Qualitative Research Methods in Marketing

Gummesson contends that quantitative techniques are mostly used to try to pinpoint causality, usually between two or a few variables where the independent and dependent variables are defined. According to Milliken, in reviewing the management literature, especially marketing management, it is evident that little attention has been paid to qualitative research in the discipline. Varki et al. hold that, in marketing, qualitative data are used in theory development for investigating marketing phenomena in more depth. Whitehead claims that organizations achieve success by building strong, loyal and enduring relationships with their customers. Gummesson notes that marketing is an established discipline in business schools and an established function in enterprises, “where, at best it is part of the corporate culture, at worst it is encapsulated in its own silo. [...] Marketing situations are not easy to grasp. It should be unnecessary to say that marketing decisions and actions are not just based on analyses of data, because data are mostly hard to find, hard to define, and they are incomplete.” Gummesson contends that quantitative techniques are mostly used to try to pinpoint causality, usually between two or a few variables where the independent and dependent variables are defined; qualitative research is characterized by data collection, analysis and interpretation in part taking place simulta-