Transcript PowerPoint-presentatie

Integrating the inner and
the outer world in market research
5th POT, Amsterdam, September 21
15.50 – 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 email 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.