European Journal of Physical Education and Sport Science ISSN: 2501 - 1235 ISSN-L: 2501 - 1235 Available on-line at: www.oapub.org/edu 10.5281/zenodo.154056 Volume 2│Issue 2│2016 EFFECTS OF PERCEIVED VALUE AND ITS DIMENSIONS ON WORD OF MOUTH ADVERTISING AMONG CUSTOMERS OF SPORTS CLUBS OF THE CITY OF SANANDAJ, IRAN Forut Amjadi1*, Mozafar Yektayar2, Mojgan Khodamorad Pour2 1 MA Sport Management, Sanandaj Branch, Islamic Azad University, Sanandaj, Iran Department of Physical Education and Sport Science, Sanandaj Branch, 2 Islamic Azad University, Sanandaj, Iran Abstract: The present study investigates the effects of perceived value on word of mouth advertising among customers of sports clubs of the city of Sanandaj. The applied research method is descriptive-correlative and the population of research is consisted of the entire customers of sports clubs of Sanandaj. As a result of enormousness of the population, through the Cochran’s formula, a sample size was determined and samples were respectively selected through a simple random sampling. In addition, data collection instruments included Egret and Olga’s value and Kim’s questionnaire of perceived 8 word of mouth questionnaire. Total reliability of measurement instruments was investigated in a preliminary study. For the variable of perceived value, the value of Cronbach’s alpha was calculated as 0.823 and for the variable of word-of-mouth advertising, it was calculated as 0.732. The entire descriptive and inferential analyses are performed within the AMOS and SPSS software. Results indicated that perceived value and variables of buying intention, search for an alternative and oral expression have a statistically significant effect on word-of-mouth advertising among customers of sports clubs. Keywords: perceived value, word-of-mouth advertising, customers of sports clubs 1. Introduction For every human being, exercising and performance of physical activities are considered as foundations of health and wellbeing. It has been more than two decades that physical activity has gained many attentions as a result of its beneficial effects on Copyright © The Author(s). All Rights Reserved Published by Open Access Publishing Group ©2015. 83 Forut Amjadi, Mozafar Yektayar, Mojgan Khodamorad Pour EFFECTS OF PERCEIVED VALUE AND ITS DIMENSIONS ON WORD OF MOUTH ADVERTISING AMONG CUSTOMERS OF SPORTS CLUBS OF THE CITY OF SANANDAJ, IRAN life quality as well as its necessary role in management of illnesses and preventing diseases Farahani, 8 . Nowadays, since Iran’s population is mainly young, a great deal of attention is paid to sports in this country (Ghalibaf, 2011). However, in current commerce world, one of the main challenges for business owners is to maintain customers (Holbrook, 1994). In this regard, having a smart look on optimal methods of advertising and marketing with least expenses can be proven effective. One of the most efficient marketing tools with high efficiency in terms of attraction of customers is word of mouth marketing (Motamed et al. 2015). One of the most extensive concepts regarding consumer behavior is word-ofmouth advertising which plays an important role in terms of formation of a customer’s behavior and attitude (Brown & Reingel, 1987). In marketing, word-of-mouth is usually used for describing recommendations and suggestions between consumers. Speed and lack of commercial bias towards a specific brand name or service has turned it into an effective information source for commercial choices of consumers. Especially in cases of inadequate previous buying experiences (East et al. 2007). In spite of importance and effectiveness of word-of mouth advertising in commercial choices of consumers, only a few of these word-of mouth advertisements are provoked by the company itself. This is while scholars believe that word-of-mouth advertising imposes a greater deal of impact on costumers’ buying behavior compared to company’s resources Almani, . Word of mouth communication imposes a great impact on formation of customers’ attitudes regarding making decision about purchasing and reduction of purchasing related risks (Wang & Yang, 2004). Perceived value is referred to as the consumer’s total evaluation of advantages of a service according to their perception of what they have received and what they have paid to receive that service or product (Lai & Quang Vinh, 2012). In other words, it can be said that perceived value is the same as interaction between received advantages and paid expenses. Therefore, marketing exercises are mostly based on customer values (Holbrook, 1994). Still, perceived value is a factor that is prioritized after perceived quality. In fact, perceived quality can be regarded as a perquisite for value (Zins, 2001). In this regard, studies carried out by Wang et al. (2004) and Turel & Serenko (2006) revealed that an intense significant relation holds amongst perceived quality of services and perceived value. Nowadays, word of mouth communication is viewed as a