Saylor URL: http://www.saylor.org/books Saylor.org
- Obtain contact information for the participants and send out invitations (usually e-mails are most
efficient). - Develop a list of questions.
- Choose a facilitator.
- Choose a location in which to hold the focus group and the method by which it will be recorded.
- Conduct the focus group. If the focus group is not conducted electronically, include name tags for
the participants, pens and notepads, any materials the participants need to see, and refreshments.
Record participants’ responses. - Summarize the notes from the focus group and write a report for management.
A case study looks at how another company solved the problem that’s being researched. Sometimes
multiple cases, or companies, are used in a study. Case studies nonetheless have a mixed reputation.
Some researchers believe it’s hard to generalize, or apply, the results of a case study to other companies.
Nonetheless, collecting information about companies that encountered the same problems your firm is
facing can give you a certain amount of insight about what direction you should take. In fact, one way to
begin a research project is to carefully study a successful product or service.
Two other types of qualitative data used for exploratory research are ethnographies and projective
techniques. In an ethnography, researchers interview, observe, and often videotape people while they
work, live, shop, and play. The Walt Disney Company has recently begun using ethnographers to uncover
the likes and dislikes of boys aged six to fourteen. This is a financially attractive market segment for
Disney, but one in which the company has been losing market share. The ethnographers visit the homes of
boys, observe the things they have in their rooms to get a sense of their hobbies, and accompany them and
their mothers when they shop to see where they go, what the boys are interested in, and what they
ultimately buy. (The children get seventy-five dollars out of the deal, incidentally.) [4]
Projective techniques are used to reveal information research respondents might not reveal by being
asked directly. Asking a person to complete sentences such as the following is one technique: