Measurement and Scaling: Noncomparative Scaling Techniques. Kid Stuff? Important: To use the test banks below, you must download the TestGen software from the TestGen website.
If you need help getting started, read the tutorials on the TestGen site. Pearson offers affordable and accessible purchase options to meet the needs of your students. Connect with us to learn more. Naresh K. In , he was selected as a Marketing Legend and his refereed journal articles were published in nine volumes by Sage with tributes by other leading scholars in the field.
He holds the all-time record for the maximum number of publications in the Journal of Health Care Marketing. He is also ranked number one based on publications in the International Marketing Review from to based on a study by Xu et al. In a landmark study by Ford et al. He has published ten papers in Journal of Marketing Research. In addition, he has published numerous refereed articles in the proceedings of major national and international conferences.
Several articles have received best paper research awards. He serves on the editorial board of eight 8 journals. Malhotra has consulted for business, nonprofit and government organizations in the US and abroad and has served as an expert witness in legal and regulatory proceedings. He has special expertise in survey design, data analysis and statistical methods. He is the winner of numerous awards and honors for research, teaching, and service to the profession, including the Academy of Marketing Science, Outstanding Marketing Teaching Excellence Award, This ministry has documented in independent reports more than 1.
He has been married to Veena for more than 36 years and they have two grown children Ruth and Paul. We're sorry! We don't recognize your username or password.
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Description For undergraduate and graduate courses in marketing research. An applied and practical marketing research text With a do-it-yourself, hands-on approach, Marketing Research: An Applied Orientation illustrates the interaction between marketing research decisions and marketing management decisions.
This text uses a practical six-step framework for conducting marketing research, utilizing a variety of marketing companies to highlight qualitative and quantitative research strategies. The 7th Edition provides current, contemporary, and illustrative material sensitive to user needs. And with detailed emphasis on how to run the SPSS and SAS programs, marketing research students obtain the most extensive help available on this industry.
Preface Preface is available for download in PDF format. New and Updated - Comprehensive Cases with Actual Questionnaires and Real Data let students see concepts in practice in the real world. Experiential Research. Hands-on exercises allow students to act out the research concepts discussed in the chapter.
Decision Research. The constant shift in the field has led to many interesting developments including the field of marketing research. It is therefore not surprising that many students and managers are unfamiliar with the various types of research methods, the basics of how research is conducted, what research can be used for, and the limits of using research to answer questions and acquire new knowledge. As an active researcher, academic, consultant and trainer, I find the students and managers I interact with struggling to understand the various issues associated with marketing research.
When probed they express three major concerns: 1. Relevance of the examples used. Most books in the subject area are comprehensive and cover the subject in minute details but majority of the time readers require an overview and not the most in-depth understanding of a specific phenomenon.
The heavy emphasis on technical language and the little found use and relevance of the books disengages the readers from purchasing, reading and understanding the research books and in turn these readers remain distant from the research process. Therefore, there seems a need for a research book which can cover the relevant issues in a simple and palatable form for the readers and make them engaged in the process of research. This book attempts to attend to the above stated issues by introducing technical and analytical concepts in a very accessible manner.
Some of the readers may get really interested in the field of marketing research after reading this book and so this book can be called a primer and simple background for understanding advanced technical textbooks in the field. There are eight chapters in this book, each of which focuses on a specific issue relating to the marketing research project.
The first chapter introduces the marketing research process and discusses in details the scientific research approach and how to define the research problem.
Chapter two and three explain the exploratory and conclusive research designs. These chapters form the basis of the following chapters on sampling chapter 4 , measurement and scaling chapter 5. Questionnaire building is discussed in details in chapter six followed by data preparation and preliminary data analysis chapter 7.
The last chapter focuses on report preparation and presentation issues. Every attempt has been made to keep this compendium simple and accessible however sometimes the use of jargons technical terms becomes necessary.
