Part 2: Introduction to Market Research

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From the course by Technische Universität München (TUM)

The Economics of Agro-Food Value Chains

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Technische Universität München (TUM)

The Economics of Agro-Food Value Chains

39 ratings

Have a look at our trailer for a brief introduction to this course: https://youtu.be/GADAgxTHjgE In this course, you learn how the agro-food value chain approaches the challenge of constantly improving its competitiveness by producing high quality food and products and also aiming to attain greater sustainability. Some of the topics of this course are: • The notion of quality for food and agricultural products and consumer value. • How to conduct market research in this field. • Labelling, branding and pricing strategies, as-well as innovation in the agro-food sector. • How sustainability can be used as a competitive advantage through corporate social responsibility. • The role and different types of industrial standards. • The different forms of coordination in the chain, in particular with regard to the retailing and distribution sector. This course is taught by a group of international experts from Universities in Italy, Germany, Ireland, Scotland and the Netherlands. Each of them will give you insights into a specific topic related to food quality and the organization of the agro-food value chains.

From the lesson

Module 3: Market Research

In Module 3 you will learn about market research. After the module you will know the definition, role and types of market research in addition to the research process and the ethics of market research. In the second lesson of the module you will learn about the different types of data and various methods of data collection. The last lesson of the module then deals with data analysis, where you will learn about the most commonly used statistical and econometric techniques to analyze data.

Part 1: Introduction to Market Research9:24

Part 2: Introduction to Market Research16:57

Meet the Instructors

Hannes Lang
Research Associate
Technical University of Munich
Luisa Menapace
Professor
Technical University of Munich
Faical Akaichi
Research Economist
Scotland’s Rural College
Francesco Bimbo
Research Economist
Wageningen University
Montserrat Costa-Font
Research Economist
Scotland’s Rural College
Carlo Russo
Associate Professor
University of Cassino and Lazio Meridionale
Chenguang Li
Research Economist
University College Dublin

So let's move on to see the different steps that need to be well designed and executed,

to successfully conduct market research. So this figure summarizes the

market research process in six steps. The first step consists of defining the

problem and the objectives of the market research. This is an important step in

any market research. The second step is dedicated to the preparation of the

research design. In the first step the instruments that will be used to collect

the data are identified and designed. In the fourth step respondents are sampling

and the data is collected. In the fifth step the data is analyzed. Finally, in

step six, the results are interpreted and reported.

In a report, that we will see at the end of this section, how the report has

to be organized. So, in the next few slides, I will briefly describe each of

these six steps. So let's start with the first step: problem and objective formulation.

Before embarking on your marketing research you must define the

problem and your research objectives. This step is the most important and you

should set aside a decent amount of time and effort. Two, to define the right

problem to do preliminary investigation, if needed in order to help identify the

right problem and define the right objectives of the research. So, it is

worthwhile to spend more time and effort and do a primary investigation than

basing your market research study on incomplete or wrong problems and

objectives. Furthermore, the objectives of the research should be expressed as

research questions, statements or hypotheses. To illustrate an appropriate

problem statement should be or should reflect felt needs, be based on factual evidence,

suggest meaningful and testable hypotheses and finally, be relevant and manageable, okay.

I want to highlight here the word manageable, ok.

So, you can't conduct a research study at any cost and taking all the time you need.

Sometimes you are, in most of the cases, if not all, you are constrained by time and cost, okay.

So, this is an important thing to focus on, when you are preparing your

plan for a market research study. Once the problem to be addressed and the

objectives of the research are well-defined the following step consists

of preparing the research design. A research design consists of preparing a

plan of action, that specifies the objectives of the research, the type of information,

that needs to be collected and analyzed, to answer the research questions.

The sampling process and the sample size, the method that will be used to collect the data,

the methodology of data analysis and finally the research design

must also specify the time frame and possible costs of the research to be undertaken.

Once the plan of action for the market research is prepared,

the investigator proceeds with the design of the instruments that would

be used to collect the data. This is the step, where you start executing the

research plan, prepared in the previous steps. For example, if the survey is the

most appropriate tool to collect data, you will begin by writing your questions

and designing your questionnaire. after the research instrument is designed,

it is highly recommended to test the instrument with a small group of people.

This will allow you to catch potential problems early. This is in some cases

ignored by master student and PhD student and even researcher, so it is a

very important step, ok, is to test the instruments for example, if you decided

to collect data using a survey, you need to test whether the questions you are

including in the survey are the right ones, whether they are well understood by

respondents and so on. So you don't need to test that the survey or the

instrument to collect data with a large sample, just with a small group of people

should be enough and does the job, ok. So the first step of a

market research process is sampling and data collection. This step is the meat

and potatoes of your market research, ok. So sampling, just to first to mention

So, what is meant by sampling here. So sampling is the selection of a sub-set

of the whole population. This sub-set is technically called 'the sample'.

