ROLE ANALYSIS OF THE DIRECTOR C3? MARKETING RESEARCH POSITION IN LARGE INDUSTRIAL FIRMS Thesis for “10 Degree OI D. B. A. MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY James Richard Krum 1966 “ ijg_l_-*— EIS LIBRARY Michigan State University This is to certify that the thesis entitled ROLE ANALYSIS OF THE DIRECTOR OF MARKETING RESEARCH POSITION IN LARGE INDUSTRIAL FIRMS presented by JAMES RICHARD KRUM has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for M degree in Mazkejing Date Novem be 0—169 ,/_ 'F? ABSTRACT ROLE ANALYSIS OF THE DIRECTOR OF MARKETING RESEARCH POSITION IN LARGE INDUSTRIAL FIRMS by James Richard Krum The first phase of this inquiry determined the in- cidence of marketing research departments in large indus- trial corporations. Of 364 of the Fortune 500 firms re- sponding to a mail survey, 297 (82 percent) had formal marketing research departments. The second phase of the study employed role theory to analyze the director of mar- keting research position in a sample of these firms. Fifty- two scaling items were used to determine the perceptions of the role of the director of marketing research by occu- pants of that position, their immediate superiors, and the users of the services of their departments. In addition, a group of scaling items ascertained the job satisfaction of the marketing research directors and another group of items determined how effective these marketing research directors were perceived to be by their role definers. The director of marketing research questionnaire and four role definer questionnaires were sent to 148 of the firms that responded to the first survey. Macroscopic role analysis of the grouped responses of 76 marketing research directors, 50 superiors, and 138 users the c 1' 1:75 direc mat s‘nc he James Richard Krum users revealed a high degree of consensus on the role of tflm.director of marketing research in these large industrial firms. There was little disagreement that the job of the director of marketing research is to produce information that reduces the area of uncertainty in decision-making. Also, he must understand the objectives of management and the problems to be studied, be able to communicate his find- ings, and realize that executive judgment is an important ingredient in the decision-making process. However, cer- tain areas of role ambiguity and role conflict were discov- ered. Specifically, there is ambiguity concerning the for- nml authority of the director of marketing research and his relationship to his superior, the desirability of meet- ing deadlines if he is not certain of the validity of his data, the price which the director of marketing research should pay to maintain his objectivity, and whether or not he should participate in certain politically expedient ac- tivities. The greatest conflict between marketing research directors and their role definers concerned the extent to which the marketing research directors should go beyond the typical staff preroqatives and actively participate in formulating marketing strategy for the firm. In general, the marketing research directors were satisfied with the aspects of their jobs covered in the questionnaire and their role definers believed they were doing effective jobs. However, average satisfaction and effectiveness scores varied from item to item and a 'ati int —.‘fl my“ in mi James Richard Krnm significant number of research directors were dissatisfied hath the part they play in formulating marketing strategy, the procedure for bringing problems to their departments, and the availability of time to improve themselves profes— sionally. The role definers were dissatisfied most with the creativity of the marketing research departments and the timing of marketing research reports. Microscopic analysis of the data concerned the re- lationships among consensus, satisfaction, effectiveness, interaction among the respondents in a firm, and homOgeneity of their educational backgrounds. To be included in the microscopic analysis, completed questionnaires were needed from the director of marketing research and three or four role definers in the same firm; returns from 42 firms met this criterion. Seven of the eight hypotheses concerning relationships among these variables were not supported by the data. If these hypotheses derived from role theory had been applied to the relationship between the director 0f marketing research and the management of his firm with— out empirical verification, some highly misleading conclu- sions would have been advanced. In fact, the data collected in this study indicate that role theory is an oversimplified explanation of complex organizational relationships. ROLE ANALYSIS OF THE DIRECTOR OF MARKETING RESEARCH POSITION IN LARGE INDUSTRIAL FIRMS By James Richard Krum A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION Department of Marketing and Transportation Administration 1966 6; Copyright by JAMES RICHARD KRUM * 1967_ ACK NOWL E DGME NTS Professor Donald A. Taylor demanded the rigor in research design which befits a dissertation about market-‘ ing research directors. For these high standards and for many suggestions and constructive criticisms, I gratefully acknowledge the guidance of this ideal committee chairman. Thanks are also extended to Professor Thomas A. Staudt, Professor W. J. E. Crissy, and Dr. Carl Noble for their performance of the various tasks of committee members. In a broader sense, a dissertation marks the culmination of a doctoral program and reflects the formal and informal interaction with the faculty and fellow doctoral students over a three year period. I am truly indebted and grate- ful to many individuals whose names are not mentioned here. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 LIST OF APPENDICES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . l Pioneers in Marketing Research Growth of Marketing Research Departments Explanations of Growth of Marketing Research Criticisms of Marketing Research Review of Related Studies Objectives of the Dissertation II. SURVEY OF MARKETING RESEARCH DIRECTORS OF FORTUNE 500 FIRMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Description of the Study Extent of Marketing Research Departments Organizational Location and Size of Departments Backgrounds of Marketing Research Directors Reporting Patterns of Directors Positions Held by Former Directors How Marketing Research Directors Perceive Their Role III. CONCEPTUAL APPROACH AND PROCEDURE OF THE INVESTIGATION O o O O O O O O O O O O O O O 39 Procedure of the Study Analysis of Non-response Characteristics of the Respondents 63 IV. MACROSCOPIC ROLE ANALYSIS . . . . . . . . . . Consensus on Role Expectations Interposition Analysis Hypotheses of Interposition Macroscopic Analysis Areas of Potential Role Conflict Areas of Role Ambiguity Intraposition Analysis iii cwI APE BI] CHAPTER Job Satisfaction of Marketing Research Directors Perceived Effectiveness of the Marketing Research Department Comparison of Effectiveness and Satisfac- tion Responses Summary V. MICROSCOPIC ROLE ANALYSIS . . . o o . . . 0 Discussion of Measurements Hypotheses of Microscopic Role Analysis Summary VI. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS . . . . . . . . . . Summary Conclusions Synthesis Recommendations Suggestions for Future Research APPENDICES o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o BIBLIOGRAPHYOOOO0.000.00.0000... iv Page 118 137 160 220 LIST OF APPENDICES APPENDIX Page I. SURVEY OF FORTIJNB 500 FIRMS. o o o o o o O O 160 Table 1. Percentage of Firms Having Marketing Research Departments Table 2. Levels of Management at which Marketing Research Directors Report Table 3. Reporting Patterns of Marketing Research Directors II. HACROSCOPIC ROLE ANALYSIS. . . . . . . . . . 164 Table 1. Responses to Role Expectation Items Table 2. Marketing Research Directors' Responses to Satisfaction Items (Section II) Table 3. Role Definers' Responses to Effectiveness Items (Section II) Table 4. Role Definers' Responses to Effectiveness Items (Section III) III. MICROSCOPIC ROLE ANALYSIS. . . . . . . . . . 180 Table 1. V, M, and D Scores for 42 Firms Table 2. Satisfaction and Effectiveness Scores for 42 Firms Table 3. Interaction and Education Scores for 42 Firms Table 4. Rank Correlation of V Scores and Effectiveness Scores Table 5. Rank Correlation of D Scores and Effectiveness Scores Table 6. Rank Correlation of V Scores and Satisfaction Scores Table 7. Rank Correlation of D Scores and Satisfaction Scores Table 8. Rank Correlation of Effective- ness Scores and Satisfaction Scores Table 9. Rank Correlation of V Scores and Interaction Scores Table 10. Rank Correlation of D Scores and Interaction Scores Table 11. Rank Correlation of D Scores and Education Scores IV. DATA COLLECTION INSTRUMENTS. . . . . . . . . 192 Exhibit 1. Questionnaire for Survey of Fortune 500 Firms Exhibit 2. Director of Marketing Research Questionnaire, Role Analysis Survey Exhibit 3. Role Definerls Questionnaire, Role Analysis Survey V. FIRMS INCLUDED IN ROLE STUDY . . . . . . . . 215 vi Bari as ou: sc. tu CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION In The Development_gf MarketinggThought, Robert Bartels stated: In no other of the marketing literatures is the origin of an activity so generally referred to as that of marketing research in the writings pertain- ing to it. Numerous writers have pinpointed the beginning of marketing research at about 1910 and have attributed to Charles Parlin the inception of the work.1 The marketing research department organized by Parlin at Curtis Publishing Company is recognized as the first for- mal marketing research activity. But marketing research as an activity seems to predate the work of Parlin. Numer- ous reports show that businessmen, consciously or uncon- sciously, were doing marketing research for at least a cen- tury before the work of Parlin. Paul D. Converse relates a.story concerning the hiring of an artist by John Jacob Astor to sketch hats in the park in an attempt to determine the fashions of women's hats.2 In their book, Economics 1Robert Bartels, The_Developmont of Marketing Thought {gbnowoom Illinois: Richard D. Irifii, Inc., 1962i, p. e. 2Pau1 D. Converse, "The Development of the Science Of Marketing-enn Exploratory Survey,” Journal Of Marketin , V010 10' No. 1 (July, 1945), p. 190 toe me the r 5‘ set: one mat. tn: "1 , .- f ) of ‘I .e in ,_-',.-- of American Industry,3 5. B. Alderfer and H. E. Michl indicated that the ready-made clothing industry was able to expand its market after the Civil War when it acquired the measurements of millions of soldiers collected by the government during the war. Lawrence Lockley makes reference to a summary conducted by N. W. Ayer and Son, one of the pioneer advertising agencies, to gather infor- mation on grain production for a manufacturer of agricul- tural machinery.4 Pioneers in Marketing_Research Indeed, Parlin seems to be acquiring a "halo-effect" of the type Frederick w. Taylor has attained in management literature. Several contemporaries of Parlin recognized the need for marketing research and also made significant contributions. J. George Frederick, in his book, published in 1957, lays claim to being the first practitioner of mar- keting and motivation research.5 While this claim is ex- aggerated, the fact remains that he founded the first mar- keting research firm (Business Bourse), in 1911, the same year in which Parlin started a department at Curtis Publishing ‘— . BB. B. Alderfer and H. B. Michl, Economics of Amer- ican Industr (New York: McGraw—Hill Book Company, Inc., 1957 , p. 436. 4Lawrence C. Lockley, "Notes on the History of Mar- keting Research," ggurnal of Marketing, Vol. 14, No. 5 (April, 1950), p. 733. 5J. George Frederick, Introduction to Motigation Research (New York: Business Bourse Publishers, 19§7Y7_ Preface. if! Company. Marketing scholars were participating in or rec- ognizing the need for marketing research during the first two decades of the current century. Harlow Gale, Walter Dill Scott, Arch Shaw, and C. 8. Duncan are among the pio- neers in marketing research. While Duncan contributed the first marketing research book in 1919, Shaw devoted a chap- ter of his book written in 1916 to analysis of the market. Even as early as 1869 Samuel Hugh Terry demonstrated con- siderable insight into the need for market information.6 The above discussion shows that numerous individ- uals, including some who are not mentioned, deserve a share of the credit for their pioneering work in marketing research. Parlin's significant contribution seems to be that he headed the first marketing research department in a business or- ganization. According to Lockley, two early developments in manufacturing firms were the appointments of Paul H. Nystrom as manager of commercial research for the United States Rubber Company in 1915, and the formation of a com- mercial research department at Swift and Company by L. D. H. Weld in 1917.7 Weld has reported that by the year 1923, American Telephone and Telegraph had developed its activity to the point where it was split between a commercial survey 6Samuel Hugh Terry, The Retailer's Manual (Newark, New Jersey: Jennings Brothers, 1869). 7Lockley, op. cit., p. 735. is CC: division and a statistical department.8 Other firms which cuganized marketing research activities during the early part of this century include the General Motors Corporation and the Eastman Kodak Company. It should not be inferred that firms which lagged in the development of such a de- partment were not doing marketing research. For example, Frederick has indicated to Lockley that two of his early clients were the Texas Company and the General Electric Company.9 The development of corporate marketing research departments was dependent upon finding an individual with the capabilities to handle such a job. Lack of such qual- ified individuals during the early decades of this century is indicated by the fact that two of the earliest corporate commercial research department directors were such eminent marketing pioneers as Paul Nystrom and L. D. H. Weld. In measuring the growth of marketing research, the development of corporate staff activities devoted to this function will be used as a measuring stick. This approach is based on the assumption that while a firm may engage in marketing research by utilizing its own line executives, and outside sources such as advertising agencies or consult- ing firms, it is not likely that marketing research is 8L. D. H. Weld, "The Progress of Commercial Re— search," Harvard Business Review, Vol. 1, No. 2 (January, 1923), p. 179. 9Lock1ey, op. cit., p. 734. sum lent wk 1.. I the Han Ha: abo ice If? playing a significant role in providing information to man- agement until at least one full-time individual is assigned the responsibility for this function. Therefore, the en- suing discussion deals with staff marketing research depart- ments consisting of one or more individuals. The information presented on the development of narketing research departments is based on the study by L. D. H. Weld conducted in 1923 and on later studies by the United States Department of Commerce (1939), the National Industrial Conference Board (1945 and 1954), the Annerican Management Association (1953 and 1957), and the American Marketing Association (1957 and 1963). In addition to the above studies, references will be made to a study by Heusner, Dooley, Hughes and White which was conducted for the Amer- ican Marketing Association in 1946. The method of collect- ing data used by these researchers has yielded results which are not comparable to the other studies; therefore, the findings of this study are omitted from the tabular presen- tation in Appendix I. §£owth of Marketing Researcthcpartments Table l in Appendix I indicates the percentage of companies having marketing research. departments as reported in seven of the studies cited above. The trend suggested by these. figures is substantiated by the following data from the most recent study by the American Marketing Asso he done fix IE! “1. de 10 which reveal the dates of establishment of Association , the 1185 research departments of firms included in the study Time_§eriod Number of Departments Formed Before 1918 9 1918 to 1922 6 1923 to 1927 5 1928 to 1932 18 1933 to 1937 32 1938 to 1942 49 1943 to 1947 100 1948 to 1952 161 1953 to 1957 304 1958 to 1962 502 While the above table includes some nonmanufacturing firms, Twedt has reported that two—thirds of the marketing research departments in firms producing consumer goods and three-quarters of the departments in firms producing indus- trial goods were formed in the ten year period between 1953 and 1962.11 To give some indication of when marketing research departments were organized in specific firms, data derived from studies by the National Industrial Conference Board and other sources are presented below. loDik warren Twedt (ed.), A Survey of Marketing gesgirch (Chicago: American Marketing Association, 1963), llflide , p. 230 de; SUI .uu S‘VI. “H.“ 3.“.th Date Firm 1915 United States Rubber Company 1917 Swift and Company 1926 Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company 1931 General Electric Company (Apparatus Department) 1935 Firestone Tire and Rubber Company 1936 Westinghouse Electric Corporation (Apparatus Division) 1940 B. P. Goodrich Company 1941 Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company 1942 Sylvania Electric Company 1943 Coleman Company 1943 Wyandotte Chemicals Corporation 1946 Emory Industries, Inc. 1951 Lamson Corporation12 The twenty-five years between the founding of the department at the United States Rubber Company and the es- tablishment of a department by the last of the major rubber tire producers shows that some firms apparently competed successfully without a marketing research department for many years. figplanations of_§rowth of Marketigg;Research A variety of factors have been advanced to explain this growth pattern. The lack of individuals qualified to do marketing research work has already been mentioned. landon 0. Brown has reported that marketing research courses did not appear in university curriculums until the 1930's, 12G. Clark Thompson, Draggigntion for Market Re- search (Part II, Operating Methods and Company Plans; New Yerk: N.I.C.B., Studies in Business Policy, No. 19, 1946). National Industrial Conference Board, Marketing Business and Commercial Research in Business (New York: N.I.C.B., Business Policy Study, No. 72, 1955). the first course being offered at Northwestern University 1nt1931.13 Another factor which explains the slow initial development of marketing research is that many executives did not, and many today apparently still do not, recognize the need for marketing research. Additional perspective about the growth of market- ing research can be gained by reviewing statements which have appeared in the literature over the years. In comment- ing on the need for marketing research, Weld said the fol- lowing in 1923: The fact that large-scale organization has taken the place of small units, that markets are so far- flung, that the merchandising machinery has become so complex renders it practically impossible for an executive to attend to both managerial details and to an accumulation and analysis of all the know- ledge and data necessary for an enlightened policy.14 weld also suggested that the trend toward government super- vision of business demanded adequate presentation of facts.15 The authors of the study done in 1947 by the American Mar- keting Association also emphasized that the practice of marketing research tended to vary with the size of a com- Pany and the length of the channels of distribution. They also suggested that manufacturers of consumer goods were more likely to do marketing research than manufacturers 13Lyndon 0. Brown, ”The Acceptance of Marketing Research,“ gournal of Marketing, Vol. 16, No. 3 (January, 1952), p. 342s 14Weld, op. cit., p. 175. lsIbid., p. 176. I0 of industrial goods.16 The figures in Table 1 of Appendix I.show that the most recent studies suggest that this sit- uation is changing. Hewever, Twedt found that manufacturers of consumer goods still tend to have larger departments and spend more on marketing research.activities than do producers of industrial goods.17 A somewhat cynical ex- ;flanation for the growth of marketing research departments was advanced by William A. Marsteller when he suggested that many of the corporate marketing research departments thaticame into existence in the 1940's were the causal child- ren.of high corporation taxes.18 It might be hypothesized that the business recessions.of the 1950's caused executives to recognize the need for more information concerning the consumers of their products. Another plausible explanation of the recent growth in the formation of marketing research departments is that they accompany the trend toward the formation of high level marketing departments in place of the more limited sales departments. And possibly there has been a certain amount.of faddism in the rapid formation of marketing research departments in recent years. 16W. W. Heusner, C. M. Dooley, G. A. Hughes, and P. White, "Marketing Research in American Industry," Jour- nal of Marketing, Vol. 11, No. 4 (April, 1947), pp. 340-42. 17Dik Warren Twedt (ed.), A Survey of Marketing Research (Chicago: American Marketing Association, 1963), pp. 18 and 290 18William A. Marsteller, "Putting the Marketing Research Department on the Executive Level,“ Journal of Mark tin ’ V01. 16, No. 1 («I‘ll-Y, 1951), Po 560 has : cent- to t work her} char disc Hl'tl .——-Irt' 10 From a more theoretical point of view, Herbert Simon has stated, ”Most organizations, or particular decision- centers in organization, require information in addition to that which comes to them normally in the course of their work . “19 This statement is particularly true of the mar- keting decision centers which must constantly be aware of changes in the environment in which the firm operates. In discussing the develOpment of the marketing concept, Wroe Alderson places strong emphasis on formal planning and sys- tematic problem solving. He comments, "The two vigorous roots from which formal planning grew are the use of product 20 managers and of marketing research." The product manager, in Alderson's view, "looks to the marketing research depart- ment for sorely needed answers to marketing questions.”21 In a similar vein, John Howard contends, “The burgeoning role of market research departments in companies suggests that market research has become an integral part of the 22 marketing executive's information system.“ This author goes on to point out, “One of the most complicated market- ing problems has been the relation between the executive 19Herbert A. Simon, 59minisfiratiye Dehavior, 2nd ed. (New York: The Free Press, 1957), p. 167. 2ovmoe Alderson and Paul E. Green, Planning and Problem Solvin in Marketing (Homewood, 111.: Richard D. It‘ll-n, Inc., 1964), p. 6. lebid. 22John A. Howard, Marketing: Executive and Buyer fehavior (New York: Columbia University Press, 19637, p. ll 23 and the market researcher in the company.“ Robert Kahn et al., in their book Organizational Stress, suggest a the- oretical explanation for this problem. "Modern industrial organizations face the persistent dilemma of securing con- fbrnity to existing organizational procedures while simul- taneously making allowances for adaptation to changing en- 24 vironmental conditions.” In discussing people concerned primarily with organizational adaptation at an earlier point in the book, these authors single out research engineers and the market research staff as examples.25 They go on to say: Such roles complement the more routine rules-ori- ented roles of the rest of an organization and in- crease the adaptive abilities of the organization as a whole. In a sense the innovative roles rep- resent patterned organizational deviance. It is as if the bureaucracy, recognizing the dangers of rigidity, attempted to build into itself a capacity for change, but to do so in a way wholly consistent with bureaucratic structure and organization. What way could be more compatible than institutionaliz- ing and assigning to certain organizational posi- tions the functions of being flexible, sensing changes in the outside environment, and initiating appropriate responses in the organization? To a degree the solution works but with an almost inevit- able cost. The persons who fill these organization- ally created 'change' roles must become change ori- ented to fulfill the requirements of the role. Not to do so would constitute failure; yet in do- ing so such persons are likely to find themselves 23Ibid., p. 40. 24Robert L. Kahn, Donald M. Wolfe, Robert P. Quinn, J. Diedrick Snoek, Robert A. Rosenthal, Organizational Stress: Studies in Role Conflict and Ambiguity (Newt York: thn Wi ey and Sons, Inc., 1964 , p. 3 7. 251bid., p. 99. w; I85 ute SW of it 10 of 12 at loggerheads with the remainder of the organiza- tion-~often including its largest and most powerful structures.25 Criticisms of Marketing Research The above discussion shows the need for marketing research, its historical development, the importance attrib- uted to it by some students of business administration, and the problem which it faces in a bureaucratic organiza- tion. In light of the problem posed by Kahn, it is not surprising that many individuals have questioned the value of marketing research. Probably one of the best known crit- icisms of marketing research was sounded by John E. Jeuck in 1953. Jeuck reached the conclusion that "whether one looks at marketing institutions, which are really methods of marketing, or whether one looks at companies, or whether one is impressed with singularly successful product develop- ments, he is led to believe that these critical and notable successes have relied little or not at all on marketing research to guide them.”27 Theodore Levitt has made the following critical comments in his book, Innovation in Mar- keting: Some distressing and dangerous things have hap- pened in market research in recent years which 261bid., p. 126. ZZJahn E. Jeuck, ”Marketing Research: Milestone or'flillstone," JOurnal of Marketing, V01. 17; NO. 4 (April, 1953). pp. 38.]. 7. {I 13 seriously affect its utility for much of anything.28 [Basically it lacks] imaginative audacity in the interpretation of data and events and in for- mulating positive action—oriented proposals for management's consideration. In 1964, Sidney Furst, President of Furst Survey Research Center, Inc., and Milton Sherman, Vice-President of Benton and Bowles, edited a book entitled Business Decisions That gbanged:9ur Lives. In the preface to the book the editors lake the following revelations: The book was originally conceived as a collection of management case histories in which the role of market research was particularly decisive. . . . After pursuing this approach for several weeks, we discovered, much to our professional chagrin, that market research as it is being practiced today really is not playing the decisive role we accorded it in the decision making process. Our discussions executives revealed a much " with various business more complex and intricate process of decision mak- ing than we had imagined. In effect, we found out that marketing research has had only a limited value. For today's business executive it Berforms a con- firming role, not a creative one.3 ' narketing research has not been without its defend- In a direct reply to the Jeuck article, Ralph Westfall ergo argued that Jeuck's primary criticism is that marketing research has been of little value in the making of decis- ions which alter the course of;the business. Westfall 28 Theodore Levitt, Innovation in marketing (New York: 4ncarawuflill Book Cbmpany, Inc., 1962), p. 16. ”rue. , pp. 18 7-88. 30 Sidney Furst and Milton Sherman (eds.), Business Lbcisions That Chan ed Our Lives (New York: Random House, 15647, p. v33. :05 q H the ’I'TLL to ed (1 14 contended that the big change is a rare event in business and that most of the improvements in the method by which the marketing job is accomplished involve small changes which are quite unspectacular in nature. He concluded that awny of these individually small improvements are the re- sult of research. Westfall also believes that Jeuck failed to compare the products and institutions that have succeed- ed without research with those that have failed for lack of research.31 Harry V. Roberts also attempted to weaken Jeuck's argument with the following rejoinder: "To the extent that Jeuck's comments represent more than a criticism of the frequent use of more or less stereotyped methods in market- ing research, they are seriously misleading. Research is probably more effective in unearthing new possibilities for action than in predicting the response to existing ones."32 Roberts is advocating the idea that the most valuable contribution of the research activity to the mar- keting department is its objective point of view which forces management to question assumptions that would not otherwise have been challenged. Steuart Henderson Britt presented an argument similar to that advanced by Roberts; * 31Ra1ph Westfall, "Marketing Research-~Milestone or Millstone, A Reply," Journal_of Marketing, Vol. 18, No. 2 (October, 1953), p. 176. 32Harry v. Roberts, "The Role of Research in Mar- keting Management," Journal of Marketing, Vol. 22, No. 1 (July, 1957), p. 29. 15 rm'believed that "marketing research is useful in calling attention to possible oversights, and in turning up addi- tional facts which might not otherwise be discovered."33 One of the most positive statements concerning the value of marketing research was advanced by Richard D. Crisp. Crisp believed that marketing research is emerging from a period of "troubled adolescence" and at the present time it "stands at the threshold of its most productive years."34 He envisioned the emergence of an.integrated approach that shifted the emphasis from techniques to management problems that marketing research could help to solve.35 Britt came to a similar conclusion in his earlier article when he stated that marketing research facts reduce the area of uncertainty in management decisions and therefore allow management to make more useful judgments.36 The position suggested by Roberts, Crisp, and Britt is appearing in the most recent editions of marketing re- search texts where the emphasis is on marketing research as a tool of management. The definition of marketing research 33Steuart Henderson Britt, "Should You Fit the LL- search to the Budget?" gournal of Marketing, Vol. 20, No. 4 (April, 1956), p. 403. 34Richard D. Crisp, "Company Practices in Market- ing Research," in The Marketing_Job (New York: American Management Association, Inc., 1961), p. 113. 351bid., p. 114. asBritt, op. cit., pp. 401-403. adva ‘ .' ma. 16 advanced by Fred '1‘._Schreier in his 1963 text presents an indication of this managerial approach. According to Schreier, marketing research describes, explains, evaluates, and predicts what people do, think, feel, and want when they acquire or distribute goods and when they prepare for and follow up these activities, and it serves as a basis for 37 Schreier indicates that making marketing decisions.” these five functions form a "hierarchical. order in which certain functions serve as bases for others. We can express this situation . . . by using terms of logic and say that the lower functions are necessary but not sufficient con- ditions for fulfillment of higher functions."38 Review of Related Studies A basic premise of this dissertation is that better tools of description, explanation, evaluation, and predic- tion are being developed by behavioral scientists and used by marketing researchers. when this assumption is made in the light of Schreier's framework, the significant ques- tion becomes whether this information is being used for making marketing decisions. As the above discussion has pointed out, there are differences of opinion on this issue. Five research reports which were directly or indirectly *— 37Fred T. Schreier, figdern Marketing Research (Bel- IOIE. California: wedsworth Publishing Company, Inc., 1963), Po e . 3°;gid., pp. 7—8. 17 concerned with this problem appear in the literature. A doctoral dissertation by Harry V. Roberts at the University or Chicago was concerned with defining the characteristics of marketing problems which make it easier or harder to 39 Roberts' con- obtain an economical solution by research. clusions were reported in the article in the Journal of Marketing that was cited earlier in this chapter. A study fer Marketing Science Institute by Patrick J. Robinson and David J. Luck, on the other hand, undertook a study of twelve firms and their advertising agencies to compare the theory and practice in making promotional decisions. These authors stated: "Experience and observation in this project under- score theapparent lack of a good approach to implementing research findingsfl",o They also stressed the need for a clinical approach on the part of researchers and the need for better communications. These researchers also concluded: "The organizational relationships between the planner and his information sources were judged to be vital in enhanc- ing, or detracting from, the information's utility.”41 Thus Robinson and Luck have made a contribution by pinpoint- ing some of the key variables in the problem. Their interest 39Harry V. Roberts, ”The Role of Research in Mar- keting Management,"Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation (Univer- sity of Chicago, 1955). 40Patrick J. Robinson and David.J. Luck, Promotional Decision Hakin : Practice and Theo (New York: HcGraw- ll Book Company, 19 , P- - ‘11b14., pp. 33-34. 