Research Methodology in Marketing: Theory Development, Empirical Approaches and Philosophy of Science Considerations

242 Pages·2019·4.54 MB·English

by  Martin Eisend

Martin Eisend · Alfred Kuss
Research
Methodology
in Marketing
Theory Development, Empirical
Approaches and Philosophy of Science
Considerations
Research Methodology in Marketing
(cid:129)
Martin Eisend Alfred Kuss
Research Methodology
in Marketing
Theory Development, Empirical
Approaches and Philosophy of Science
Considerations
MartinEisend AlfredKuss
FacultyofBusinessAdministrationand MarketingDepartment
Economics FreieUniversitätBerlin
EuropeanUniversityViadrina Berlin,Germany
Frankfurt(Oder),Germany
ISBN978-3-030-10793-2 ISBN978-3-030-10794-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10794-9
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2018968276
#SpringerNatureSwitzerlandAG2019
AdaptationfromtheGermanlanguageedition:GrundlagenempirischerForschung.ZurMethodologiein
der Betriebswirtschaftslehre by Martin Eisend and Alfred Kuß. Copyright Springer Fachmedien
WiesbadenGmbH2017AllRightsReserved.
Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.AllrightsarereservedbythePublisher,whetherthewholeorpart
of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
recitation,broadcasting,reproductiononmicrofilmsorinanyotherphysicalway,andtransmissionor
informationstorageandretrieval,electronicadaptation,computersoftware,orbysimilarordissimilar
methodologynowknownorhereafterdeveloped.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt
fromtherelevantprotectivelawsandregulationsandthereforefreeforgeneraluse.
Thepublisher,theauthorsandtheeditorsaresafetoassumethattheadviceandinformationinthisbook
arebelievedtobetrueandaccurateatthedateofpublication.Neitherthepublishernortheauthorsorthe
editorsgiveawarranty,expressorimplied,withrespecttothematerialcontainedhereinorforanyerrors
oromissionsthatmayhavebeenmade.Thepublisherremainsneutralwithregardtojurisdictionalclaims
inpublishedmapsandinstitutionalaffiliations.
ThisSpringerimprintispublishedbytheregisteredcompanySpringerNatureSwitzerlandAG
Theregisteredcompanyaddressis:Gewerbestrasse11,6330Cham,Switzerland
Preface
This book is written for graduate students with a deeper interest in philosophy of
science considerations concerning empirical marketing research. This interest may
occurparticularlyatthebeginningofanempiricalresearchprojectthatistypically
partofaresearchpaperoradissertation.Thebookismostbeneficialforthistarget
groupifthereaderisfamiliarwithbasicmethodsofempiricalresearchandstatistical
dataanalysisinthesocialsciences.
For empirical papers or dissertations, it is necessary to develop some relevant
theoreticalideasasafoundationor—atleast—torefertoexistingtheory.Therefore,
thisbookfocusesontheinterface between philosophy ofscienceaspects oftheory
developmentandthefoundationsofempiricalmethods.Whilethebookcoversbasic
concepts and ideas of social science methodology, it does not explain all technical
detailsthataretypicallycoveredbysocialresearchormarketingresearchtextbooks.
Thebookispartlybasedonsomeformerpublicationsofbothauthorsonresearch
methodologyandmarketingtheorythatwerewritteninGermanlanguage.Ifmate-
rial from these publications was used in this book, it was thoroughly revised and
complementedbynumerousadditionalideasandtopics.Thebookisorganizedinto
tenchaptersthatcoverphilosophicalandmethodologicalconsiderationsrelevantfor
conducting a research project. Many examples and citations from leading authors
oughttohelpreaderstounderstandthecontentofthistextbookaseasyandclearas
possible.Foradeeperunderstanding,wesuggested“furtherreadings”attheendof
eachchapterandincludedmanyreferencesinthetext.
Bothauthorswere(directlyandindirectly)influencedintheirthinkingandwork
byJack Jacoby. It was verysadtolearn that Jackpassed away inMarch 2018.He
wasawonderfulmentor,veryinspiringwithhisclearandconvincingthinkingand
hispassionforresearchandteaching.Hewasnotonlyascientist“commeilfaut”but
awarmheartedpersonaswell.Therefore,thisbookisdedicatedtothememoryof
JackJacoby
SimeonTodorovdidanexcellent jobinpreparingtheEnglishtranslation ofthe
Germanmanuscriptandweareindebtedtohissupport.
