What is the Research Buyer Buying?

Abstract

This article takes a light‐hearted look at the reasons why research is conducted. The research community itself comes under investigation.

No such thing as market orientation ‐ a call for no more papers

“…One might be immediately sceptical of claims that marketers have consistently demonstrated these communication skills within organisations generally (Greenley, 1988;Mohr-Jackson, 1991;Piercy and Morgan, 1991) or with R&D (Dwyer, 1990;Souder, 1981Souder, , 1988 or manufacturing (Bennett et al, 1991;Powers et al, 1988) or engineering (Lancaster, 1993;Weinrauch et al, 1982) or finance (Ratnatunga et al, 1990) or handle and judge marketing information particularly effectively (Bailey and Scott-Jones, 1991;Moorman et al, 1993) or use it to plan innovatively (Tauber, 1974). But even leaving these doubts aside, it is held that the major contribution of the marketer is to direct the organisationthrough influencing interfunctional behaviour -towards satisfying customer needs more effectively than competitors.…”

Black swans don’t fly double loops: the limits of the learning organization?

“…In practice, the actual motivation, use and adoption of marketing research results does not necessarily follow this ideal. Studies by Bailey and Scott‐Jones[19], among others, suggest that motivations for commissioning marketing research also include: delaying a decision, abdicating responsibility for a decision and providing protection for the decision taker should eventual outcomes be adverse. Once the market research has taken place, the adoption and use of the information gained is influenced by the degree of trust built up between researcher and user.…”