A Study On The Relationship Between Traditional Cultural Attributes And The Attractiveness Of Shopping Streets

As a city's"business card"and symbol, traditional commercial streets,represents the spirits geographical features, history and culture and consumption habits in different cities. The rehabilitation and renew of traditional commercial street is imperative in the new period. The successful experience tells us that the protection, development and use of traditional culture in commercial streets have a positive effect on commercial streets'prosperity. Such traditional culture as unique architectural style, rich cultural resources, precious historical relics, unique regional style and so on make consumers who come to the commercial streets perceive their infinite charm and affect consumers'purchasing behavior. Therefore, the attributes dug out from the traditional culture in commercial streets and affecting consumers'perceived value and purchasing behavior create an atmosphere of commercial streets possessing the features of traditional culture, and will enhance the attractiveness of shopping streets.The study perspective for the problem of traditional culture attributes in commercial streets is wider, but most only stay on the level of qualitative study for phenomenon description or case analysis, and the quantitative studies which stand on the level of retail agglomerations and base on consumers'perspective are not many. This study will form the constructs and measurement scale of traditional cultural attributes in commercial streets and realize the quantitative measurements.of the abstract concept- traditional culture.The study on the attractiveness of retail agglomerations stems from the theory of retail attraction which concerned more about stores'attractiveness in the earlier period and later gradually focused on the study of agglomeration's attractiveness.In his study, the attractive attributes possessed by retailing facilities (such as the quality in the Gravitation) the attractiveness of retailing facilities. The offering of multiple attributes of retail agglomerations, such as accessibility, abundant shop combination,convenient parking facilities,diversified recreational facilities, positioning system, environmental stimuli, etc. makes it possible to provide richer purchasing experiences(Kim, 2002; Berman and Evans, 2001) comparing with the single shops. Many scholars hold environmental attributes are one of the important attributes consisting the attractiveness of retail agglomerations. (Hajdu,1988;Brambilla and Longo,1977;Zhang Xintian,2005;Teller,2008). Various cultural attributes in the environment of agglomeration contribute to the overall attractiveness of agglomeration. Thus, traditional culture in commercial streets is one of the important constituent attributes of its attractiveness.Teller(2008) pointed out in his study the three measurement dimensions of agglomerations'attractiveness: satisfaction, tendency to stay and re-patronage intention. In sum, the above theories provide a strong theoretical support for studying the relationship between the attributes of traditional culture in commercial streets and their dimensions and consumers're-patronage intention.Based on image theory, whether an agglomeration is attractive to consumers mainly derives from the agglomeration's image perceived by consumers(Nevins and Houston, 1980). First, it was in the field of store image study that"image"entered into retail field, and then turned to the study of the theories of agglomeration's image. Consumers'shopping behavior is based on their cognition to retail shops'image information. The information enters into consumers'cognitive domains and will affect consumers'perception, and thus affect their purchasing behavior (Martineau, 1958). Store image perceived by consumers is not the same as agglomeration's image(Cox & Cox, 1990). Wee's (1986) research results indicate besides the objective and physical properties, such as agglomeration size, accessibility, store portfolio and so on, other variables in an agglomeration which are culturally relevant and difficult to be quantified can also influence consumers'patronage behavior . To sum up, traditional cultural attributes in commercial streets and consumers'perception to agglomeration's image has a very close relationship with consumers're-patronage intention and this relationship will be further examined in this study.Based on the previous studies, the study of the relationship between traditional cultural attributes in commercial streets and consumers're-patronage intention will be conducted according to the"stimulus (S) - the body (O) - Reaction (R)"model. SOR theory suggests that a variety of stimuli in the environment affects people's psychology and , people's different psychological states can produce corresponding behavior results . In the past, many scholars who studied shops'attractiveness used this model (Hirschman, 1981; Donovan and Rossiter, 1982; Mazursky and Jacoby, 1986; Baker et al., 2002). Later some scholars studied the variables in agglomerations which are similar to stores'amage during their study on agglomerations'attractiveness and observed its effect on consumers'purchasing behavior based on"S-O-R"model(Gentry and Burns, 1977; Nevins and Houston, 1980). According to"SOR"model, this study will take the traditional cultural attributes (S) in commercial streets as a stimulus and by affecting different consumers'perceived value(O), thereby affect consumers'patronage intentions (R). Thus, The theoretical framework and hypotheses of this study formed.There are two problems to be studies in this research: to develop the construct of traditional cultural attributes in commercial streets and the measurement scale; to empirically test the relationship between traditional cultural attributes in commercial streets and consumers're-patronage intention. The solution to the first problem is through the formation of the initial test items (combining literature review and focus group interviews), test items purification (exploratory factor