18 in marketing research, however, was only an incidental part of their inquiry. Richard Crisp, in his second survey of the organi- zation and operation of marketing research departments (1958), included the following open-end question in his mail ques— tionnaire: "Do you encounter any difficulties in obtain- ing proper use of marketing research by executives in your 42 He found con- company? If yes, give a brief outline." siderable dissatisfaction in answers to the question, and concluded: "To put it mildly, there seems to be something quite wrong in the relationship between the marketing re- search man and his colleagues in sales management and gen- eral management in many firms."43 While the above three studies were only indirectly concerned with the relationship between marketing research- ers and the users of their service, two recently reported studies have been directed specifically toward this issue. C. T. Smith, Market and Public Relations Research Adminis- trator of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, presented a paper at the 13th Annual Marketing Conference of the National Industrial Conference Board entitled "What's Wrong with Marketing Research Today? Use and Support--Some Problems for Management and Researchers." To gather material 42Richard D. Crisp, Marketin Research 0r anization and Operation, Research Study No. 35 (New York: American Management Association, Inc., 1958), p. 30. 43Ibid., p. 33. 19 for his address, Smith sent a questionnaire to 66 members of the East and West Coast Council of Marketing Research Directors of the Conference Board and received 60 replies. the questionnaire contained statements of "problems and points of view which researchers may encounter in their 44 For each dealings with their management associates." of the 29 items, the respondent was presented with scales concerning how frequently the specific problem occurs and how bothersome the problem is to the researcher when it does occur. Smith grouped the questionnaire items into the following categories with the most bothersome problem category heading the list. Problema Bothersb Ha nsc Not thinking of the researcher as a full member of the team 70% 53% Not using research findings effec- tively 59 35 Not allowing enough time to do a good job 51 49 Not taking the research approach seriously 51 29 aThe table contains problem categories. A specific question is presented in note d for clarification purposes. Source: See footnote 44. bThe percentage of respondents who were bothered "a lot" or a "fair amount" by this type of problem. cThe percentage of respondents who said that this type of problem happens "very often" or "fairly often." 44C. Theodore Smith, "What's Wrong with Marketing Research Today? Use and Support-~Some Problems for Manage- ment and Researchers," Paper presented at 13th Annual Mar- keting Conference of the National Industrial Conference Board, October 20, 1965. 20 Not supporting research budgets and manpower needs d 38 28 The fuzzy approach to research 34 35 Underestimating the importance of research know-how 28 21 Not giving credit to research 25 32 Checking unnecessarily often.on progress of specific projects 4 4 d One of the questionnaire items included in this category was "Not being willing to listen to necessary technical explanations." The contribution of Smith's study is to present some recent data on the problems which are most troublesome to a select group of marketing researchers. He concluded, "The thing that concerns them most is finding themselves in situations which they feel limit the quality and useful- ness of what they are doing."45 Kenn Rogers of City College of New York reported on "a pilot study designed to examine the researcher's role and its relationships with the marketer and with others, both within the same, and in separate organizational struc- tures."46 Extending over a five-year period, the study included interviews with 84 researchers, 16 of whom were studied in depth over periods of two to ten months when the author was a consultant to the firms involved; addition- ally, the researcher's manager was also interviewed in 24 of the cases. The sample for the study included marketing 45Smith, op. cit., p. 14. 46Kenn Rogers, "The Identity Crisis of the Market- ing Researcher," Commentary, Vol. 8, No. 1 (January, 1966), pp. 3-15 e 21 in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Kenya, and Tanzania. Both socio-psychological and psychoanalytical concepts were employed by Rogers. Significant findings of this research project include the following. Market research findings in each instance played an important part in the formulation of the market- ing plan of these organizations. Frequently, how- ever, marketers considered the validity of these findings as debatable. Initially, their anxieties were focused on the data and their interpretations, but subsequently included the role and competence of the researcher and his employees.47 Mutual judgments of marketers' and researchers' competence generally indicated that the marketer's judgment of the researcher's work depended on the information provided, the form in which it was pre- sented and the working compatibility between the marketer and the researcher. Frequently, marked anxiety prevailed between marketer and researcher. It seemed to be engendered by the perception of each towards the other's tech- nical competence and performance.49 Researchers claimed that marketers neither under- stand nor appreciate research; do not permit re- searchers to acquaint themselves with all the rele- vant aspects of the problem; do not provide adequate resources in expenditure or time for "good re- search". . . . Often they felt they were expected to furnish convincing reasons for what they thought were "wrong decisions". . . . They were often ac- cused of not understanding the complexities of prac- tical marketing problems and of being over-ambitious empire builders. 0 47Ibid., p. S. 481pm. 4911nm. soEbide, pp. 6-70 FF: DC. (9' 22 Rogers concluded that these criticisms of market- ing researchers are not always justified but that marketers seemed to compensate for their inability to operate crea- tively in their markets by acting negatively towards market research. "Rather than utilising the functioning but im~ perfect tools of market research, they experienced them as additional threats and defended, against their mounting anxieties by projecting the feelings of their own inadequa- cies onto the researchers and their scientific methods."51 Concerning the researchers, he concluded that "there was a critical confusion about the identity of their roles and the principles that govern the acceptable conduct in these roles."52 Rogers' study represents an important contribution to the sparse literature concerning the relationship between marketing researchers and the people they serve. While its scope is broad, it cuts across cultural lines; this international dimension represents an important limitation for purposes of generalizing on the role of the marketing researcher in this or any other country. Objectives of the Dissertation The above studies and articles have described sev- eral problems which hinder the effective use of marketing SlIbid., p. 12. szIbid. S: r" 23 research in the decision making process. This dissertation uses role analysis, a conceptual approach developed in so- cial psycholoqy, to study systematically the marketing re- search function in large industrial firms. The disserta— tion explores: (1) perceptions of the role of the director of marketing research by occupants of that position, their immediate superiors, and members of management who use the services of the marketing research departments; (2) job satisfaction of the marketing research directors; and (3) the effectiveness of marketing research departments as per- ceived by the immediate superiors of marketing research directors and by users of the services of the marketing research department. The five specific objectives of this study are: 1. To determine the degree of consensus between management and the director of marketing research on significant dimensions of the role of the latter in large industrial firms. 2. To determine areas of role consensus, role conflict, and role ambiguity. To determine the extent to which the marketing research 3. department is perceived to be effective by line manage- ment. I 4. To determine the marketing research director's degree of satisfaction with his role. 5. To determine the relationships among consensus, per- ceived effectiveness, and job satisfaction. “we de1 24 Primary emphasis is placed on the relationship be- tween the director of marketing research and members of management served by his department. Little attention is devoted to the role of the research analyst and other mem- bers of the research department. The focus of the study is limited further to the non-routine activities of the research department; the gathering of sales statistics for determining market share and other routine statistical oper- ations of many research departments is disregarded. The sample is composed of firms from the Fortune 500 list. Results of a preliminary survey of marketing research di- rectors in the Fortune 500 firms are discussed in Chapter II. CHAPTER II SURVEY OF MARKETING RESEARCH DIRECTORS OF FORTUNE 500 FIRMS The studies discussed in Chapter I used samples composed of industrial firms of all sizes and in some cases included non-manufacturing firms; thus no data were avail- able on the status of marketing research activities in large industrial firms which are the focus of the dissertation. To fill this void, a mail survey was undertaken to deter- mine the extent to which these firms have marketing research departments and to gather information about the departments that do exist and their directors. This chapter presents the methodology and results of the mail. survey and makes certain comparisons with the earlier studies. Description of the Study The 500 largest industrial firms in the United States as listed in the July, 1965, issue of Fortune mag- azine were selected as the universe for this study.1 Of the 500 questionnaires which were mailedin July, 1965, with a follow-up in November, 1965, 374 responses have been .‘ I'Directory of the 500 Largest Industrial Corpora- tiens,.'. Fortune, Vol. 72, No. 1 (July, 1965.), pp. l49-68. 25 26 received. Of those returned, 364 were usable and are in- cluded in. the tabulations presented in this chapter and in Appendix I. The questionnaires were completed by the corporate director of marketing research,.if such a posi- tion erisbdin the firm. In a few firms where a central marketing research department did not exist, the question- naire was filled in by the marketing research director of the firm's largest operating division that had a marketing research department. Where firms did not have a marketing research department, the questionnaire was A completed by an officer of the company . No attempt was made to estimate responses for the 136 firms from the fortune list that did not reply. Per- tinent to the problem of non-response, however, is the fact that 83 percent of the 307 firms that replied to the orig- inal mailing had a marketing research department, while only 75 percent of the 57 firms that replied to the follow- up had one. This leads to the conclusion that firms with a marketing research department were more likely to respond to the questionnaire than were firms without such a depart- ment; thus it is not possible to generalize about all the firms on the Fortune list. The term marketing research director is used to refer. to all respondents to the questionnaire who indicated that they had responsibility fer the. marketing research activity. In actual practice,. position title varied some- what from company to company. while ”marketing. research 27 manager" was the most common title, ”the terms “commercial, " "business, " and "economic" were sometimes used in place of marketing, and the term "analysis” was sometimes substi- tuted for ”research.“ ' Some combination of these terms was used as the title of the individual who headed the market- ing research function by about three-fourths of the firms. But some firms assigned supervision of the employees engaged in marketing research. to the director of market planning, product planning, or commercial planning; or to the director of marketing services. Further, these activities were the direct responsibility. of the director of marketing, market- ing manager, director of sales, or some comparable position in .a number of firms. Undoubtedly. some of this latter group of positions were line in nature; but in some firms the term 'marketingmanager" was used for a headquarters staff position with responsibility for various marketing services including marketing research. Finally, a small number of respondents occupied positions outside the marketing depart- ment, such as chief accountant, treasurer, director of tech- nical services, 'or director of special projects. This variety of titles indicates that the market- ing research function is organized differently in different firms. While differences’ in organisation are discussed specifically later, it should be recognised that the above variations in. title may bias the data to some extent. Un- doubtedly this represents a limitation of the study; the business world, unfortunately, is not always made up of 28 units which fit a desired classification scheme. Extent of Marketing Research Departments Almost 82 percent of. the 364 responding firms had a formal marketing research department somewhere in the organisation. As might be expected, the larger firms were more likely .to have such a department; more than 90 percent of the firms with annual sales of. over $400 million had a department, while only 77 percent of the firms with under $400 million in sales had a formal research activity. The latter group contained. ne firms with less. than-$97 million in sales. he relationship was found between the type of prod- not a firm produced and the. existence of a marketing research department. Of 101 firms that termed themselves as being primarily manufacturers of consumer goods, 83 percent re- ported having a marketing research department, whereas Bl percent of. the 172 firms that were primarily manufacturers of non-consumer products reported such departments .. 0f the 90 firms that indicated heavy commitments to both product categories, 82 percent had a marketing research department. To show perspective, the results of the current study are compared with. the findings of seven previous stud- ies in Table l of Appendix I. Beyond recognizing. a trend among firms doing sufficient marketing. research to justify dOpi-rtments of their own, it is dangerous to make any addi- tional. generalisation. frem. this table. fer the following 29 reasons. The data are based on mail questionnaire surveys of selected samples of firms. For example, 1.. D. H. Weld sent a "list of questions“ to .200 large companies, the great majority of which were- national advertisers- He received replies .from 62. firms, 18 of which. had marketing research departments in 1923. The Americannanagement Association sample in 1953 was made up of members of the Association, which is far from being typical of manufacturing firms. But the sample for. the 1957 study was selected randomly from a standard business directory, which included . many smaller firms. Thus the apparent decrease in firms with research departments can be explained largely by the. dif- ferences in the. methods of sample selection. Also, some of the studies included. non-manufacturing firms, thus intro- ducing a bias into any comparison. with the present study. Other weaknesses of these studies-for purposes of comparability include the variations in sample size, the problem of no response, and the problem of definitions. with the exception of the present study, all projects of this type received a response of less than 50. percent. with regard to definitions, categories in the American Mar- keting Association studies were combined in an attempt to make the data comparable with. the present study. Even with these problems inherent. in the interpretation of this table, the trend toward the formatien .ef marketing research depart- ments seems undeniable. A: l u 30 Organigatiopp; Location and Size of Departments The following tabulation shows how firms with for- mal marketing research departments described their market- ing research functions. Description Percgt of firms A central marketing research department doing work for entire company 62 A central department, .but with regional or divisional units elsewhere ' 26 Regional or divisional units, without headquarters departments 12 No response 1 ' Total. i'd'i'i Base 297 Of significance is the finding that 74 percent of the con- sumer goods firms reported having a central. department doing work for the entire firm whereas only 56.5 percent of non- consumer goods manufacturers and 59.5 percent of firms pro- ducing both types of products reported such an arrangement. This finding suggests that many manufacturers of industrial goods tended to be in a variety of businesses, which would dictate greater decentralization of the marketing research function. 0n the other hand, many consumer goods producers sold a variety of products to the same market, thus. allow- ing for a centralized marketing research activity. While there was considerable variation in the size of marketing research departments from company to company, an examination of. the following figures reveals that 40 POI-“cent of the departments had from one to five employees devoting full. time to marketing research activities. 31 f full- e ees Pergont of firms 1.- 5 4O 6 - 10 23 11 - 15 12 16 - 20 5 21 - 30 9 31 - 40 2 41 - 50 2 51 - 74 4 75 or more 2 no response 1 Total 1502 Base 297 At the other extreme, less than six percent had more than 50 marketing research employees. These firms with both a central department and one or more regional or divisional marketing research departments tended to have the greatest number of marketing research employees; 23 percent had more than 20 employees. Conversely, almost 70 percent of firms having a central department doing work for the entire com- pany had fewer than ten employees engaged in this activity. Backgrounds of Marketing Research Directors The formal education of marketing research directors is presented in the following.tabulation. Education Percent of firms High school ' 1 ' Attended college 4 Bachelor's degree 46 Master's degree 39 Doctoral degree 10a no response -- Total 1'66? Base 297 ‘One director failed to respond to this question. 32 The questionnaire also elicited the following data concern- ing the last position held by these individuals before be- coming directors of marketing research. Position Percent of firms Marketing research position (same firxn or other manufacturer) 56 Other staff marketing or sales position 9 Line marketing or sales position 10 Staff general management position 8 Position with consulting firm, research firm, advertising agency, etc. 8 Other positions 6 No response 3 Total 1003 Base 297 A.cross-c1assification of these two variables indicates that 60 percent of those directors whose previous position was in the line marketing category had a bachelor's degree or less. On the other hand, two-thirds of those directors holding a master's degree occupied a marketing research position before being elevated to director. Somewhat un- expectedly, the previous positions of the 24 directors who held doctorates were quite varied, with only 38 percent indicating that they were promoted to their present posi- tion from a marketing research position. The number of years these men had held the position of director of marketing research varied, as can be seen in the following figures. 33 Years Percent of firms Less than two years, 31 Two but less than four years 25 Four but less than six years 14 Six but less than eight years 8 Eight but less than twelve years ll Twelve years or longer 10 No response --8 Total "9'9? Base 297 aOne director failed to respond to this question. An interesting relationship was found when these figures were cross-classified with the education of the respondents. Although only one-third. of those directors with master's degrees had their positions for more than four years, one- half of those with bachelor ' s degrees had occupied the posi- tion for four years or longer. Thus newer marketing research directors tended to have graduate degrees- The survey re- sults also indicate that 115 (39 percent). of these directors initiated the marketing research department in their respec- tive firms. One-half of this particular group of respond- ents reported that they had held their position less than four years; thus a significant proportion of the firms sur- veyed, 57 out of 297, had research departments that were not more than four years old. Rearting Patterns of Directors The marketing researchdepartment was typically found in the marketing or. sales department. This conclu- sion is illustrated in table 2 of Appendix I, which shows the level of management at which. marketing research directors 34 report. When the data are broken down into firms where the current director started the department and those where the department was in existence before the present occupant filled the position, significant differences in reporting patterns emerge. Only 17.5 percent of directors who did not start the department reported to top management, whereas 32 percent of the individuals who initiated new departments reported to a top or general management official. At the same time, fewer department initiators reported to market- ing management officials. As was pointed out earlier, the departments headed by their founders tended to be a newer group of departments than those started by someone before the present occupant of the position-—with half of them being less than four years old. So the data suggest a trend toward having the marketing research director report to top or general management rather than marketing management. This conclusion must be considered as tentative, however, since the trend is not revealed by the comparison in Table 3 of Appendix I of six studies which included organizational considerations. Positions Held by Former Directors Of the 297 marketing research directors responding to the questionnaire, 183, or 61 percent of the total, in- dicated that someone occupied the position before them. The following figures reveal where their predecessors are at present. 35 Classification .chent of firms with the same firm 4.4 with another firm 43 Retired or deceased 13 lo response to this question --a Total . 1561' Base 183 3“One director failed to respond to this question. Of the 23 directors who replied that their predecessor was retired or deceased, 14 indicated that he held no other position before retirement. In other words, these 14 men finished their careers as directors of marketing research. The position currently held or held before retirement by the remaining 169 former marketing research directors is presented below. HE of pgsition Percent of firms Staff marketing or sales 14 Line marketing or sales 21 Staff general management 19 Line general management 10 uarketing research position (another manufacturer) 12 Consulting or research firm 8 Other 9 No response to this question 7 Total 150; Base 159 The following lists give some indication of specific posi- tions included in the first four categories of the table. Staff Harketin or Sales Positions: Assistant to Group Vice President, Marketing; Manager of Consumer Services; Director of Marketing Services; Director of Market Planning; Director. of Planning and Dis- tribution. Line .uarketin or Sales Positions: Assistant Re- gional Manager ,. flarketing; Regional Sales Manager; Vice. President,. harketing; Director of narketing; Sales llamager. 36 Staff General Mans ement Positions: Manager, Prod-i uct Engineering Department; DEector of Analytical Services; Vice President... Director of Planning; Manager, Government Services; Planning Manager; Director, Corporate Public Relations; Liaison be- tween Marketing and Production; Corporate Secretary. Line General Management Positions: Senior Operating Vice President; General Manager, Operating Division; President, International Division; Vice President, Purchases; Assistant DivisionManager; President. Although there was no typical pattern of promotion .from the position of marketing research director, a significant number. 30 percent, had moved into line management positions; the proportion was even higher for individuals who stayed with the same firm; 38 percent occupied line management positions. Thus varied. opportunities for advancement ap- parently are open to the marketing research director. How Marketing Research Directors Perceive. Their Role In an attempt to determine how thesedirectors of marketing research perceived their role in the firm, the following question was asked: "How would you rate your role as director of marketing research on the following scale?” The seven-point scale is duplicated below with the breakdown of the number of directors who circled each number. Scale- . Percent of firms Largely research and advisory. role 1 14 2 18 3 17 Internediate 4 23 5 l4 6 10 Largely a marketing policy- making role 7 2 110 response to this. question 1 Total 5?? Base 297 37 There was a greater tendency for respondents to circle a number near the lower end of the scale, indicating that these individuals thought of their positions as being largely research and advisoryinnature. Many respondents chose the intermediate. position. of the scale,. indicating that their position as director was equally weighted on both aspects of the scale or. that they were ambivalent in their responses. On the other hand, 26 percent saw their role as being toward the policy-making and of. the scale. The mean response of the 297 directors was 3.4 with a rather large dispersion, as shown in the above figures. The organisational location of the marketing research de- partment and the position held by the predecessor to the respondent helps to explain this variation. The mean re- sponse to the role question for directors reporting to top management was 3.7, while the mean for those reporting to an engineering, development, research, or planning official was 2.95. Likewise, those directors whose predecessor was now in a line management position gave a mean response of 4.2, compared with 2.8 for those. directors .whose predecessor had stayed in research work with. another manufacturing. firm or with a consulting or research organization. If. these. results. are a valid measurement of the directors' feelings concerning. their role, it seems that the Job of marketing research director. varies. from company to company; while the, director mightbe exercising the typ- ical. staff. prerogatives of doing research. and . offering advice 38 in one firm, this individual plays an active part in making marketing policy in other firms. Because of the complexity of the relationship between marketing researchers and man- agement, no generalisation about the role of marketing re- search departments can be made from one survey question. Chapter III, therefore, presents the procedure for a de- tailed analysis of the role of the marketing research di- rector in large industrial corporations. CHAPTER III CONCEPTUAL APPROACH AND PROCEDURE OF THE INVESTIGATIOH The conceptual approach for this study was borrowed from the field of social psychology. The research design has been derived largely from the following two studies: Gross, Mason and HcEachern, §§plorations in Rolg_ Anal sis (Studies of the School Superintendency Role‘, new York: John wiley, 1958. Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn, Snoek, and Rosenthal, Organi- zational Stress: Studies.in Role Conflict and Ambiguity, New York: John N ey, l 64. The following series of quotations from each source will give the reader some insight into the concepts of role an- alysis. Gross surveyed the literature of role and came to the following conclusion. ”Three basic ideas which ap— Poar in most of the conceptualizations considered, if not in the definitions of role themselves, are that individuals: (1) in social locations (2) behave (3) with,reference to OXpectations.'1 These authors consider the above to be the three crucial elements for role analysis and go on to Bay, "People do not behave in a random manner; their behavior is influenced to some extent by their own expectations and lfleil Gross, Hard 5. Hason, and Alexander w. HsEachern, E lorations in Role Anal sis (new York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 9 , p. 17. 39 40 those of others in the group or society in which they are 2 participants." Later on they indicate, "Regardless of their derivation, expectations are presumed by most role theorists to be an essential ingredient in any formula for puedicting social behavior. Human conduct is in part a function of expectations."3 The Gross group has concluded that "the degree of consensus on expectations associated with positions is an empirical variable, whose theoretical possibilities until recently have remained relatively un— tapped."4 The Kahn group states the same propositions in a somewhat different way: Each individual responds to the organization in terms of his perception of it. . . . The objective organization and the psychological organization Of a person may or may not be congruent depending on his ability and opportunity to perceive organi- zational reality. Thus for any person in the organ- ization there is not only a sent role, consisting of the pressures which are communicated by members of his role set, but also a received role, conSist- ing of his perceptions and cognitions of what was sent. How closely the received role corresponds to the sent role is an empirical question for each focal person and set of role senders, and will de- Pend on properties of senders, receivers, substang tive content of the sent pressures, and the like. They go on to point out that each individual plays some 21bid. 31bid., p. 18. 41bid., p. 43. 5Robert L. Kahn, Donald M. Wolfe, Robert P. Quinn, 3- Diedrick Snoek, and Robert A. Rosenthal, Or anfizatiggzl I (89'? 3 fittess: Studies in Role Conflict and Ambigu ty JOhn Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1964 , p. 6- 41 part in defining his own role. In a sense, each person is a "self-sender," that is, a role-sender to himself. He, too, has a con- ception of his office and a set of attitudes and beliefs about what he should and should not do while in that position. He has some awareness of what behavior will fulfill his responsibilities, lead to the accomplishment of the organizational objectives, or further his own interests. He may even have had a major part in determining the for- mal responsibilities of his office. Through a long process of socialization and formal training he has acquired a set of values and expectations about his own behavior and abilities.6 These authors then proceed to discuss role conflict and role ambiguity. Role conflict occurs when "various members of the role set may hold quite different role expectations toward the focal person. At any given time they may impose pressures on him toward different kinds of behavior. To the extent that these role pressures give rise to role forces . 7 within him, he will establish a psychological conflict." In regard to ambiguity they state: "Certain information is required for adequate role performance. . . . Ambiguity in a given position may result either because information is nonexistent or because existing information is inade— \ quately communicated."8 When discussing the relationship between conflict and ambiguity, the authors concluded: "If a role is ambig- uous for the focal person, it probably is so for many of 5M” p. 18. 7%., pp. 18-19. 81bid., pp. 22-23. 42 his role senders as well. Conflicting pressures might be sore likely under such circumstances, because the senders are unaware of the inconsistency.in their demands."9 The authors point out that one should not assume that role cone flict and ambiguity are necessarily disfunctional to the organization. To regard conflict simply as a disruption of an otherwise.harmonious way of life is to overlook the fact that conflict.often provides the basis for individual achievement and social progress. The same can be said for ambiguity, for while am- biguity implies a disorderliness that is antithet- ical to the very.idea of organization, it also permits a kind of flexibility that can facilitate adaptation to changing.circumstances.1° ln.determining the breeding grounds of ambiguity and con- flict in an organization, Kahn concluded: The major organizational determinants of conflict and ambiguity include three kinds of role require- ments: the requirement for crossing organizational boundaries, the requirement for producing innova- tive solutions to nonroutine problems,.and the re- quirement for being responsible for the work of Others all The director of marketing research role meets all three requirements; thus we should expect to find role ambiguity and conflict or, stated differently, lack of‘role consensus. By the use of effectiveness and satisfaction instruments, it.will be possible to get some measurement of the effects of conflict and ambiguity on the marketing research function h Ibids ’. p. 890 9 1°Ibid., p. 54. lllbide’ p. 381. 43 ,imna.firm. . Using the context of role theory, this study is designed to ascertain the following about the director of marketing research. role: 1. The degree of role consensus (absence of role conflict and ambiguity) among role definers and between the ddrector of marketing and those who define his role. 2. The degree to which the director of marketing research is perceived to be effective. 