The conceptual development and a description of a set of variables that is pivotal for this study were presented at the end of Chapter 4. These variables included marketing research activity, marketing research techniques, organisational structure, environmental factors, information culture, historic appreciation of marketing research, organisational demographics, cost-benefit of knowledge, utilisation, financial performance outcomes, and other performance outcomes. The operational definition of each of these variables, along with the way it will be prepared for handling, will be explained in this section, in the order in which it appeared in the research instrument. A discussion of the relevant literature for the treatment of particular variables is discussed along with reference to their appearance in other earlier work.
5.2.1 Marketing Research Activity and Marketing Research Techniques
With the exception of the AMA surveys, studies into marketing research utilisation are not concerned with the type of research conducted by the organisations. As the
sole purpose of the AMA surveys is to provide the industry with a regular status report (they are conducted once in every five years), little attempt was made by the researchers to investigate the relationships between variables in order to ascertain the predictors of marketing research activity. Conversely, the major studies into marketing research utilisation were concerned with either the type of utilisation (e.g., Menon and Wilcox 1994), or factors that determine one type of utilisation (e.g., Deshpandè and Zaltman 1982). None of the previous studies made an attempt to formulate a holistic model that incorporated antecedents as well as consequences of marketing research. Such a model necessitated a unique framework within which to study the formal acquisition of knowledge (marketing research). As explained in Chapter 2, the framework employed in this study is a conceptualisation of marketing research as an innovation. This necessitated producing a construct that could anticipate the innovativeness of the organisation in terms of knowledge acquisition. It was, therefore, proposed that there was a direct relation between the innovativeness of the organisation and the extent of marketing research activity. Further, it was proposed that there was a relation between the innovativeness of the organisation and the type and sophistication level of the research techniques employed. At a more basic level, it was also thought that an inventory of marketing research activity and techniques at a given point in time would provide base case data of marketing research orientation in tourism and would assist future research to measure its progress.
The original items were taken from the latest AMA questionnaire available (Kinnear and Root 1995) and were pretested carefully with marketing academics and practitioners to ascertain their suitability to tourism and Australia. As a result, some items were removed and two items, which referred to the use of the Internet as additional data gathering techniques, were added. Appendix 1 shows the set of items and the instructions preceding them.
For the purposes of testing of the model, responses that related to the development of the research and analysis of the data (‘mainly this organisation’, ‘mainly outside organisation’, and ‘both this and outside organisation’) were kept out of statistical analysis. The reason for that omission is that the identity of those who conducted and analysed the research was not differentiated in the model. The wording of the items (‘not done’, ‘sometimes done’, ‘frequently done’) prevented their classification as
interval variables as each respondent may have had a different concept of ‘sometimes’ and ‘frequently’. Therefore, the marketing research activity variable was collapsed to be uni-dimensional, with dichotomised ‘MR not conducted’ and ‘MR conducted’ values for each respondent. Similarly, the marketing research techniques variable was also collapsed into dichotomised values – in this case ‘the technique not known or not used’ and ‘technique used’.
5.2.2 Cost Benefit of Marketing Research
An extensive literature review did not reveal any studies prior to the Travel Agents Study (Yaman and Shaw 1998) that attempted to measure managers’ perception of the cost benefit (value) of marketing research. This is with the exception of one item in the USER instrument that was included with the report attribute measures: ‘the information provided was worth the money spent on it’. This item, along with the three items that showed good reliability after the Travel Agents Study, comprised the cost benefit macro variable. All items were assessed on six-point Likert scales ranging from ‘1 = disagree strongly’ to ‘6 = agree strongly’. The items were then combined into a single macro variable named COST.
5.2.3 Information Culture
The information culture construct was conceptualised as having three dimensional characteristics. These dimensions are top management risk aversion, intelligence dissemination, and innovativeness. These dimensions are commensurate with the studies on market orientation by Jaworski and Kohli (1993), and Kohli, Jaworski, and Kumar (1993). As well as these works, the three questions reflect minor modification of the works of Menon and Varadarajan (1992), Rogers (1995) and Zaltman (1996). The items were assessed on six-point Likert scales as above. The aggregation of the variables comprised the macro variable INFORM.
5.2.4 Environmental Factors
This construct was conceptualised as having three separate dimensions. These dimensions are market turbulence, competitive intensity, and technological turbulence. The items that were used to measure this construct were largely based on the works of Houston (1986), Jaworski and Kohli (1993) and Menon and Wilcox (1994). All items, except one, were taken from the literature (Jaworski and Kohli
1993) with minor modifications. The questions were assessed on six-point Likert scales. The eight items that measured three separate dimensions of environmental volatility were then combined to create the subset of ENVIRO.