In such cases, examples have also been added to make it easier for you to understand the phenomenon. At this juncture, I would like to thank Kristin and Johan at Ventus publications who motivated me for this endeavour from conceptualization to concretization. This stage is called hypothesis development. The hypothesis is tested using the conclusive research through a larger sample size.
Conclusive research tends to be largely quantitative. The conclusive research will lead to the final results which as stated earlier will lead to further exploration.
We will discuss each of the above steps in details in coming chapters. Figure 2 above provides a brief illustration of the marketing research process from scientific perspective. However, to a novice research it would be difficult to understand how these can be actually conducted in the real life scenario. Figure 3 below explains the marketing research process implementation step by step.
Various researchers provide different diagrammatic explanation for the marketing research process. However, the implementation of marketing research project will largely follow the process mentioned in figure 3.
At this juncture, it is also necessary to understand that in most instances researchers would follow the four phases in order, although, the individual steps may be shifted or omitted. We will discuss such issues in details in later chapters. Chapter 1 focuses on the marketing research process and research problem identification from management dilemma. Chapters 2 and 3 focus on research design both exploratory and conclusive to create a blueprint of the research project.
Chapter 4 deals with sampling as a phenomenon which is followed by a chapter on measurement and scaling chapter 5. Chapter 6 will discuss questionnaire development in details followed by data collection and preliminary data analysis chapter 7. This anomaly can provide the basis for a problem or opportunity. Thus, defining a research problem or opportunity correctly is of major importance in any research. If the problem defined is not exhaustive the research may lead to incorrect or in some cases contrasting findings.
In the following discussion we will touch upon the issue of how can correct problem definition be achieved and how it can enhance the chances of making the 'right' marketing decision? An old adage says, "A problem well defined is half solved". Defining a problem in general circumstance is not very hard as we keep on identifying right problems. Such as, while driving Which way to drive? Not to change the lanes suddenly etc. We work together to reach a common goal: to help our clients succeed by providing a strong, scalable IT platform that enables growth, while mitigating risk and reducing cost.
At SimCora we value commitment and enable you to make the most of your ambitions and potential. Are you among the best qualified in finance, economics, IT or mathematics? The simplest of decision situation can be characterized by the following condition: 1.
A decision maker is operating in a set but dynamic environment in which there is a problem. There are at least two courses of action to choose from. Any of the choices made regarding the course of action will lead to two possible outcomes of that choice and the decision maker prefers one over the other. There is a chance, but not equal chance, that each course of action will lead to the desired outcome.
If the chances are equal, the choice does not matter. This is because the decision is not taken by a single person but generally by a team and so it is important to have agreement on various issues for defining a 'right' problem.
Following are the questions which must be asked before a marketing research problem is identified. Have the decision makers and researchers framed an initial question and looked at the alternatives clearly? Is there an agreement on the initial question and the alternatives among most participants? Is there agreement on the basis for selecting one alternative over others? Have acceptable criteria been developed? What consequences would a 'wrong' decision bring upon?
Is there a serious disagreement among the team members with regards to choice of research alternatives and their adoption? If the answers to all four questions are yes, marketing research information is needed to reduce the chance of making the wrong decision. In most failed research exercises it is observed that the team members did not define the answers to the first two questions clearly. If the answer to question three leads to serious consequences and similarly in the case of question four serious disagreements among the team members are found the problem definition needs to be revisited.
An example of the same is explained below. One of the largest cinema chains in the UK faced with a problem of declining audiences. The team in the first meeting came up with the initial problem statement as 'to discover why cinema audiences are declining'. However, several members of the team were unhappy and stated that research into this problem will lead to vague answers and unimplementable results.
An alternative statement of problem was developed 'to identify ways in which more people could be attracted to attend the cinema'. The problem defined at first might bring answers which are beyond the remit of influence for the cinema chain managers.
For example, if people stated that the movies now a days are not matching their tastes, it can't be acted upon by the management of the chain. However, with the second research problem the management can reliably know what the people want from a cinema theatre and such improvements can assist the management in attracting more people towards the cinema.
