Toward an exploratory framework of determinants of marketing research effectiveness in business organizations

The current study aims to explore the hierarchy of importance in factors influencing marketing research effectiveness in two interrelated streams: (1) the company’s internal organizational constraints, and (2) the methodological errors made by firms in the research processes. Both areas are diagnosed from perspective of managers’ and researchers’ perception based on two-community theory. As such, research expands understanding of the marketing research effectiveness in term of complex system of interrelated elements, of organizational and methodological nature. Further, by exploring research effectiveness in firms, this work provides insights about determinants of organizational learning, allowing firms to leverage research and information more effectively, by instituting structural, procedural, organizational and methodological changes, as well as by seeking appropriate personal skill sets among managers and market researchers. Research findings indicate that organizational constraints of the research effectiveness ensue not only from information-users’ personal shortcomings in decision-making processes, but the lack of basic knowledge on marketing research. Further constraints reveal a deficiency of ‘organizational code’, as part of specific culture inside business organizations. While methodological errors center on the conceptual aspects of research designs. Importantly, managers neglect the methodological sphere of effective research, while market researchers neglect the organizational sphere of managing information within this research. Practical implications of study, provide answers to questions: how to prevent methodological errors in the research processes; how to expel organizational barriers in term of managing information in business organization; and how to combine both streams to increase the overall marketing research effectiveness.