5.2.5 Organisational Structure
The structural characteristics of an organisation have been defined for the purpose of this thesis as the degree of the decentralisation of authority (flexibility of decision- making for the more junior members of management team) and the formalisation of operational procedures. This definition is then operationalised in terms of the underlying structural dimensions of centralisation and formalisation.
Deshpandè and Zaltman (1982, p. 18) refer to two principal methods that can be used to study these concepts:
‘One method … focuses on institutional measures that examine span of control, worker/supervisor ratios, distribution of employees across functional areas, and other indices of an organisation chart … This approach has been strongly criticised as producing extremely low internal reliability.’
The other principal method uses responses to questionnaire items, which ask respondents to indicate their level of agreement with a series of statements (Hall 1972 in Deshpandè and Zaltman 1982).
In addition to the above rationale, it can be added that the institutional measures that inquire into designed structure may not be as suitable for the purposes of this research as measures that investigate emergent structure. Measures that tap into respondent perceptions of organisational structure are more pertinent to the problem investigated in this study than measures that purport to provide an objective view of the same construct.
The items that relate to the organisational structure concept are listed in Appendix 2, as those that measure centralisation and formalisation. These items were handled as discussed in the sections related to other variables by aggregating them into two subsets to form the macro variables FORMAL and CENTRAL.
5.2.5 Utilisation of Marketing Research Findings
The 17 items that measured the three dimensions of the utilisation construct were taken from Menon and Wilcox (1994). These items were already used in the
exploratory study on marketing research utilisation in tourism, the Tourism 95 study (Yaman and Shaw 1998). Only one item out of the 18 used by Menon and Wilcox was discarded after the pretesting of the instrument with industry executives. The items were first aggregated into one macro variable to form the subset UTIL. This was the subset used for most of the analyses, which did not discriminate between the instrumental and conceptual uses of marketing research studies. Separately, three subsets were formed to represent the three separate dimensions of utilisation (instrumental, conceptual, and affective) for a separate analysis that was not included in the general model.
The reason for the consideration of the utilisation construct as one index, without the discrimination of various forms of use, has been discussed in the earlier chapters and will be touched on again during the discussion of the analyses.
5.2.6 Attributes of Marketing Research Report
The attributes of a marketing research report were conceptualised to have two separate dimensions. These dimensions are quality of content and the quality of form. The six items that measure the attributes were based on the USER instrument (Menon and Wilcox 1994) as tested by the earlier exploratory study (Yaman and Shaw 1998a). As with the other variables the items were assessed using a six-point Likert type scale and later were aggregated to form the macro variable ATTRIB.
5.2.7 Evaluation of Marketing Research
There were no prior studies that measured the evaluation procedures of organisations with respect to marketing research activity. The evaluation process was conceptualised as the approval of, and objective-setting for, the project (two items), individual and overall evaluation after the completion of the project (two items), and the frequency of projects (one item). All items were originally designed by the investigator, partly based on the experience gained from the two earlier exploratory studies. Items then were aggregated into the one macro variable of EVAL, which was used in the analyses.
5.2.8 Performance Outcomes of Marketing Research Use (Financial Outcomes)
marketing research on organisational performance. There were, however, many discussions on the subject in the strategy literature (Bracker et al. 1998, Capon et al. 1990, Jaworski and Kohli 1993, Miller and Cardinal 1994, Narver and Slater 1990, Pearce et al. 1987, Phillips 1996). It was thought that this measure would have the widest universal appeal among the variables in the study as it was of particular importance to managers and researchers. The items (all original) were designed to measure the effect of marketing research on financial performance through its various dimensions. Firstly, the general existence of formal systems of evaluation was queried (item 63). Secondly, the importance placed on intuition in determining the usefulness of marketing research was measured (item 64). Thirdly, through three separate items the effect of marketing research on the unit sales, on the profit margin, and on the return on investment was measured (items 65 to 67). Fourthly, through four questions the influence of marketing research on the four Ps of marketing (see McCarthy et al. 1997, p. 43) was measured (items 68 to 71). Finally, three questions measured the organisation’s financial performance in general (items 73 and 74) and the decision- makers’ satisfaction level with the contribution of marketing research to financial performance (item 75). Items 63 to 74 were aggregated to form the macro variable FINANCE. Item 75 was recoded as SATIS.
5.2.9 Performance Outcomes of Marketing Research Use (Other Than Financial)
This construct was conceptualised as employee morale and esprit de corps in line with the work of Kohli and Jaworski (1990). The conceptualisation was also cognate with the work on strategy (Langley 1988, Pearce et al. 1987, Ramanujam et al. 1986a). The measurement (six-point Likert type scale) and the creation of the macro variable QUAL followed the same procedure described earlier.