3. The.role satisfaction of the director of mar- keting research. The literature search and five exploratory inter- views produced the following areas of potential role ambig- uity and role.conflict: l. The role of the director of marketing research a. The importance attributed to research infor- mation. b. The use of the research report. c. The backing (power) of the research depart- ment. d. The extent to which the judgment of the re- searcher is valued. e. Enlargement of the functions of the marketing research department. 2. The role of the director of marketing research ih.originating and defining problems to be Studied. a. Clinical approach vs. engineering approach toward problems brought to the department. b. Initiative in soliciting problems or under- taking research without a specific request. 3. The.value placed on objective, scientific re- ‘CuChe a. The sense of timing of the research depart- unto b. A.”managerial' orientation vs. an “ivory tower" orientation. 44 4. Political considerations. a. The importance of maintaining an ongoing relationship between researcher and manage- ment. b. Providing data to “support” management de- cisions. . . The above sources of potential conflict and ambiguity were developed into specific role expectation items for the sur- vey of marketing research directors and their role definers. Procedure of_the Study» The investigation of the role of the director of marketing research developed out of the survey of the Egg: £255,500 firms that is discussed in Chapter 11.: The orig- inal study yielded 297 replies from individuals responsible for the activities of the marketing research departments in their firms. .Since there is considerable variety in the titles attached to these positions, the sample for the second study was limited to those individuals whose title included the term “research“ or "analysis.’' The implicit assumption behind this decision is that these individuals devote most of their time and effort to directing the mar- keting research department while an official such as the director of marketing services devotes only part of his attention to research activities. Since.the original ques- tionnaire did not require that the respondent sign_it, the role investigation sample was limited to those respondents to the initial questionnaire who voluntarily signed the questionnaire and have the term research or analysis in 45 their titles; 153 firms met both of these qualifications. Directors of marketing research and role definers were inter- viewed in five of these firms for purposes of developing and protesting the role analysis instruments which were then sent to the remaining 148 firms. Exhibits 2 and 3 of Appendix IV contain the two role analysis instruments. Examination will show that the first 52 role expectation items are common to both schedules. The remaining items in Exhibit 2 are concerned with the degree of satisfaction of the director of marketing along with classification and identification data. The role de- finer's instrument (Exhibit 3) contains two sections deal- ing with how effective the researcher is perceived to be and two sections devoted to classification and identifica- tion of respondents. A package of five schedules was sent to the director of marketing research of each of the 148 firms on April 18, 1966, with the request that he complete the researcher's schedule and give one of the other schedules to his superior and the remaining three schedules to individuals who use the services of . the marketing research department. Each respondent was instructed to mail the completed question- naire to the university upon completion. Follow-up letters were sent to the directors who had not responded on May 16th and June 9th. Final tabulations of the data include all responses which. were a received by July 30., 1966. Of the firms contacted, usable responses were- received from 77, 46 or 52 percent.of them. A total of 264 usable question- naires-~76 from marketing research directors, 50 from their inediate superiors, and 138 from other role definers-«were received and included in the tabulations; this represents a return of 35.7 percent of the maximum possible sample size if five returns had been received from each firm. The following figures show the groupings of the sample on the basis of returns per firm. Returns Number of firms Researcher and 4 role definers l9 Researcher and 3 role definers 23 Researcher and 2 role definers l4 Researcher and l role definer lO Researcher only a 10 Two role definers only 1 Total '77 8An incomplete schedule was received from the di- rector of marketing research of this firm but was not in- cluded in the tabulations. ' Three unsigned questionnaires from role definers are included in some of the tabulations but are not included in the above breakdown of firms. A list of the 88 cooperating firms including the above 77 and the five which were interviewed is presented in Appendix V. No identification of the indi- viduals or firms will be made in the text of the disserta- tion since anonymity was guaranteed to all respondents. Analysisof Non-respgnse Information gathered from the survey of the Fortune 500 firms makesit possible to compare the respondent and 47 non-respondent groups on certain significant dimensions to get an indication of the bias which resulted from the self-selection on the part of the 77 firms that participated in the role analysis survey. This comparison of the respond- ent group and the non-respondent group turned up certain differences. while there was no systematic difference be- tween the two groups in sales volume or number of marketing research employees, the following figures show that the respondent group was more heavily weighted toward producers of non-consumer goods than the non-respondent group. Product category, Respondents Non-respondents Primarily consumer goods 26.0% 27.1% Primarily non-consumer goods 48.0 41.4 Heavy commitment to both types 26.0 31.4 Total 100.0? 99.9? Base .77 71 The backgrounds of the cooperating market research directors also differed somewhat,as can be seen in the fol- lowing breakdown of the last positions held by these direc- tors before assuming their present position. Previous position Respondents Non-respondents Marketing research position (same firm or other manufac- turer) 56.6% 62.0% Other staff marketing or sales position 18.4 5.6 Line marketing or sales position. 7.9 7.0 Staff general management position 6.6 7.0 Position with consulting firm, research firm, or advertising agency 3.9 11.3 Other positions 6.6 2.8 ' no response to this question -- 4.2 Total 100.57 §9.§§ Base 76 71 Si; of I8 111 fifth-(III? 48 Significantly more of the directors who did not respond (73.3 percent versus 60.5 percent) were appointed director of marketing research from a marketing research position in their present firm, another manufacturing firm, or from a position with a consulting or research firm. Thus the respondent group is more heavily weighted toward relative newcomers to the marketing research activity, with a sig- nificant number coming from other staff marketing positions. Consistent with the above comparison is the find- ing that the non-respondent group of directors.have held their position longer than the responding directors; this comparison follows. Years as Director of Marketing_Research Respondents Non-respondents Less than two years 39.5% 23.9% Two but less than four years 22.4 23.9 Pour but less than six years 10.5 12.7 Six but less than eight years 9.2 11.3 Eight but less than twelve years 7.9 15.5 Twelve years or longer 10.5 12.7 Total 100.0? 150.5% Base 76 71 Whereas 39.4 percent of the non-respondents have held their positions eight years or more, only 27.5 percent of the respondents have achieved this degree of seniority. The education of the two groups of directors shows the following interesting differences. Educational Attainment Respondents NOn-respondents High school 2.6% ~- Attended college 3.9 -- Bachelor's degree 47.4 45.1% Master's degree 38.2 45.1 Doctoral degree 7.9 '9.9 Total 100.03 150.17 Base 76 71 49 The differences presented thus far show that re- spendents have relatively less education than nonprespond- ents, have fewer years' experience as director of marketing research, and as a group have relatively less experience in marketing research work. A final comparison shows that 30 percent of the respondent group and 46.5 percent of the non-respondent group initiated the marketing research activ- ity in theirrespective firms. One conclusion which can be drawn from these.comparisons is that individuals.who find their role to be somewhat ambiguous took an interest in the survey and thus were willing to devote time to the questionnaire. This ambiguity could be due to lack of mar- keting research experience, less education, fewer years on the job, or assuming a position where certain role.expec- tations have been built up around the capabilities and in- terests of a predecessor. 0n the assumption that marketing research is not as well integrated in firms producing non- consumer goods, this conclusion seems consistent with the proportionately-greater number of producers of non-consumer Goods in the respondent group. An additional verification of the above conclusion was found in the different attitudes encountered in the directors of marketing research who were contacted.. While all five directors who were contacted agreed to the inter— view without’hesitation, those researchers who seemed to be well established in their positions considered the inter- view as a service to the interviewer.- 0n the other hand, i! ve: he; 95 de to to 50 a recently appointed marketing research director who has a.background in.scientific research and development and verbalized some reservations about his qualifications to head a marketing research department seemed.to be inter- ested in the interview to learn from someone from the aca- demic community. He even offered to come.to East Lansing for a second interview if additional information was needed for the survey. If this conclusion concerning the above differences is accurate it means that the sample is somewhat biased toward research directors who find their role to be ambig- uous. Since role ambiguity is one of the dimensions under study, this possible bias limits the ability to generalize to a larger group. while the above differences in the two groups must be recognized, they do not represent the only reasons for non-response. In five instances, firms either sent back the questionnaire package or wrote a letter indicating that the addressee of the survey material was.no longer with the firm. Thus turnover accounts for part of the non-re- sponse. In eight other instances, however, the successor to a departed marketing research director cooperated with the role analysis survey. To update the classification data on these eight firms, copies of the questionnaire for the Fortune 500 survey were.sent to these new marketing research.directors. Their answers.are included in the above tabulations which.compare the respondent and nonprespondent groups e on! if u 51 A few firms refused to respond since they felt that many of the role definition items in the questionnaire were not applicable to their particular operation. For example, one official with the title, Manager, Market Research, wrote the following. For your personal information, a small group here operating under a market research department title is actually concerned with a wide variety of prod- uct planning, marketing services, and other sales staff and administrative functions. Actually, Market Research is performed mostly as a merged part of the operation of several sales divisions and the divisional general management. Under these conditions, meaningful answers to your questions can not be given.1 And a letter from a director of economic research contained these comments. If you will review the information given to you in the earlier questionnaire, you will see that I am basically a staff economist without a depart- ment staff and that my responsibilities are not within the area of marketing research as generally understood in the business world.13 The Director of Marketing Analysis of a firm with fifty marketing research employees wrote: I am very sorry, but we cannot respond to your re- cent request in a suitable manner. My own depart- ment is responsible for monitoring various kinds of divisional quantitative and analytical functions including measurements, forecasting, planning, etc. It is not, therefore, a market research department, per so. 12No citation since respondents to the survey were guaranteed anonymity. 13No citation since respondents to the survey were guaranteed anonymity. 8X 52 All our major divisional market research depart- ments are "atypical" because they are part of a division responsible only for marketing or a divis- ion responsible only for development. Inclusion of their answers would tend to distort your survey.14 And a major organization change in one firm was cited as a reason for non-response, as can be seen in the following excerpts from a letter. We now have five separate "information and analysis" departments reporting to the general manager of five of our newly created "markets divisions." The marketing research function is one part of each information and analysis department--but we no longer are using the departmental title of mar- keting research. All of this is quite a change from a central- ized marketing research department.15 Problems of time, the number of similar requests received, and the confidentiality of the material requested were also mentioned as reasons for refusing cooperation. One research— er wrote: After internal discussions here, I find that I am still bound by a firm policy of my management, not to take part in any surveys or projects requiring the releasing of information on our inside opera- tions, nor of the role of this department in the corporation structure.l6 And the following two comments show that a period of peak industrial production is not an ideal one for soliciting 14No citation since respondents to the survey were guaranteed anonymity. lsNo citation since respondents to the survey were guaranteed anonymity. 16No citation since respondents to the survey were guaranteed anonymity. CC": CC CJ‘ 53 cooperation from business executives. Unfortunately, your second request for survey mate- rial is impossible to comply with. The business pace of the last two months has grown at such a rate that I do not believe the Director of Market- ing or three of my peers could spend the one-half hour to fill out the survey. Due to the intense pressure on our executives, I have elected not to request them to each fill out one of your questionnaires. . . . I am sorry that we did not respond, however, you will have to ap- preciate that all our efforts are being expended in the effort to make a highly profit- able company.18 The figures on page 46 show that in ten instances completed questionnaires were received from researchers who apparently elected not to ask their role definers to complete a schedule. The following comments were written by researchers who returned the blank role definer sched- ules. Your 4 yellow copies are enclosed. I have no in- tention of imposing them on my associates. It seems to me that you want all of your thesis data to be handed to you in a nice neat form ready for analysis. This is not my idea of the kind of ef- fort that should be required for a doctoral dis- sertation.l9 I am returning the questionnaires which you wish the top executives of our company to complete. I do not feel that it is appropriate to ask them 17No citation since respondents to the survey were guaranteed anonymity. 18No citation since respondents to the survey were guaranteed anonymity. 19N0 citation since respondents to the survey were guaranteed anonymity. an t}- A *‘h Si In 54 to undertake your request.20 One plausible interpretation of this action is that the research directors in question did not feel sufficiently confident of their positions that they wanted their superior and other members of management to evaluate them. The above discussion shows that generalizing about the reasons for non-response and the magnitude or direction of the bias which results from it is almost impossible. Even if complete returns had been received from all 148 firms contacted, this group was not a randomly selected sample from a larger population. Thus statistical infer- ence techniques to make generalizations concerning all firms with marketing research directors on the Fortune list are not applicable. The results of the study can be applied only to the responding firms which are listed in Appendix V. Sharacteristics of_the Respondents Some characteristics of the marketing research di- rector respondents and the firms they represent were pre- sented in the preceding comparison of the respondent group with the non-respondent group. Additional information about the directors and their functions was gathered in the clas- sification section of the role analysis instrument and thus was not available for comparison with the non-respondent 20No citation since respondents to the survey were guaranteed anonymity. 55 group. The following table shows the age of the marketing research department in the 76 firms from which a usable response was received from the director of marketing research. Age of department Percent of firms Less than two years 7.9 Two but less than four years 9.2 Four but less than six years 5.3 Six but less than eight years 14.5 Eight but less than twelve years 15.8 Twelve years or more 47.4 Total 100.13 Base 76 Thus almost half of the departments have been in operation for at least twelve years. The directors were also asked how long they have been assigned (either as director or in another position) to the marketing research department in the firm. Answers to this question show considerable dispersion. Years' experience in the department Percent of directors Less than two years 19.7 Two but less than four years 22.4 Four but less than six years 11.8 Six but less than eight years 10.5 Eight but less than twelve years 13.2 Twelve years or more 22.4 Total 100.02 Base 76 Question 72 of the director's questionnaire sought information concerning the proportion of the department's time which is annually devoted to special project type studies as opposed to continuing type data gathering proj- ects which tend to be more routine in nature. Since the qmestionnaire was designed primarily to examine the role of the researcher in problem solving situations, this is 56 an.important dimension of the sample. The following figures show that the majority of the directors responded that their departments devote the largest proportion of their time to non-routine activities as defined in the question. Proportion of department's time devoted to special_project studies Percent ofwdirectors None -- Less than 20% 7.9 At least 20% but less than 40% 10.5 At least 40% but less than 60% 19.7 At least 60% but less than 80% 34.2 At least 80% but less than 100% 25.0 100% 2.6 Total “§9.§% Base 76 A finding of the study, which is a byproduct of the methodology employed, is the classification data con- cerning the individuals whom the marketing research direc- tors designated as their role definers. A common assumption is that a staff department like marketing research operates to support the line management decision-maker. To check the validity of this assumption, the titles of the respond- ing superiors and other role definers were classified into categories which include a line-staff dichotomization. While any such classification scheme is arbitrary, the fol- lowing results for all role definers are interesting. 57 Classification of titles Other of role definers Superiors role definers Top management. 8.0% 1.5% Other general or corporate management 10.0 16.1 Sales or marketing line management 32.0 23.4 Sales or marketing staff management 40.0 24.8 Product manager or other product affiliation 200 1802 Development, planning, engineering, or research official 6.0 10.9 Financial management 2.0 1.5 No response to this item -- 3.6 Total 100.0% 100.0% Base . 50 . 137 If the first three categories above are classified as line management and the remaining categories as staff positions, the figures show that half of the responding superiors of marketing research directors are in line management and that only 40 percent of the other role definers occupy line management positions. Three of the 50 superiors reported that they are also users of the services of the marketing research department. _Since one of these individuals occu- pies a line position and two occupy staff positions, shift- ing their responses to the user category would have little effect on the percentage breakdown. The fact that so many staff individuals are the clients of the marketing research department suggests that much marketing research data may be filtered before it gets to the decision-maker. The sales or marketing staff cate- gory, for example, includes advertising managers, merchan- dising managers, and marketing or commercial development officials. ‘Undouhtedly, some of these officials in given 58 firms have limited decision-making authority, but in many instances they are limited to a planning and recommendation type of function. This is also true of non-marketing staff positions such as development and planning departments. The existence of this proliferation of staff departments results in a more complicated decision-making process than the relatively simple model of a marketing researcher tak- ing problems posed by a member of line management to whom he eventually submits a final report of his findings. Other classification items in the role definer schedule help to describe the profile of this group of respondents. In answer to question 77 regarding their relationship to the director of marketing research, 64 percent of the users indicated that the marketing research department does research studies for them, and only two percent reported that they received only secondary data from the marketing research department, while 24 percent are receiving both primary and secondary data. And almost ten percent reported other relationships with the director of marketing research, such as serving on committees with him, or did not respond to this question. These figures seem.to correlate with the proportion of the departments' time devoted to special project studies as reported by the marketing research directors. In response to question 75~-"In your work, what kind of products are you primarily concerned with?"--the fOllowing information was obtained. CE HE 59 Product categpry_ Percent of role definers Consumer products 38.3 Non-consumer products 35.6 Both consumer and non-consumer products 26.1 Total 100.0% Base 188 A comparison with the breakdown of the marketing researchers' descriptions of the type of goods produced by their firms on page 47 shows some marked differences in the first two 21 While only 26 percent of the responding firms categories. were categorized as primarily manufacturers of consumer goods, 38.3 percent of the role definers are primarily con- cerned with consumer goods in their work. The comparison also shows a disproportionately small number of role defin- ers in the non-consumer goods category. This finding is verified by the fact that nine of the ten firms from which only the marketing researcher questionnaire was received are producers of non-consumer goods and the tenth produces both consumer and non-consumer goods. Credence is thus given to the suggestion earlier in this chapter that mar- keting research departments are not as well integrated in firms producing non-consumer goods. Other classification items include the education of the role definers, the length of time they have had of- ficial contact with the marketing research department, and 21The bases are different since the number of co- :Perating role definers from a firm varied from zero to our. 60 their marketing research experience. The breakdown of the education of the role definers follows. Educational attainment Percent of role definers High school 3.2 Attended college 18.1 Bachelor's degree 56.4 Master's degree 18.6 Doctoral degree 3.7 Total 100.0% Base 188 As would be expected, the educational level of the research directors shown on page 48 is significantly higher than that of the role definers. Three questions were used to determine how long the role definers have had official contact with the mar- keting research department, with the following results. ggntact with marketing research Percent of role definers Less than two years 14.9 Two but less than four years 16.5 Four but less than six years 17.6 Six but less than eight years 12.8 Eight but less than twelve years 21.3 Twelve years or longer 17.0 Total 100.1% Base 188 This information will be used in the measurement of inter- action in a later chapter. The final classification item revealed that 21 percent of the role definers have had mar- keting research experience in their present firm or in an- other firm at some time in their careers. The above differences must be kept in mind when reading the analysis and interpretation of the data in the next three chapters. Rather than their being one homogeneous 61 position of marketing research director, there are undoubts edly 76 different positions in 76 firms. This was definitely the case in the five firms interviewed where one director viewed his role as ”the voice of the consumer” and was pri- marily concerned with conducting market surveys. In another case the director of marketing research was the coordinator of a number of decentralized marketing research departments. In a third, the work of the department was apparently to catalog data received from outside syndicated sources and to issue it to whoeverr might request it. A fourth director of marketing research appeared to be serving as a staff assistant to the president and only part of his activities were in the marketing domain. Finally, the fifth individual interviewed was an acting director who was groping for rec- ognition and a definition of his role in the firm. In an- swer to a question, he stated the belief that his marketing research department might easily be eliminated in the next corporate cost-cutting campaign. The danger in grouping respondents is greater for the role definers who occupy a variety of positions and have an even greater variety of backgrounds. It must be remembered that they have all been selected by the director of marketing research for inclusion in the study. While he could not choose his superior, he did have the freedom of whether to include him in the survey. Thus the sample of role definers is made up of individuals with whom the 62 director of marketing research has sufficient rapport to ask a favor. When their perception of his effectiveness and the degree of consensus on his role are considered, the builtpin bias resulting from this method of selection cannot be overlooked. The differences within the samples, of course, should help to explain some of the variance which exists in the data. So in addition to the methodology for the macroscopic and microscopic analyses which are described in Chapters IV and V, numerous cross-classifications have been computed and are reported when significant differences are found. re is ke CHAPTER IV MACROSCOPIC ROLE ANALYSIS Attention in this chapter is focused on all of the respondents to the questionnaire; specifically, interest is centered on the definition of their role by the 76 mar- keting research directors and the expectations of the 188 role definers pertaining to the role of the director of marketing research. Thus the data have been aggregated according to position with emphasis placed upon the follow- ing:* 1. Intraposition consensus A. Among the directors of marketing research B. Among their superiors C. Among other role definers (product managers, sales managers, advertising managers, etc.) 2. Interposition consensus A. Between directors of marketing research and their superiors B. Between directors of marketing research and other role definers C. Between superiors and other role definers. The 50 men to whom the marketing research directors report were separated from the 138 other role definers for purposes of this analysis, because their respective relationships with the director are essentially different. A superior has the authority to prescribe certain expectations for 63 ,: 3 He. er. ket is W am. ‘K Wu 64 the director of marketing research, while the other role definers use the services of the marketing research depart- ment but hold no direct authority over the director of mar- keting research. A partial exception to this generalization is found in the budget of the marketing research department, which is allocated as a cost item to the departments that use its services. Here, a given product manager, for ex- ample, may be in a position to influence the director of marketing research to a greater extent than in the case where the budget of the marketing research department is treated as administrative overhead for the marketing depart- ment or the firm as a whole. Regardless of this possibil- ity at the time of writing the proposal, there seemed to be sufficient differences in the role relationship between the director of marketing research and the individual who has line authority over him, and those individuals with whom the director assumes strictly a staff relationship, to treat them as separate categories. As the sample for the study turned out, only three of the superiors were also users of the services of the marketing research department, making this another important dimension of the differences between the two categories into which the role definers were separated for purposes of analysis. Using the above framework, the following statistics were computed for each role expectation item: 1. The mean score and the variance for: 65 A. All directors of marketing research B. All superiors C. All other role definers (users) 2. Kolmogorov-Smirnov D values to determine whether statistically significant differences exist between the answers of each of the following groups to a given item: A. The directors of marketing research and their superiors B. The directors of marketing research and other role definers (users) C. Superiors and other role definers (users) The Kolmogorov-Smirnov two-sample test was chosen for this analysis because Siegel indicated that it seems to be more powerful than the chi-square test.1 This is particularly true for the relatively small samples on which this study is based. In describing the test, Siegel stated: The KolmOgorov-Smirnov two-sample test is a test of whether two independent samples have been drawn from the same population (or from populations with the same distribution). The two-tailed test is sensitive to any kind of difference in the distri- bution from which the two samples were drawn.2 Thus we are testing the null hypothesis that the directors of marketing research, their superiors, and the other role definers all hold the same expectations concerning the role of the director of marketing research; i.e., they are mem- bers of the same population as far as their beliefs concern- ing the role of the director of marketing research. While the samples which will be tested are not truly independent E 1Sidney Siegel, Nonparametric Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences (New York: McGraw-hill Book Company, Inc., 1956), p. 136. 21bid., p. 127. 66 of each other as the test assumes, the application of the test to the data is not invalidated because it is reason- able to expect the differences in related samples to be less than those from independent samples. Thus those dif- ferences which do turn out to be statistically significant will disprove the general hypothesis of similarity. In other words, the lack of independent samples means that certain statistically significant differences may not be discovered by this method; however, there is no reason to question.the validity of those differences which are desig- nated as statistically significant by the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. Since the data included 49 superiors who could be paired with the marketing research directors who reported to them and 134 other role definers who could be paired with the director of marketing research in the same firm, it was also possible.to use the Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed ranks test to determine the number of role expectation items on which the differences between the samples were statis- tically significant.3 While the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test compares distributions of.responses on a given item, the Wilcoxon test concentrates on differences between paired respondents in a firm. For example, in the following hy- pothetical distribution of responses, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov m... 3mg. , pp. 75-83. 