Criterion-related validity is indicated by doing a comparison of the scores from the studied measurement instrument with some external variables that can provide a direct measure of the measured feature (Zaichkowsky, 1985). Also generalizations as external validity and construct validity need to be verified by replication (Armstrong, 2003, Hubbard and Lindsay, 2013b). This study being a replication of the BBX scale, offers some criterion validity for both of the studies in question. In this study, the already established BBX scale was used as the basis to create a new extended measurement scale with a new construct of eco-friendliness. In the case of a conceptual replication, such as the once one used in this study, a conceptual framework from a previous study is used but some of the independent variables may be different from the original study (Raman, 1994).
The two extended measurement scales have been modified based on the BBX measurement scale, so that the four dimensions from the original BBX scale are unaltered and only one additional dimension is added to reflect better the consumer trend of eco-friendliness that has already been taken into account, for example, in the automobile industry. The fact the model fit indices for the original BBX model were good also in this study, indicated that the scale is applicable for high-tech mobile phone brands.
Another type of validity that was examined in the scales was the criterion validity of the scales in comparison with some known consumer groups. This was done by analyzing the responses from the perspective of specific sociodemographic variables. The two major criterion groups relevant for this study are female consumers and younger consumers.
The eco-friendly attitudes and purchasing behavior of female consumers has been studied, and it has clearly been shown that female consumers are more environmentally conscious than male consumers (Roberts, 1996) and women give higher priority to altruism than men, which is the value that is the most closely related to environmentalism (Dietz et al., 2002). Based on the data collected for this study, the scores for the genders were compared, and the results are in line with the general tendency of women to favor eco-friendliness in their views.
In this study, for all of the four environmental items, the responses of the women were significantly more pro-environmental than for the men (p <0.01). Table 24 below shows the means for the eco-friendliness of females compared to males. As shown in the table, the criterion groups in this study differed just as was the expectation for the
eco-friendliness dimension, thus the criterion validity of the extended BBX scale can be said to be very good.
Table 24. Means, standard deviations and p-values for responses of women and men
Political consumerism is something that should be considered as one of the reasons why younger consumers may do their purchasing decisions on a different basis than older consumers, and young people have stated that they consider ethical, political, or environmental aspects when purchasing products, at least periodically (Stolle et al., 2005). The value-basis theory of environmental attitudes has also been proven to apply among young adults and their environmental attitudes were the result of a person's more general set of values (Schultz and Zelezny, 1999).
In this study, with reference to the age groups, the 55-64 year olds consider in some brand dimensions more eco-friendly aspects than the 25-35 years olds (p< .05), and the 18-24 year olds (p< .1) (See Table 25).
Table 25. Means, standard deviations and p-values for the age groups 18-24 and 55-64 year olds, and 25-34 and 55-64 year olds
INTELLECTUAL SENSORY
Another way to demonstrate criterion validity is to compare the average means per brand from the scores. In order to verify the criterion validity of the new scale, the means for each item per brand were also compared to see whether the respondents had understood the scale similarly. The verification was done in the same way as was done by Brakus et al. Ratings on all of the three brands were consistent as can be seen from the means that range from 3.55 to 5.61 and the highest standard deviation is 2.51 which indicates that the respondents seem to have understood the scale in the same way, thus
the data supports the criterion validity of the scale. The mean for the responses to the environmental statements ranges from 3.55 to 4.41 which shows that the respondents have understood the scale for these items very well. The means, standard deviation and standard error means for each scale item per brand are presented in Table 26 below.
Table 26. Mean values for the items in the extended measurement scale per brand
Items
N Mean
Std.
Devia-tion
Std.
Error Mean SAMSUNG
Smsg1-a- This brand induces feelings and sentiments. 506 4,55 2,006 ,089 Smsg2-I- This brand makes me think about the state of the
environment.
