Integrating the inner and the outer world in market research

5th POT, Amsterdam, September 2115.50 – 16.40 by Jürg Thölke and Wim Jurg

Enriching market research ...

1. By systematic problem identification (Ackoff 1978, Yadav & Karonkanda 1985, Chapman 1989, Butler 1995, Gibson 1998)

2. Of soft, ill-structured problems (Checkland & Scholes 1992/2005, Hackley 1999, Zikmund 2003, Zaltman 2003)

3. On effects of solution decisions (Yadav & Karonkanda 1985, Davis & Moe 1997, Durgee et al. 1999, Desai 2002)

4. Using the mind of the manager (Mintzberg et al. 1998, Zaltman 2003, Blichfeldt 2005, Nijssen & Agustin 2005)

Merleau Ponty’s perspective

1. Managers are embodied subjects (Phenomenology of Perception 1945/1962)

2. Markets mirror in managers (The visible and the invisible 1964/1968)

Soft Systems Methodology

Systems constellation technique

An embodied way to identify marketing problems

1. Origin: psychodrama (Moreno, 1946, 1959, 1962)

2. Four roles: problem owner, systems analyst (facilitator), stand-ins, and audience (Franke 1995, 2003; Höppner, 2001; Wesseler et al., 2003; Gminder, 2005, 2006)

3. Four main phases: interview, projection, modification, and vision phase (Franke 1995, 2003; Höppner, 2001; Wesseler et al., 2003; Gminder, 2005, 2006)

Interview: expressed market problem, solution decison, and core constructs

1st Part projection phase: embodied construct projection

First part projection phase: positioning resulting in systems projection

Intermediate part projection phase: interim embodied questioning

Final part projection phase: further embodied questioning

Modifcation and vision phase

Modification phase: entering decision into constellation

Vision phase: finding the conditions for optimizing the constellation energy

Aim systems constellation research project

How useful (valid, reliable, and accurate)

do marketing experts (users and observers)

judge the application of systems constellations

to identify market problems?

Research project methodology

Design-based (action) research: practice versus knowledge stream

Multiple case study design: 32 market problems

Four settings: marketing expert (7), problem-owners (9), marketing-lay (8), another facilitator (8)

Core: three open marketing expert conferences; in 2002 (3), 2003 (2), 2004 (2): 25-35 experts

Questionnaires: directly after the constellation, by e-mail the day after, and spontaneously during project

Explorative POT 2006 article aim

Can marketing experts (2 users and 34 observers)

make sense of constellated market problems

on the 2004 marketing expert conference?

Practice stream: Training company directors’ systems projection drawing 1

Legend stand-ins for constructs:

B: Brand name

D: Director (problem owner)

H: High board

Practice stream: Training company director’s systems projection drawing 2

Legend stand-ins for constructs:

B: Brand name

D: Director (problem owner)

H: High board

M1: Market group 1 (BU trainers)

M2: Market group 2 (BU project workers)

M3: Market group 3 (BU advisors)

Practice stream: magazine editor’s systems projection drawing

Legend stand-ins for constructs:

C: Current readers

D: Directors

E: Editorial office (problem owner)

M: 40 year-old existing Magazine

R: Reformed magazine

S: Science-oriented articles

P: Popular articles

Knowledge stream

1. Systems Constellations made sense of market problems to users and marketing expert audience

2. Both 2004 users applied spontaneously, one for the second time, and 22 of the 34 observers too

3. No differences between problem contents and between settings (except for brand-lay setting)

4. SCs seem a practical application of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology within SSM

5. SCs integrate the inner and outer world of marketers

Limitations

1. Systems analyst’s ignorance of the market and marketing

2. Theortical sampling: marketing experts ‘believed’ in subconscious knowledge processing.

Implication: further research seems useful

1. Technique improvement involving Merleau-Ponty phenomenologists and Soft Systems Methodologists

2. Application with facilitator having marketing knowledge

3. More conclusive, experimental design: versus other problem identification techniques as brainstorming

4. Application to brand teams and consumers.