67 D statistic would be zero, indicating no significant dif- ference. Responses Samples .131 fig MMN PSN AMN Marketing research directors 5 lo 5 0 0 Superiors 5 lO 5 0 0 If each of the five marketing research directors who an- swered “absolutely must" were paired with a superior who answered "may or may not," these differences in the responses to this hypothetical question would be discovered by the Wilcoxon test. If all of the data consisted of pairs of respondents, therefore, the Wilcoxon test would be the cor- rect one to use. 6 Table l of Appendix II presents the distributions of scores of the marketing research directors, their super— iors, and their other role definers for the 52 role expec- tation items. In addition to these distributions, the table presents the means, variances, and the significance of the differences between samples, as computed by the Kolmogorov— Smirnov test for all the data, and the Wilcoxon test for the matched pairs included in these distributions. Table 2 of this appendix contains the responses of the 76 market- ing research directors to questions 53 through 68, which concern their degree of satisfaction with different aspects of the role. Finally, Tables 3 and 4 give the answers of the superiors and other role definers to items 53 through 70, which determined their perception.of the effectiveness Of the marketing.research department. After a discussion ~r-—- — .. vil c_o_n is dc: to 61 al 68 of the role expectation items, a section of this chapter will be devoted to the satisfaction and effectiveness items. Cbnsensus on Role Expectations . To get an indication of the extent to which there is consensus or lack of consensus among the samples of role definers and the directors of marketing research (inter- position consensus), it would have been possible simply to determine the proportion of items for which a significant difference exists. However, this procedure overlooks the dimension of intraposition consensus for the groups being compared. The fact that no significant difference exists between the responses of two.groups on a given item does not necessarily mean that each group is in agreement on the item; it may simply mean that similar patterns of dis- agreement exist. Thus to give a more accurate indication of the degree of consensus from a macroscOpic point of view, it was desirable to examine both the interposition and in- traposition dimensions. In the following breakdowns of the $2 role expectation items, the distinction was made between high intraposition consensus (H) and low intraposi- tion consensus (L) by ranking the 52 items for each posi- tion on the basis of the.variance and cutting in the middle; i.e., the 26 items with the lowest variance.scores are con- sidered as having high intraposition consensus while the 26 items with the highest variance scores are considered as having low intraposition consensus. Whether or not a 69 significant difference exists between positions was deter- mined by the Kolmogorov—Smirnov two-sample test, using .05 or lower as the criterion for significance. The classifi- cation of all role expectation items according to consensus within each of the samples and according to whether or not there is a significant degree of disagreement between the directors of marketing research and the superiors follows. Disagreement between H H H L L H L L the two samples dmr s dmr s dmr s dmr s Totals NOnsignificant l9 4 3 20 46 Significant 3 _C_)_ _l_ _g __§_ Totals '27 4 4 22 52 The above table shows that significant differences exist between the directors of marketing research and their superiors on only six (11.5 percent) of the 52 role expec- tation items. Three of the six items represent questions where the variance for both samples is relatively high. 0n only two of the items, therefore, is there a combination of a low variance within the samples and a significant dif- ference representing definite divergence of opinion between the two samples. The dimensions of these differences are discussed later in the chapter. In contrast to the above consensus, the following table shows that significant differences were found between the directors of marketing research and the users of the services.of their department for 17 (32.7 percent) of the 52 items. 70 Disagreement between the two samples Hdmruord {dint-Lord L dmrHord LdmrLord Totals ansignificant. 14 3 3 15 35 Significant __Z_ _:_2_ __g_ ___6_ ll Totals . 21 5 5 21 5 2 In this comparison, as in the above comparison of the directors and their superiors, the sums of the columns show that when the dispersion.of the responses to a given item was fairly high for the marketing research directors, it also tended to be fairly high for the role definers; and when dispersion of answers to an item was low for one group, it also tended to be low for the other group. Again in the analysis of these differences later in the chapter interest will center on those six items where-the variance of responses is relatively low for both groups and a sig- nificant difference between the groups exists. The above discussion raises the question of whether there are significant differences between.the views of the superiors and the other role definers on their expectations concerning the role of the director of marketing research. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test of the significance of the dif- ferences between these two groups of role definers indicates that for the 52 role expectation items none of the differ- ences were significant at the .05 level, thus leading to the conclusion that there is more agreement between the superiors and other role definers on the definition of the role of the director of marketing.research than there is between either of these groups and the occupants of the 71 focal position. Two cautions must be advanced before proceeding with the macroscopic analysis of the data. While the data represent research directors and role definers from 77 large industrial corporations, the number of responses from a given firm varied from one to five. These data have been aggregated into three categories to draw conclusions con- cerning intrapositional and interpositional differences. In regard to the analysis of the interpositional differences, it.might be argued that comparisons should be limited to the paired responses between a given director of marketing research and his role definers. This approach has been rejected since 25 directors of marketing research.are not paired with their superiors and would be eliminated from the analysis of the superior-director of marketing research relationship, while 15 directors would be eliminated from the director of marketing research-other role definer com- parison for the same reason. The effect of this decision to use all the data rather than simply the matched pairs is illustrated in Table l of Appendix II, where the number of significant ' differences discovered by the Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed ranks test is appreciably greater than those computed by the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. The number of items (out of the $2) for which statistically significant differences were found by the two methods of computation are presented in the following table. 72 Number of items showing sig- nificant differences between marketing research directors _. and: guperiors Other role definers All respondents (Kolmogorov- b Smirnov test) 6a 17 Paired respondents: c d Kolmogorov-Smirnov test lc l3d Wilcoxon test 13 35 aIncludes 76 marketing research directors and SO superiors. bIncludes 76 marketing research directors and 138 other role definers. cIncludes 49 marketing research directors and 49 superiors paired from 49 firms. dIncludes S9 marketing research directors and 134 other role definers paired from 59 firms. The discrepancy between the Kolmogorov—Smirnov scores for the different samples is explained by the fact that the score required for significance decreases as the sample sizes increase; thus equal D scores for a given item might test as significant for all respondents and not significant for paired respondents. hnd the fact that the number of significant differences more than doubled when the Wilcoxon test was used indicates a significant lack of agreement between respondents in the same firm. Therefore, the de- cision to use all of the data for the interpositional an- alysis introduces a downward bias in the number of items for which significant differences are reported. The other caution concerns the fact that consider- able consensus exists between the research directors and their role definers on the 52 role expectation items. The 73 following Pearsonian correlation coefficients show the de- gree of association between the mean responses to the 52 items by the three samples and also the similarity in dis- persion as measured by the variance. ’ Correlation coefficients for responses of directors of marketing research and: Measurement §upcriors _' other role definers Means .938 .904 Variance ".785 .775 With this degree of agreement between the occupants of the focal position and their role definers, the differ- ences on most items are quite small-~in most cases less than a .5 difference between the average responses of the groups being compared. Since there are no items.where the marketing research director has taken one point of view and his role definers the Opposite point of view (“absolutely must“ versus "absolutely must not"), the differences to be emphasized typically represent questionnaire items where the modal group from one sample believed that occupants of the focal position "absolutely must" do a certain thing while the modal group from a different sample thought that he "preferably should" do it. In interpreting the data, therefore, the assumption is that significant.differences exist among the various points on the scale. "Absolutely" Gives the connotation of an imperative, while “preferably“ states a preference but gives the occupant of the focal position some latitude in deciding what to do. Thus the nature of the interpositional analysis is to magnify those 74 differences which do exist. And in reading the remainder of this chapter, the fact of general agreement among the respondents to the survey should be remembered. Interposition Analysis The job expectation schedule contains 52 statements concerning the role of the director of marketing research. Similarities can be found among a number of the statements where, in effect, the intention was to investigate a given dimension of the job in different ways. Implicit in this schedule are certain ideas concerning the response of a director of marketing research to an item or group of items compared to the response of his superior and other role definers. These ideas in effect represent the writer's concept of the ways the above individuals look at the di- rector of marketing research position; the ideas can thus be stated in the form of hypotheses to be tested by the responses to a specific item or groups of items. The mean scores and Kolmogorov-Smirnov D values were used to deter- mine the extent to which the data support a given hypoth- esis. It should be made clear that, while statistical data are being used to check the accuracy of these hypotheses, they are not statistical hypotheses in the technical sense. Hypotheses of Interposition Macroscopic Analysis Hypgthesis 1. Directors of marketing research will Place more emphasis than their role definers on the need 75 to maintain an interest in a study after a final report has been submitted. The questionnaire items which are directly or in- directly related to this aspect of the role are presented below along with the mean response of the three groups of respondents. Mean response of: Items D.M.R. Sup. O.R.D. 6. Maintain an active interest in a study until after the recommenda- tions are implemented by management. 1.53 1.66 1.87‘ 15. After a study is completed, accept the judgment of the marketing executive who requested the study as finale 2082 2076 2049 16. Take on temporary line manage- ment responsibilities from time to time to implement his research find- ings if there is no one else in the firm qualified to do so. 2.80 3.30 3.33‘ 31. Report apparent resiStance to the acceptance of marketing research findings to his superior. 2.43 2.06 2.27 33. Consider the job of his depart- ment to be completed when the re- search report has been submitted to 38. Persuade marketing management to accept marketing research find- ings. 1.93 2.40‘ 2.28 50. Check periodically with the executive to whom a report has been submitted to see whether the report is being “sea. 2005 2022 2023 'Responses are significantly different from those 0f the directors of marketing research at the .05 level. While all three respondent groups recognized the 76 need for follow-up, the hypothesis is supported by the di- rection of the average responses to these items. For ex- ample, the modal response of the marketing research directors to question 6 shows that the typical director believed he absolutely must “maintain an active interest in a study until after the recommendations are implemented by manage- ment.“ On the other hand, the modal response of both groups of role definers was "preferably should,” with a statistic- ally significant difference emerging in the comparison of the researchers and users of the department's services. The greatest divergence of opinion occurred on the responses to question 16, where considerable dispersion among the answers of the marketing research directors centered around the modal response that he may or may not "take on temporary line management responsibility from time to time to imple- ment his research findings if there is no one else in the firm qualified to do so." On the other hand, the most prev- alent group of role definers felt that the researcher pref- erably should not take on line responsibilities. On two of the above items, the responses of the superiors deviated from the pattern. The responses to question 31 show that superiors would like feedback when marketing researchers are experiencing resistance to their findings, while ques- tion 38 indicates the superiors' reluctance to have the director ”persuade marketing management to accept market- 1ng research findings." But, in general, all three groups recognized that the job of the marketing research department 77 is not completed when the research report is submitted to management; the average responses of the marketing research directors portray a more active role after the study is-~ completed, as predicted by Hypothesis 1. Hypothesisyg. Directors of marketing research will place more emphasis than their role definers on the profes- sional and methodological aspects of the job. Various professional and methodological dimensions of the role were covered in the following statements. Items 2. Write articles for professional journals in the fields of marketing or research methodology which will be of benefit to marketing research- ers in other business organizations. 8. Critically review past studies to determine whether the methodology might have been improved. 13. Make contributions to the development of marketing theory. 18. Devote part of his time and resources to improving his methodo- logical approach to problems. 23. Have the final say concerning the methodology which will be used on a given study. 30. Include a detailed discussion of research methodology in all marketing research reports. 40. Be able to utilize the most advanced research methods if suffi- cient time and money are available for a particular study. 44. Read most of the professional Journals in his field. Mean response of: D.M.R. 2.77 1.59 2.24 1.71 3.42 1.80 2.17 i.e- 3.00 1.64 2.38 1.62 1.86 3.28 1.74 2.22 O.R.D. 2.91 1.51 2.20 1.75 2.06 3.17 1.60 2.02 ‘1 ‘10. :85! 'F" 47. ex: pm of of the to ff- 78 46. Solicit suggestions concerning research methodology from the market- ing manager who requested the study. 3.25 2.92 2.85“ 47. Use standards of scientific excellence and objectivity as the primary basis to evaluate the work of his department. 2.65 2.35 2.45 "Responses are significantly different from those of the directors of marketing research at the .01 level. These responses show substantial agreement among the marketing research directors and the two samples of role definers on most professional and methodological as- pects of the role. However, the average responses of the three groups are not completely consistent with this hypoth- esis. In the replies to question 30, for example, almost half of the marketing research directors believed that they should not "include a detailed discussion of research meth- odology in all marketing research reports," while the modal group of role definers responded "may or may not” and a substantial group of users responded "preferably should.“ The answers of the occupants of the focal position reflected their awareness of the criticism that marketing researchers hide their findings in technical jargon. The reactions of the samples to question 40 are also inconsistent with Hypothesis 2; the modal group of users thought that the marketing research department "absolutely must be able to Utilize the most advanced research methods if sufficient time and money are available for a particular study,“ while the modal group of researchers occupied the "preferably should" category. A similar pattern of replies to question 79 44 concerning the reading of professional journals indicates that users expect technical competence on the part of the marketing research department. On the other hand, question 60 of the marketing research directors' schedule shows that a substantial number were dissatisfied with the time they have to develop themselves professionally. Further, ques- tion 5 shows that most researchers believed that they should be involved in formulating marketing strategy. Thus a con- flict emerges between the demands of the job in a fast mov- ing competitive environment and the need to continually improve themselves professionally. At least some of the respondents subjugated the need for technical competence to the day-to-day demands of the job. However, item 23 reveals that they were not anxious to share their role in deciding upon research methodology, and only 16 percent of the directors believed that they should be obligated to "solicit suggestions concerning research methodology from the marketing manager who requested the study." But users of the services of the marketing research department disagree with the director on this item; 40 percent indi- cated that their suggestions should be sought. Finally, in response to question 47, a larger proportion of the role definers than of the marketing research directors thought that the latter should "use standards of scientific excel- lence and objectivity as the primary basis to evaluate the work of his department." Thus Hypothesis 2 is not supported by the data. While the differences on all but one of these 80 items are too small to be statistically significant, the researchers seemed less concerned with technical competence than their role definers.. And they did not as a group iden- tify strongly with academic researchers who are interested in developing marketing theory (see items 2 and 13). Hypothesis 3. Directors of marketing research and role definers will be equally concerned about having the researcher understand the problem before beginning the re- search. Mean responses to questions 7 and 25, which are directly concerned with this issue, and questions 45 and 46, which are indirectly related to it, are presented below. Mean respgnse of: Items DeMeRe Sue. OeReDe 7. Become familiar with the objec- tives of management in a given area before beginning a marketing research PrOject in that area. 1.37 1.38 1.31 25. Consult at length with the ex- ecutive requesting a study to make certain he understands the problem before conducting the actual research. 1.33 1.26 1.21 45. Question the soundness of the Objectives which a member of market- ing management may bring to bear on a problem being studied by the mar- 2 38 2 35 keting research department. 2.35 46. Solicit suggestions concerning research methodology from the market- ing manager who requested the study. 3.25 different from those .01 level. 2.92 2.85“ , "Responses are significantly 0f the directors of marketing research at the The data support this hypothesis with the modal groups from all three samples in agreement on the "absolutely 81 must” response for questions 7 and 25, which pertained di- rectly to this facet of the role. Additionally, the major- ity of respondents recognized the right of the marketing researcher to “question the soundness of the objectives which a member of management may bring to bear on a problem being studied by the marketing research department.“ But, as pointed out in the discussion of Hypothesis 2, views diverged on the issue of the researcher seeking suggestions on methodology from management. In general, however, re- searchers and their role definers concurred on the necessity of having the researcher understand the problem before be- ginning a study. Hypgthesis 4. Directors of marketing research will place more importance on their role in formulating market- ing strategy than will their role definers. The following ten items apply to the role of the marketing research department and its director in the de- cision-making process. Mean reopense of: Items ' DeMeRo SUE. OeReDe 3. Measure his performance primarily by the extent to which marketing re- search results are used in decision- making. - . 2000 2035 2036 5. Be involved in formulating marketing strategy for the firm. 1.79 2.14 2.21' 9. Produce information which reduces the area of uncertainty in management decisions. 1.21 1.28 1.39 82 14. Be able to translate marketing" research results into positive courses of action for management to follow. 1.43 2.02“ 2.12" 17. Initiate changes in the marketing strategy of the firm whenever possible. 2.67 2.98 3.38“ 24. Take the initiative in finding ways to improve the marketing efforts of the firm. 1.67 1.94 2.22“ 34. Conduct research for every major marketing decision where a choice must be made between feasible alternative courses of action. 2.89 3.06 3.05 35. Initiate a procedure for bringing marketing problems to the attention of the firm. 1.93 2.18 2.18 42. Serve on committees which formu- late marketing strategies. 1.96 2.18 2.37“ 48. Restrict his activities to doing research and offering advice only when called upon by management. 4.08 3.90 3.82‘ 'Responses are significantly different from those of the directors of marketing research at the .05 level. "Responses are significantly different from those of the directors of marketing research at the .01 level. The average responses to these items substantiate Hypothesis 4 and expose significant differences in the three Perceptions of the role of the marketing research director. ‘While his right “to be involved in formulating marketing strategy for the firm“ is-asserted in the answers of the role definers to question 5, 40 percent of the users had reservations concerning the propriety of his serving "on CQQMittees which formulate marketing strategies“ (item 42) or taking “the initiative in finding ways to improve the marketing efforts of the.firm" (item 24). And only 22 percent 83 of the users subscribe to the stronger phrasing of item 17: "Initiate changes in the marketing strategy of the firm whenever possible.” In addition, item 14 uncovered a re- luctance on the part of 30 percent of the users and 24 per~ cent of the superiors to expect the director of marketing research to “be able to translate marketing research results ‘into positive courses of action for management to follow." Thus many users of the services of the marketing research department and a fair number of the officials to whom the director reported limited his role to the typical staff function, while occupants of the focal position aspire to have a voice in formulating marketing strategy for the firm. hypothesis_§. 0n the questions concerning judgment, role definers will place a greater emphasis on executive judgment than will the directors of marketing research, while the directors will place more emphasis on their own Judgment than will the role definers. ‘Questions 4, lO, 15, and 45 were concerned with executive judgment, while questions 32 and 39 were designed to uncover attitudes concerning the creativity and judgment of the director of marketing research. ‘ Mean response of: Items D.M.R. Sup. 0.8.0. 4. Realize that he does not have a monopoly on information which is relevant to a particular decision. _ 1.47 1.39 1.50 10. Recognize the value of executive indgnent in decision making. 1.14 1.54‘ 1.38 84 15. After a study is completed, accept the judgment of the marketing executive amp requested the study as final. 2.82 2.76 2.49 32. Be creative as well as objective in analyzing the results of a marketing research study. 1.59 1.80 2.02“ 39. Make recommendations for action based on his own judgment as well as marketing research findings. 2.12 2.58 2.56' 45. Question the soundness of the objectives which a member of marketing management may bring to bear on a problem being studied by the marketing research department. 2.35 2.38' 2.35 ’Responses are significantly different from those of the directors of marketing research at the .05 level. “Responses are significantly different from those of the directors of marketing research at the .01 level. Hypothesis 5 is supported in part, since responses to items 32 and 39 disclose significant differences between the users and the researchers concerning the value of the judgment and creativity which the marketing researcher may employ in his work; the views of the superiors are between those of the other samples. But the half of the hypothesis concerning executive judgment is left in doubt by the rela- tively small differences in the responses to item 4 and the fact that both samples of role definers were less force- ful in prescribing the need for the director of marketing research to "recognize the value of executive judgment in decision making" in responding to item 10. This may mean that a substantial minority of the role definers feel that the activities of the marketing research department should not be restricted by executive judgment. The researchers, on is [I ] IIII ‘ 1 85 on the other hand, readily admit that their information is only one input in the decision-making process and that executive judgment is also important. While these represent different interpretations of.statement 14, the responses show that the role definers do not place a greater emphasis than the marketing research directors on executive judgment; thus the first part of Hypothesis 5 is not supported. * Hypothesis 6. Role definers will be more concerned than the directors of marketing research with getting the research results in time. Questions 12 and 41 deal with the relationship be- tween timing and accurate information, while item 22 con- cerns planning to meet the future information needs of man- agement. Mean response of: Items D.M.R. Sup. O.R.D. 12. Offer early indications of find- ings to management when requested even though a conclusive investiga- tion may prove them to be wrong. 2.84 2.58 2.67 22. Anticipate future decisions and have information ready when requested by management. 1088 2038. 2.35.. 41. Furnish marketing research re- sults at the time requested regard- less of whether he has sufficient information to feel confident of its validity. 3.63 3.80 3.93 'Responses are significantly different from those 'of the directors of marketing research at the .05 level. ‘°Responses are significantly different from those of the directors of marketing research at the .01 level. C99. Hi' on pr 86 The above averages are misleading for item 12 be- cause the distributions of the answers of the marketing research directors and their superiors are almost bimodal, with large groups in both the “preferably should" and “pref- erably should not“ categories. The modal group of users, on the other hand, thought the director of marketing research preferably should “offer early indications of findings to management when requested even though a conclusive investi- gation may prove them to be wrong." While the differences between the samples are not statistically significant, the high dispersion within the samples proves there is no agree- ment on this item. The variation is somewhat less among the answers to question 46, with 60 percent of the research- ers and 70 percent of the users designating a "preferably should not“ or "absolutely must not“ answer. The lower mean response for the researchers as compared with the higher average score for item 12 indicates that some re— searchers may be consigned to meeting deadlines even if they are reluctant to offer early indications of findings. The existence of a ”timing" issue is illustrated further in the.responses of the marketing research directors to item 63, where more than one-fourth were dissatisfied with “the time deadlines which are placed on marketing research activities“ and the responses to item 55 of the role de- finer's schedule, which reveals that almost one-fourth of the users were dissatisfied.with the "timing of marketing research.reports.“ A possible solution to this problem, 65 565 de: wel C0 Ha 87 as suggested in item 22, was favored by 90 percent of the researcher sample, but less than 65 percent of the role definers. With these indications of interpositional as well as intrapositional disagreement, the timing of market~ ing.research reports is definitely an area of conflict; however, the hypothesis that role definers will be more concerned than the directors of marketing research with getting the research results in time is not supported. many researchers were aware of this criticism of their serv- ice and realized that if they are to play a role in decision making, the information must be furnished in time. However, their ability to do this is dependent upon their receiving a request for information in time, as discussed in the next hypothesis. Hypothesis 7. Directors of marketing research will be more concerned than their role definers about having a procedure to bring major decisions to the marketing re- search department. The mean responses of the marketing research direc- tors and the two groups of role definers are presented below for the four items concerned with this hypothesis. mean response of: Items DeMeRe SUE. OeReDo 22. Anticipate future decisions and have information ready , when reques ted by management. 1988 2038. 2035‘. 29. Request permission from a member 0f marketing management before initiat- ing a study concerning his operation. 2.24 2.26 1.89 88 35. Initiate a procedure for bringing marketing problems to the attention Of his department. 1093 2018 2018 37. Get approval from his superior for all research studies undertaken by his department. - 2.97 2.41 2.28‘ 'Responses are significantly different from those of the directors of marketing research at the .05 level. "Responses are significantly different from those of the directors of marketing research at the .01 level. Pertaining directly to this aspect of the role, item 35 shows fair agreement among the.three samples, with the modal group from each responding that the director of marketing research preferably should "initiate a procedure for bringing marketing problems to the attention of his department." The means show, of course, that the market- ing researchers were somewhat stronger in their desires for such a procedure. And as pointed out in the discussion of Hypothesis 6, a number of superiors and users were re- luctant to have the researcher "anticipate future decisions and have information ready when requested," although the modal group from this sample feels he should. The need to maintain control over this staff department was the topic of items 22 and 37. While the modal group of researchers were ambivalent concerning the need to get their superiors' approval before starting a research study, the responses 0f both groups of role definers were scattered over the first three points on the scale. Thus no clear-cut role expectation emerged from this item; however, the direction of the responses is consistent with the emerging pattern 89 of directors who want greater freedom of operation for their departments. The responses to question 29 show that super- iors and researchers are in agreement that the researcher preferably should "request.permission from a member of mar- keting management before initiating a study concerning his operation,” while a larger proportion of the users consider this to be imperative. So the relatively small differences that exist on these items support the hypothesis that di- . rectors of marketing research will be more concerned than their role definers about having a procedure to bring major decisions to the marketing research department. Hypothesis 8. Directors of marketing research will place greater emphasis on maintaining their objectivity than will their role definers. Since it is an axiom that researchers should be objective, it was necessary to measure this aspect of role by constructing the following statements about some causes and effects of objectivity. - Mean responses of: Items DeMeRe SUE. OeReD. 19. Provide information to support decisions which have already been made by a marketing executive. 3.07 3.10 3.14 20. Resist involvement in policy making to maintain his objective approach to problems. 3.79 3.18‘ 2.90" 21. Withhold certain marketing research information when it is - expedient to do 50. 4.04 4.20 4.41" of 90 28. Give his frank opinion to market- ing executives even if it will hurt their position in the firm. 1.97 1.88 1.78 52. Separate himself from the day- to-day operations of the marketing department to protect his objectivity in approaching problems. 3.29 3.14 3.03 'Responses are significantly different from those of the directors of marketing research at the .05 level. "Responses are significantly different from those of the directors of marketing research at the .01 level. When presented with these alternatives, researchers were not nearly as concerned with objectivity as the hypoth- esis suggested. The modal group of researchers differed from that of the role definers in saying that the director of marketing research preferably should not "resist involve- ment in policy making to maintain his objective approach to problems" (item 20), and 52 percent of the researchers believed that it is not apprOpriate for a director to "sep- arate himself from the day-to-day operations of the market- ing department to protect his objectivity in approaching problems“ (item 52). Accordingly, many research directors are rejecting the "ivory-tower" approach if it is required to maintain objectivity. 