Doing Research Projects in Marketing, Management and Consumer Research

Chris Hackley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• ISBN:
  9781134491995
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

As interpretive research perspectives become increasingly influential in the social sciences, so it becomes increasingly important for experienced researchers to familiarize themselves with the philosophical perspectives, data gathering techniques and analytical methods derived from interpretive research. Examining these interpretive traditions, this informative book illustrates how they can be applied to research projects for first-time researchers in the fields of management, marketing and consumer research. Topics covered include:

• choosing the topic
• gathering qualitative data for interpretation
• themes and concepts of interpretive research
• semiotics, marketing and consumer research.

In offering practical examples drawn from existing studies and suggesting new topics for consideration, this book brings together major themes of interpretive research within a valuable practical guide. Suitable both for first time researchers and those with more experience, this is an ideal guide for anyone undertaking research in this area of study.

Chapter 1: Interpretive perspectives and the independent research project

Chapter outline

This chapter explains the scope, perspective and structure of the book. Doing Research Projects in Marketing, Management and Consumer Research is aimed at a very broad range of student researchers working in and across management and marketing subject areas. It has a distinctive approach that combines practical hints and insights with new theoretical developments. This approach emphasizes everyday, practical management problems and issues; creative, inductive research designs; and the use of naturally occurring research data sets.

Chapter objectives

After reading this chapter the student will be able to

• appreciate the role of the research project in the student’s management education
• understand important distinctions, such as those between exploratory and confirmatory research designs
• be aware of the scope of possible research topics in marketing and management research
• understand the nature and importance of the supervisory relationship

Who this book is for

This book is written primarily as a practical guide for students doing a research project for the first time. However, it will also be useful for those with some experience of social research in business and management fields who want to learn more about interpretive theories and methods. Many students on taught business and management courses are not familiar with social science research concepts and terms. The independent research project (also described as a ‘thesis’ or ‘dissertation’, depending on different countries’ traditions) is an entirely new experience for many students on taught bachelor’s or master’s degrees. University departments do provide research workshops and dedicated personal academic supervisors, but the research project must, in the end, be completed by the student as an independent researcher. The book focuses on practical advice for pragmatic student researchers but also introduces important developments in research theory that provide the essential intellectual framework for the academic research project.

The book is written so that it can be usefully read from beginning to end but it can also be ‘dipped’ into for tips on particular topics. Throughout the text there are examples and illustrations drawn from completed student research projects. The author and colleagues have supervised many successful research projects at first degree, master’s degree and PhD level. Many of these projects are referred to in order to show new student researchers what kind of work is possible and how it can be accomplished.

This book is aimed at a wide readership of business and management student researchers with a particular interest in marketing-related issues. The book will also be helpful to those studying for research degrees in areas that connect to business, management and consumer studies. Students of combined degrees in social science, arts and humanities whose studies bring them into contact with marketing, consumption and advertising will also find the book a useful resource for planning and writing a research project. The book emphasizes qualitative data-gathering methods and theoretical perspectives that draw on the interpretive social research traditions. This implies a creative and cross-disciplinary, yet theoretically well-founded approach to social research in marketing, management and consumption. It is hoped that student researchers can use the book and the many sources that are cited within it to make their independent research project a more satisfying, rewarding and, perhaps, less stressful experience.

The research project is a daunting task even for the most able student. Even with the guidance of an excellent supervisor it still represents a stepping-off point from taught courses. Students on research degrees of PhD and MPhil can also find that writing their first-year progress report brings them into contact with issues of research philosophy, data-gathering methods and data analysis that they have not encountered in their studies before. The relative lack of research theory in the vocationally orientated curriculum of most business and management degrees means that the student then has a very wide gulf to cross to write a successful (and enjoyable) research dissertation. For many students the very idea of ‘research’ seems removed from their everyday experience. This sense of research as a special activity distinct from conventional studies can seem particularly strong in business and management courses. Taught courses in this area often derive directly from managerial perspectives and problems. Such problems may not be theoretically complex in themselves but research theories can help to generate insight and understanding and to suggest possible practical solutions.

Students with differing educational backgrounds will have different levels of knowledge of social research concepts. The vocabulary of social research in marketing and management is very different to the vocabulary of conventional texts used in taught courses. This book is written for those with no prior knowledge at all but it is also useful for those with some knowledge of social research who wish to learn more. Almost from the beginning there will be technical terms and concepts that may be new to the reader. Part of the student’s task in completing the academic research project is to show that he or she can learn and use new concepts in discussing and evaluating research approaches to generating knowledge. The book introduces these specialist terms gently and places many of them in glossaries at the end of each chapter.

The range of possible project topics in the world of marketing and management

One of the most important aims of this book is to offer ways of researching the everyday, practical activities of management that do not seem irrelevant to or distant from the everyday concerns and activities of managers. The book advocates ways of researching that can be directly relevant to practical issues in these fields. The emphasis is placed on research perspectives that make theoretically informed interpretations of data and theory. While some introductory research methods texts emphasize the construction of questionnaires and the administration, and statistical analysis, of surveys, this text, in contrast, emphasizes the research value of naturally occurring qualitative data such as conversations, interviews and researcher observations. This approach to primary research is broadly labelled the ‘interpretive’ approach.

