Week Two

Question 1

Which problem is action oriented?

Answer 1

Management decision problem (MDP)

Question 2

Which problem is info oriented?

Answer 2

Marketing research problem (MRP)

Question 3

Examples of MDP:

Answer 3

• Should a new product be introduced?
• Should the advertising campaign be changed?
• Should the price of the brand be increased?
• Develop package for a new product?
• Increase store traffic?
• Increase market penetration through the opening of new stores?
• Decide which merchandise will be available for purchase over the internet?

Question 4

Examples of MRP (building on from the MDP examples above):

Answer 4

• To determine consumer preferences and purchase intentions for the proposed new product.
• To determine the effectiveness of the current advertising campaign.
• To determine the price elasticity of demand and the impact on sales and profits of various levels of price changes.
• To evaluate alternative package designs.
• To measure current image of the store.
• To evaluate prospective locations.
• To determine consumers’ confidence in purchasing different categories of products unseen.

Question 5

What are some unethical problems during the market research stage?

Answer 5

• conducting unnecessary research.
• using findings for specific clients for other projects.
• misleading / inappropriate questions.
• embarrassing or stressing the respondents.
• not maintaining anonymity of respondents.
• hiding results.

Question 6

Codes of ethics usually includes:

Answer 6

• voluntary participation
• informed consent
• right to refuse to answer any question
• right to withdraw
• confidentiality
• participants access to findings.

Question 7

What is exploratory research?

Answer 7

Inductive research. Discovery of new constructs or new relationships between known constructs. Phenomena are observed and a conclusion drawn on the basis of the information collected. Employs unstructured subjective inductive ‘interpretive’ methods. Small samples. The goal is to provide an understanding of the problem.

Question 8

What is decision set theory?

Answer 8

Our minds will only handle 2 to 6 options to consider over in our purchase decision.

Question 9

What is conceptualisation?

Answer 9

Establishing relationships between variable in an analytical model.

Question 10

What are constructs?

Answer 10

• Intangible concepts, which while not readily observable, are thought to be important.
• They are not possible to measure with just one question. We need to define the constructs in order to measure.
• They are hypothetical variables. It is specified such as that it is a variable. Eg. Has varying values.
• All constructs are variables, but not all variables are constructs. E.g. Personal identity.

Question 11

The MRP will usually contain a:

Answer 11

construct which needs to be broken down into measurable objectives. Examples:

• brand ‘image’
• market ‘position’
• student ‘satisfaction’

Question 12

Deductive (descriptive or experimental) research is:

Answer 12

Derive a hypothesis from theory and gather data to test the hypothesis. Employs structured objective deductive survey methods. Large samples. Goal is to describe characteristics of a phenomenon.

Question 13

Independent variable (IV) examples include:

Answer 13

• advertising
• discount
• quality
• service
• sales promotion

Question 14

Dependent variable (DV) examples include:

Answer 14

• sales volume
• store loyalty
• total sales

Question 15

Examples of constructs:

Answer 15

• position
• personality
• image
• quality
• value

Question 16

Hypotheses is an

Answer 16

• unproven statement or proposition about factor or phenomenon of research interest.
• educated guess, a prediction, a proposition.
• describes relationship between IV and DV

Question 17

Research design is:

Answer 17

the framework or blueprint for conducting market research project. It details the procedures necessary for obtaining the info needed to solve the MRP.

Question 18

Causal research is:

Answer 18

• Employs structured objective deductive ‘experimental’ methods.
• Focuses on cause and effect between IVs and a DV.
• Goal is to provide explanation to facilitate predictions.
• Experimental.
• Major objective is to obtain evidence regarding cause-and-effect (causal) relationships.
• IVs are manipulated in a relatively controlled environment. E.g. To test effect on the DV.

Question 19

In descriptive research, what is cross-sectional design?

Answer 19

• collection of info from any given sample of the population elements only once.
• often a large representative sample.
• can be single or multiple cross-sectional.
• most common in market research.
• snapshot of how the interviewee feels at that point in time.

Question 20

In descriptive research, what is longitudinal design?

Answer 20

• involving a fixed sample of population elements (i.e. panel) which is measured repeatedly over time. E.g. a study of leisure activities of first year international students in Melbourne as they progress through 2004, 2005, and 2006.
• less common in marketing research due to resources required.

Question 21

What are variables?

Answer 21

Any characteristic that can vary. E.g. Male or female. There must be at least two different possible values.

Question 22

What is abstractness when classifying variables?

Answer 22

• Non-construct (concrete) variables. These are things that definitely exist and are relatively easy to measure. I.e. Income.
• Constructs are hypothetical, need defining e.g. Social class.

Question 23

What are causal relationships?

Answer 23

• Independent. Also known as explanatory variable or predictors. The IV causes changes in other variables in our study, and is not affected by any other variable in the study.
• Dependent. Also known as the outcome or criterion variable. Variation in the DV is ‘caused’ by changes in the IV.

Question 24

What are the types of measurement?

Answer 24

1. Categorical (qualitative). When possible variables values are not numerical. E.g. gender, ethnicity, state of residence.
2. Measurement (quantitative). When possible variable values are numerical. E.g. age, income, market share.
   - Continuous - Takes on any value on the scale used to measure it. E.g. Height can be 1.87m, market share can be 17%.
   - Discrete - Can only be certain values on the scale used to measure it. E.g. Number of kids can be 0, 1, 2, 3, etc. But number’s in between (2.13) are not valid.

Question 25

What is operationalisation?

Answer 25

Specifying exactly how you are going to measure each variable. To define a concept or variable so that it can be measured or expressed quantitatively.