The above example demonstrates the importance of defining the right problem and how it can have a huge effect on the outcome of any research. The major question facing most managers is how to convert a management dilemma into a researchable problem.
In real life situation it is not hard to define a management dilemma, however, the difficult thing is to identify a single dilemma on which to focus. As discussed above, choosing a wrong or incorrectly defined management dilemma will result in waste of resources as well as may lead to wrong decisions costing further on the company's bottom-line.
The figure below shows the process of formulating a research question out of management dilemma. It also provides the factors to be considered by a researcher in the process of developing research question. The above figure explains the process of developing a clearer research question. A manager when faced with a dilemma is surrounded by various elements of decision making namely: 1 The decision making environment; 2 Objectives of decision maker; 3 Alternative courses of action and 4 Consequences of alternative actions.
If the research question is developed without keeping the above four elements in mind there are all chances that there would a bias in the early stage of the research which will carry itself further in the total process and may lead to wrong conclusion.
For example, a private radio station with declining listener numbers wanted to understand consumers' listening preferences and a team of researchers were asked to prepare a research proposal for the same. The entrepreneur in charge of the operations at the station stated to the researchers that he already knew what the consumers wanted and wanted the researchers to work on a project the way he had planned it.
The above situation is observed quite often in real life situations where the managers have already made up their mind regarding the research and its findings and so the research in such cases becomes a futile exercise. Being unbiased through the complete research project is one of the most important aspects of marketing research.
Many times, real objectives of conducting the research are seldom exposed to the researcher most to do with researcher being an outside organization and company not intending to divulge confidential information. Therefore, it becomes utmost important for the researcher to probe deeper and bring on surface the real objectives of the research. One effective technique for uncovering the objectives is to confront the decision maker with expected outcomes of the research and asking the decisive course of action from the decision maker.
The more obvious course of action is generally provided to the researcher but it is the researcher's duty to probe deeper and find out other alternatives which are not being communicated by the decision maker.
Quite often the researcher will not be informed of some of the options being considered. The researcher should check to see that all implicit options have been made explicit,12 since it is important that the research be relevant to all alternatives.
Researcher at times must adopt the role of detective in order to discover the hidden agendas and alternatives lurking beneath the surface in any decision situation. In the case of the radio firm it was found later that the managers were forcing the researchers to conduct the research in a certain format as the plan was to sell of the business using the research results.
A great deal of marketing research is intended to determine the consequences of alternative course of action. To achieve success in the marketplace a decision maker has to continuously balance the strategy against the changing micro and macro environmental factors. Marketing research is undertaken by organizations to accurately assess the alternative courses of actions and provide support to the decision maker in the process of decision making.
However, many times due to various market pressures an organization pursues a blinded version of marketing research without understanding the consequences of the same and could face trouble.
A detailed understanding of the decision making environment; objectives of the decision maker; alternative courses of action and consequences of alternative actions would enable researchers to translate the management dilemma into an accurate research problem. All the above discussion was focused on how marketing research can be effectively used in the real life marketing environment.
However, this should not make one feel that marketing research can provide solutions to every management problem. If manager is uncertain of a market phenomenon and cannot find support at hand within the organizational knowledge pool, marketing research can assist in providing support and reduce the risk in taking an intuition based decision. However, many marketers recount cases where the use of marketing research has resulted in failure or where decisions based on gut feeling or intuition have proved to be successful.
There are two areas of misconception of the role of marketing research. Marketing research's role is not to make decisions. Rather, marketing research gathers data on an uncertain and dynamic marketplace and rearranges it into a form which can assist the decision maker in understanding the phenomenon better and take good decisions on the basis of the same.
Realistically, it has been observed that research recommendations are often used as a stepping stone for decision making after the appropriate approval is granted. Marketing research at best can improve the odds of making a correct decision. Anyone who expects to eliminate the possibility of a failure by conducting marketing research is both unrealistic and likely to be disappointed. The real value of research however lies in the improvement of the long term decision making and improved bottom-line performance.