Sampling is often done for reason of cost and practicality. First, for example it is

less expensive to interview a sample of 10,000 consumers than a

population of 10 millions. Practicality - an example of practicality:

it is impractical, for example, to perform a crash test on every new car model.

This is not just impractical, but it is also impossible. Lastly, keep in mind that it

is necessary to select a representative sample, if you need to draw conclusions

about the population. I mentioned this point earlier and I am

stressing the same point again, because it is very important if one of your

objectives is to generalize your results to the population. We could technically

call it 'to infer the results'. It is important from the beginning to select a

representative sample, ok. So, if when you have costs and time restrains, okay, so

you need to select a representative sample, if you want to infer the results.

Otherwise you need to change your objectives from the beginning, okay, so

from the beginning we are assuming that at the end if I am not using the representative sample,

I will not be able to generalize the results okay.

So, there are different sampling methods. In this lesson, I am going to mention the

two most commonly used sampling methods. The first one is the random sampling,

which consists of selecting a sample in such a way, that every individual to

the population has the same probability to be selected. The second sampling

method is the stratified random sampling and it consists of obtaining a sample by

separating the population into mutually exclusive stratum and then drawing a

random sample from each stratum. This is the stratified random sampling.

Now another important sampling issue is the sample size. In this lesson,

I am not going to mention the several numerical techniques for determining the

sample of a representative or the size of a representative sample, but I would

like to highlight the fact that the larger the sample size the more accurate

the results of the analysis of the data, okay. So have in mind that a larger

sample is better. Once the sample is selected, you can proceed with the data

collection, which is going to be described in detail in the next lesson, ok.

So in the last next lesson, I will describe in details the

different methods used to collect different types of data. The fifth step

of market research procedure is the analysis of the collected data.

This step starts by preparing the data for the analysis and data preparation includes

data cleaning, which consists of finding and eliminating errors in the data.

Examples of errors that should be eliminated are important

or impossible or other ways incorrect values for specific variables.

Also, another type of error that should be eliminated, are the duplicate cases and

also the missing data or the outliers. Data preparation also includes creating

new variables. In fact, once the data are free of errors, you need to set up the

variables that will directly answer your research question and in many case these

require creating new variables from the original variables you have in your data set.

Also data preparation consists of formatting variables.

This includes setting all missing data codes,

formatting date variables as dates, a numerical variable as numbers and

finally labeling all variables and categorical values, so you don't have to

keep looking them up later on. It is important. So once the data is

ready to be analyzed, three types of analysis can be carried out:

descriptive analysis, bivariate analysis and multivariate analysis. I will explain these types of

analysis in details in the next lesson. The last step of the market research process

is the interpretation and the reporting of the results. In this step, the results

are presented and discussed in a report, that is generally organized as follows:

first, the research objectives are stated, then the methodology of data collection

and analysis is described, then the results are presented in tables and graphs.

After that, the results are described and discussed then the

recommendations based on the research results are presented and finally, the

limitation of the study and future research ideas are explicitly mentioned.

More or less, this is also the same structure of an academic paper.

Now, I am going to conclude this lesson by briefly talking about the ethics that must be considered,

when conducting market research. This is is an important step in

any market research. So please, have it in mind when you decide to conduct

the market research study, okay. Look, for example, if you are working for the

university or doing a master thesis or a PhD thesis, look at the university

policy for this kind of ethical issues when you are conducting market research

and especially when you are collecting data. Ethics of market research

are principals and standards, that must be respected and fulfilled, to avoid

economic, physical or mental harm to respondents, clients and other parties.

The main ethical issues that arise when carrying out a market research are:

privacy, confidentiality, deception, imposition and misrepresentation.

By privacy we mean, so that respondents must be informed that they are participating

in a market research study; by confidentiality we mean, that respondents

must be told or reassured that their responses will be treated with

confidentiality, okay, here I mean, the collected data are not going to be

passed to third parties; deception: this means that respondents must not be

deceived, for example misleading a respondent

telling them, that an interview will take five minutes just to influence they're

willing to accept to complete example the survey, when the researcher knows it

will take much more than that, okay, this is deception. It is not allowed in market

research studies. Imposition; for example respondents must not be forced or

intimidated to grant an interview. And finally misrepresentation:

the research results must not be presented in a way, likely to

mislead readers or clients, okay. So these are the five most important ethical

issues, that you need to take into account when you are conducting a market research study, okay.

As I said before these are very important

issues, okay, so please have them in mind. So now and before

saying goodbye, because I almost finished the lesson, I would like to encourage you

to answer this question: the techniques, that are used in a market

research study are contingent valuation, and ANOVA analysis and random sample.

So, with this slide we conclude the first lesson 'Introduction to market research

of modern ways about market research. Many thanks for being with me in this lesson.

I hope you have found the information

presented in this lesson helpful and useful and see you in the next lesson about

the different types of data and what are the most commonly used methods to collect data.

So see you then, many thanks again and good bye!

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