Frankfurt/Oder,Germany MartinEisend
Berlin,Germany AlfredKuss
v
Contents
1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 CharacterizationandDemarcationofScience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1.1 EssentialCharacteristicsofScience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1.2 ScienceandPseudo-science. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.2 EpistemologyofModernScience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.3 ContentsandStructureoftheBook. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2 TheNatureandRelevanceofTheories. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.1 BasicIdeas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.2 TheoryandReality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.3 LawlikeGeneralizationsandExplanations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.3.1 LawlikeGeneralizations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.3.2 ScientificExplanations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
2.4 Explanations,PredictionsandStrategyDevelopment. . . . . . . . . 46
2.5 ScientificInferences:Induction,Deduction,andAbduction. . . . 50
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3 ThePhilosophyofScienceViewpoint:ScientificRealism. . . . . . . . . 59
3.1 CharacterizationofScientificRealism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
3.2 CriticismofScientificRealism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
4 TheoryBuilding. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
4.1 ConceptualizationandDefinitions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
4.2 BasicQuestionsofTheoryBuilding. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
4.3 ApproachestoTheoryBuilding. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
4.3.1 IdeasorDataasaStartingPoint?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
4.3.2 AModeloftheDevelopmentofTheories
asaCreativeAct. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
4.3.3 UsingGroundedTheoryforTheoryBuilding. . . . . . . . 95
4.3.4 EmpiricalGeneralizationsandTheoryBuilding. . . . . . 101
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
vii
viii Contents
5 ApproachesforTheoryTesting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
5.1 QualityCriteriaforTheories. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
5.2 EmpiricalResearchtoTestTheories. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
5.3 Inductive-RealistModelofTheoryTesting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
6 ObtainingDataforTheoryTesting:Operationalization,
Measurement,andDataCollection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
6.1 Operationalization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
6.2 NatureandFunctionofMeasurements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
6.3 QualityCriteriaforMeasurements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
6.3.1 NatureandRelevanceofValidityandReliability. . . . . 129
6.3.2 TestingtheReliabilityofMeasurementInstruments. . . 132
6.3.3 TestingtheValidityofMeasurementInstruments. . . . . 135
6.3.4 GeneralizabilityofMeasurements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
6.4 DataCollectionandSampling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
7 HypothesesandModelsforTheoryTesting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . 151
7.1 HypothesisTestingandSignificanceTests. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
7.2 StatisticalVersusSubstantialSignificance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
7.3 PowerofStatisticalTests. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
7.4 APrioriHypothesesVersusPostHoc“Hypotheses”. . . . . . . . . 160
7.5 ModelingwithRegressionAnalysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
7.6 StructuralEquationModels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
8 TestingCausalRelationships. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
8.1 EssenceandRelevanceofCausality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
8.2 TypesofCausalRelationships. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
8.3 ExperimentalStudies. . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . .. . . 182
8.3.1 NatureandDesignofExperiments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
8.3.2 InternalandExternalValidityofExperiments. . . . . . . 185
8.3.3 Quasi-experiments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
8.4 ComplexCausality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
9 GeneralizabilityofResearchResults. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
9.1 EmpiricalResearchandGeneralizability. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
9.2 ReplicationStudies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
9.3 Meta-Analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
9.4 GeneralizabilityandTheoryDevelopment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Contents ix
10 ResearchEthicsandResearchPractice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
10.1 BasicProblemsinResearchEthics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
10.2 EthicalIssuesintheResearchProcess. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
10.2.1 ResearchTopicsandResearchQuestions. . . . . . . . . . . 218
10.2.2 StudyDesign. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
10.2.3 DataCollection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
10.2.4 DataPreparationandDataAnalysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
10.2.5 InterpretationandPresentationofResults. . . . . . . . . . . 228
10.2.6 Publications. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
1
Introduction
1.1 Characterization and Demarcation of Science
1.1.1 Essential Characteristics of Science
Theconceptofscienceisassociatedwithconsiderableappealandauthority.Techno-
logical and material progress in many countries is largely due to the scientific
developments of past centuries and decades, although this does not necessarily
mean thatevery useofscientificknowledge isconsidered asprogress. Thefieldof
sciencehasbeen extremely successful over along periodof time and hasgained a
prestigious reputation. In some worldviews (for example, in Marxism), efforts are
madetogiveauthoritytotheirparticularviewpointbyestablishingitasascientific
one, as “true” or “objective”. In the field of politics or management, too, we can
occasionally observe the practice of clarifying disputes through scientific
investigations,whicharesupposedtobringabouta“true”result.Sometimes,how-
ever,suchinvestigationsaredesigned,ormanipulated,insuchawaythattheresult
thatisdesiredbyoneoftheinvolvedpartieseventuallyemerges.
