Marketing research BA3150

Half course

Marketing Research is fundamental for informed management decision-making in modern organisations. The course prepares students in both how to identify and how to obtain appropriate marketing information for strategic and tactical marketing decisions.

In addition, the course seeks to develop students’ analytical skills and critical thinking to properly interpret the results of a marketing research exercise. Marketing Research (MN303) focuses on providing students with the necessary skills that will enable them to carry out marketing research projects within a real life environment.

Pre-requisites

BA2070 Strategic Management

Topics covered

General exposition of marketing research principles and practice. This exposition emphasises macro issues and analytical schools of thought rather than detailed accounts of data analytical procedure.
The basics of market research practice.
The marketing research process entails five main stages, the first of which – defining the research problem/issue – will be the focus of this topic.
Choosing the type of study within the concept of research design.
This topic is organised around several distinctions to illustrate the broad issues and problems at stake in decisions regarding data collection method and focuses on primary data collection.
In this topic we will look at the mechanisms for gathering qualitative data.
Issues of fact and interpretation of data.
Alternative approaches in marketing research.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this module students should be able to:

Formulate, organise and conduct a marketing research project;
Apply and evaluate different sources of marketing information;
Apply and evaluate various data collection techniques;
Apply and evaluate various methods of data analysis; and
Write a comprehensive market research report

Assessment

This module is assessed by a two hour unseen written examination.

Essential reading

Doing Research Projects in Marketing, Management and Consumer Research (Hackley C.)