The recent economic growth of Asian countries has generated a great demand for imports of intermediate and primary commodities as consumer behavior and consumption patterns shift
The concept of levels of abstraction is embodied in this means–end chain framework: attribute has the lowest level of abstraction, is linked to consequence, which has a higher level of abstraction, and in turn is linked to value, which has the highest level of abstraction [12]
The current study extended on Overby and colleagues’ cross cultural wine drinking [14] work by investigating wine consumption habits in an East Asian context (Taiwanese and Malaysian)

Summary

Introduction

The recent economic growth of Asian countries has generated a great demand for imports of intermediate and primary commodities as consumer behavior and consumption patterns shift. The means–end chain model is a theoretical model which allows researchers to understand how attributes, consequences and values can be systematically categorized to form a simple network of association [12]. The inclusion of analyzing the influence of culture in all parts of the attribute, consequence and value ladders allows researchers to understand how consumers organize their thoughts and structure their knowledge about a product [15] and should be used in cross-cultural studies. Overby and colleagues used this framework to understand wine choice in a cross-cultural context, in a comparative study between American and French consumers’

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Conclusion