London's campaign to win the Olympics has been panned as being out of step with the British public and told that the effort might have had more success with 'Beat the French", rather than the 'Back the Bid' slogan says a report from ad agency Publicis.
The report from Publicis highlights public petulance and impatience as an increasingly effective marketing tool. The report goes on to say that through the act of petulance, consumers are reacting "against" not "for" things, demanding honesty and choice on their terms rather than being told what to do. While researchers suggested for the London Olympic bid the public message to be 'beat the French' rather then 'back the bid' the managers kept the later message flowing and London won the bid for the Olympic.
Marketing is becoming a highly challenging task for the marketers in today's dynamic and ever changing environment. It is becoming more and more difficult for marketing managers to get the right products or services for the target consumers at the right place with a right price using the right promotion due to various internal as well as external forces prevailing within the organization and the market. Marketing research provides a ray of certainty in the uncertain marketplace if the managers follow the marketing research process through the various phases of marketing decision making within the organization.
It plays a key role in providing the information for managers to shape the marketing mix. Moreover, the interaction between the market researcher and manager also has to be focused upon and there must be a continuous interaction between both parties. If the team involved in marketing research project fails to define a correct research problem from the existing research dilemma there are chances that the research may lead to wrong conclusion which in turn can hurt a company's bottomline.
Scientific marketing research process which resembles with the decision making process also sometimes is misunderstood by managers as decision making tool itself.
Marketing research should be used as a decision support tool. Furthermore, marketing research cannot guarantee success but it can reduce the chances of failure if used in correct manner. Try this Not challenging? It will explain how the problem definition is linked with the selection of research design and will then explore the exploratory research design in detail. It will provide classification of exploratory research design and discuss important research techniques such as in-depth interviews, focus groups and projective techniques.
The term 'research design' is used in variety of ways by researchers. It is referred as a master- plan, blueprint, and even as a sequence of research tasks and activities. Research design in simple terms is a plan of the methods and procedures that is used by researchers to collect and analyze the data needed by the manager.
The research design provides a plan of how the researcher will go about answering the research question s defined by the manager and researcher together clearly defining the problem into a researchable question is extremely important.
The research design also contains clear objectives, derived from research question s , specify the information sources from which data will be collected, the type of data, the design technique s survey, observation, experimentation etc.
There should be clear justification with regard to the research design based on the research question and objectives. As stated above, the purpose of any research design is to obtain evidence which addresses the research question and objectives. Usually, however, there are a number of ways in which it can be achieved.
Although, every research question is unique, most research objectives can be met by using one of the three types of research designs: exploratory, descriptive and causal. In real-life situations, while addressing research question and objectives a researcher needs to make number of trade-offs with regard to various elements of research design.
Research design holds all the parts and phases of the research project together. A poorly developed design fails to provide accurate answers to the research question under investigation and in turn does not assist the manager in the decision making process.
The foundations of research design are firmly based on scientific rigour and objectivity. Any personal, procedural, or methodological bias involved in research design will have an impact on entire research process. Therefore, developing a sound research design is an extremely important aspect of any research project. They have recognized that all methods have their inherent strengths and weaknesses. Most researchers broadly classify research designs into two types: exploratory and conclusive.
Furthermore, some researchers classify conclusive research designs as descriptive or causal. Therefore, there are 3 major classifications of research designs namely; exploratory, descriptive and causal. Secondary data involves collection of data that already exists. These data may be collected and assembled for some research problem situation other than the current situation.
Secondary data and analysis is useful at all stages of the marketing research process. However, it is particularly useful at the problem definition and exploratory research design stage. Secondary data mostly involves desk or library research and can serve managers' needs for information on their markets, competitors, customers and overall environment.
