Qualitative Research MARK 5338

1. Qualitative ResearchMARK 5338 Dr. Michael Richarme

2. 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?

3. We are on a journey… • …to find insight

4. 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

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

6. 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

7. 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

8. Class Web Site • http://www.uta.edu/faculty/richarme/

9. Overview of Qualitative Research • What do you think it is?

10. 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

11. 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.

12. 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

13. 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

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

15. 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

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

17. 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

18. The Power of the Situation • http://www.learner.org/discoveringpsychology/ • Program 19, 27 minutes in length • The situation (simulated jail) can cause unusual behaviors