506 3,77 2,276 ,101
Smsg3-i- This brand stimulates my curiosity and problem solving. 506 4,03 2,229 ,099 Smsg4-s- I find this brand interesting in a sensory way. (sight, touch,
hearing, taste, and smell).
506 4,30 2,164 ,096
Smsg5-a- This brand is an emotional brand. 506 3,98 2,143 ,095
Smsg7-i- This brand does not make me think. 506 4,89 1,947 ,087
Smsg8-i- I engage in a lot of thinking when I encounter this brand. 506 3,86 2,210 ,098
Smsg9-b- This brand is not action oriented. 506 4,99 2,141 ,095
Smsg10-s- This brand does not appeal to my senses. (sight, touch, hearing, taste, and smell).
506 4,65 2,068 ,092
Smsg11-S- This brand makes an eco-friendly impression. (eco-friendly = not environmentally harmful)
506 4,39 2,332 ,104
Smsg12-a- I do not have strong emotions for this brand. 506 5,23 1,858 ,083 Smsg13-A- This brand creates eco-friendly emotions 506 4,04 2,351 ,105 Smsg14-s- This brand makes a strong impression on my visual sense
or other senses. (sight, touch, hearing, taste, and smell).
506 4,24 2,168 ,096
Smsg15-b- This brand results in bodily experiences. 506 3,83 2,379 ,106 Smsg16-B- This brand makes me behave in an eco-friendly way. 506 3,66 2,355 ,105
Items
N Mean
Std.
Devia-tion
Std.
Error Mean Smsg17-b- I engage in physical actions and behaviors when I use this
brand.
506 3,80 2,478 ,110
NOKIA
Nokia1-a- This brand induces feelings and sentiments. 506 5,61 1,414 ,063 Nokia2-I- This brand makes me think about the state of the
environment.
506 3,93 2,052 ,091
Nokia3-i- This brand stimulates my curiosity and problem solving. 506 4,15 2,006 ,089 Nokia4-s- I find this brand interesting in a sensory way. (sight, touch,
hearing, taste, and smell).
506 4,34 2,058 ,092
Nokia5-a- This brand is an emotional brand. 506 4,94 1,818 ,081
Nokia7-i- This brand does not make me think. 506 4,10 1,976 ,088
Nokia8-i- I engage in a lot of thinking when I encounter this brand. 506 4,14 1,978 ,088
Nokia9-b- This brand is not action oriented. 506 4,72 2,094 ,093
Nokia10-s- This brand does not appeal to my senses. (sight, touch, hearing, taste, and smell).
506 4,08 1,985 ,088
Nokia11-S- This brand makes an eco-friendly impression. (eco-friendly=not environmentally harmful)
506 4,41 2,178 ,097
Nokia12-a- I do not have strong emotions for this brand. 506 3,91 1,929 ,086 Nokia13-A- This brand creates eco-friendly emotions. 506 4,07 2,126 ,095 Nokia14-s- This brand makes a strong impression on my visual sense
or other senses. (sight, touch, hearing, taste, and smell).
506 4,29 1,945 ,086
Nokia15-b- This brand results in bodily experiences. 506 3,81 2,200 ,098 Nokia16-B- This brand makes me behave in an eco-friendly way 506 3,55 2,130 ,095 Nokia17-b- I engage in physical actions and behaviors when I use this
brand.
506 3,66 2,292 ,102
Items
N Mean
Std.
Devia-tion
Std.
Error Mean APPLE
Apple1-a- This brand induces feelings and sentiments. 506 5,25 1,905 ,085 Apple2-I- This brand makes me think about the state of the
environment.
506 3,96 2,372 ,105
Apple3-i- This brand stimulates my curiosity and problem solving. 506 4,10 2,330 ,104 Apple4-s- I find this brand interesting in a sensory way. (sight, touch,
hearing, taste, and smell).