The book cannot make the research project a simple task but it does attempt to provide a number of clear signposts for students who want to do an interesting, creative and perhaps cross-disciplinary research project that reflects their own interests and abilities. In the following chapters there will be many examples of specific research projects and possible research projects that can give students ideas for refining their own research topics. The kinds of general topic area that might be researched using this book include, but are not limited to, those listed in Box 1.1 (The list is offered to stimulate the student’s own research ideas: the suggested topics are deliberately broad, many overlap and each could be framed in a different way from those implied.)

Box 1.1 Some general topic areas that can be researched using the approaches in this book

• Managerial or critical examinations of consumption and consumer issues with regard to particular product or service categories (e.g. new technology products), industry sectors (e.g. banking, leisure, manufacturing) or market segments (e.g. the ‘cognitively’ young older consumer, the ‘generation X’ younger consumer)
• International marketing studies with a particular industry/ product focus (e.g. the design and management of international market entry strategies)
• Cross-cultural comparisons of consumer or advertising activities and practices
• Managerial or critical investigation of management activities and processes in specific organizations or settings
• Case study comparisons of business success factors in comparable industry sectors
• Explorations of management techniques in particular settings
• Critical examinations of the social role, organizational implications and human consequences of marketing and management activities and practices
• Localized case study research based on live in-company projects
• Studies of small business growth and development
• Studies of environmental management issues
• Qualitative psychological studies of consumer choice behaviour in particular consumption settings
• Studies that focus on a specific managerial aspect of marketing in a specified product/market such as pricing, promotion, distribution effectiveness
• New product development and innovation processes in a given organization or industry
• The management of, and consumption in, creative industries and the arts
• Creative processes in management practice
• Studies of relationships and control issues in the management of sourcing and supply
• Studies that focus on the human dimension of management such as reward systems, performance appraisal methods, motivation, job choice and satisfaction
• Gender-based studies focusing on a particular context of consumption or management
• Studies of management perceptions of the operational efficiency of specific management systems and processes
• Studies of tourism management in particular national and international settings
• Strategic planning models and practices in higher-level organizational management
• Effectiveness and/or efficiency in organizational marketing management assessed through inter-company or intra-industry comparisons
• Approaches to the management of key accounts or other aspects of ‘relationship’ management in service sectors
• Intra-organizational studies of communication and information systems framed, for example, as ‘internal marketing’ studies
• Managerial marketing segmentation practices in specified product industries
• Experiential studies of managing and being managed in organizational settings
• Experiential studies of consumption and its role in identity-construction and social positioning in specified social settings with regard to particular categories of consumption
• Studies that focus on how language is used to construct management identities and managerial authority
• Brand management studies in particular markets or industries
• Marketing communication strategies and practices in specified settings and product/market sectors
• Studies of social exclusion in, and through, marketing activity
• Studies of management failure and organizational dysfunction
• The promotion and nurturing of entrepreneurial behaviour and activities in particular industrial and social settings
• Non-profit and publicly funded managerial activities
• Experiential studies of entrepreneurship in action
• The effective management of technology in organizations
• The social and organizational implications of new technology
• The effects of particular technologies on employee job satisfaction/ on operational effectiveness
• Qualitative studies of service delivery in banking and other financial services, air or sea travel, retailing, and in any aspect of customer care

There is indeed a huge variety of possible topic areas in marketing, management and consumer research. Within these topic areas there are many variations possible on how the research issue is framed and expressed, which questions will be asked or explored, and which values will be implied. More will be said about how to choose a topic in Chapter 2. However, it is worth pointing out now that new student researchers typically think in terms of big categories when they first think about what to research. They often suggest ‘branding’, ‘car retailing’ or ‘advertising’, or they suggest that they will look at, say, factors affecting demand in personal computer markets. Later they learn that setting out a research project is both more complex and simpler than they realized. It is more complex in the sense that the way the research questions, issue or problem are phrased is crucial for the research design. Putting a research topic in a particular form of words carries implications about the data-gathering techniques and analytical stance of the research. On the other hand, research projects are also far simpler than trying to get to the core of a big category like ‘branding’. A good student research project does not try to invent a grand theory but states a simple question that can be investigated in a reasonably systematic and thorough way, given the time and resources available to the student researcher. The research project that is part of a taught higher degree does not have to generate new knowledge. It simply has to demonstrate that the student has acquired certain academic, intellectual and practical skills. If the project is interesting and creative, then so much the better.

Interpretation and the research process

This book emphasizes a research approach that takes a theoretically informed interpretation of primary or secondary sources. Furthermore, it emphasizes an approach to primary research that uses naturally occurring sources of data such as interviews, written (textual) accounts of events and states, and observation (including participant observation) in everyday settings. There are several advantages to this perspective.