0n the other hand, a truly objec- tive researcher would “let the chips fall where they may." The responses to questions 19,21, and 28 reveal that market- ing research directors were more willing than their role definers to see occupants of the focal position occasion- ally do the expedient thing to maintain a favorable rela- tionship with management, thus sacrificing their reputation f0. sh f0 0C tn 91 for objectivity. Therefore, the responses to all five items show that role definers placed greater emphasis on the need for researchers to maintain their objectivity than did the occupants of the focal position. While this hypothesis is not supported, the apparent conflict is not a crucial one; practically all of the role definers were satisfied with the ”objectivity of the marketing research department“ (item 60), and all but 4 of the 76 researchers were satis- fied with the extent to which they are able to pursue re- search studies objectively (item 53). Hypothesis 9. With regard to evaluation of the marketing research department, directors of marketing re- search will place heavier emphasis on scientific excellence than will the role definers, while role definers will be more concerned with the data's usefulness than will the marketing research directors. Questions 3 and 11 were concerned with the contri- bution of marketing research to the firm, while question 47 posed the criterion of scientific excellence. Mean responses of: Items DeMeRe S E. OeReDe 3. Measure his performance primarily by the extent to which marketing re- search results are used in decision- making. 2.00 2035 2036 11. Be responsible for showing the contribution of marketing research to the profitability of the firm. 2.11 2.54 2.37 47. Use standards of scientific ex- .cellence and objectivity as the primary basis to evaluate the work of his department. 2.65 2.35 2.45 92 Although none of the differences in the responses to these three items are statistically significant, the hypothesis is not supported by the trends of the answers. And, in effect, directors of marketing research believed their departments should be evaluated more on the basis of their contributions to decision making than on the cri- teria of scientific excellence and objectivity. This is consistent with the rejections of Hypothesis 2 dealing with professional and methodological aspects of the role and Hypothesis 8 concerning objectivity. The strong need again emerges for the researchers to have their departments play a role in the decision-making process. Areas of Potential Role Conflict To continue the interpositional analysis, an exam- ination of the role expectation items on which there is significant agreement within the samples but significant disagreement between the samples (for example: LdmrLs’ Significant) will identify some areas of potential role conflict. Only items 10 and 14 were included in this cate— gory for the comparison of the responses of all the direc- tors of marketing research and the superiors.4 Item 14 shows that the modal group of researchers reported they 4When using 49 pairs of marketing research directors and their superiors from the same firms and the Wilcoxon test of significance, the following five items were included igdtgg Li Ls’ Significant category: items 1, 2, 10, 14, 93 absolutely must “be able to translate marketing research results into positive courses of action for management to fellow," while the modal group of superiors answered "pref- erably should" to this item. In response to item 10, the modal groups for both samples believed that the director of marketing research absolutely must “recognize the value of executive judgment in decision making.“ But 17 of the 50 superiors were in the "preferably should" category on this item and five circled “may or may not.“ Thus the larg- est difference between the definitions of the role by these two groups revolves around the relationship between the marketing researcher and the decision maker. The research- ers looked upon themselves as active participants in the decision-making process who are able to come up with posi- tive courses of action which an executive may or may not accept. Many superiors, on the other hand, seemed concerned that the marketing research department preserve its staff status and objectively present facts as they see them. Since it is then up to the executive to take these facts and.make the decision, the researchers, according to the suPeriors, must not be overly concerned with executive judg- ment. The marketing research directors and the users of their services disagreed on six items on which there was 5 substantial intrapositional consensus. As in the L‘ sWhen pairing the 59 marketing research directors with the 134 users.from the same firms, and using the 94 disagreement with the superiors, the conflict revolves around the extent to which the marketing research department should go beyond the traditional prerogatives of a staff depart- ment. Items 5 and 42, for example, indicate that many users do not believe it is necessary for researchers to partici- pate in formulating marketing strategy. There was also reluctance to have the research department expand its score of operations by anticipating future decisions and having information ready when requested by management (item 22) or enlarging the marketing research function by moving into other areas of the firm where the capabilities of the de- partment can be used (item 43). In addition, only 38 per- cent of the users believed the director of marketing research absolutely must “help management define the problems to be studied" (item 1), and only 30 percent thought he abso- lutely must ”maintain an active interest in a given study until after the recommendations are implemented by manage- ment“ (item 6). Thus the users asserted their decision- making authority and limited the role of the marketing re- search department, while the directors believed-the roles of their departments should be expanded. This conclusion is supported by the finding that 20 percent of the marketp ing research directors are dissatisfied with the extent to which the capabilities of their departments are being L Wilcoxon test of significance, the following 13 items were included in the LmLord: Significant category: items 1. 2, 5, 6, 9, 10, 22, 35, 42, 43, 44, 50, and 51. 95 used by their firms (item 68), while less than 20 percent reported being very well satisfied with this criterion. Areas aflole Ambiguity Role analysis is concerned with role ambiguity as well as role conflict. Symptoms of role ambiguity include a high variance among the answers of respondents and a pro- pensity for a bimodal distribution or for responses to cen- ter around the “may or may not" point on the scale. The following five items met these criteria for all three sam-. ples and represent the areas of greatest role ambiguity uncovered by the questionnaire. I 12. Offer early indications of findings to management when requested even though a conclusive investigation may prove them to be wrong. 19. Provide information to support decisions which have already been made-by a marketing executive. 37. Get approval from his superior for all research studies undertaken by his department. 47. Use standards of scientific excellence and objec- tivity as the primary basis to evaluate the work of his department. ' 52. Separate himself from the day-to-day operations of the marketing department to protect his objectivity in approaching problems. There are three additional items where the role definers varied their responses enough to produce uncer- tainty on an occupant of the focal position who is trying to define his role. 17. Initiate changes in the marketing strategy of the firm whenever possible. 20. Resist involvement in policy making to maintain his objective approach to problems. of ‘2 {C 96 49. Have the final say in committing corporate funds for the services of outside marketing research agencies. These eight items cover many dimensions of the role of the director of marketing research and show that ambi- guity as well as conflict exists in the definition of this role. Questions 37 and 49, for example, pertain to his relationship with his superior and the extent of the direc- tor's formal authority. Question 12 reveals predictable ambiguity on the timing issue.while items 20, 27, and 52 apply to the issue of objectivity that was discussed pre- viously. And item 17 shows that the role definers disagree about the amount of initiative the marketing research de- partment should take. Finally, ambiguity in the role of the marketing research director is caused by the political issue of providing information to support decisions which have already been made by a marketing executive (item 19). Intrapgsition Analysis To conclude the analysis of the role expectation items, the intrapositional analysis will emphasize the ac— tivities which most of the members of a given sample agree that the director of marketing research must do. Examina- tion of these items for all three samples gives a positive expression of the expectations which the majority of the members of a sample hold for the occupant of the focal.posi- tion. Looking first at the director of marketing research sample, the following eight items are listed in descending order of the mean responses with the range from a mean of 97 1.14 for item 10 to 1.41 for item l. 10. Recognize the value of executive judgment in de- cision-making. . 27. Place strong emphasis on the understandability of the final report. 9. Produce information which reduces the area of un- certainty in management decisions. 25. Consult at length with the executive requesting a study to make certain he understands the problem be- fore conducting the actual research. 6. Maintain an active interest in a given study until after the recommendations are implemented by management. 7. Become familiar with the objectives of management in a given area before beginning a marketing research project in that area. 14. Be able to translate marketing research results into positive courses of action for management to follow. 1. Help management define the problems to be studied. Since most of the 76 directors of marketing research are in agreement that these are aspects of the role which the occupant of the focal position must fulfill, the list produces this profile of necessary dimensions of that role. The director of marketing research must understand the ob- Jectives of management in a problem area and participate in clearly defining the problem to be studied. The purpose Of the information provided by his department is to reduce the area of uncertainty in management decisions; thus re- sults of a marketing research study must be translated into POsitive courses of action and clearly presented to manage- ment. wh11. he must recognize the value of executive judg- ment in decision making, he must also have the right of {I 98 followdup after a study to see that the recommendations are being used by management. The dimensions of the role which are not included in this profile aid in understanding the sentiments of this group of respondents. The above list of eight items makes no mention of methodology, professional considerations, timing of research reports, creativity or judgment of the researcher, political considerations, marketing strategy, or evaluation of the marketing research department. These represent the areas of disagreement and ambiguity among occupants of the focal position in large industrial firms. The replies from the role definers showed greater dispersion than the answers from the marketing research directors. Thus fewer items of intrapositional agreement were found. For the 50 superiors, a large preportion of the respondents agreed that the director of marketing re- search absolutely must meet the following role expectations. For the six items the means ranged from 1.24 for item 27 to 1.54 for item 10. 27. Place strong emphasis on the understandability of the final report. 25. Consult at length with the executive requesting a study to make certain he understands the problem be- fore conducting the actual research. 9. Produce information which reduces the area of un- certainty in management decisions. 7. Become familiar with the objectives of management in a given area before beginning a research project in that area. 99 36. Be responsible for all contract marketing research conducted by outside research firms. lO. Recognize the value of executive judgment in de- cision making. Five of these six items also were included on the list derived from the responses of the marketing research directors. Item 36 was not on that list because there was a divergence of opinions among marketing research directors concerning the necessity of their being responsible for contract research conducted by outside firms. And the two items which appear on the researchers' list'but not on the superiors' list pertained to suggesting positiveicourses of action to management and maintaining interest in studies after submitting the final report. Thus researchers and superiors agree on the role of the marketing research di- rectors up to the point of preparing the final report. Most of the other role definers agreed that the following five items must be expected from an occupant of the focal position; the mean scores ranged from 1.21 to 1.51. 25. Consult at length with the executive requesting a study to make certain he understands the problem be- fore conducting the actual research. 27. Place strong emphasis on the understandability of the final report. 7. Become familiar with the objectives of management in a given area before beginning a research project in that area. 10. Recognize the value of executive judgment in de- cision-making. 9. Produce information which reduces the area of un- certainty in management decisions. 100 Although there are fewer items of agreement for this sample of users, the items coincide with items on the other two lists, indicating that there is basic agreement in these firms that the job of the director of marketing research is to produce information that reduces the area of uncertainty in decision-making. Also, he must understand the objectives of management and the problems to be studied, be able to communicate his findings to management, and re- alize that executive judgment is an important ingredient in the decision-making process. Beyond this core of agree- ment, however, the interpositional analysis shows that sig- 'nificant areas of disagreement exist among the samples of role definers. Job Satisfaction o§_Marketing Research Directors Items 53 through 68 of the director of marketing research schedule concern the degree to which directors of marketing research were satisfied with various aspects of their jobs (see Table 2 of Appendix II for the distri- butions of responses). The average satisfaction score for the 16 items is 1.9, meaning that the 76 respondents as a group were slightly better than ”fairly well satisfied” with their roles. To appreciate the dispersion behind this average, the 16 items, ranked from highest to lowest sat- isfaction, are presented below with the mean responses and the variance.for the 76 directors of marketing research. 101 Job satisfaction items 53. The extent to which we are able to ymmsue research studies objectively. 62. The support I receive from my superior and other high level executives. 64. My freedom to follow up reports to see whether they are being used by man- agement. 65. The open-mindedness of executives to marketing research findings. 59. The extent to which marketing ex- ecutives are receptive to honest opinions on all subjects. 61. The extent to which I can help de- fine the problems to be studied by my department. 67. Management's attitude concerning the value of marketing research. 58. The amount of contact I have with marketing executives. 54. Acceptance of marketing research results by management. 66. The location of the marketing re- search department in the corporate organization structure. 57. The budget I have to run my depart- ment. 68. 'The extent to which the capabilities of my department are being used by the firm. 63. The time deadlines which are placed on marketing research activities. 56. The part I play in formulating marketing strategy . 55. The procedure for bringing problems to the marketing research department. 60. The time I have available to improve myself professionally. Mean. Variance 1.58 1.59 1.62 1.75 1.76 1.78 1.79 1.80 1.82 1.91 1.97 2.08 2.11 2.25 2.28 2.46 .43 .59 .56 .46 .58 .60 .65 .80 .45 .94 .72 .61 .55 .65 .55 .84 fi '1‘ 102 For a marketing research department to be success- ful, it must develop working relationships with many indi- viduals in the corporation while maintaining a degree of independence to objectively pursue research studies. The first ten items on the above list pertain to various formal and informal relationships that must be developed to inte- grate smoothly the marketing research department into the organizational framework of the firm. The fact that the mean scores for these ten items are less than or equal to the average response of 1.9 for all 16 items indicates that marketing research directors on the whole are fairly well satisfied or very well satisfied with their relationships with other individuals in the firm. With the exception of items 58 and 66, where the variance of scores is rela- tively high, less than one director out of seven was dis- satisfied with these aspects of their associations with other individuals or groups in their firms. Specifically, the modal groups of respondents were very well satisfied with the ability of their departments to pursue research studies objectively, the support they received from their superiors and other high level executives, and their free- dom to follow up reports. Also, the modal groups were fairly well satisfied with the openpmindedness of executives to marketing research findings, the extent to which marketing executives are receptive to honest opinions on all subjects, the extent to which they are able to help define the prob- lems to be studied by their departments, management's. 103 attitude concerning the value of marketing research, and the acceptance of marketing research.results by management. While the modal group of respondents also reported being very well satisfied with the amount of contact they have with marketing executives, 18 percent of the directors were dissatisfied with this aspect of their role. However, only one of the 14 directors who report to top management or another high general management official was dissatis- fied with his contacts with marketing executives, while 20 percent of the 55 research directors who report to a marketing official were dissatisfied with this dimension of their role. This breakdown suggests that researchers who report to a line management official outside the mar- keting department maintain a peer relationship with market- ing officials while research directors located in the mar- keting department hold more of a subordinate status. The peer relationship would be desirable for the researcher to achieve his desired role of participant in the formula- tion of marketing strategy. The modal group of researchers also were very well satisfied with the location of the marketing research de- partment in the corporate organization structure; but 20 percent of the respondents were not satisfied with this formalized relationship. Of the 16 dissatiSfied directors, none reported to top management, one reported to a divisional vice-president, five reported to a line marketing official, 5% Ni 104 seven reported to a staff marketing official, two reported to commercial development officials, and one reported to the financial vice-president. For these 76 firms, there- fore, marketing research directors who reported to top man- agement or a high general management official were better satisfied with this organizational arrangement than the marketing research directors who fell organizationally in the marketing department. Only two of the six items at the bottom of the above list of satisfaction items pertain to relationships. While the modal group of marketing research directors were fairly well satisfied with the part they play in formulating mar- keting strategy, almost 35 percent reported that they were dissatisfied with this aspect of their role. More than one-third of the directors were dissatisfied with the pro- cedure for bringing problems to their departments, while only nine of the 76 respondents were very well satisfied with this procedure. These findings are consistent because marketing research directors cannot play an active role in formulating marketing strategy if important marketing Problems are not brought to the attention of their depart- ment. Items 57, 60, and 63 apply to the resources of time and money that are necessary to successfully manage a mar- keting research department. Twenty percent of the market- ing research directors were dissatisfied with their depart- ment budgets and almost 30 percent were dissatisfied with 105 the time deadlines placed on marketing research activities, with 46 percent of the respondents indicating dissatisfac- tion with the time they have available to improve themselves professionally. The greatest indication of problems with time and budgets was found in the newer marketing research departments. Sixty percent of the directors of the 36 de- partments that have been established for 12 years or more were satisfied with their time deadlines, while only 35 percent of the directors of the 17 departments that have been in existence for less than six years were satisfied with the deadlines placed on their research activities. The same trend was found in the relationship between the age of the marketing research departments and the directors' satisfaction with the time they have to improve themselves professionally. In a similar vein, 86 percent of the di- rectors of the 36 oldest departments were satisfied with their budgets while only 65 percent of the directors of the 17 newest departments reported being satisfied with their budgets. These correlations imply that the proper allocation of time and financial resources improves as executives gain experience with the use of a marketing research department. Finally, the modal group of marketing research directors was fairly well satisfied with the extent to which the capabilities of their departments were being used by their firms, with somewhat less than 20 percent being very well satisfied and about 20 percent indicating 106 dissatisfaction. This item symbolizes the frustration of a minority of the respondents who envision larger roles for their departments than have been realized. A cross- tabulation of the responses to this item with the reporting patterns of the directors indicates that all 14 directors who reported to top management or to a high general manage- ment official were satisfied with the use of their depart- ments' capabilities, while one-fourth of the directors who reported to a marketing official were dissatisfied. Although the sample is small, the relationship between satisfaction of the director of marketing research_and their reporting pattern is clear. Research directors who reported to top management or another general management official were better satisfied with their contributions to the firm than were those directors who reported to a marketing official. Berceived Effectiveness of the MarketingyResearch Department To ascertain the role definers' perceptions of the effectiveness of the marketing research department, Sections 11 and III of their schedule contained statements concern- ing different aspects of the job of the marketing research department (distributions of responses to these items are presented in Tables 3 and 4 of Appendix II). Although a different scale was employed in each section, maximum sat- isfaction with the effectiveness of the marketing research department would have been registered by recording a "l“ for every statement, except 67 and 70, where a response 107 of "4" designated maximum satisfaction. To calculate an average satisfaction score over all 18 items for all respond- ents, the actual responses for items 67 and 70 were subtracted from S to bring these negative items into agreement with the other effectiveness items. Following this procedure, the average effectiveness score for the superiors was 1.75 and the average score for the role definers was 1.86. With the exception of item 54, the mean responses of the super- iors were slightly lower than the mean responses for the other role definers for all items; but the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test disclosed that none of these differences were statis- tically significant. Since the differences between the responses of the superiors and the users were too small to be statistically significant at the .05 level, the discussion of perceived effectiveness treats all role definers as a group. The ten items in Section II of the questionnaire covered various dimensions of the marketing researcher's role; these state- ments, the mean responses, and variances are presented below in descending order of satisfaction. Perceived effectiveness items (Section II) __ Mean Variance -_—_‘ 60. Objectivity of marketing research department. 1‘56 ‘ .39 56. Marketing research department'8 33 understanding of problems studied. 1-53 ' . etin 54 Understandability of mark 9 1.68 .40 research reports. 108 53. The value of marketing research information. 1.70 .41 58. Proper use of research methodology. 1.74 .39 61. Soundness of recommendations. 1.78 .36 59. Relevance of marketing research data to decisions. 1.81 .32 57. Return on investment in marketing resaarChe 1.85 e48 62. Creativity of marketing research department. 2.06 .52 55. Timing of marketing research reports. 2.11 .55 The ”objectivity of the marketing research depart- ment” is the only one of the above items with which the modal group of respondents was very well satisfied; just nine users and one superior reported being dissatisfied with this aspect of the performance of the role. However, the modal groups of role definers were fairly well satis- fied with the work of the marketing research department on the remaining nine items. Moreover, less than ten per- cent of the respondents were dissatisfied with the market- ing research departments' understanding of problems studied, the value of their information, their use of research meth- odology, the soundness of their recommendations, and the relevance of marketing research data to decisions. The greatest dissatisfaction was recorded for the last three items, with 14 percent of the respondents being dissatis- fied with the return on investment in marketing research, and almost 23 percent registering dissatisfaction with the ti of 109 timing of marketing research reports. Almost 25 percent of the respondents indicated that they were dissatisfied with the creativity of the marketing research department. Thus, out of the ten dimensions of the job of the marketing research department which were included in Section II of the role definers' schedule, the superiors and users were most satisfied with the objectivity of the marketing research departments and were most dissatisfied with their creativity. The items in Section III were designed to ascertain the respondents' degree of agreement, with eight statements about the effectiveness of the marketing research depart- ment in their firms. These items are listed below in des- cending order of perceived effectiveness, which is also ascending order of the mean scores when the responses to items 67 and 70 are subtracted from five. fierceived effectiveness items (Section II;1_Mean Variance 70. Much of the data which the marketing research department comes up with I know from experience cannot be true. 3.59 .49 69. I have as much confidence in the results of studies by our marketing re- search department as I do in the results of studies by outside research firms. 1.45 .39 66. A business as complex as this one would have a difficult time operating without the marketing research department. 1.58 .57 64. We would have made some very bad mistakes if we would not have had the marketing research department. 1.94 .70 67. If we had no marketing research de- Partment, our decisions would have been about the same. 3.00 .56 110 68. The marketing research function is a well integrated part of the marketing activity of the firm. 2.02 .88 65. The marketing research department plays an important part in initiating changes in the marketing strategies of the firm. 2.16 .82 63. The marketing research department often comes up with valuable alternative courses of action which were never before considered by management. 2.49 .65 Almost 70 percent of the role definers disagreed strongly with the statement that "much of the data which the marketing research department comes up with I know from experience cannot be true." Sixty-two percent of the re- spondents agreed strongly that they have as much confidence in the results of studies by their marketing research de- partments as they do in the results of studies by outside research firms. These results correlate with the order of effectiveness items in Section II and prompt the broader conclusion that most role definers are confident that the marketing research department in their firms does objective work and the data it provides are valid and accurate. Item 66 shows that the modal group of respondents agreed strongly with the statement that a business as com- plex as this one would have a difficult time operating with. out the marketing research department. However, about one- fourth of the role definers disagreed with the idea that some bad mistakes would have been made if they had not had the marketing research department, while the same propor- tion agreed that without a marketing research department, 111 their decisions would have been about the same. This is consistent with the finding that 30 percent of the role definers thought the marketing research department was not a well-integrated part of the marketing activity of their firms. Again the location of items 65 and 63 at the bottom of this list is compatible with the earlier conclusion that a substantial minority of the respondents are dissatisfied with the creativity of the marketing research department. Almost 33 percent of the role definers did not agree that "the marketing research department plays an important part in initiating changes in the marketing strategies of the firm.“ And less than eight percent agreed strongly with the statement that ”the marketing research department often. comes up with valuable alternative courses of action which were never before considered by management,” while 44 per- cent of the respondents expressed disagreement with this statement. Two classification items on the role definer's sched- ule revealed differences in the responses of subsanples to the perceived effectiveness items. Seventy-two respond- ents who were concerned primarily with consumer goods in their work gave the marketing research department an average effectiveness score of 1.76 for the 18 items; but the aver- age effectiveness score for the 67 respondents who were concerned primarily with non-consumer goods was 1.96. For the items in Section II of the questionnaire, the largest differences between the responses of the two subsanples 112 showed that the non-consumer group was less satisfied with the marketing research department's understanding of prob- 1ems studied, with the relevance of marketing research data to decisions, and with the soundness of its recommendations. While 81 percent of the consumer goods respondents indicated that ”the marketing research department is a well integrated part of the marketing activity of the firm,” only 51 per— cent of the non-consumer goods role definers subscribed to this statement. A similar divergence of opinion occurred for statement 66, where 97 percent of the consumer goods respondents and 76 percent of the non-consumer goods role definers agreed that ”a business as complex as this one would have a difficult time operating without the market- ing research department." Since the survey of the Fortune 500 firms revealed that marketing research departments are as widespread in producers of non-consumer goods as they are in producers of consumer goods, it is important to note that these departments were rated as somewhat less effec- tive by role definers who are concerned primarily with non- consumer goods in their work. The other significant breakdown of the effective- ness items revealed that 40 role definers with marketing research experience perceived the marketing research depart- ments to be less effective than their counterparts who have never worked in marketing research. Over the 18 items, the average effectiveness score of the subsample with mar- keting research experience was 1.93, compared with 1.80 113 for the subsample without that experience. Members of the former group were particularly critical of the clarity of marketing research reports, the marketing research depart- ments' understanding of the problems studied, and the cre- ativity of the marketing research departments. Twenty-two percent of them were dissatisfied with the return on invest- ment in marketing research, compared with 11 percent of the respondents without marketing research experience. Additionally, 37 percent of the marketing research expe- rience subsample agreed with the statement that "if we had no marketing research department, our decisions would have been about the same,” while 25 percent of the other subsample supported this statement. One interpretation of these re- sults is that these 40 role definers who have worked in a marketing research department recognize its shortcomings- to a greater extent than someone who has never worked in marketing research. Nevertheless, they are prescribing higher standards for the work of marketing research depart- ments; thus the influx of individuals with marketing research experience into positions with decision-making responsibility should provide a force to upgrade the work of marketing research departments. 