In some cases if done thoroughly, secondary data collection can solve the research problem at hand without requiring more expensive stage of primary data collection. The table below provides examples of several secondary data sources. Please remember the table below provides a generic idea and is not an exhaustive list. Primary data may be qualitative or quantitative in nature. As stated in chapter 1, the distinction between qualitative and quantitative research data parallels with distinction between exploratory and conclusive research.
In recent years, qualitative research has come to refer to selected research methods used in exploratory research designs.
One of the major aims of qualitative research is to gain preliminary insights into decision problems and opportunities. This technique of data collection focuses on collection of data from a relatively small number of respondents by asking questions and observing behaviour.
In qualitative research most questions are open- ended in nature. Advantages of qualitative methods include: economic and timely data collection; rich data; accuracy of recording market behaviour; and preliminary insights. On the other hand, disadvantages of qualitative methods include: lack of generalizability, reliability and validity. Quantitative research methods, seek to quantify the data and typically apply some statistical analysis.
They put heavy emphasize on using formalised standard questions and predetermined response options in questionnaires or surveys administered to large number of respondents. Today, quantitative research is commonly associated with surveys and experiments and is still considered the mainstay of the research industry for collecting marketing data.
The main objective of quantitative research is to provide specific facts which can help decision maker take an informed decision. Furthermore, it provides insights relating to relationships between phenomena. Due to large sample size and statistical rigour quantitative research provides advantage in terms of generalizability, reliability and validity however, is time consuming and at times very costly. As the term suggests, exploratory research design deals with exploring into the phenomenon.
In case of marketing research, it is used in cases when the problem must be defined more precisely, and to gain additional insights before an approach can be developed. It is not used most times to generate a course of action for decision making. At the exploratory design stage, the information is loosely defined. Exploratory research design focuses on collecting either secondary or primary data using an unstructured format or informal procedures to interpret them.
Among all the three classified research designs above, exploratory research designs incorporates the least amount of scientific method and rigour because of aims and structure. Some examples of exploratory research designs include in-depth interviews, focus groups, and projective techniques. We shall discuss each of them in details. This technique allows the researcher to collect both attitudinal and behavioural data from the respondent from all time frames past, present and future 20 A unique characteristic of this technique is that the interviewer has ample chance at probing the respondent and collect in- depth data.
The interviewer can use the answers provided by respondent and turn them into related questions ensuring a more detailed answer. In recent years, three in-depth interviewing techniques have gained popularity among researchers. They are a laddering, b hidden test questioning and c symbolic analysis. This technique allows the researcher to tap into the customer's network of meanings and provides an effective way to probe into customer's deep psychological and emotional reasons that affect their purchase behaviour.
Laddering is useful in developing 'mind map' of a consumer's view towards the targeted product. Several such consumer mind maps when combined together can provide detailed insights relating to underlying motivations and behaviour of a group of consumers and can help form a decision for a manager. The second technique, hidden test questioning, focuses on not just socially shared values but also personal concerns of a consumer.
This kind of questioning can lead to unravel much deeply felt beliefs rather than general lifestyle and attitude of consumers. As the name suggests, symbolic analysis, attempts to analyse the symbolic meanings consumers associate with products. In this technique researchers use deductive logic and attempt to understand the meaning in the consumer's mind by comparing the product or idea with its opposite. For example, researcher may ask a consumer what a certain product is not and by asking such question limit the scope of discussion and symbolic meaning may appear.
As one can gauge from the above discussion that these techniques of in-depth interviewing compliment each other. In most in-depth interviews these techniques are used together rather than in isolation. For example, asking a question such as 'what do you think people feel about brand X?
This questions in turn may lead to another question such as 'if brand X was an animal what would it be and why? As the questions asked in this technique of data collection are probing, unstructured and connected, an interviewer must possess excellent interpersonal communication, listening, probing and interpretive skills. The interviewer's role is critical to the success of the in-depth interview.
If conducted in correct manner, in-depth interviews provide researcher the flexibility, large amount of data collection from a single respondent and reveal much hidden attitudes, motivations, feelings and behaviour.
