Theories of research: Basic principles

 

Me-to-We research challenges a central piece of market research dogma, namely, that practitioners should only ask people about their own motivations, actions and future behaviour. In ‘We’ research we ...

This article discusses the problems researchers have in communicating insights, translating them into formats which client and other audiences can understand. Non-verbal communications must be conside

This Comments section includes two essays. The first of these is by Debra and Michael Harker from the University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia. They discuss issues being faced by advert ...

Market research is embroiled in an attempted coup d'état, where many of the old values of a scientific discipline are being shed in favor of the exciting new possibilities of a Web 2.0 world. This pap ...

In this article, Geoffrey Precourt, WARC Online's US Editor, finds out about research in developing markets such as Russia and China. In the first instance, it appears that merely adapting western app ...

This Comments section discusses the quant-qual debate, a long-running discussion in the discipline of advertising, but also a division which is essentially problematic, as good research requires a com ...

It is commonplace to argue that the proliferation of new kinds of data and information has created huge social changes that we still do not really understand. One interesting example is the worry of s ...

The UK market research industry is a fantastic success story. The Market Research Society (MRS) started, as a luncheon club, on 5th November 1946 with 23 founder members. Today, annual expenditure on ...

The road to conducting survey research that meets international standards is one not easily paved in Afghanistan. Violence, illiteracy in both urban and rural areas, segments of the population hostile ...

In this Viewpoint piece, IJMR Executive Editorial Board member Gill Ereaut addresses some of the benefits to market research practitioners of writing pieces concerning their work for publication in jo ...

Innovation and differentiation are the buzzwords in any client organization, and if market research is looked upon as lacking the ability to provide creative solutions - or, even worse, as killing the ...

This paper argues that whilst market research has striven to understand the consumer from all angles it has largely failed to deal adequately with things. It seems obsessed by the former and largely u ...

Argues that market research theory and methods are still too dominated by rationalisation, linear thinking and cause-effect models. A tour around some current theorising, e.g. neuroscience and Darwini ...

Proposes a `humanist’ model of market research following Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy, contrasting it with the current interest in neuroscience and neuromarketing. Damasio’s claim that D ...

The parallels between Marketing and War are provocative. Just as in modern Warfare where we see shifts to unconventional, low visibility, covert guerrilla operations, so there has been a shift in Mark ...

This paper offers a guide on how to gather customer facts and opinions in an objective way while using the resources of a typical small business. Advice includes tips on budget-setting, conducting res ...

This paper provides a step-by-step guide to designing a research study. The seven-step process will help readers take full advantage of the data from properly conducted market research.

This handbook was published so as to bring together in a convenient form 11 previous ARF papers intended to establish guidelines for the best practice in the areas listed below. The bracketed years s ...