90m2arison of Effectiveness and Satisfaction Responses While most of the items in the satisfaction section Of the director of marketing research schedule are not di- rectly comparable to the effectiveness items on the role 114 definer's schedule, comparisons are possible where items from the different schedules deal with the same subject. The most striking comparison is the similarity of items with low and high mean scores for the two groups of respond- ents. Specifically, the directors of marketing research were well satisfied with their ability to conduct research studies objectively and the role definers were well satis- fied with the objectivity of the marketing research depart- ments. At the other extreme, many occupants of the focal position and many role definers expressed dissatisfaction with the timing dimension. Also, many marketing research directors were dissatisfied with the part they played in formulating marketing strategy, and many role definers ex- pressed disagreement with the statement that "the market- ing research department plays an important part in-initi- ating changes in the marketing strategies of the firm.” The location of the marketing research department in the corporate organization structure contributes to the successful fulfillment of its role. The information col- lected from the marketing research directors suggests that directors who reported to top management or some other high level management official were better satisfied with their location in the corporate organizational structure than their counterparts who report to marketing management. In response to statement 68, the role definers recorded the extent of their agreement with the statement that "the marketing research function is a well integrated part of :01 51 ke is 115 the marketing activity of the firm.” The responses of 55 role definers who disagreed with this statement were clas- sified according to the organizational location of the mar- keting research departments in their firms. This breakdown is compared in the following table with the organizational location of the marketing research departments in the 67 firms from which at least one role definer's questionnaire was received to determine what deviations occurred from the frequencies which would be expected if there were no relationship between the organizational location of the marketing research department and role definers' agreement with item 68. Reporting pattern All firms with Role definers of director of role definer who disagreed marketing_research respondents with item 68 Top management 10.5% 12.7% Other general management 10.5 14.5 Marketing line management 34.3 20.0 Harketing staff management 35.8 40.0 Research, development, or planning management 5.9 5.5 Financial management 3.0 7.3 Total 100.0? 100.03 Base 67 55 Although the bases are different and the data are not strictly comparable, it does suggest that marketing research departments that report to top management, other general management, or financial management are not consid- ered by the role definers to be as well integrated in their firms as those departments which are located in the market- ing department. Research departments whose directors re- Port to a line marketing management official were considered to dei it! C0 116 to be the best integrated since the responses of these role definers demonstrated a relatively small disagreement with item 68. These data are not congruent with the earlier conclusion that marketing research directors who report to high level general management officials are better sat- isfied with their contributions to the firm than were those directors who reported to a marketing official. This lack of agreement suggests that marketing research directors aspire to the status which comes from reporting to a high level official, while many role definers feel that the mar- keting research departments are better integrated in the organization of the firm if their directors report to a marketing line official such as the marketing vice-president. Summary The responses of 76 marketing research directors, 50 superiors, and 138 other role definers revealed a high degree of consensus on the role of the director of market- ing research in large industrial firms. There was little disagreement that the job of the director of marketing re- search is to produce information that reduces the area of uncertainty in decision—making. Also, he must understand the objectives of management and the problems to be studied, be able to communicate his findings to management, and re- alize that executive judgment is an important ingredient in the decision-making process. However, certain areas of role ambiguity and role conflict were discovered. ’ 117 Specifically, there is ambiguity concerning the formal author- ity of the director of marketing research and his relation- ship to his superior, the desirability of meeting deadlines if he is not certain of the validity of his data, the price which the director of marketing research should pay to main .tain his objectivity, and whether or hot to participate in certain "politically expedient” activities. The greatest conflict revolved around the extent to which the marketing research directors should go beyond the typical staff pre- rogatives and actively participate in formulating marketing strategy for the firm. 0f nine hypotheses concerning re- sponses of marketing research directors and their role de- finers to specific items, four were supported, one was sup- ported in part, and four were not supported by the data. When considered as groups, the marketing research directors were satisfied with the aspects of their jobs covered in the questionnaire and their role definers be- lieved they are doing effective jobs. However, average satisfaction and effectiveness scores varied from item to item and a significant number of research directors were dissatisfied with the part they play in formulating market~ ing strategy, the procedure for bringing problems to their departments, and the availability of time to improve them- selves professionally. The role definers were dissatisfied most with the creativity of the marketing research depart- ments and the timing of marketing research reports. CHAPTER V MICROSCOPIC ROLE ANALYSIS Microscopic analysis, as the name implies, concerns the relationship between consensus, satisfaction, effective- ness, and other variables in a single firm. To be included in the microscopic analysis, completed schedules were needed from the director of marketing research and three or feur role definers in the same firm. Returns from 42 firms com- prised the sample for the microscopic analysis. While these 42 firms do not differ substantially from the 35 firms which are excluded from this part of the analysis, there are two differences worth noting. The 42 firms were more heavily weighted toward consumer goods pro- ducers than the total number of respondents as illustrated in the following figures. Microscopic analysis: groduct category_ Firms included Firms excluded Consumer goods 33.3% 17.1% Non-consumer goods 40-5 57.1 Heavy commitment to both types of products 26-2 25.7 Base 42 35 Also, 29 of the 42 firms included in the microscopic analysis report to a marketing official and another nine report to an engineering, research, or development official 118 uhi re; in [:1 119 while only two of these directors of marketing research report to top management or other general management of the firm; a comparison follows of the reporting patterns in firms excluded from this analysis. Hicrosco ic anal sis: Report to: Firms included Firms excluded Top management 4.8% 14.3% Other corporate or general management -- 17.1 Marketing or sales management 69.0 60.0 Engineering, development, re- search, or planning official 21.4 5.7 No response to this estion -- 2. Totals qu 150.03 150.5? Base 42 35 Discussion of Measurements Before stating hypotheses, the measurements used in the microscopic analySis must be examined. The followb ing hypothetical responses to role expectation items (see Exhibit 2 of Appendix IV for scale) by the researcher and his three role definers will be used to explain the three measurements of consensus. Responses: Dir. of Dir. of Prod. Sales Measurements: 921351.93 ma. Mktg. Mgr. Mgr. 1 31 2 0 1.00 1.00 4.33 .11 4.44 0 O 0 1.00 1.00 2.00 e33 044 O77 1.00 0 1.00 1.00 1.00 2.00 .33 1.77 2.10 .33 .44 .77 033 044 '77 m m2 "'""'5‘14.s onommonm> mwwhhemwmww prnmmwmmm NHweeHANHN wwwwwwwmmw a E Th 120 The variance was the basic measurement used to quan- tify differences in responses to the role expectation items. The letters (V, H, and D) which are used in this connection are defined as follows: V a the variance of the role definers' responses on each item computed from the following for- mula: _'ZjY-x)2 V N-l H n the square of the difference between the response of the director of marketing research and the mean response of the role definers. D - V + M (the overall between position consensus). These three measures were calculated for each of the 52 role expectation items. The V score is a measure of agree- ment among the role definers concerning a given expectation item. By summing the V scores over all the expectation items, a measure of aggregate consensus among the role de- finers within a given firm emerged. The degree of consen- sus varied from firm to firm; thus firms were ranked from high consensus (1) to low consensus (42) on the basis of the aggregate V scores; the aggregate V scores are presented in Table l of Appendix III, while the rankings of the firms according to these scores can be found in Table 4. The following compares the actual range of the V scores for the 42 firms with the possible range of consensus among the role definers. Possible range: .00 to 277.33 Actual range: 21.67 to 71.00 121 The low extreme of the possible range represents a situa- tion where all role definers in a given firm give the same answer on each of the 52 items while the high extreme score would occur when two role definers designate "absolutely must” and the other two role definers designate "absolutely must not“ for each item. The difference between the high- est and lowest V score for the actual range is 49.33 or about 18 percent of the maximum possible difference. An- other indication of the difference between the extreme points in the actual range of V scores is found in the actual re- sponses. In the case of the firm with the lowest V score, the three role definers all circled the same scaling code on 14 of the 52 items. At the other extreme, the three responding role definers in the firm with the highest V score agreed on only five of the role expectation items. The D score, on the other hand, is a measure of the consensus between the director of marketing research and his role definers within the firm. Being composed of H, a measure of the difference between the response of the director of marketing research and the mean response of the role definers, and V, the variance of the role definers' responses, the D score thus reflects the fact that consen- Ius between a focal position and its role definers within a role set is a function of the consensus among role de- finers as well as the difference between the focal person's response and the average response of his role definers. It the V score were not accounted for in the between position COR the 122 consensus measure, identical H scores would be found for the following situations: if the marketing research direc- tor's response is 3, role definers' responses of 1, 2, 4, and S or 3, 3, 3, and 3 would both produce an H score of 0; however, the D score would be much larger for the case where there is lack of consensus among the role definers. Again the D scores were summed over the 52 items to give an aggregate measurement of the degree of consensus between the director of marketing research and his role definers in a single firm. Aggregate D scores along with the aggre- gate M scores are presented in Table l of Appendix III and the ranked D scores can be found in Table 5. A comparison of the actual and possible ranges of the H scores indicates fairly great consensus between the director of marketing research in a firm and the average responses of his role definers. Possible range: .00 to 832.00 Actual range: 19.56 to 97.81 In the case of the M score, the actual range is less than ten percent of the maximum possible range of 832, which would have occurred if the marketing research directors and their role definers had been at opposite ends of the scale on each role expectation item. The D score, representing the sum of the V and H scores, has the same range of scores as the M score in that the V score must be sero to get the maximum disagreement between the director of marketing research and his role def Th 123 definers. The actual range of scores on this measure is about 14 percent of the maximum possible range, as illus- trated by the following figures. Possible range: .00 to 832.00 Actual range: 51.83 to 168.67 These differences in role consensus between firms with ex- treme D scores are portrayed below by the responses of the director of marketing research and the role definers for the first ten items of the questionnaire. Firm with lowest D score Exec. V.P. Product Product Product Manager Question Marketing Manager _Manager Manager M.R. l 1 l 2 2 1 2 3 2 3 3 3 3 2 3 3 3 3 4 1 1 1 3 1 S 3 2 2 l 2 6 2 2 2 2 2 7 2 1 1 l 1 8 2 1 2 2 1 9 l 1 l 1 l 10 l 2 l l l Firm with highest D score Manager Manager Manager Manager Question ‘Epmml. Devp. Comml. Devp. §pec1. Prod. M.R. & Devp. 1 2 l 3 1 2 3 3 2 4 3 2 1 5 3 4 1 1 1 4 5 2 2 2 2 6 2 1 3 2 7 3 1 2 2 8 2 1 1 1 9 2 3 l 2 10 2 1 1 1 The hypotheses to be tested in the microscopic an- alysis deal with the relationship between consensus as meas- ured by V and D and job satisfaction, perceived effectiveness, 124 interaction, and level of education of the respondents. The computation of a hypothetical satisfaction score for a director of marketing research is presented below. Scalea Value Freguency !_§ Very well satisfied 1 8 8 Fairly well satisfied 2 5 10 Fairly dissatisfied 3 3 9 Very dissatisfied .4 -- :_-_-_ Totals 16” 27 c 1'5 I 1069 aScale is found in items 53 through 68 of Exhibit 1 of Appendix IV. bRepresents number of items on the job satisfaction schedule. cRepresents average satisfaction score. The following figures illustrate the computation of the effectiveness scores. Scalea Value Frequency \_I__F_ Very well satisfied 1 27 27 Fairly well satisfied 2 21 42 Fairly dissatisfied 3 6 18 Very dissatisfied 4 " .2: Totals 's'ib 87 c 3'4" . 1.59 aScale is found in items 53 through so of Exhibit 2 of Appendix IV. bRepresents 18 effectiveness items for each of three role definers. cRepresents average effectiveness score. Both the average satisfaction and average effective- ness scores were ranked from highest satisfaction (1) and highest effectiveness (1) to lowest satisfaction (42) and lowest effectiveness (42). These rankings appear in Table 8 of Appendix III while the raw scores are recorded in Table 2. 125 The possible satisfaction scores for the director of marketing research range from ”very well satisfied" with all aspects of his role, which are covered in questions 53 to 68, to the other extreme where he is "very dissatis- fied“ with all aspects of his role; a comparison.of these extreme possibilities with the actual range of scores for the 42 directors of marketing research follows. Possible range: 1.00 to 4.00 Actual range: 1.19 to 3.44 The following distribution of these scores shows that the dispersion is not as great as the range of scores suggests. Satisfaction score Number of firms Less than 1.5 9 1.5 but less than 2.0 21 2.0 but less than 2.5 7 2.5 but less than 3.0 2 3.0 or greater _3' Total 42 In only three of the 42 firms, the director of mar- keting research responded that he was sufficiently dissat- isfied with his job to yield an average score of three or higher--“fairly dissatisfied” to “very dissatisfied." Two additional directors were between the ambivalent and "fairly dissatisfied“ range, while seven other respondents were between the midpoint of the range and the ”fairly well sat- isfied“ point, leaving 30 of the 42 respondents who were at least “fairly well satisfied“ with their jobs. Cross-classifications of the satisfaction ranks of the 42 firms with certain data about the respondents 126 from the firms suggests that directors in older marketing research departments tend to be more satisfied than those in newer departments and that directors in firms producing consumer goods are somewhat more satisfied than their coun- terparts in firms producing non-consumer goods. These con- clusions can only be considered as tentative due to the concentration of firms in the satisfaction range of the scale and the high dispersion of scores on the cross-clas- sification tables. The average effectiveness scores, with the same range as the satisfaction scores, showed even less disper- sion. Possible range: 1.00 to 4.00 Actual range: 1.33 to 2.51 In fact, the average scores of the role definers in 31 of the 42 firms reveal that they are fairly well satisfied or very well satisfied with the performance of different aspects of the role of the marketing research department, with the role definers in the remaining 11 firms being fairly well satisfied to ambivalent. Thus none of the composite scores for the role definers is in the dissatisfied range for any of the firms included in the microscopic analysis. Again the older departments were perceived as somewhat more effective than the newer departments; but perceived effec— tiveness rankings do not seem to be related to the type of product produced. These conclusions are subject to the limitations mentioned above. 127 Interaction scores were based on two factors: (1) the age of the marketing research department, and (2) the amount of contact the respondents have had with the market- ing research department. In arriving at an interaction score, the age of the department and the number of years the current director has been in the department were given a double weighting, as demonstrated in the following example. Interaction Scale flgight' score Department is 12 years old 6 2 12 Director has been in department 3 years 2 . 2 4 Superior has had con- tact with department for 6 years 4 l 4 Product manager has had contact with depart- ment for 8 years 5 1 5 Sales manager has had contact with depart- ment for 2 years 2 ._l '_g Totals - 7 .3; _ 3.85a aAverage interaction score. The average interaction scores for each firm, ranked from greatest interaction (1) to least interaction (42), can be found in Table 9 of Appendix III and the raw interaction scores are shown in Table 3. The interaction scores spread out over the maximum possible range of 1.00 (where the departments were estab- lished less than two years) to 6.00 (where all of the re— spondents have had contact with the department for at least 12 years). The following distribution of interaction scores discloses significant spread of the firms on this dimension. 128 Ayerage years of interaction_ Number of firms Less than two years 4 Two but less than four years ' 5 Four but less than six years 13 Six but less than eight years 11 Eight years or longer _Ji Total . 42 Finally, the homogeneity of educational backgrounds was determined by taking the average of the squared differ- ences between the educational background of the director of marketing research and each role definer; hypothetical computations of this measurement follow. Role Education of Education of Squared definer role definer dir. of M.R. Difference difference A l S -4 16 B 2 5 -3 9 c 3 5 -2 4 D 3 S -2 .43 33-i- - £3.25a aAverage squared educational difference. Raw education scores are contained in Table 3 and rankings of firms on the basis of the education score in Table 11 of Appendix III. The raw education scores ranged from seven scores of .00 (where all the respondents from the firm have attained the same level of education) to 5.00 (where the director of marketing research holds a master's degree while two of the role definers have not gone beyond high school and the other two have bachelor's degrees). This highest edu- cation score is considerably below the maximum possible ‘30:. Of 16e°°e 129 Hypotheses of Microscopic Role Analysis Role theory was used to develop a series of hypoth- eses about the relationships between the above measures of consensus, satisfaction, effectiveness, interaction, and education for the 42 firms included in the microscopic analysis part of the study. The Spearman rank correlation coefficient was employed to find the degree of association between these measurements and thus to test the following hypotheses. Hypothesis 1. The greater the consensus among the role definers, the greater will be the perceived effective- ness of the director of marketing research by the role de- finers; i.e., there is a positive correlation between the V scores and the average effectiveness scores. Table 4 of Appendix III presents the paired rank- ings of the 42 firms on these dimensions and the Spearman rank correlation coefficient of -.024 which can be inter- preted to mean that the data show no relationship between consensus among role definers on their expectations for the director of marketing research and the degree to which he is perceived to be effective by these role definers. The rejection of this hypothesis shows that role definers in a given firm may vary in their perception of the effec- tiveness of the marketing research department even if they are in substantial agreement on the dimensions of his role. To take one example, firm 155 was ranked sixth on the basis of the V score, showing high agreement on role expectations, 130 but it ranked last on the effectiveness measurement. The following effectiveness scores for each of the four role definers from this firm show considerable disagreement on the perceived effectiveness of the director of marketing research. Average Role definer effectiveness score Manager, Market Development (superior) 1.89 Vice-President 2.61 Vice-President, Sales 2.06 Manager, Sales of a Product Line 3.50 While the immediate superior of the director of marketing gave a fairly high rating to the performance of the market- ing research department, one of the users of the services of the department is not at all impressed with its effec- tiveness. Specifically, he is very dissatisfied with the objectivity and creativity of the marketing research depart- ment, the soundness of its recommendations, and the return on the firm's investment in marketing research. The pattern suggested in this example of a high rank on the measurement of consensus among the role definers and a low score on effectiveness does not hold true for all the firms; if it did there would be a high negative correlation between these measurements. The actual corre- lation coefficient is not significantly different from zero, showing that the two sets of ranks are not associated. Thus knowing how great is the consensus on role expectations in a given firm is of no value in predicting the effective- ness of the marketing research department as perceived by these role definers. 131 _§ypgthesis g, The greater the consensus between the director of marketing research and his role definers, the greater will be the perceived effectiveness of the di- rector of marketing research by the role definers; i.e., there is a positive correlation between the D scores and the average effectiveness scores. While the Spearman coefficient of .113 reported in Table 5 of Appendix III shows a positive correlation between the D scores and the average effectiveness scores, a "t“ test shows that a rank correlation coefficient of this magnitude should not be considered significantly dif- ferent from zero. Thus Hypothesis 2 is not supported by the data. . Table 5 shows that the firm with the highest D score was ranked twenty-seventh on the effectiveness measurement. Thus the fact that the director of marketing research and his role definers are in substantial agreement on the role of the former does not mean that the research department is necessarily perceived as effective. Knowing the degree of consensus between the director of marketing research and his role definers, therefore, is of no value in predict- ing the effectiveness of the marketing research department as perceived by these role definers. hypothesis 3. The greater the consensus among the role definers, the greater will be the job satisfaction 0f the director of marketing research; i.e., there is a Positive correlation between the V scores and the average Sd 132 satisfaction scores. The correlation of these two variables yielded a coefficient of -.275 which is not significantly different from zero at the .05 level. Table 6 of Appendix III shows that the marketing research director with the next to low- est satisfaction score (firm 293) has designated three role definers who are in substantial agreement in their expec- tations concerning his role. More than consensus among role definers, therefore, is required to make marketing research directors happy with their roles. In fact, some directors are well satisfied even where there is substantial disagreement among their role definers. The fact that the correlation coefficient turned out to be negative suggests the existence of an inverse relationship between consensus among the role definers and the job satisfaction of the director of marketing research. ,gypothesis 4. The greater the consensus between the role definers and the director of marketing research, the greater will be the job satisfaction of the director of marketing research; i.e., there is a positive correla- tion between the D scores and the average satisfaction scores. Again a negative relationship between these measure- ments has been found with a correlation coefficient of -.318 (see Table 7), which is significantly different from zero at the .05 level using the "t" test. As a case in point, the firm where the marketing research director is most sat- isfied with his role ranked thirtieth on the D score, showing 133 significant disagreement between the research director and his role definers on the role of the former. Thus this hypothesis was not supported and the data suggest the op- posite relationship: the greater the lack of consensus between the role definers and the director of marketing research, the greater will be the job satisfaction of the director. flypgthesis 5. The greater the perceived effective- ness of the director of marketing research by his role de- finers, the greater will be the job satisfaction of the director of marketing research; i.e., there.is a positive correlation between the average effectiveness scores and the average job satisfaction scores. The rankings of the firms and correlation coeffi- cient of .312 are presented in Table 8 of Appendix III. Being significantly different from zero at the .05 level, this is the only hypothesis of the microscopic analysis which is supported by the data. While this statistic is sufficiently different from zero, it still is of sufficient- ly low magnitude to support only the cautious conclusion that some relationship exists between the factors that de- termine the role definers' perception of the effectiveness of the marketing research department and the job satisfac- tion of the director of marketing research. fiypgghg§;g_§. There is a direct relationship be- tween interaction and consensus. SE 134 A. Consensus among role definers (V) and interac— tion scores are positively correlated. B. Consensus between the director of marketing re- search and his role definers (D) and interaction scores are positively correlated. Neither of the interaction hypotheses was supported by the data and, in fact, the relationships turned out to be negative rather than positive as hypothesized. Table 9 shows that length of interaction and consensus among the role definers (V) have a Spearman correlation coefficient of -.307, which is significantly different from zero at the .05 level. The correlation coefficient between the D scores and.the interaction scores of -.l96 (see Table 10) is not significantly different from zero. Thus a prime tenet of role theory concerning the relationship between interaction and consensus is not supported by these data. hypothesis 7. The greater the homogeneity of edu- cational backgrounds between the director of marketing re- search and his role definers, the greater will be the role consensus; i.e., the D scores and the homogeneity of edu- cational backgrounds are positively correlated. With a correlation coefficient of -.085, this hy- pothesis is not supported by the data. Thus differences or lack of differences between the educational attainment of the director of marketing research and his role definers are not related to the degree of role consensus in these 42 firms. 135 Summary Responses from three or four role definers in addi- tion to the director of marketing research were received from 42 firms, which make up the sample for the microscopic role analysis. The three measures of consensus (V, M, and D) showed that a fair amount of consensus exists among the role definers, and between the role definers and the direc- tor of marketing research on the 52 role expectation items which were common to both questionnaires. While there were no cases of perfect consensus, all three measures turned out to be significantly lower than the theoretical maximum scores which would have occurred if extreme positions ("ab- solutely must" versus "absolutely must not") had been taken on the same items by different individuals in a firm. Average scores on the 16 job satisfaction items showed that the marketing research directors in 30 of the 42 firms were either very well or fairly well satisfied with their roles, while only three of the directors were at the other extreme, expressing dissatisfaction with their roles. On the whole, the role definers were well satisfied with the performance of the marketing research department, with the lowest satisfaction score for the 42 firms being 2.51 or the theoretical midpoint of the four point satis— faction scale. Other measurements included length of inter- action among the respondents in a firm and homogeneity of their educational backgrounds. .Of the eight hypotheses concerning relationships among these variables, the bu ti 136 Spearman correlation coefficient revealed a significant, but not high, positive association between perceived effec- tiveness on the part of the role definers and job satisfac- tion on the part of the director of marketing research, thus supporting this hypothesis. Five other hypotheses were not supported since the correlation coefficients were not significantly different from zero. And these two sta- tistically significant negative correlations occurred which were the opposite of the hypothesized relationships: (1) an inverse relationship between the job satisfaction of the director of marketing research and D, the measurement of consensus between the role definers and the director of marketing research, and (2) a negative relationship be- tween the measurement of interaction and V, the measurement of consensus among the role definers. Im CHAPTER VI SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS Summary The establishment of marketing research departments in American corporations has paralleled the development of marketing as a discipline. The earliest marketing re- search departments in industrial firms were formed by such pioneers in marketing thought as Paul H. Nystrom and L. D.'H. Weld. While the growth of marketing research departments was persistent during the second 25 years of this century, it was not until the decade of the 1950‘s that marketing research departments became common in a majority of large industrial firms. This rapid increase in number of depart- ments during the past fifteen years has accompanied the widespread acceptance of the marketing concept with its emphasis on market information. Wroe Alderson has speci~ fied the use of marketing research as a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for the implementation of the market- ing concept. The survey of the Fortune 500 firms indicated that approximately four out of every five industrial firms that responded had fulfilled this necessary condition of a market orientation by 1965. Many people have questioned whether these marketing 137 re: 502 is be in 138 research departments have an impact on planning and problem solving in their firms. John E. Jeuck's article in 1953 is the most lucid negative response to this question. He believed that few, if any, of the notable successes in bus- iness were aided by marketing research. In more specific terms, marketing researchers have been criticized over the years for their “ivory tower“ approach, their failure to understand management's point of view, their inability to produce information in time for a decision to be made, their preoccupation with research techniques, their concealment of results in technical jargon, their depreciation of the value of executive experience, and, more recently, their lack of imagination and creativity. From a more theoret- ical viewpoint, social scientists have questioned whether objective, scientific research can be conducted in a bur- eaucratic organization. In their book, Organizational Stress, Robert L. Kahn g£_gl. concluded that change-oriented roles in a bureaucracy, such as that of a marketing researcher, are not well defined, i.e., ambiguous, and that successful performance of these roles brings the individual into con- flict with the remainder of the organization. Thus these individuals infer that there is likely to be relatively little consensus concerning the role of the marketing re- searcher in bureaucratic corporations. While the problem of integrating marketing research into the decision-making processes of an organization has been discussed for years, few reports of empirical studies 139 of this problem are available. This dissertation was de- signed to partially fill that void. Role theory was adopted as the conceptual approach to study the position of the director of marketing research in large industrial corpor- ations. A mail survey of occupants of this focal position, their immediate superiors, and the users of the services of marketing research departments produced information about expectations for the role of the director of marketing re- search, job satisfaction of the directors, and the effec- tiveness of marketing research departments as perceived by the role definers of the directors. Macroscopic anal- ysis of these data treated all marketing research directors as one sample and all role definers as another sample, and then determined whether they came from the same universe of opinions concerning expectations for the role of the director of marketing research. The following hypotheses were checked against the responses of these groups to spe- cific questionnaire items to determine the congruence be- tween the data and the hypotheses. Hypothesis 1. Directors of marketing research will place more emphasis than their role definers on the need to maintain an interest in a study after a final report has been submitted. Supported. hypothesis 2. Directors of marketing research will place more emphasis than their role definers on the profes- sional and methodological aspects of the job. Not supported. Hypothesiseg. Directors of marketing research and 140 role definers will be equally concerned about having the researcher understand the problem before beginning the re- search. Supported. Hypothesis 4. Directors of marketing research will place more importance on their role in formulating market- ing strategies than will their role definers. Supported. laypothesis 5. On the questions concerning judgment, role definers will place a greater emphasis on executive judgment than will the directors of marketing research, while the directors will place more emphasis on their own judg- ment than will the role definers. Supported in_part.1 Hypothesis 6. Role definers will be more concerned than the directors of marketing research with getting the research results in time. Not supported. I hypothesis 7. Directors of marketing research will be more concerned than their role definers about having a procedure to bring major decisions to the marketing re- search department. Supported. Hypothesis 8. Directors of marketing research will place greater emphasis on maintaining their objectivity than will their role definers. Not supported. Hypothesis 9. With regard to evaluation of the marketing research department, directors of marketing re- search will place heavier emphasis on scientific excellence 1The second part of the hypothesis was supported, but the first part was not supported. 