However, as discussed earlier the data collected are subject to the same general limitations of exploratory methods. Although the Download free ebooks at bookboon. Furthermore, it is not easy to find expert in- depth interviewers and because it is a one-to-one interaction cost and time involved in conducting and analysing is higher than most other techniques. Focus groups are one of the most popular qualitative research methods used around the world.
Many times researchers and managers use the term focus groups to define qualitative research. A focus group generally involves eight to twelve participants and can capture vast array of information.
The focus groups timing can vary from 1 to 3 hours and is usually conducted in a congenial surrounding such as a hotel or specialist focus group research facility. By getting the group members to talk at length about the topic, the moderator can gather vast amount of information on ideas, attitudes, feelings and experiences about a particular issue.
Focus groups are usually constructed using similar participants to encourage positive discussion. The advantage of selecting participants from the same demographics age, income, gender and such other variables are called demographics helps ensure that group members feel at ease with each other.
It is believed that people with similar characteristics are more like to divulge their opinions in a group. However, in some cases a diverse group can also be selected to encourage a wider viewpoint relating to a concept or product. This is an extremely important issue as it is hard to control group dynamics when more than 12 people are involved in a discussion.
The discussion at start is led by the moderator who introduces the topic of discussion and attempts to get everyone to participate in a honest discussion and debate. The moderator maintains a certain degree of control over the discussion by directing it whenever the discussion moves too far from the research objectives set forth.
The major goal of any focus group is to provide as much information as possible to the decision maker regarding the issue at hand. With a group of people involved, group dynamics becomes a very crucial issue in focus group discussions. The success of any focus group relies heavily on the overall group dynamics, willingness of members to engage in an interactive dialogue, and moderator's ability to keep the discussion on track.
Focus groups are conducted for variety of different objectives. For example they may be conducted for: a Understanding the effect of an advertisement prior launch on the target market b Launching new products or services in an existing or a new market c Understanding changing customer preferences and choices d Finding the effects of change in marketing mix variables i.
There are several variations in focus group discussion groups which involve smaller or larger group sizes, single or multiple moderators, direct organizational involvement or neutral setting. There are several advantages of focus group technique. Focus group can help generate creative ideas, thoughts and opinions relating to atopic. They can highlight the underlying reasons for a specific set of actions by a consumer and overall behaviour. They also allow client participation and provide consumer response in a direct manner.
They also provide an interaction opportunity for organization to reach specific market segments. While there are many advantages of focus groups, they also have disadvantages. The major weaknesses of focus groups are inherently similar to qualitative research techniques. They include the limited generalizability of results to the target market, involve subjectivity bias of representation and interpretation, data reliability and validity and are costlier than in-depth interviews as it brings diverse groups of respondents together.
Projective techniques consist of several techniques of qualitative data collection. These techniques are useful when the respondent is not at ease in answering questions. The underlying objective is to learn more about the subject in situations where they might not reveal their true thoughts under direct questioning.
The techniques relating to this area were developed in the field of motivational science and clinical psychology. The techniques include pictorial construction, word association tests, sentence completion tests and role plays.
In marketing research, these techniques are used to describe association with a product or an organization indirectly, without explicitly stating the association. In pictorial construction technique, the respondent is shown a picture and instructed to describe his or her reactions by writing a short narrative story relating to the picture.
At times this technique is used in focus groups scenarios to get a better idea of how respondents perceive an organization or product in a group setting. The difficulty with such techniques comes in understanding and interpreting what the response really means. Traditionally, this technique has proven quite useful in communications industry where experts have used it in testing the impact of product packaging, labels, brochures and advertisements. In word association technique, respondents are exposed to preselected words one at a time and are asked to respond what comes to their mind regarding that word.
This is put into the context of a brand name or a product attribute. For example, respondent may be asked to think what word comes in their mind when they are exposed to the word 'call'.
Some may answer mobile phone, texting, Nokia, friends, Motorola etc. After completing the list of words, researchers than look for hidden meanings and highlight associations between the words and the responses.
