Rethinking the market research curriculum

Abstract

Addressing the challenge of aligning how market research is practiced and how it is taught has been a recurrent theme in the marketing education literature. Recently, the growth of digital marketing and new forms of customer data have disrupted many traditional aspects of marketing practice. Companies are increasingly able to collect data directly from their customers, via large technology firms or from specialist data providers. This has reduced the demand for the traditional fieldwork-based data collection that remains a core focus within the market research curricula. This article considers the past, present, and future role of market research education in the light of the changing practitioner environment. An audit of market research courses is carried out, weaknesses identified, and suggestions made to better align market research courses with evolving skills requirements. More broadly, the article challenges educators to evaluate the extent to which the marketing curriculum can respond to the disruptions brought by the emerging digital economy.

Marketing research education in the Big Data era

“…Nunan and Di Domenico (2018) suggested that marketing research courses should be renamed to “marketing analytics,” which is also consistent with a book title published by Venkatesan, Farris, and Wilcox (2014). Such rebranding is needed, although courses entitled “customer intelligence” or “customer insights” further emphasize the relevance of retaining current customers and developing their lifetime value in the mature markets of many contemporary Western economies.…”

“…Particularly relevant for the current note is that most marketing research courses do not teach students extensively about transactional data or Big Data, but emphasize survey data (Nunan & Di Domenico, 2018). At the same time, computer science departments are rapidly filling this space, with marketing research possibly becoming obsolete.…”

The marketing research curriculum: Closing the practitioner–academic gaps

“…In this article, we review the literature on marketing research and analytics requirements, and report the results of interviews with a sample of alumni from a US mid-west undergraduate marketing program. Although there is no one size fits all for an undergraduate marketing research course (e.g., Nunan & Di Domenico, 2018), our research identifies several (potential) gaps that marketing research and analytics instructors should think about when putting their course or curriculum together.…”

“…This held true for entry-level jobs, mid-level jobs, and upper management–level jobs. Hence, an introduction in business research methods is often a mandatory module in a core college of business curriculum (e.g., Achenreiner, 2001; Nunan & Di Domenico, 2018); and marketing research is a mandatory class in most undergraduate marketing major programs.…”

“…The main complaint is that they would like to get more actionable insights from their marketing research department and they expect more actual return on the research investments (ROI). Supplier-side marketing directors complain that marketing research as taught does not reflect the real world and that recent graduates are too academic and lack awareness of the reality of marketing research (e.g., Jobber & Horgan, 1987; see also Mouncey, 2018; Nunan & Di Domenico, 2018). This situation has likely gotten worse over the past 5–10 years, that is, the ability to produce or consume marketing research has become even more challenging given the Big Data and analytics trends.…”