First, the kind of data sets that are emphasized are particularly suitable for student research projects because they are relatively easy to access and samples need not be randomized. Students completing a research project as part of a taught degree very rarely have the time or resources to complete a rigorous quantitative study, even if they have the statistical competence. Questionnaire surveys are time consuming and expensive to administrate, and the return rates are notoriously low. Studies based on experiments, too, are difficult to organize in marketing studies. Unless they form part of a sophisticated and carefully conceived research design, questionnaires or experiments conducted within the tight time-scale of taught programmes rarely generate robust findings.

Interpretive approaches offer a way of researching a given topic in depth and with sophistication without a statistically secure universalization of findings. Given that interpretive approaches usually rely on qualitative data (e.g. interviews, observation, focus groups) for their major findings, they are often used in the initial construct formation phase of studies that aim for statistical generalization at some future stage. However, it should be remembered that interpretive studies do not seek generalization of findings as their primary end. Rather, they seek a rich and insightful description of a particular issue, problem or event in its social context.

‘Quantitative’ and ‘qualitative’ research approaches

It is, incidentally, important to note that many interpretive studies have a quantitative element to data gathering. The categories qualitative and quantitative are not mutually exclusive in research. Most research studies are a mixture of both with an emphasis on one or the other. For example, if a research project attempts to build a case analysis of a particular brand a researcher might want to analyse textual material on that brand such as newspaper editorial and Internet chat-room dialogue. In this way the researcher could build a picture of what this brand means to people. Such a study would often make use of a simple quantitative content analysis in which the textual material is categorized according to content criteria. If the brand in question is, say, Ford, the researcher might want to see if text reflects trust in Ford products, reliability, excitement, technological sophistication, or negative qualities such as lack of reliability and so on. A content analysis could investigate which values are more common in texts about Ford. Once the researcher has built up a content analysis then he or she could develop an interpretive discussion on why such values seem predominant in texts that refer to this brand. The research might make use of a relevant theoretical framework, such as Moscovici’s social representations theory (Moscovici, 1984) to generate a deeper level of analysis concerning why particular ideas (in this case, about brands) become produced and sustained in everyday conversation and interaction.

In ways such as this, elementary quantitative analysis is often combined with creative interpretation in the same study. In this case, a study of branding could be ‘framed’ in terms of a theory such as social representations theory.

The academic and educational rationale for the independent research project

A second major reason for emphasizing interpretive approaches is that a research project conducted as part of the requirements of a taught degree is part of the student’s broader management education. The aims of the student research project are partly educational and are not simply aimed at generating solutions to, or insights into, management phenomena. Students of management require skills of research design, problem formulation, data gathering, analysis and interpretation that they can draw on in their managerial careers. More pragmatically, management students often use the research project as a ‘way in’ to an area of work. They can make industry contacts and acquire specialized knowledge of a key area that will be of benefit to potential employers. In recent years the author has supervised student marketing and management projects into WAP communications technology, mobile phone telephony pricing strategies, Internet music distribution, international market entry strategies in the motor industry, interactive advertising planning and many other vocationally motivated projects. Interpretive studies are particularly suitable for exploring areas in which the student does not have prior practical or theoretical knowledge.

Interpretive research theories are sophisticated and can be conceptually complex. Consequently, they are entirely appropriate for advanced studies in marketing and management. Their usefulness for students is that they offer a way of doing an exploratory piece of research utilizing naturally occurring data sets that are analytical and theoretically rich as opposed to being merely descriptive. Intellectually robust research projects based on either qualitative or quantitative analysis share a quality of ‘thought-throughness’. They explore coherent questions and offer carefully qualified responses to those questions. Interpretive theory offers a way of giving that quality of thought-throughness to qualitative studies that, in the absence of theory, would lack the intellectual quality demanded by the standards of higher education. Interpretive research often relies on qualitative data but also entails an intellectually critical engagement with that data in order to go beyond mere anecdote or reportage and satisfy the criteria for advanced studies in business and management.

As noted above, ‘interpretive’ studies seldom seek findings that can be true for all time and in all cases. Rather, they tend to seek insights built on a careful and well-informed reading of a particular issue in a given social and/or organizational context. ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Boxes
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Doing research projects in marketing, management and consumer research
• Chapter 1: Interpretive perspectives and the independent research project
• Chapter 2: Choosing the topic
• Chapter 3: ‘Writing up’ the research project
• Chapter 4: Gathering qualitative data for interpretation
• Chapter 5: Major themes and concepts of interpretive research
• Chapter 6: Phenomenology
• Chapter 7: Ethnography
• Chapter 8: Critical research and critical discourse analysis
• Chapter 9: Semiotics in marketing and consumer research
• Chapter 10: Other approaches: Literary theory and narrative analysis, feminism and gender studies, postmodernism and poststructuralism
• Appendix: What is a ‘good’ academic journal?
• References