This technique has been used successfully in research relating to positioning and branding. In sentence completion technique, incomplete sentences are provided to the respondents who are then asked to complete them. The researchers hope that such completion will reveal hidden motives, feelings and behaviour towards the issue at hand. This examples highlights respondents feelings about how do they profile Xbox and Wii consumers in their own minds. From these data collected, researchers' task is to interpret and evaluate meaningful themes.
The themes can help in identifying competitive positioning within the marketplace. They are then exposed to a particular, predetermined situation, and asked to verbalize how they would act in the situation. The researchers hope that the respondent will reveal their attitudes and thoughts through their actions and behaviour when placed in a different role-playing situation.
This technique requires high amount of interpretive exercise as the respondent and response bias is continuously existent. A research design is a framework or blueprint for conducting a marketing research project. It provides a clear plan of how the research should be conducted and helps researchers in sticking to the plan. Research designs can be broadly classified as exploratory and conclusive.
Conclusive research designs are further classified as descriptive and causal. Exploratory research designs mostly use qualitative data collection techniques.
Conclusive research designs mostly use quantitative data collection techniques. Therefore, many times these two terms are used interchangeably. Desk research can play an important role in all stages of marketing research. Desk research generally deals with secondary data which is data collected for different purposes by other researchers. There are various sources within the marketplace to obtain secondary data and such data collection is relatively inexpensive in comparison to primary data collection.
Primary data collection requires researchers to get directly involved in the data collection process for the issue at hand. Exploratory research design involves many qualitative data collection techniques such as in- depth interviews, focus groups and projective techniques.
In-depth interviews are one-to-one interviews with respondents while focus group involves a group of 6 - 12 respondents in a congenial setting. Focus groups is one of the most popular qualitative research techniques. Projective techniques involve various psychological testing such as pictorial construction, word association tests, sentence completion tests and role plays.
They are used in understanding the hidden associations in a consumer's mind. The qualitative data collection techniques provide a lot of rich information but at the same time is hard to interpret and involves limitation with regard to generalizability, reliability and validity.
In this chapter the topic of research design will be extended to the conclusive research design. The chapter will focus on both descriptive and causal designs.
Furthermore, it will specifically elaborate on survey methods and observation as they are one of highly used research techniques for collecting data in present day field of marketing.
However, one also has to remember the depth of insight available from such techniques. Conclusive research design provides a way to verify and quantify the insights gained from exploratory research. Techniques relating to conclusive research are specifically designed to assist the manager in determining, evaluating and selecting the best course of action to take in a given situation.
Most conclusive research techniques are based on large representative samples and data obtained through is subjected to quantitative analysis. As the findings represent a larger group of respondents many times they are directly used for managerial decision making.
At this juncture, it has to be noted that even if the sample used is large, it does not mean that the findings are the voice of all the consumers but this kind of studies provide a general guideline regarding the consumer and market behaviour.
In some instances, the research may come close to suggest precise consumer and market behaviour; however in other cases, the research may partially clarify the situation and much will be left to the manager's judgement. As discussed in chapter 2, conclusive research is classified into two major categories, descriptive and causal. The table below provides the basic differences between exploratory, descriptive and causal designs.
This type of design is typically guided by an initial relationship between two variables. For example, an investigation of the trends to understand the consumption of cola drinks in relation to respondents' age, income, occupation etc.
Descriptive research design is quite prevalent in the field of marketing. It is used when the purpose of research is: a To make predictions of market and consumer behaviour. For example, a manager will be highly interested in knowing differences in consumption pattern of cola drinks during different seasons and will be able to develop a marketing campaign accordingly for the forthcoming season.
For example, using its loyalty clubcard scheme Tesco the largest retailer in the UK is able to identify who are most profitable and least profitable shoppers by developing their generic socio- demographic profile which includes age, spending in Tesco number of visits and spend per visit , gender, regularly consumed items and less frequently bought items etc.
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