Review Questions

1. What is research design?

2. Explain why it is important for marketing researchers to be knowledgeable of research design.

3. Discuss how research design can lead to ethically sensitive situations.

4. When might an organization use exploratory research?

5. In which type of research design would a lead-user survey be used?

6. What are big data, and why do they represent both an opportunity and a challenge?

7. What should be kept in mind before beginning data analysis?

8. What are secondary data, and how do they differ from primary data?

9. Describe some uses of secondary data.

10. Describe the classifications of secondary data.

Answers

1. A research design is a master plan that specifies the methods that will be used to collect and
analyze the information needed for a research project.

2. 2. Knowledge of research design is important in developing an appropriate study to approach

a problem or opportunity. We need to understand that even though every problem and
research objective may seem unique, there are usually enough similarities among problems and
objectives to allow us to make some decisions in advance about the best research design to use
to resolve the problem. This means we can group or classify seemingly diverse types of research
projects well enough to predetermine the most appropriate research design.

3. 3. In most cases professionals know more about their fields than the clients who hire them. In
fact, this knowledge is the reason we hire professionals. However, that imbalance of knowledge
can cause serious ethical issues. In the marketing research industry, these issues may arise in the
potential for researchers to take advantage of clients in the research design process. The
following are among the potential ways that researchers can take advantage of clients in the
research design process:

· Recommending a more costly design than is needed

· Designing a study in which data are collected for multiple clients

· Using information obtained for a client in another research project

· Over- or Underestimating data collection costs

· Wrongfully gaining respondent cooperation to reduce costs

· Misrepresenting sampling methods

4. 4. Exploratory research is usually conducted when the researcher does not know much about
the problem and needs additional information or desires new or more recent information. Often
exploratory research is conducted at the outset of research projects.

5. 5. In Exploratory research design, Experience surveys refer to gathering information from

those thought to be knowledgeable on the issues relevant to the research problem. This
technique is also known as the key-informant technique. In the technology field, a lead-user
survey is used to acquire information from lead users of a new technology.

6. 6. Big data can be defined simply as large amounts of data from multiple sources. The term big
data has been popularized in recent years in response to the numerous types and huge amounts
of data to which companies now have access in real time.

Ø The advent of big data has created great challenges for marketing researchers. Effective use of
multiple sources of data requires having the resources and talent available to retrieve, store, integrate,
analyze, and report the data. Access to big data also creates great opportunities. Proper management of
big data has the potential to increase productivity for companies significantly.

7. 7. First, researchers must be sure that the problem statement and research objectives have
been carefully defined. You should never begin a data analysis project without knowing what
the ultimate goals are. Next, researchers must decide what data are needed to solve the
problem and reach the objective. And, finally, researchers must determine if they need to
collect the data themselves or if the data already exist.
 8. 8. Secondary data have previously been gathered by someone other than the researcher
and/or for some other purpose than the research project at hand. On the other hand, Primary
data refer to information that is developed or gathered by the researcher specifically for the
research project at hand.

9. 9. There are so many uses of secondary data that it is rare for a marketing research project to
be conducted without including some of this information. Certain projects may be based
exclusively on secondary data.

Ø A researcher may use secondary data to determine the population and growth rate in almost any
geographical area. Government agencies often use secondary data to guide public policy decisions. For
example, the Department of Education needs to know how many five-year-old will enter the public
school system each year.

10. 10. Secondary data may be broadly classified as either internal or external.

Ø Internal secondary data are data that have been collected within a firm. Such data include sales
records, purchase requisitions, invoices, and complaints.

Ø A database refers to a collection of data and information describing items of interest.

Ø Internal databases consist of information gathered by a company, typically during the normal course
of business transactions.

Ø Data mining software helps managers make sense out of seemingly senseless masses of information
contained in databases.

Ø Micromarketing employs a differentiated marketing mix for specific customer segments, sometimes
finetuned for the individual shopper.