What characterizes science and scientific research? This is a question that
philosophers, among others, have been dealing with for many years. Here is a
definition to begin with: “Scientific research is systematic, controlled, empirical,
amoral, public, and critical investigation of natural phenomena. It is guided by
theory and hypotheses about the presumed relations among such phenomena.”
(KerlingerandLee2000,p.14).ThehistoryofscienceanalysisbyDavidLindberg
(1992) provides a more detailed approach to the topic. Lindberg has put together
somefeatures,whichareoftenregardedastypicalof“science”:
(cid:129) Scienceisanactivity:Scienceisseenhereasanactivityofpeople,whichhasled
to an increasing understanding and control of the environment (in a broader
sense).
#SpringerNatureSwitzerlandAG2019 1
M.Eisend,A.Kuss,ResearchMethodologyinMarketing,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10794-9_1
2 1 Introduction
(cid:129) Scienceistheory-oriented:Scienceisbasedontheoreticalknowledge,thatis,an
ordered set of concepts, facts and their relationships. Lindberg distinguishes
science from technologies that involve the use of theoretical knowledge to
solvepracticalproblems.
(cid:129) Sciencesearchesforlaws:Science triestodiscovergenerallawsaspreciselyas
possible.Thesecanbeusedtoexplainrealphenomena(seeSect.2.3).
(cid:129) Sciencehasspecificmethodsofknowledgeacquisition:Scientificstatementsare
developedandjustifiedinaspecificway,whichistypicallydeterminedbylogic,
criticalreflectionandempiricalverification.
(cid:129) Scienceisfocusedonspecifictopics:Sciencereferstospecificsubjectareas,e.g.,
“Marketing is specifically concerned with how transactions are created,
stimulated,facilitated,andvalued.”(Kotler1972,p.49).
Bertrand Russell (1946, p. 549) concisely summarizes a central aspect of
scientificwork:
“Itisnotwhatthemanofsciencebelievesthatdistinguisheshim,buthow
andwhyhebelievesit.Hisbeliefsaretentative,notdogmatic;theyarebased
onevidence,notonauthorityorintuition.”
The above considerations show how difficult it is to characterize or define the
complexphenomenonof“science”inasingleshortsentence.Intheformulationof
three essential characteristics of science, Hans Poser (2001, pp. 21–22) refers to a
definition by Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) (“If a doctrine is a system—i.e., a
knowledge-totalorderedaccordingtoprinciples—thenit’swhatwecallascience”).
Thethreeessentialcharacteristicsare:
(cid:129) Scienceisfirstandforemostconcernedwithknowledge(seeSect.1.2).
(cid:129) Scientificstatementsmustbejustified.
(cid:129) Scientificstatementsmustformasystemwithanargumentativestructure.
Another statement by Poser (2001, p. 11) adds another essential feature and an
important requirement of science: “Science manages...the best assured knowl-
edgeofitstime.”Thisformulationalsoexpressesthefactthatscientificknowledge
isrelatedtoacertaintemporalcontext.Inwhatfollows,itwilloftenbearguedthat
knowledgeissubjecttoerrorsormistakes(“Fallibilism”,seeSect.1.2)andcanlater
bereplacedby“better”knowledge.Thus,forexample,themedievalknowledgethat
theearthisthecenteroftheuniversewaslaterreplacedbybetterknowledge.
Alan Chalmers (2013, p. XX) conveys a vivid impression of the nature of
scienceandemphasizesitinthisway:“Thefactthatquestionsconcerningthe
distinctiveness of scientific knowledge, as opposed to other kinds of
(continued)