phenomenon which has gained several attentions. Katz and Lazarsfeld (1995) believed that word of mouth communication is seven times more effective than press advertisement, four times more effective than personal sales and two times more effective than radio advertisements (Quoted from Kim, 2008). This issue can be the result of several different factors. One of these factors is quality of services. Since more than half of gross production of most countries is yielded from European Journal of Physical Education and Sport Science - Volume 2 │ Issue 2 │ 2016 84 Forut Amjadi, Mozafar Yektayar, Mojgan Khodamorad Pour EFFECTS OF PERCEIVED VALUE AND ITS DIMENSIONS ON WORD OF MOUTH ADVERTISING AMONG CUSTOMERS OF SPORTS CLUBS OF THE CITY OF SANANDAJ, IRAN services and as a result of special features of this section including direct customer relation, it seems crucially important to pay more attention to this section (Celemes et al, 2011). In spite of the long history of the subject of quality of services and the methods for evaluation of the former, not only its importance has not diminished, but also as a result of crucial importance of services in economy of every country, its role has attracted more attentions (Aldlaigan & Buttle, 2002). In addition, importance of quality of services in service based industries especially in sports clubs has resulted in several different researches and studies in this context. On this basis, the present research is also a complementary study to the ongoing flow of investigations in this field and tries to improve existing contextual information. Ultimately, in addition to considering the aforementioned variables, also perceived values from the perspective of customers should be considered as a main variable of the study. This is mostly because a consumer’s total evaluation of desirability of a product is based on his or her perception of the payments and returns (Zeithamel, 1996). Furthermore, perceived value increases customer satisfaction, uttered recommendations and future purchases. With no doubt quantitative and qualitative development of every society is in debt of making decisions based on scientific studies (Khaki, 2001). On this basis, the main motivation of this study is to provide a better conceptualization and evaluation of word of mouth communication among customers of sports clubs with respect to services provided by the former sports clubs which is entangled with perceived values and word of mouth communication among costumers. In general, there are only a few other researches which have investigated the effects of quality of services and perceived value on word of mouth communication. However, there are dispersed studies regarding quality of services and word of mouth communication as well as perceived values and word of mouth communication. Our study is in fact the first of its kind in Iran to include a solid model consisted up of the entire aforementioned three variables. This research is expected to provide sports managers and marketers with a better understanding of word of mouth communication among their customers. In this way, they can transform their customers’ resting potential into actual outcome with minimum costs. Materials and Methods This research has investigated the effects of perceived value on word of mouth advertising among customers of sports clubs of Sanandaj. The research method applied is a descriptive-correlative method and the population of the study is consisted up of the entire customers of sports clubs of Sanandaj. As a result of enormousness of the European Journal of Physical Education and Sport Science - Volume 2 │ Issue 2 │ 2016 85 Forut Amjadi, Mozafar Yektayar, Mojgan Khodamorad Pour EFFECTS OF PERCEIVED VALUE AND ITS DIMENSIONS ON WORD OF MOUTH ADVERTISING AMONG CUSTOMERS OF SPORTS CLUBS OF THE CITY OF SANANDAJ, IRAN population, through the Cochran’s formula, a sample size was determined and samples were respectively selected through a simple random sampling. In addition, data collection instruments included Egret and Olga’s value and Kim’s questionnaire of perceived 8) word of mouth questionnaire. For the variable of perceived value, the value of Cronbach’s alpha was calculated as .8 and for the variable of word-of-mouth advertising, it was calculated as 0.732. The entire descriptive and inferential analyses are performed within the AMOS and SPSS software. Findings Perceived value has no impact on word of mouth advertising among customers of sports clubs of Sanandaj Table 1: Results of the ANOVA test Sig F 0.001 440.704 Mean Freedom Sum of squares degree squares Model 75.149 ŗ 75.149 Total regression 0.171 Řşř 49.963 remaining ŘşŚ 125.112 Results of the table 1 show that the value of F test is significant. In other words, the regression model of research consisted of one anticipator variable and one independent variable is a suitable model. Table 2: Results of coefficients of regression effect of perceived value on word of mouth advertising Sig t Standard