141 than will the role definers, while role definers will be more concerned with the data's usefulness than will the marketing research directors. got supported. With the above areas of agreement and disagreement between the aggregate samples of marketing research direc- tors and role definers recognized the microscopic role an- alysis concentrated on the degree of role consensus in indi- vidual firms and its relationship to job satisfaction, per- ceived effectiveness, interaction, and education of the respondents. Role theory suggested the following hypoth- eses which were tested by rank correlations of measurements of these variables for 42 firms, from which a response had been received from the director of marketing research and three or four role definers. Hypothesis 1. The greater the consensus among the role definers, the greater will be the perceived effective- ness of the director of marketing research by the role de- finers; i.e., there is a positive correlation between the V scores and the average effectiveness scores. Not sup- ported. Hypothesis 2. The greater the consensus between the director of marketing research and his role definers, the greater will be the perceived effectiveness of the di- rector of marketing research by the role definers; i.e., there is a positive correlation between the D scores and the average effectiveness scores. Not supported. Hypothesis 3. The greater the consensus among the 142 role definers, the greater will be the job satisfaction of the director of marketing research; i.e., there is a positive correlation between the V scores and the average satisfaction scores. Not supported. _§ypothesis 4. The greater the consensus between the role definers and the director of marketing research, the greater will be the job satisfaction of the director of marketing research; i.e., there is a positive correla- tion between the D scores and the average satisfaction scores. got supported.2 hypothesis 5. The greater the perceived effective- ness of the director of marketing research by his role de- finers, the greater will be the job satisfaction of the director of marketing research; i.e., there is a positive correlation between the average effectiveness scores and the average job satisfaction scores. Supported. Hypothesis 6. There is a direct relationship be- tween interaction and consensus. A. Consensus among role definers (V) and interac- tion scores are positively correlated. Not supported.3 B. Consensus between the director of marketing re- search and his role definers (D) and interaction scores 2The rank correlation yielded a statistically sig- nificant negative association between these two variables. 3The rank correlation yielded a statistically Sig-- nificant negative association between these two variables. 143 are positively correlated. Not supported. Hypothesis 7. The greater the homogeneity of edu- cational backgrounds between the director of marketing re- search and his role definers, the greater will be the role consensus; i.e., the D scores and the homogeneity of edu- cational backgrounds are positively correlated. Not sup- parted. Conclusions Numerous conclusions have been drawn from the study and presented throughout the text. They are summarized below in the framework of the study's five objectives. Objective 1. To determine the degree of consensus between management and the director of marketing research on significant dimensions of the role of the latter in large industrial firms. The macrosc0pic role analysis showed that signif- icant intrapositional and interpositional consensus concern- ing the expectations for the director of marketing research were held by occupants of the focal position, the men to whom they reported, and the users of the services of mar- keting research departments. With the exception of a few items where the answers were widely distributed, the modal responses of the above groups did not differ by more than one point on the five point scale, i.e., "absolutely must“ versus “preferably should." There were no statistically significant differences between the responses of the two 144 groups of role definers to any of the expectation items. Thus the responses of the superiors and the responses of the other role definers can be considered as having been drawn from the same universe of beliefs concerning the role of the director of marketing research. However, there were statistically significant differences between the views of the role definers and the marketing research directors. Using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov two-sample test and the .05 significance level, the responses of the 50 superiors were significantly different from the responses of the 76 mar- keting research directors on 6 (11.5 percent) of the 52 role expectation items. The views of the 138 users were significantly different from those of the 76 directors on 17 (32.7 percent) of the items. Thus, when the data were aggregated according to positions, it revealed relatively little disagreement between the marketing research directors and the men to whom they reported, and moderate disagree- ment between the directors and the users of their depart- ments' services. The microscopic role analysis concentrated on con- sensus among role definers and between role definers and the director of marketing research. While the degree of role consensus varied from firm to firm, the actual ranges of scores for 42 firms were less than 20 percent of the ranges that would have occurred if extreme points of view had been expressed by the respondents in a given firm. Thus there were no cases of extreme disagreement among members of a given role set. 6X 145 The study revealed more agreement concerning the expectations for the role of the director of marketing re- search than was anticipated from reading Kahn. Most of the differences which occurred represented shadings of opin— ions rather than markedly different points of view. Most marketing research directors have a realistic picture of their role in these large industrial firms. And most role definers have a reasonable idea of what to expect from the marketing research department. There are, however, some areas of role ambiguity and role conflict. No human rela- tionship ever reaches perfect equilibrium. Nor is it de- sirable that such an equilibrium should be achieved in the relationship between the marketing research director and his role definers. Objective 2. To determine areas of role consensus, role conflict, and role ambiguity. There was general agreement among all role definers that the purpose of marketing research is to "produce in- formation which reduces the area of uncertainty in manage- ment decisions." In doing this, most respondents agreed that the researcher must consult with an executive before starting a research project to be sure that he understands the objectives of the executive and the problem which must be solved. When the research is completed, strong emphasis must be placed on the understandability of the research report and on the importance of executive judgment in the decision-making process. In addition, most marketing research di 146 directors believed that research results must be translated into positive courses of action for management to follow and that the marketing research director must have the right of followbup after a study is completed. In addition to these imperatives, all three groups of respondents gener- ally agreed that the director of marketing research should be up-to-date on research methodology and should review past studies to determine whether the methodology might have been improved. Role ambiguity centered on the formal authority of the marketing research director and his relationship to his superior, the desirability of meeting deadlines if he is not certain of the validity of his data, the price which the director of marketing research should pay to main- tain his objectivity, and the question of whether to par- ticipate in politically expedient activities, such as pro- viding information to support decisions which have already been made by a marketing executive. Also, all groups of respondents disagreed about the use of scientific excel- lence and objectivity as the primary basis to evaluate the work of the marketing research department. The greatest role conflict concerned the extent to which the director of marketing research should go be- yond the typical staff prerogatives and actively partici- Pate in formulating marketing strategy. While most direc- tors favored enlargement of their activities and an active role in this regard, many users of their services seemed 147 jealous of their decision-making authority and believed that the activities of the marketing research department should be limited to research and recommendations. For example, the modal group of users believed that the market- ing research director may or may not "take the initiative in finding ways to improve the marketing strategy of the firm.“ 0n the other hand, the superiors thought the research director should take this initiative, but only on the basis of research findings. The superiors seemed less concerned with the judgment of the marketing researcher than with his ability to objectively study problems facing the firm. Objective 3. To determine the extent to which the marketing research department is perceived to be effective by management. Two groups of items on the schedule completed by the role definers sought out their perceptions of the ef- fectiveness of the marketing research departments in their firms. The average responses of the role definers over all the effectiveness items showed that superiors perceived the marketing research departments to be slightly more ef- fective than did the users. However, no statistically sig- nificant differences between the responses of these two groups were found for any of the 18 effectiveness items. Analysis of the data also showed that role definers who were concerned primarily with consumer goods in their work gave the marketing research department a somewhat higher effectiveness score than role definers who were concerned de C6 148 primarily with non-consumer products. However, 40 role definers who have had marketing research experience per- ceived their marketing research departments to be somewhat less effective than their counterparts who have never worked in a marketing research department. Looking at specific items, the modal groups of role definers were very well satisfied with "the objectivity of the marketing research department” and fairly well set- isfied with the "marketing research department's understand- ing of problems studied,“ the "timing of marketing.research reports," ”the value of marketing research information," the "proper use of research methodology“ by these depart- ments, the soundness of their recommendations, the relevance of their data to decisions, the "return on investment in marketing research,“ their creativity, and the “timing of marketing research reports." Some respondents, of course, were dissatisfied with the performance of marketing research departments on each of these criteria, with more than 20 percent of the role definers expressing dissatisfaction with the "creativity“ and "timing" dimensions. This dis- satisfaction with creativity was manifested by the disagree- ment of about one-third of the role definers with the state- ment that "the marketing research department plays an im- portant part in initiating changes in the marketing strate- gies of the firm" and the disagreement of almost 44 percent of those respondents with the statement that "the marketing research department often comes up with valuable alternative 149 courses of action which were never before considered by management." In another vein, 30 percent of the role de- finers disagreed with the statement that "the marketing research function is a well integrated part of the market- ing activity of the firm." Thus the macroscopic analysis showed that most role definers were satisfied with the work of the marketing re- search departments, while a substantial minority believed that marketing research could make a greater contribution to their firms. This conclusion is illustrated by the com- ments of one director of marketing who was interviewed. He rated his firm's marketing research department high on objectivity and professional competence, but hoped they would do more innovative work in the future. He believed that the marketing research department should continually prod management with new ideas to keep them from becoming complacent. For the microscopic role analysis, an average ef- fectiveness score for all the role definers in a given firm was calculated. While the possible range of these scores went from "very well satisfied“ to "very dissatisfied" (1.0 to 4.0), the actual scores for the 42 firms ranged from 1.33 to 2.51. Thus the role definers in most of these firms were very well satisfied or fairly well satisfied with the performance of their marketing research departments, with the lowest score of 2.51 (the theoretical midpoint of the 4 point scale) revealing that none of these departments 150 was perceived as ineffective. Objective 4. To determine the marketing research director's degree of satisfaction with his role. The average response of the 76 marketing research directors to the 16 job satisfaction items was 1.9 on the 4 point satisfaction scale. While this response reveals that the respondents as a group were fairly well satisfied with their roles, there was significant dispersion from item to item and from firm to firm. The latter variation was shown by the satisfaction scores for the 42 marketing research directors included in the microscopic role anal- ysis; these scores ranged from 1.19 to 3.44 (possible range: 1.00 to 4.00). Thirty of the 42 directors were in the “sat- isfied" range of the scale, three were in the ”dissatisfied" range, and the remaining nine directors were in the middle range of the scale. Thus the satisfaction scores of the marketing research directors showed greater dispersion than the effectiveness scores of the role definers in these same firms. Responses to individual items revealed that most research directors were satisfied with their ability to pursue research studies objectively, the support received from superiors and other high level executives, and their freedom to follow up reports. The modal group of research directors was fairly well satisfied with the open-minded- ness of marketing executives, the value which they placed 151 on marketing research, and the acceptance of marketing re- search results by management. While the researchers were also generally satisfied with the extent to which they could help define the problems to be studied by their departments, 34 percent were dissatisfied with the procedure for bring- ing problems to the marketing research departments. Areas of significant variation from director to director included: (1) the part played in formulating marketing strategy (34 percent dissatisfied); (2) the budgets for their departments (21 percent dissatisfied); (3) their contact with market- ing executives (18 percent dissatisfied); (4) the time avail- able to improve themselves professionally (46 percent dis- satisfied); and (S) the location of the marketing research department in the corporate organization structure (21 per~ cent dissatisfied). While the dispersion of responses was smaller, 28 percent of the marketing research directors were dissatisfied with the time deadlines which were placed on marketing research studies. Thus, the macroscopic role analysis has shown that marketing research directors were generally satisfied with the acceptance of marketing research in their firms, their relationships with other executives, and the climate for conducting objective research. There was significant dis- satisfaction with budgets of time and money and with the location of the marketing research department in the cor- porate organizational structure. When the satisfaction items and the role expectation items are both considered, 152 however, the most significant dissatisfaction pertained to the procedure for bringing problems to the attention of the marketing research department and the role of the director of marketing research in formulating marketing strategy. ngective 5. To determine the relationships among consensus, perceived effectiveness, and job satisfaction. The theory of role prompted a number of hypotheses concerning relationships among these variables which were tested in the microscopic part of the analysis. A statis- tically significant, but low, positive correlation was found between the satisfaction of the director of marketing re- search and the extent to which he is perceived to be effec- tive by his role definers. Contrary to Hypothesis 4, the data revealed a statistically significant inverse relation- ship between the job satisfaction of the director of mar- keting research and the degree of consensus between the director and his role definers. Three other hypotheses concerning relationships among the two measures of consen- sus, job satisfaction, and perceived effectiveness were not supported since the rank correlation coefficients were not significantly different from zero. If role theory had been applied to the relationship between the director of marketing research and the manage- ment of his firm without empirical verification, some highly misleading conclusions would have been forthcoming from this dissertation. For example, as a result of the 153 microscopic role analysis, there is no justification to recommend the need for greater consensus concerning the role of the director of marketing research. In fact, the data collected in this study indicates that role theory is an oversimplified explanation of complex organizational relationships. Synthesis Do marketing research departments have an impact on planning and problem solving in their firms? This is the basic question which prompted this investigation. The research shows that marketing research departments are mak- ing a definite contribution to their firms; however, both the research directors and their role definers agreed that the contribution could be significantly greater. Before presenting specific recommendations for expanding the im- pact of marketing research departments, it is necessary to state generalizations concerning some of the pOpular explanations for the ineffectiveness of marketing research in light of the present study. Objective marketing research can be accomplished in a bureaucratic business organization. Most marketing research directors were well satisfied with their ability to do objective research and most role definers were well satisfied with the objectivity of the marketing research departments. The fact that researchers occasionally must do the politically expedient thing to maintain a favorable w 154 working relationship with management was not perceived as adversely affecting their objectivity. Marketing researchers are aware of the need to pre- sent their research findings clearly and most role definers were satisfied with the understandability of marketing re- search reports. If any improvements are to be made, role definers would appreciate more information concerning re— search methodology in the research reports. Director of marketing research is not a dead-end position in many firms. The Fortune 500 survey revealed that 30 percent of the former marketing research directors now occupy line management positions in industry. With upward mobility from this position, better qualified indi- viduals should be attracted to marketing research. Marketing research directors are aware of the need to provide information in time to make decisions. In fact, they were more willing than their role definers to meet deadlines, even if they are not confident of the validity of their data. A significant problem in this regard is the lack of a procedure to bring problems to the marketing research departments. In many cases deadlines are not met because a request for information was received too late. Most marketing research directors are not preoccu- pied with research techniques at the expense of understand- ing management problems. Directors tend to identify more with management than with academic researchers. The hypoth- eses concerning the emphasis researchers place on professional it 155 and methodological aspects of their roles were not supported by the data. In fact, role definers placed more emphasis than did researchers on the need for up—to-date methodolog- ical approaches to problems. This can be eXplained partially by the fact thathany researchers indicated that they do not have the time to keep up on advances in research tech- niques. Marketing research directors realized that their information is only one input in the decision-making proc- ess. Sixty-five of the 76 respondents believed the director of marketing research absolutely must “recognize the value of executive judgment in decision making" and the remaining 11 answered “preferably should" to this item. Marketing research directors recognized the need to look at problems from management's point of view and to provide information which meets the needs of management. Only nine of the 188 role definers were dissatisfied with the "marketing research department's understanding of prob- lems studied." Directors of marketing research are not "ivory tower" idealists. They are eager to become involved in the formu- lation of marketing strategy since they recognize that such involvement enables them to bring problems to their depart- ments in time to do sound research and to make recommenda- tions that deal with variables that management can control. Such involvement is not without its dangers, however. Wroe Alderson has stated: "Something is to be said for allowing 156 marketing research to remain purely objective, rather than having to defend a plan as the product manager does."4 Thus there should be a point beyond which the marketing research director should not become involved in formulating market- ing strategy. RecOgnizing the frustrations of pure staff work and the desire to have one's ideas put into effect, many research directors should eventually be promoted into positions with decision-making responsibility. This pro- cedure may not be applicable for the small number of market- ing research directors who view themselves as professional researchers; but in most instances, periodic promotion of the marketing research director will enable marketing re- search departments to maintain the proper balance between objectivity and involvement in strategy formulation. This practice has the additional advantage of placing men with marketing research experience in management positions. These individuals will use the services of the marketing research department intelligently and, as the survey shows, they will also exact higher standards of service from research depart- ments. In the long run, higher standards will undoubtedly improve the effectiveness of the marketing research activ- itYe 4Wroe Alderson and Paul 8. Green, Planning and Prob- lem Solving_in Marketing (Hemewood, 111.: Richard D. Irwin, Inc., 1964), p. 7. 157 Recommendations These generalizations and other findings of the study induced the following specific recommendations for improving the contribution of marketing research to the decision-making process. 1. The marketing research director should report to either the director of marketing or to a high-level gen- eral management official. 2. The formal authority and responsibilities of the marketing research director should be clearly delineated. Specifically, his relationship to his superior, his author- ity to undertake studies on his own initiative, and his responsibility for the services of outside marketing research agencies should be defined. 3. The director of marketing research should serve on committees which formulate marketing strategy. 4. A workable procedure for bringing problems to the attention of the marketing research department should be devised. 5. The marketing research director should have the right of follow-up after a report has been submitted. 6. The marketing research director and members of his department should be given time off periodically to keep up—to-date on advances in research methodology. 7. Researchers should have the right to question the objectives of management in a problem area before be- ginning research on that problem. 158 8. Researchers should be open to suggestions con- cerning research methodology from members of management for whom they are doing research. 9. Researchers must be creative in analyzing the results of their investigations and in analyzing the over- all marketing effort of the firm. They should not hesitate to suggest changes which they believe are justified. 10. The marketing research director and members of his department should be considered for promotion to positions with decision-making responsibilities. Suggestions for Future Research This study was limited to the role of the marketing research director. Similar studies of the roles of market- ing research analysts and users of the services of the mar- keting research department would also be valuable. With 60 percent of the users who responded to this study occupy- ing staff positions, there is also a need to investigate the complex decision-making process to determine methods for better integration of marketing research into this proc- ess. Related to this question of integration is the need for a more detailed investigation to determine the ideal location of the marketing research activity in the corpor- ate organizational structure. While this study has shown that it is preferable to have the director of marketing research report to a line management official, there is still the question of whether his superior should be the 159 top marketing executive or a high level general management official. Research into these areas would undoubtedly yield additional recommendations to improve the effectiveness of marketing research departments. APPENDIX I SURVEY OF FORTUNE 500 FIRMS 161 Table l PERCENTAGE or FIRMS HAVING MARKETING RESEARCH DEPARTMENTS (Compiled from eight studies: 1923 to 1965) Number of Percentage with Year Source of study returns research departmentsa 1923 L.D.H. weld1 62b 29% 1939 U.S. Department of b Cbmmercez 556 32 1945 National Industrial b Conference Board3 154 49 1953 American Management b Association4 180 69 1957 American Management b Association5 239 51 1957 American Marketing 3153 78: Association6 480 81 1963 American Marketing 315: 83: Association7 520 83 1965 present study 101: 83: 172 81 9oe 82e aA department is defined as one or more staff individuals bresponsible for marketing research. . Respondents included a limited number of non-manufacturing firms. Manufacturers of consumer goods. Manufacturers of non-consumer (industrial) goods. Manufacturers of both consumer and non-consumer goods. (90.0 lL.D.H. Weld, "The Progress of Commercial Research," Harvard 6Business Review, I (January, 1923), 179. ‘__—S. Moulten, Marketing Research Activities of Manufac- turers, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, United States Department of Commerce, Marketing Research Series 3No. 21, April, 1939. G. Clark Thompson, Organization for Market Research (Parp I, Industry Experience), Studies in Business Policy, No. 12, New Mork: National Industrial Conference Board, Inc., 1945. Richard D. Crisp, Company_Practices in Marketing Research, Research Report No7”22, New York: American Management 5Association, 1953. . Richard D. Crisp, Marketino Research Or anization and 0 er- .ation, Research Study Number 35, New York: American Man- 6agement Association, 1958. American Marketing Association, A Survey of Marketing Re- 7search, Chicago: American Marketing Association, 1957. Dik Warren Twedt (ed.), A Survey of Marketing Research, Chicago: American Marketing Association, 1963. 162 Table LEVELS OF MANAGEMENT AT WHICH MARKETING RESEARCH DIRECTORS REPORT Management All New Old b level firms positiona yposition Top management6 15% 22% 11% Other corporate or general management 8 ll 7 Sales or marketing management 61 53 66 Development, research planning 14 13 14 Other 1 2 1 No response to this question 1 _;;_, -_£_d Totals 100% 10113:.d 101% Base 297 114 183 a New position is defined as one where the current market- ing research director had no predecessor. b Old position is defined as one where the current market- ing research director had a predecessor} cTop management is defined as board chairman, president, and executive vice president. dRounding error. 163 Table 3 REPORTING PATTERNS OF MARKETING RESEARCH DIRECTORS (Compiled from six studies: 1923 to 1965) No. of firms Percentage reporting to: Source of with research General Marketing Year study department management management Others 1 1923 L.D.H. Weld 18 50% 50% 1945 National Indus- trial Conference Board2 154 ' 39 31 30% 1957 American Man- agement Asso- ciation3 123 18 63 19 1957 American Market- b b b b ing Associa- _ 185c 27C 65C 8c tion4 260 25 59 16 1963 American Market- b b b b ing Associa- 246c 18c 64c 18c tion5 413 12 67b 21b b 1965 Present study 83b 23C 69c BC 136C 27d 56d 17d 74d 18 64 19 3Includes top management and other non-functional executives such as manager of an operating div151on. 0' Manufacturers of consumer goods. Manufacturers of non-consumer (industrial) goods. Manufacturers of both consumer and non-consumer goods. l-' 0-0 L.D.H. Weld, "The Progress of Commercial Research," Harvard Business Reviepg I (January, 1923), 180. 2G. Clark Thompson, Organization for Market Research (Part I, Industry Experience), Studies in Bu51ness Policy, No. 12, New York: National Industrial Conference Board, nc., 1945. 3Richard D. Crisp, Marketing Research Organization andMOpepr ation, Research Study Number 35, New York: American an- agement Association, 1958. A Survey of Marketing Re- 4 . . American Marketin ASSOClatlon,__7 : 3 search, Chicago: 9American Marketing Association, 1957. SDik Warren Twedt (ed.), A Survey of MarketingResearch, Chicago: American Marketing Association, 1963. APPENDIX II MACROSCOPIC ROLE ANALYSIS EEQIOIF ‘(Q‘til‘lllfh I I I 165 .ucwEmmmcmE >9 to» nun one a a us an ad ems mm.o am.a o undamadsa mun ncoaum dds Ho. .mm. and o N a mm mm on ammo some n susmwomwwawrw “wuwmmwmwmw n c n a use 0 o v mm on on mm 0 mm a a m>auum an caduceus “no In: .n.c sum a as mm mm am one mn.o H~.