Alternative Market Research Methods

Market Sensing

Alison Lawson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317550372
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Marketing Research
• Index: Business

Traditional research methods in marketing can be illuminating when used well, but all too often their data-driven results fail to provide the depth of understanding that organisations need to anticipate market needs. Alternative Market Research Methods: Market sensing is a new approach that enables researchers to get greater depth and meaning from their research and organisations to make smarter strategic decisions.

This book, the first text dedicated to the topic, explains market sensing simply and practically and demonstrates how it can benefit researchers. It teaches non-mainstream and alternative research methods which facilitate innovative research design, and achieves deep insights into the mindsets of consumers. The methods explored in this book include:

• 
  
  

• emotional scaling;
• discourse analysis;
• consumer ethnography;
• social media networks;
• narrative and story telling;
• gamification.

With a wealth of case studies and pedagogy to aid student learning, as well as online teaching aids including PowerPoint presentations and video content, this ground-breaking textbook is an essential resource for anyone that wants to expand their repertoire of marketing research methods to create a research project that will be original and insightful.

PART I

Theoretical underpinnings for market sensing

1

MARKET SENSING AND QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

Context, philosophy, approach and strategy

David Longbottom

Purpose and context

The market sensing methods presented in this book follow a qualitative framework to research. This chapter considers qualitative research as a methodology for studies at undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD levels. It will discuss and critically examine those issues of context, philosophy, approach and strategy necessary for evaluating and justifying a methodology for a research-based study (including writing a research methodology chapter to support an independent study thesis) and in preparing to undertake research of a high academic standard. This chapter largely focuses on understanding the theoretical concepts and foundations on which qualitative methodology is based, whilst discussions of the practical implications of process are contained in subsequent chapters. Chapter 2 will examine issues of planning and data collection, and Chapter 3 those of qualitative data analysis and presentation.

Learning outcome

At the end of this chapter you will be able to design and critically evaluate the theoretical underpinnings for a qualitative research methodology for a research study at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, specifically to deal with issues of context, philosophy, approach and strategy.

THEORY BOX

A Theory Box will appear at the start of each chapter in Part II of this book. The purpose of the Theory Box is to present an overview of relevant theory (in context and summary format) so that you can easily locate the particular research method that is being presented in Part II and see where it fits within a qualitative research framework. (This is an essential skill required when presenting an academic research study.) You can use the Theory Box to easily locate your chosen methodology within the theoretical framework provided. This is handy, for example, when setting out the structure and justification for your methodology if, perhaps, you are a student setting out to write the methodology sections for your independent study.

For the purposes of this book we will be following the theoretical framework:

• philosophy;

• approach;

• strategy;

• design;

• analysis;

• presentation.

Qualitative research: context

There has been a major growth in qualitative inquiry within social sciences over the past two decades. Miles and Huberman (2013) suggest a growth of qualitative-based research papers being accepted for academic journal publication and find evidence of significant growth in academic textbooks. The reasons for this may be, as Cassell and Symon (1995: 2) point out, that research in social sciences is mostly concerned with people, organisations and social interactions, and is not well disposed to positivist/scientific philosophy (for example, which are based on quantitative survey or experiment). This is also apparent in marketing research where increasingly marketers are striving to achieve a depth of understanding of consumers for important decisions in marketing strategy, brand development, internal marketing and marketing communications. In summary, the characteristics of qualitative research are:

• social context: people, behaviour, organisations and the environment;

• depth, meaning, in social settings;

• not conducive to experiments within controlled environments;

• not conducive to testing of predetermined hypotheses and survey-based methods.

From our own studies and observations we find a significant growth of qualitative-based studies within the marketing subject area. The objective of market sensing is to seek out qualitative methods that achieve depth and meaning from research, and this may not be achieved using some traditional methods of research (often described in mainstream research texts) such as surveys, focus groups and surface-level cases and interviews. In market sensing we are seeking out alternative research methods which have the objective of going deeper, to explore areas which may be more difficult to uncover, but which provide marketers with very rich insights into consumers and markets.

A word of caution on qualitative research methods

The market sensing methods we present in this book are based on qualitative methods which include words, images, emotions and observations collected and analysed in social settings. We will present and argue the strong case, importance and relevance of qualitative research and that, if conducted in a rigorous and robust way, the outcomes can make a meaningful contribution to knowledge in the field of social science studies. We should acknowledge at the outset, however, that there are some risks and challenges facing the researcher adopting this methodological approach. Some academics may challenge the credibility of the methodology, for example on grounds of the validity of the approach and consequently the reliability of the findings. There are, for example, arguments that the methods are non-scientific, open to personal opinions, biases and subjective interpretations. These are all challenges that the qualitative researcher will have to face (and we will examine the implications within this chapter, suggesting ways to add rigour and robustness into design which will significantly counter such issues).

FIGURE 1.1 Not everything that counts can be counted; not everything that can be counted counts (Albert Einstein, 1879–1955)

Source: Photo © 360b. Image courtesy of Shutterstock

Qualitative research: philosophy

Research philosophy is about examining beliefs (our own and those of others) on how knowledge is developed (for example, what is valid in adding knowledge in the marketing/social sciences field of study). How do we know what we know, and what will be regarded as adding acceptable knowledge within a particular field of study? A discussion on research philosophy usually commences with a consideration of two opposite research perspectives (sometimes referred to as paradigms): positivist and interpretive. Qualitative research falls within the interpretive philosophy. Interpretive philosophy may also be described by some authors as phenomenology.

There are good chapters on this in Bryman and Bell (2012) and in Saunders et al. (2012). Bryman and Bell describe the two philosophies as contrasting extremes, visualised as a sort of Likert-type scale with positivist at one extreme and interpretive at the other. Saunders et al. (2012) illustrate these concepts in the form of a ‘Research Onion Model’, where choosing a research philosophy represents the first important stage in constructing a research design (before peeling back further layers of the onion to construct a design). The model clearly implies that although there are two extreme philosophies, there may also be positions in between (or that have elements of each philosophy) and it may be that individuals have a research perspective somewhere within the scale (rather than at the extremes). It is, for example, quite common for researchers these days to use a combination of research methods; a mixed methods approach.

For the purposes of this text we take the position which we will define as the professional researcher. In the role of professional researcher the researcher takes no predetermined philosophical approach or subsequent research pathway based on the requirements of philosophical position (as implied by some models). Rather, the researcher determines the particular study and the defined research objectives. In this textbook we are starting from a common position that our research objectives require depth and meaning in social contexts; and therefore a predominantly interpretive philosophy is taken. The market sensing methods we have chosen will seek to describe how this depth and meaning might be achieved.

A good discussion and comparison of positivist and interpretive philosophies can be found in Chapter 1 of Cassell and Symon (1995); note these authors have also produced an edited series of textbooks covering a variety of methods in this field. Positivism as they describe it is based on the assumption that there is an objective truth (a reality) existing in the world which can be revealed through scientific methods where the focus is on measuring relationships between variables systematically and statistically. That quantification lies at the heart of scientific methods. The key concerns are that measurement is reliable, valid and generalisab...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Alternative Market Research Methods
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Case Studies
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction and Rationale for this Book
• PART I Theoretical Underpinnings for Market Sensing
• PART II Market Research Methods for Market Sensing
• PART III Research Presentation and Research Ethics
• Index