Non-standard Anticipator coefficients coefficients variables Beta 0.001 0.001 Standard error B model 1 4.724 - 0.151 0.713 Constant – perceived value 20.993 0.775 0.038 0.802 Results of table 2 indicate that perceived value has a statistically significant impact on word of mouth advertising among customers of sports clubs of Sanandaj. In other words, a one SD unit increase in the value of perceived value variable, increases the word of mouth advertising among customers of sports clubs of Sanandaj for 0.775 SD units. Word of mouth advertising = (0.713) + (0.802) perceived value European Journal of Physical Education and Sport Science - Volume 2 │ Issue 2 │ 2016 86 Forut Amjadi, Mozafar Yektayar, Mojgan Khodamorad Pour EFFECTS OF PERCEIVED VALUE AND ITS DIMENSIONS ON WORD OF MOUTH ADVERTISING AMONG CUSTOMERS OF SPORTS CLUBS OF THE CITY OF SANANDAJ, IRAN Table 3: Results of the ANOVA test Sig 0.001 F Mean squares 100.539 FD Sum of squares 15.888 ś 79.441 0.158 ŘŞş 45.671 ŘşŚ 125.112 Model Total remaining regression Results of the table 1 show that the value of F test is significant. In other words, the regression model of research consisted of five anticipator variables and one independent variable is a suitable model. Table 4: Table 2, results of coefficients of regression effect of components of perceived value on word of mouth advertising Sig t Standard Non-standard Anticipator coefficients coefficients variables Beta 0.001 0.582 0.001 0.001 0.005 0.001 Standard error 5.165 0.551 B - 0.148 -0.027 0.039 0.219 0.058 0.204 satisfaction 0.400 0.059 0.353 buying intention 0.147 0.041 0.116 search for alternative 0.156 0.044 0.142 oral expression 3.528 5.961 2.808 3.248 Model 1 0.765 constant -0.022 perceived value Results of table 4 indicate that satisfaction, buying intention, searching for an alternative and oral expression are all effective on word of mouth advertising among customers of sports clubs of Sanandaj. With a standard coefficient of 0.400, buying intention had the highest effect on word of mouth advertising and in contrast, with a standard coefficient of 0.147, searching for an alternative had the least impact on the former. In general, the following regression equation can be written for anticipation of word of mouth advertising by components of perceived value. Word of mouth advertising= (0.875) = (0.142) oral expression = (0.116) searching for an alternative + (0.353) buying intention + (0.204) satisfaction. Discussion and Conclusion In this research, the effect of perceived value has been investigated on word of mouth advertising among customers of sports clubs of Sanandaj. Results indicated that European Journal of Physical Education and Sport Science - Volume 2 │ Issue 2 │ 2016 87 Forut Amjadi, Mozafar Yektayar, Mojgan Khodamorad Pour EFFECTS OF PERCEIVED VALUE AND ITS DIMENSIONS ON WORD OF MOUTH ADVERTISING AMONG CUSTOMERS OF SPORTS CLUBS OF THE CITY OF SANANDAJ, IRAN perceived value has a significant effect on word of mouth communication and advertising among customers of sports clubs of Sanandaj. In other words, a one SD unit increase in the value of perceived value variable, increases the word of mouth advertising among customers of sports clubs of Sanandaj for 0.775 SD units. This finding is consistent with finding obtained by Li et al. (2007). It seems that behavioral tendencies of customers are achieved by perceived value. In fact, when customers experience a high level of value, they are more prone to manifest positive behaviors. On the other hand, this result can be influenced by motivations of word of mouth advertising. For example, inherited interest and social interactions are counts that are effective in the context of occurrence of word of mouth advertising. Additionally, results of this research indicated that satisfaction, buying intention, searching for an alternative and oral expression are all effective on word of mouth advertising among customers of sports clubs of Sanandaj. With a standard coefficient of 0.400, buying intention had the highest effect on word of mouth advertising and in contrast, with a standard coefficient of 0.147, searching for an alternative had the least impact on the former. The obvious point here is that interaction between received advantages and paid expenses lead to formation of a desirable perceived value and the more these components are reinforced, the more tendencies customers will have for transferring their positive experience to others as well. According to this result, managers and marketers of sports clubs of the city of Sanandaj are recommended to amplify the components of perceived value among their customers. References 1. Khaki, Gholam Reza. (2000). research method in management. Tehran: Center for Scientific Publications. 2. Farahani, A. (2007). Manage and organize sports. Payame noor publication. 3. Ghalibaf, MB. (2010). Strategic approach to the sport in the country, Tehran. 4. Mohtamed, h. Ramazanipour, Hassan. 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