506 4,33 2,286 ,102
Apple5-a- This brand is an emotional brand. 506 4,60 2,195 ,098
Apple7-i- This brand does not make me think. 506 4,74 2,047 ,091
Apple8-i- I engage in a lot of thinking when I encounter this brand. 506 4,07 2,246 ,100
Apple9-b- This brand is not action oriented. 506 5,08 2,267 ,101
Apple10-s- This brand does not appeal to my senses. (sight, touch, hearing, taste, and smell).
506 4,71 2,163 ,096
Apple11-S- This brand makes an eco-friendly impression. (eco-friendly = not environmentally harmful)
506 4,20 2,399 ,107
Apple12-a- I do not have strong emotions for this brand. 506 5,03 2,025 ,090 Apple13-A. This brand creates eco-friendly emotions. 506 3,91 2,350 ,104 Apple14-s- This brand makes a strong impression on my visual sense
or other senses. (sight, touch, hearing, taste, and smell).
506 4,48 2,177 ,097
Apple15-b- This brand results in bodily experiences. 506 3,80 2,420 ,108 Apple16-B- This brand makes me behave in an eco-friendly way. 506 3,55 2,388 ,106 Apple17-b- I engage in physical actions and behaviors when I use this
brand.
506 3,68 2,506 ,111
It is to be noted, that for one affective item the Nokia brand has clearly a higher mean value than Apple and Samsung (“Nokia1-a- This brand induces feelings and sentiments”) with a mean of 5.61, however, also Apple has a high mean for this item at 5.25. Also another affective item (- I do not have strong emotions for this brand) has high means for Apple it is 5.03 and Samsung 5,23. However, the actual responses that consumers gave to the items measuring the eco-friendliness of the brands did not score high, which is an indication that the respondents do not think that any of the mobile phone brands included in the survey would enable an eco-friendly brand experience.
Table 27 below lists the means for the three brands in this study on the 5 dimensions as well as a mean for the overall experience. It shows that there are not that great differences between the three brands. The most noticeable is the slightly higher difference on the affective dimension for Nokia (4.60) and Apple (4.42) compared to Samsung (4.03), also for the eco-friendly dimension there is a distinct difference between the means, for Nokia it is the highest (3.30) and for Apple (2.95) and Samsung it is lower (2.88). The validity of the BBX scale with the eco-friendliness dimension is supported by the fact that the means of the scores are rather close to each other. Also it can be seen that the respondents have judged the eco-friendliness of high-tech brands fairly similarly, which suggests that consumers seem to be suspicious of the eco-friendliness of high-tech companies and brands.
Table 27. Average Means per Brand for the Experience Dimensions - Data collected from Finland
Brand Sensory Affective Intellectual Behavioral Eco-friendly
Overall Experience
Nokia 3.76 4.60 3.66 3.24 3.30 3.71
Samsung 3.63 4.03 3.56 3.09 2.95 3.45
Apple 3.77 4.42 3.51 3.00 2.88 3.52
Brakus et al. had the same brands in their research on brand experience, with the slight difference that the brand for Apple was referring mainly to the iPod. When comparing the means for the experiences of the present study to the means reported in the study of Brakus et al. (2009) (see Table 28 below) the main significant difference is that four years earlier the Apple iPod got the highest means for all of the four dimensions, and naturally, there is no result for the eco-friendly dimension in their research. Back then also Nokia got higher means for all of the experiential dimensions than Samsung. It is to be noted that when comparing the figures with the present study, that Brakus et al.
(2009) did not have the option 8=”Do not know” in their scale. This has an effect on the mean, as people reply with 4 when in doubt. Otherwise the average means in both of these studies are in line with each other.
Table 28. Average Means per Brand for the Experience Dimensions - study of Brakus et al.
Brand Sensory Affective Intellectual Behavioral Eco-friendly
Overall Experience
Nokia 4.63 3.71 4.14 4.56 NA 4.26
Samsung 4.32 3.32 3.87 3.91 NA 3.86
Apple
iPod 5.70 5.03 4.63 5.24 NA 5.15