~ a .Euau or» now and» me. no. one o m oa am a me no.0 va.m m unuun acaudxums meanness .u.c .u.: use 0 N m mm on on am.o ma.a m undo ca ua>ao>da mm inc .COamaooo us: .u.: sum v m m Na mm was no.0 om.a a umHsUauund m on ucm>m~ .n.: .n.: one a o v a an au um.o mm.a m umu ma roars coaquHOuca .m.c .m.c mum v m H m mm on mH.H ov.a o co haemocoe m m>m£ no: nude or has» dnaanum Aev .mcameICOHmfiomo an an- .u.c sum m me on am am ems e~.a um.m a nun: mun nuasuuu ruumdnmu Ho. .n.c and m m as mm a ma HH.H mm.m m ocauuxune roars ou ucmuxo .n.c .u.c muo m m ma mm mm on mm.o oo.~ o mru an manunEHum mucus unemumm man endure: Amy .mcowumwa Icmmuo unwramsn umnuo ca mumroummmmu mcHDTXHmE on an: .u.c sum 0 as mos mm a ems u~.o Hm.~ o uauucmh uo uh Haas roars Ho. .n.: and a 6 mm m c we mm.o oo.m m saoHouoruds roumuudu no mo. .u.: mun a v nu mm o as mm.o an.~ a maauuxune uo nuauau or» ca mascMDOn HMdOfimmououm wow mmHOfiuum swank Amv una .u.c sum 0 a em on mm ems mm.o Hm.a : .udaosuu do. no. and o o. u an ma we mv.o ma.H m uh 0» newshoua us» «can no. .u.: and o o H mm we as a~.o av.a a nun unusmmmane dam: is. .Hms .muwm andEmm mam 2mm 2:: mm rm 2 .um> cums waosmm mEmuH mumwfi mucoumenmam momcomwwm mEOUH cowumuowmxm odom OB noncommwm H OHQMB .1 ((ront7.1:-I_Ic.-c)) ‘3';- “i I J 14 '1'. l 3 1'“ 3'? __ ‘.~J4§___J: ,— 'l‘l—\ s . “.3.” -9.. 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Score 75 25.333 26.500 51.833 79 43.333 86.444 129.778 99 37.000 37.333 74.333 101 34.000 21.500 55.500 102 41.000 41.000 82.000 103 46.583 97.813 144.396 113 44.000 78.000 122.000 121 41.000 45.667 86.667 122 35.667 19.556 55.222 126 37.000 37.000 74.000 134 50.000 33.333 83.333 143 21.667 37.222 58.889 155 33.083 39.938 73.021 157 59.417 72.688 132.104 161 37.250 47.313 84.562 164 64.000 83.333 147.333 168 57.333 58.111 115.444 171 41.833 39.625 81.458 172 49.167 34.125 83.292 179 38.333 68.111 106.444 214 44.917 45.063 89.979 215 71.000 97.667 168.667 216 46.667 61.222 107.889 217 49.500 72.875 122.375 218 60.333 59.111 119.444 220 29.167 50.125 79.292 224 38.000 40.667 78.667 229 43.333 65.444 108.778 238 62.000 61.333 123.333 241 32.667 25.889 58.556 244 44.417 29.938 74.354 245 55.667 58.222 ~113.889 247 36.583 28.813 65.396 250 43.583 65.563 109.146 260 46.417 63.938 110.354 261 54.000 39.000 93.000 264 36.667 63.222 99.889 282 33.333 59.444 92.778 287 51.333 66.500 117.833 293 25.667 54.222 79.889 301 40.250 71.563 111.812 356 39.333 76.000 115.333 182 Table 2 Microscopic Role Analysis Raw Scores for 42 Firms Firm Code Satisfaction Score Effectiveness Score 75 1.938 1.917 79 2.000 2.093 99 1.938 1.741 101 1.375 1.667 102 1.938 1.481 103 1.313 1.986 113 2.250 1.963 121 1.938 2.130 122 3.000 2.259 126 1.688 1.389 134 2.625 1.667 143 2.125 1.722 155 1.813 2.514 157 1.688 1.792 161 1.313 1.514 164 1.938 2.019 168 1.250 1.704 171 3.438 2.014 172 1.313 1.542 179 1.438 1.333 214 2.063 1.686 215 1.500 1.731 216 1.500 1-519 217 1.375 1-736 218 1.750 2.019 220 2.188 2.306 224 1.750 1.611 229 1.500 1.926 238 1.813 1.611 241 1.938 1.352 244 1.938 1.417 245 1.188 2.000 247 1.938 2.188 250 1.688 1.597 260 1.375 1.778 261 2.063 1.789 264 1.500 1.537 282 2.063 1.537 287 2.500 1.746 293 3.250 2.074 301 1.625 1.792 356 1.813 1.986 183 Table 3 Microscopic Role Analysis Raw Scores for 42 Firms Firm Code Interaction Score Education Score 75 1.000 1.250 79 3.429 0.000 99 3.571 1.000 101 5.500 0.500 102 6.000 0.333 103 1.875 1.750 113 3.000 3.000 121 2.000 1.000 122 2.000 3.667 126 2.857 0.000 134 3.286 1.333 143 2.000 1.000 155 4.750 0.250 157 4.875 0.250 161 5.500 1.000 164 5.143 0.000 168 5.143 0.333 171 1.875 1.500 172 4.750 3.250 179 3.714 1.000 214 3.500 4.500 215 4.000 1.000 216 4.143 4.667 217 4.125 0.000 218 3.571 2.000 220 3.875 0.000 224 4.857 2-000 229 2.571 0.667 238 5.000 1.333 241 3.000 1.000 244 4.750 3.750 245 4.143 0.667 247 3.500 0.000 250 1.000 1.500 260 5.000 0.500 261 5.500 0.500 264 4.286 2.000 232 4.286 3.000 287 5.375 0.500 293 3.857 1.333 301 3.750 0.000 356 3.875 5-000 184 Table 4 Rank Correlation of V Scores and Effectiveness Scores Firm Code V Rank Effectiveness Rank 75 2.0 27.0 79 22.5 37.0 99 12.5 21.0 101 8.0 14.5 102 19.5 5.0 103 29.0 30.5 113 25.0 29.0 121 19.5 38.0 122 9.0 40.0 126 12.5 3.0 134 33.0 14.5 143 1.0 18.0 155 6.0 42.0 157 38.0 25.5 161 14.0 6.0 164 41.0 34.5 168 37.0 17.0 171 21.0 33.0 172 31.0 10.0 179 16.0 1.0 214 27.0 16.0 215 42.0 19.0 216 30.0 7.0 217 32.0 20.0 218 39.0 34.5 220 4.0 41.0 224 15.0 12.5 229 22.5 28.0 238 40.0 12.5 241 5.0 2.0 244 26.0 4.0 245 36.0 32.0 247 10.0 39.0 250 24.0 11.0 260 28.0 23.0 261 35.0 24.0 264 11.0 8.5 282 7.0 8'5 287 34.0 22.0 293 3.0 36.0 301 18.0 25.5 356 17.0 30.5 Spearman rank correlation coefficient = -.024 Rank Correlation of D Scores and Effectiveness Scores Firm Code 75 79 99 101 102 103 113 121 122 126 134 143 155 157 161 164 168 171 172 179 214 215 216 217 218 220 224 229 238 241 244 245 247 250 260 261 264 282 287 293 301 356 w o o o o o o o OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO H Hwew \OQUIQCDNOU'IOU'Iwkoml-J I O O O O 00 00an NFC) I o o l-‘ nb 16.0 24.0 20.0 42.0 25.0 36.0 34.0 12.0 11.0 26.0 37.0 4.0 10.0 30.0 6.0 27.0 28.0 22.0 23.0 21.0 33.0 13.0 29.0 31.0 185 Table 5 D Rank Effectiveness Rank 27.0 37.0 21.0 14.5 500 3005 29.0 38.0 40.0 3.0 14.5 18.0 42.0 25.5 6.0 34.5 17.0 33.0 10.0 1.0 16.0 19.0 7.0 20.0 34.5 4100 12.5 28.0 12.5 2.0 4.0 32.0 39.0 Spearman rank correlation coefficient a .113 186 Table 6 Rank Correlation of V Scores and Satisfaction Scores Firm Code V Rank Satisfaction Rank 75 2.0 26.5 79 22.5 31.0 99 12.5 26.5 101 8.0 7.0 102 19.5 26.5 103 29.0 4.0 113 25.0 37.0 121 19.5 26.5 122 9.0 40.0 126 12.5 16.0 134 33.0 39.0 143 1.0 35.0 155 6.0 21.0 157 38.0 16.0 161 14.0 4.0 164 41.0 26.5 168 37.0 2.0 171 21.0 42.0 172 31.0 4.0 179 16.0 9.0 214 27.0 33.0 215 42.0 11.5 216 30.0 11.5 217 32.0 7.0 218 39.0 18.5 220 4.0 36.0 224 15.0 18.5 229 22.5 11.5 238 40.0 21.0 241 5.0 26.5 244 26.0 26.5 245 36.0 1.0 247 10.0 26.5 250 24.0 16.0 260‘ 28.0 7.0 261 35.0 33.0 264 11.0 11.5 287 34.0 38.0 293 3.0 41.0 Spearman correlation coefficient = -.275 187 Table 7 Rank Correlation of D Scores and Satisfaction Scores Firm Code D Rank Satisfaction Rank 75 1.0 26.5 79 38.0 31.0 99 9.0 26.5 101 3.0 7.0 102 15.0 26.5 103 40.0 4.0 113 35.0 37.0 121 19.0 26.5 122 2.0 40.0 126 8.0 16.0 134 17.0 39.0 143 5.0 35.0 155 7.0 21.0 157 39.0 16.0 161 18.0 4.0 164 41.0 26.0 168 32.0 2.0 171 14.0 42.0 172 16.0 4.0 179 24.0 9.0 214 20.0 33.0 215 42.0 11.5 216 25.0 11.5 217 36.0 7.0 218 34.0 18.5 220 12.0 36.0 224 11.0 18.5 229 26.0 11.5 238 37.0 21.0 241 4.0 26.5 244 10.0 26.5 245 30.0 1.0 247 6.0 26.5 260 28.0 7-0 287 33.0 38.0 293 13,0 41.0 301 29,0 14.0 356 31.0 21.0 Spearman correlation coefficient a -.318 188 Table 8 Rank Correlation of Effectiveness Scores and Satisfaction Scores Firm Code Effectiveness Rank Satisfaction Rank 75 27.0 26.5 79 37.0 31.0 99 21.0 26.5 101 14.5 7.0 102 5.0 26.5 103 30.5 4.0 113 29.0 37.0 121 38.0 26.5 122 40.0 40.0 126 3.0 16.0 134 14.5 39-0 143 18.0 35.0 155 42.0 21.0 157 25.5 16.0 161 6.0 ' 4.0 164 34.5 26.0 168 17.0 2.0 171 33.0 42.0 172 10.0 4.0 179 1.0 9.0 214 16.0 33.0 215 19.0 11.5 216 7.0 11.5 217 20.0 7.0 218 34.5 18.5 224 12.5 18.5 229 28.0 11.5 238 12.5 21.0 241 2.0 26.5 244 4.0 26.5 245 32.0 1.0 250 11.0 16.0 250 23.0 1-0 264 8.5 11.5 282 8.5 33.0 287 22.0 38.0 293 36.0 41.0 356 30.5 21.0 Spearman correlation coefficient 189 Table 9 Rank Correlation of V Scores and Interaction Scores Firm Code V Rank Interaction Rank 75 2.0 41.5 79 22.5 30.0 99 12.5 26.5 101 8.0 3.0 102 19.5 1.0 103 29.0 39.5 113 25.0 32.5 121 19.5 37.0 122 9.0 37.0 126 12.5 34.0 134 33.0 31.0 143 1.0 37.0 155 6.0 13.0 157 38.0 10.0 161 14.0 3.0 164 41.0 6.5 168 37.0 6.5 171 21.0 39.5 172 31.0 13.0 179 16.0 25.0 214 27.0 28.5 215 42.0 20.0 216 30.0 17.5 217 32.0 19.0 218 39.0 26.5 220 4.0 21.5 224 15.0 11.0 229 22.5 35.0 238 40.5 8.5 241 5.0 32.5 244 26.0 13.0 245 36.0 17.5 247 10.0 28.5 250 24.0 41.5 260 28.0 8.5 261 35.0 3-0 264 11.0 15.5 282 7.0 15.5 287 34.0 5.0 293 3.0 23.0 301 18.0 24.0 356 17.0 21.5 Spearman correlation coefficient = -.307 190 Table 10 Rank Correlation of D Scores and Interaction Scores Firm Code D Rank Interaction Rank 75 1.0 41.5 79 38.0 30.0 99 9.0 26.5 101 3.0 3.0 102 15.0 1.0 103 40.0 39.5 113 35.0 32.5 121 19.0 37.0 122 2.0 37.0 126 8.0 34.0 134 17.0 31.0 143 5.0 37.0 155 7.0 13.0 157 39.0 10.0 161 18.0 3.0 164 41.0 6.5 168 32.0 6.5 171 14.0 39.5 172 16.0 13.0 179 24.0 25.0 214 20.0 28.5 215 42.0 20.0 216 25.0 17.5 217 36.0 19.0 218 34.0 26.5 220 12.0 21.5 224 11.0 11.0 229 26.0 35.0 238 37.0 8.5 241 4.0 32.5 244 10.0 13.0 245 30.0 17.5 247 6.0 28.5 250 27.0 41.5 260 28.0 8.5 261 22.0 3-0 287 33.0 5-0 293 13.0 23.0 301 29.0 24.0 356 31.0 21.5 Spearman correlation coefficient a -.196 191 Table 11 Rank Correlation of D Scores and Education Scores Firm Code D Rank Education Rank 75 1.0 25.0 79 38.0 4.0 99 9.0 21.0 101 3.0 13.5 102 15.0 10.5 103 40.0 31.0 113 35.0 35.5 121 19.0 21.0 122 2.0 38.0 126 8.0 4.0 134 17.0 27.0 143 5.0 21.0 155 7.0 8.5 157 39.0 8.5 161 18.0 21.0 164 41.0 4.0 168 32.0 10.5 171 14.0 29.5 172 16.0 37.0 179 24.0 21.0 214 20.0 40.0 215 42.0 21.0 216 25.0 41.0 217 36.0 4.0 218 34.0 33.0 220 12.0 4.0 224 11.0 33.0 229 26.0 16.5 238 37.0 27.0 241 4.0 21.0 244 10.0 39.0 245 30.0 16.5 247 6.0 4.0 250 27.0 29.5 260 28.0 13.5 261 22.0 13.5 264 23.0 33.0 287 33.0 13.5 293 13.0 27.0 301 29.0 4.0 356 31.0 42.0 Spearman correlation coefficient = -.085 APPENDIX IV DATA COLLECTION INSTRUMENTS EXHIBIT 1 Questionnaire for Survey of Fortune 500 Firms 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 194 DEPARTMENI or MARKETING AND TRANSPORTATION ADMINISTRATION COLLEGE 0? BUSINESS MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY EAST LANSING , MICHIGAN Please circle one code number which best describes your company‘s marketing research function: 1 A.central marketing research department doing'work for entire company 2 A central department, but with regional or divisional units elsewhere 3 Regional or divisional units, without headquarters department 4 No formal marketing research department If alternatives 1 or 2 were circled, the remaining questions are to be completed by the head of the marketing research function of the corporation. If alternative 3 was circled, the remaining questions are to be completed by the head of the marketing research function in the largest regional or divisional unit of the corporation. If alternative 4 was circled, the individual filling_out the questionnaire should ship to question 18. Questions 2 throughd17 are to be filled in by the marketing research manager orgdirector. 'What positions did you previously hold within the firmn(please list your last three positions in reverse order -- placing your most recent position first): If you are new in the firm, what outside position did you last hold? Position Type of Business Please circle the following code which indicates the formal education you have completed (circle only one): 1 High school 2 Attended college 3 Bachelor's degree 4 ‘Master's.degree 5 Doctoral degree how long have you held your present position (please circle one): 1 Less than two years Two but less than four years Your but less than six years Six.but less than eight years Eight but less than twelve years 6 Twelve years or longer 2 3 lg. 5 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. ll. 12. 13. ll: . 195 How many employees in your company (or division) are assigned full-time to marketing research activities? Number of marketing research employees How would you rate your role as director of marketing research on the following scale? (Please circle one number) Large ly Research Largely a marketing 6: Advisory Role P 2 3 4 5 6 7 11 policy-making role Inter- mediate To when do you report in the firm? Title Did the position you now hold or one similar to it (possibly with a different title) exist before you held the position? 1 Yes 2 No If yes, circle the code number which applies to your immediate predecessor in the position. ' l he is still with the firm 2 he is retired (or deceased) 3 lie is with another firm If your predecessor is still with the firm, what position does he now hold? Title How would you classify this position? (please circle one) 1 Staff marketing (or sales) position 2 Line marketing (or sales) position 3 Staff general management position ‘5 Line general management position 5 Other If your predecessor is now retired or deceased, did he hold any positions in your firm (or another firm) after being director of marketing research? 1 Yes 2 No If yes, what was the highest position he held before retirement? Title 15. l6. l7. l8. 19. 196 ‘ How would you classify this position? (please circle one)! Staff marketing (or sales) position Line marketing (or sales) position Staff general management position Line general management position Other UlvPUNP‘ If your predecessor is now with another firm, what position does he hold? Title Type of Business How would you classify the position? Marketing research position Staff marketing (or sales) position other than marketing research Line marketing (or sales) position Staff general management position Line general management position Other guppy-9N" Questions 18 ang_;9 are 53 be completed by‘all respgndents to the Questionnaire. Please circle one code number which best describes your corporation. 1 Primarily a manufacturer of consumer products 2 Primarily a manufacturer of non-consumer products 3 The firm is heavily engaged in manufacturing both consumer and non-consumer products Please circle the code representing your company‘s sales for your last fiscal year (if you are representing a subsidiary, use the subsidiary‘s total). 1 Under $100 million 2 $100 million but under $200 million 3 $200 million but under $400 million 4 $400 million but under $600 million 5 $600 million but under $800 million 6 $800‘million.but under $1 billion 7 Over $1 billion The following information is Optional. 20. 21. 22. 23. Your name Your title Your firm‘ s name Your address EXHIBIT 2 Director of Marketing Research Questionnaire Role Analysis Survey Depart 5 As prise, w member acrin'ty. Which i: readmg T0 ‘hould l ' N0 narr sertatior Th< E'ECh I'Ef results r \ Section ] TTN‘r‘rudfm. Ward: (1 the ob a?) to d L" {W L‘i TWSCMS 53h item, a: o l I Jr to -0 l ’l'd-fs‘ ru hly should Aluy or may not ,_. .._. (O tx.) 00 GO Wl‘n'tmRR-ffln - x a._:—;.._-: -- .,_. , .7 . _. _, Department of Marketing and Transportation Administration Graduate School of Business Administration Michigan State University East Lansing, Michigan As part of our continuing interest in all phases of the business enter- prise, we are gathering data from directors of marketing research and other members of management who are familiar with the marketing research activity. This information will be the basis for a doctoral dissertation which is designed to define the role of marketing research departments in leading industrial corporations. To insure confidential treatment of your reply, the questionnaire should be returned directly to the university in the self-addressed envelo e. No names of individuals or firms will be identified in the text of the is- sertation. The research is not sponsored by any group or agency. The success of this study is entirely dependent on the c00peration of each respondent. In ap reciation of your participation, a summary of the results of the study will be sent to each firm. Thank you very much. Section I Instructions: The following items are concerned with the role of the marketing research department in your firm. We would like to know what you believe to be the obligation of the director of marketing research (or a member of his Staff) to do or not to do the following things. In this section, we are interested in your view of the ideal director of marketing research. The followin scale represents your feeling concerning each item. Please circle one code num er for each item. .. g 5 l Absolutely must g E E g g 2 Preferably Should .3 g 3 7:; ,5. 3 May or may not :3; 1:: E g g 4 Preferably should not i:: E 5 E 3 5 Absolutely must not 1 2 3 4 5 (1) Help management define the problems to be studied. 1 2 3 4 5 (2) Write articles for professional journals in the fields of marketing or research methodology which will be of benefit to marketing researchers in other business organizations. 1 774‘ *‘m (72) Some marketing research activities (such as sales forecasting and deter- mining market share) are quite routine in nature while other activities (such as estimating the consumer acceptance of a proposed new product or determ- ining size and characteristics of markets) are of the special project type which generally result in a report to the executive who requested the stud . Please circle your best estimate of the proportion of your department’s time w ich is an- nually devoted to this latter type of special project studies (circle only one). 1 None 2 Less than 20% 3 At least 20% but less than 40% 4 At least 40% but less than 60% 5 At least 60% but less than 80% 6 At least 80% but less than 100% 7 100% Section IV The following information will be treated with the strictest confidence. (73) Your name ................................................................................................................ (74) Your title .................................................................................................................... (75) Your firm’s name .................................................................................................... (76) Your firm’s address .................................................................................................. EXHIBIT 3 Role Definer's Questionnaire Role Analysis Survey Depar‘ .Id I" 01-03 u;lo-t.‘l v 4‘11" Department of Marketing and Transportation Administration Graduate School of Business Administration Michigan State University East Lansing, Michigan As part of our continuing interest in all phases of the business enter- prise, we are gathering data from directors of marketing research and other members of management who are familiar with the marketing research activity. This information will be the basis for a doctoral dissertation which is designed to define the role of marketing research departments in leading industrial corporations. To insure confidential treatment of your reply, the questionnaire should be returned directly to the university in the self-addressed envelope. No names of individuals or firms will be identified in the text of the dis- sertation. The research is not sponsored by any group or agency. The success of this study is entirely dependent on the cooperation of each respondent. In appreciation of your participation, a summary of the results of the study will e sent to each firm. Thank you very much. Section I Instructions: The following items are concerned with the role of the marketing research department in your firm. We would like to know what you believe to be the obligation of the director of marketing research (or a member of his staff) to do or not to do the following things. In this section, we are interested in your view of the ideal director of marketing research. The followin scale repzesents your feeling concerning each item. Please circle one code num er for eac item. a E g 1 Absolutely must g a E g g 2 Preferably should 3*,- E E 5 b 3 May or may not '3 g E g g 4 Preferably should not 3 E 5 5 3 5 Absolutely must not 1 2 3 4 5 (1) Help management define the problems to be studied. 1 2 3 4 5 (2) Write articles for professional journals in the fields of marketing or research methodology which will be of benefit to marketing researchers in other business organizations. 1 Absolutely must Preferably should [0 May or may not 00 Preferably should not pp Absolutely must not 01 1 Absolutely must 2 Preferably should 3 May or may not 4 Preferably should not 5 Absolutely must not (3) Measure his performance primarily by the extent to which marketing research results are used in decision-making. (4) Realize that he does not have a monopoly on information which is relevant to a particular decision. (5) Be involved in formulating marketing strategy for the firm. (6) Maintain an active interest in a given study until after the recommendations are implemented by management. (7) Become familiar with the objectives of management in a given area before beginning a marketing research project in that area. (8) Critically review past studies to determine whether the methodology might have been improved. (9) Produce information which reduces the area of uncertainty in management decisions. (10) Recognize the value of executive judgment in decision making. (11) Be responsible for showin the contribution of marketing research to the profitability of t e firm. ( 12) Offer early indications of findings to management when requested even though a conclusive investigation may prove them to be wrong. (13) Make contributions to the development of marketing theory. (14) Be able to translate marketing research results into positive courses of action for management to follow. (15 After a study is completed, accept the judgment of the mar eting executive who requested the study as final. 2 I‘I‘O‘IQ'II. May "r .234 3:34 CI.) .23 Absolutely must Preferably should NJ May or may not 03 Preferably should not .5. Absolutely must not 01 1 Absolutely must 2 Preferably should 3 May or may not 4 Preferably should not 5 Absolutely must not ( 16) Take on temporary line management responsibilities from time to time to implement his research findings if there is no one else in the firm qualified to do so. (17) Initiate changes in the marketing strategy of the firm whenever possible. (18) Devote part of his time and resources to improving his methodological approach to problems. ( 19) Provide information to support decisions which have al- ready been made by a marketing executive. (20) Resist involvement in policy making to maintain his ob- jective approach to problems. (21) Withhold certain marketing research information when it is expedient to do so. (22) Anticipate future decisions and have information ready when requested by management. (23) Have the final say concerning the methodology which ' will be used on a given study. (24) Take the initiative in finding ways to improve the market- ing efforts of the firm. (25) Consult at length with the executive requesting a study to make certain he understands the problem before conducting the actual research. (26) Expect all members of marketin management to utilize the services of the marketing research epartment. (1127) Place strong emphasis on the understandability of his ’ al report. ( 28) Give his frank opinion to marketing executives even if it will hurt their position in the firm. — 3 Absolutely must l—‘ Preferably should May or may not (Q Preferably should not pk Absolutely must not 1 Absolutely must 2 Preferably should 3 May or may not 4 Preferably should not 5 Absolutely must not (29) Request permission from a member of marketing manage- ment before initiating a study concerning his operation. (30) Include a detailed discussion of research methodology in all marketing research reports. (31) Report apparent resistance to the acceptance of marketing research findings to his superior (32) Be creative as well as objective in analyzing the results of a marketing research study. (33) Consider the job of his department to be completed when the research report has been submitted to management. (34) Conduct research for every major marketing decision where a choice must be made between feasible alternative courses of action. (35) Initiate a procedure for bringing marketing problems to the attention of his department. (36) Be responsible for all contract marketing research cen- ducted by outside research firms. (37) Get approval from his superior for all research studies undertaken by his department. (38) Persuade marketing -management to accept marketing research findings. (39) Make recommendations for action based on his own judgment as well as marketing research findings. (40) Be able to utilize the most advanced research methods it sufficient time and money are available for a particular study. (41) Furnish marketing research results at the time requested regardless of whether he has sufficient information to feel con- fi ent of its validity. 4 »»»»» Absolute-1y must Preferably should May or may not 03 Preferably should not Absolutely must not 01 l Absolutely must 2 Preferably should 3 May or may not 4 Preferably should not 5 Absolutely must not ( 42) Serve on committees which formulate marketing strategies. (43) Enlarge the marketing research function by moving into other areas in the firm where the capabilities of his department can be used. (44) Read most of the professional journals in his field. (45) uestion the soundness of the objectives which a member of mar eting management may bring to bear on a problem being studied by the marketing research department. (46) Solicit suggestions concerning research methodology from the marketing manager who requested the study. (47) Use standards of scientific excellence and objectivity as the primary basis to evaluate the work of his department. (48) Restrict his activities to doing research and offering ad- vice only when called upon by management. (49) Have the final say in committin corporate funds for the services of outside marketing researc agencies. (50) Check periodically with the executive to whom a report as been submitted to see whether the report is being used. (51) Look upon the members of his department as an important source of management talent for the firm. (52) Separate himself from the day to day operations of the marketing department to protect his objectivity in approaching problems. Section 11 Instructions: The following items are concerned with an evaluation of the effectiveness of the marketing research department in your firm. We would like your personal opinion concerning each statement. The following scale represents your degree of satisfaction with the performance of the department on each item. Next to each item listed, just circle the code number that best expresses your feeling. 1 Very well satisfied 2 Fairly well satisfied 3 Fairly dissatisfied 4 Very dissatisfied Very well satisfied Fairly well satlsfled Fairly dissatisfied Very dissatisfied 1 2 3 4 (53) The value of marketing research information. 1 2 3 4 (54) Understandability of marketing research reports. 1 2 3 4 (55) Timing of marketing research reports. 1 2 3 4 (56) Marketing research department’s understanding of problems studied. 1 2 3 4 (57) Return on investment in marketing research. 1 2 3 4 (58) Proper use of research methodology. 1 2 3 4 (59) Relevance of marketing research data to decisions. 1 2 3 4 (60) Objectivity of marketing research department. 1 2 3 4 (61) Soundness of recommendations. 1 2 3 4 (62) Creativity of marketing research department. ‘~ lion Section III Instructions: The following items are also concerned with the effectiveness of the marketing research department. However, we are now interested in the extent to which you agree or disagree with each statement. Using the follow- ing scale, just circle the code number that best expresses your feeling on each item. H Atrree strongly Section IV to Agree somewhat 03 Disagree somewhat in Disagree strongly 1 Agree strongly 2 Agree somewhat 3 Disagree somewhat 4 Disagree strongly (63) The marketing research department often comes up with valuable alternative courses of action which were never before considered by management. (64) We would have made some very bad mistakes if we would not have had the marketing research department. (65) The marketing research department plays an important part in initiating changes in the marketing strategies of the firm. (66) A business as complex as this one would have a difficult time operating without the marketing research department. (67) If we had no marketing research department, our decisions would have been about the same. (68) The marketing research function is a well integrated part of the marketing activity of the firm. (69) I have as much confidence in the results of studies by our marketing research department as I do in the results of studies by outside research firms. (70) Much of the data which the marketing research department comes up with I know from experience cannot be true. ( 71) How long have you held your present position (please circle one)? 1 Less than two years 2 Two but less than four years 3 Four but less than six years 4 Six but less than eight years 5 Eight but less than twelve years 6 Twelve years or more .(72) Have y0u had any official contact with the marketing research department In prevrous positions you have held in this firm? 1 Yes 2N0 (73) If yes, over how many years have you had official contacts with the mar- keting research department in this firm (please circle one)? 1 Less than two years 2 Two but less than four years 3 Four but less than six years 4 Six but less than eight years 5 Eight but less than twelve years 6 Twelve years or more (74) Please circle the following code which indicates the formal education you have completed (circle only one). 1 High school 2 Attended college 3 Bachelor’s degree 4 Master’s degree 5 Doctoral degree 75) In your work, what kind of products are you primarily concerned with please circle one)? 1 Consumer products 2 Nonconsumer products 3 Both consumer and nonconsumer products (76) Have you ever worked in a marketing research position in this firm or in another firm? 1 Yes 2 No (77) What is your relationship to the director of marketing research in the firm at the present time (please circle any of the following which apply)? 1 I am his direct superior. 2 His departrnent does research studies for me. 3 His department furnishes me with second data (trade infor- mation, etc., that they receive from outsi e sources). 4 Other (please specify) ...................................................................................................... ....................................................................................................................... Section V The following information will be treated with the strictest confidence. (78) Your name ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (79) Your title .................................................................................................................... (30) Your firm’s name ...................................................................................................... (31) Your firm’s address .................................................................................................. 8 APPENDIX V FIRMS INCLUDED IN ROLE STUDY 216 Firms Included in Role Analysis Study, Agway, Inc. Air Reduction Company, Inc. Aluminum Company of America American Brake Shoe Company (Abex) American Cyanamid Company American Oil Company Armour Grocery Products Company The Black and Decker Manufacturing Company Bristol-Meyers Company Cabot Corporation California Packing Corporation Campbell Soup Company Carborundum Company Ceco Corporation Certain—Teed Products Corporation Cessna Aircraft Company Champion Spark Plug Company Continental Oil Company Cummins Engine Company Cutler-Hammer, Inc. Detroit Steel Corporation Dow Chemical Company 217 Eagle-Picher Company The Emerson Electric Company Falstaff Brewing Corporation Firestone Tire and Rubber Company Flintkote Company Fruehauf Corporation Gerber Products Company Glidden Company The B. F. Goodrich Company. Granite City Steel Company H. J. Heinz Company Hooker Chemical Corporation Houdaille Industries, Inc. Hunt Foods and Industries, Inc. I. T. E. Circuit Breaker Company Interchemical Corporation International Harvester Company International Paper Company International Pipe and Ceramics Corporation (Interpace) International Shoe Company Island Creek Coal Company The Kendall Company Kimberly-Clark Corporation K. V. P. Sutherland Paper Company Lowenstein (M.) and Sons, Inc. 218 Lukens Steel Company Maremont Corporation Maytag Company Mead Corporation National Cash Register Company National Gypsum Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corporation Packaging Corporation of America Parke Davis and Company Pennsalt Chemicals Corporation Pepperell Manufacturing Company Phillips Petroleum Company Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company Pittsburgh Steel Company Quaker Oats Company Rath Packing Company Rexall Drug and Chemical Company Riegel Paper Corporation Rockwell Manufacturing Company Schlitz, (Jos.) Brewing Company Smith Kline and French Laboratories Standard Oil Company of California Stanley Works St. Regis Paper Company Tidewater Oil Company 219 Union Tank Car Company United Biscuit Company of America United States Gypsum Company U. S. Plywood Corporation Upjohn Company Vulcan Materials Company Weyerhaeuser Company Whirlpool Corporation Witco Chemical Company Worthington Corporation BIBLIOGRAPHY BIBLIOGRAPHY Books Alderfer, E. B., and H. E. Michl. Economics o;_American Industgy. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1957. Alderson, Wroe, and Paul E. Green. Planning and Problem Solving in Marketing. Homewood, Illinois: Rich- ard D. Irwin, Inc., 1964. Bartels, Robert. The Development of Marketing Thought. Homewood, Illinois: Richard D. Irwin, Inc., 1962. Blankenship, A. B., and J. B. Doyle. Marketing Research Management. New York: American Management Asso- ciation, 1965. Duncan, C. S. Commercial Research. New York: The Mac- millan Company, 1919. Frederick, J. George. 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