Qualitative Research MARK 5338 Dr. Michael Richarme

Questions to ask yourself Is this course about real research? How should I approach this instructor? Am I up to the challenge? Should I drop now or see what happens?

We are on a journey… …to find insight

Insight “Insight is a fundamental finding that causes you to change the way you think about your business” – Jim Figura, Vice President, Consumer Research, Colgate Palmolive

Today’s Agenda Introductions Syllabus Review – Readings, tests, assignments, etc. Overview of Qualitative Research “The Power of the Situation” video

My expectations You will be here and be prepared to contribute We will all learn together through discussion This class will take a lot of work and there are no easy shortcuts Each class period, we’ll go about 75 minutes, take a 15 minute break, and then finish the class

Introductions So let’s begin… Your name, where you are from, and something interesting about you that we probably didn’t already know What you would like to get out of the class

Class Web Site

Overview of Qualitative Research What do you think it is?

Qualitative Research This is your one chance in the MSMR/MBA program to understand the “why” question There is no right answer, but there are ways to triangulate around it Keep an open mind Socratic discussion, please

The Qualitative Focus The main focus is to try and understand motivations that lead to observed behaviors The main question we ask is “why” In quant work, the main focus is to measure The main questions are how much, how many, how often, when, where, etc.

What Falls into Qualitative Research? Ethnography – watching people and their actions – Passive, unobserved – Active, observed Interviews – interacting and talking with people – Depth interviews – Group interviews Try to separate the topic areas from the tools

We’re trying to understand… …how consumers think and how they make decisions We can generate testable hypotheses These translate into specific marketing actions and programs that we can put in place

Issues of Concern Ethnography – Behavior, not motivation – Privacy Interviews – Respondent desire to please the interviewer – Motivation may not be known or knowable – Interviewer contamination

The main issue Interviewer bias, a.k.a. subjectivity We see the world through our own lens Sometimes that makes it hard for us to interpret or understand the actions of others

Cultural difference biases This bias is particularly evident when we are in unfamiliar cultures or sub-cultures

Tools We’ll develop some tools during this course We’ll use the tools in both practice and in a real client project We’ll have some expert guest speakers from the real world to share their experiences with us We’ll read what the academics think about the area

The Power of the Situation y/ y/ Program 19, 27 minutes in length The situation (simulated jail) can cause unusual behaviors