analysis), reliability and validity analysis (exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, reliability and validity analysis) and other processes,the construct of traditional cultural attributes in commercial streets and the measurement scale formed. The solution to the second problem is based on"SOR"theory, using SPSS 16.0 and AMOS software, to test hypotheses through regression analysis and structural equation and. the conclusions are drawn as follows:Firstly, the formation of the definition of traditional cultural attributes in commercial streets: Traditional cultural attributes in commercial streets is one of the important constituents of commercial streets'attractiveness, mainly referring to the perceived value affecting consumers and the system which affects consumers're-patronage intention and mainly includes five dimensions: architectural culture, history culture, food culture, folk culture and business culture.Second, the formation of the measurement scale for the five dimensions of traditional cultural attributes in commercial streets: architectural culture, history, culture, food culture, folk culture and business culture. A total of 16 test items belong to these five factors, of which 4 test items are for architectural culture; 3 test items are for history and culture; 3 test items are for food culture; 3 test items are for folk culture and 3 test items are for business culture.Third, according to"SOR"theory, it is reached from the empirical method that traditional cultural attributes in commercial streets and its dimensions have a significant positive effect on consumers're-patronage intention and the degree of effect for each dimension is different. From the strongest to the weakest, they are history culture, business culture, food culture, architectural culture and folk culture respectively.Fourth, traditional cultural attributes in commercial streets and its dimensions have a significant positive effect on consumers'perceived value and the degree of effect for each dimension is different. From the strongest to the weakest, they are history culture, business culture, food culture, architectural culture and folk culture respectively.Fifth, customers'perceived value has a significant positive effect on consumers're-patronage intention; at the same time, consumers'perceived value is an intermediary variable as for the relationship between traditional cultural attributes in commercial streets and consumers're-patronage intention. Perceived value acts as a partially intermediary variable for the relationship between architectural culture, history culture , food culture and business culture in commercial streets and consumers're-patronage intention; while as a totally intermediary variable for the relationship between folk culture and consumers're-patronage intention.Sixth, consumers'characteristics (gender, age, income and educational level) have a mediatory effect on the relationship between each dimension of traditional cultural attributes in commercial streets and consumers'perceived value Gender, age, income and level of education respectively have a mediatory effect on the relationship between each dimension (architectural culture, history culture, food culture, folk culture and business culture) of traditional cultural attributes in commercial streets and consumers'perceived value.The theoretical contribution of this study is to conduct a study on the attractiveness of shopping streets based on agglomeration level and from consumers'perspective, which is a useful supplement to the theoretical study on the attractiveness of agglomerations. Presenting the construct of traditional cultural attributes in commercial streets and the measurement scale promoted the quantitative study of this abstract construct, provided for future related research measurement tools and found out consumers'perception clues to traditional cultural attributes in traditional commercial streets. The practical significance of this study is to provide certain theoretical support when planners, managers and operators carry out some development to traditional commercial streets and protection to traditional culture. Traditional cultural attributes in commercial streets and their corresponding dimensions have a significant positive effect on consumers'perceived value and re-patronage intention and the strength of the effect is different, which provide a guide for the management and development of commercial streets.Based on consumers'perspective and agglomeration level, this study discussed the problems on the traditional cultural attributes in commercial streets and its attractiveness and drew some conclusion through empirical research methods. However, there are still some limitations about the study, which therefore provides some space for future study:Firstly, as one of data analysis methods used in this study, the exploratory factor analysis is very effective for purifying the scale, but this approach may also make the important factors or test items removed from the study. Therefore, different data analysis methods might be attempted in future study so that the results of data analysis can be more realistic and convincing.Second, because of the limited research conditions, only limited and typical traditional commercial streets were selected as samples; thus whether the conclusions formed based on these samples are suitable for a broader range need to be further tested. In future study, expand the range of sample selection can be attempted to form a more universal conclusion.Third, since the process of scale development is complicated, repeated testing should be conducted. Because of the limited conditions, the scale on traditional cultural attributes in commercial streets needs further testing. Therefore, on the basis of this study, further study can be put on the improvement of the scale so as to make it more applicable.Fourth, due to the different perception from various types of consumers, different conclusions may be obtained. Hence, consumer classification can be adopted as needed in future study.