Qualitative research in intelligence and marketing : the new strategic convergence / Alf H. Walle III.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Walle, Alf H.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Business intelligence.

Marketing research.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (261 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Westport, Conn. : Quorum Books, 2001.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Although competitive intelligence and contemporary marketing research evolved from different intellectual traditions, both are indebted to qualitative methods of research and analysis. Walle shows that by merging their strategies in relevant ways, both fields grow even more robust and responsive to the needs of business clients and decision makers. Written by a noted humanist/social scientist with a wide ranging background in competitive intelligence and marketing research, this book can be viewed as a breakthrough. It is the first book to juxtapose, compare, and integrate the qualitative methods of marketing research with those of competitive intelligence. Among its many important features is a discussion of how to conduct a qualitative audit that assesses the degree to which an organization is able to take full advantage of qualitative analytic techniques. Walle reminds us that the qualitative social sciences and humanities have a strong tradition within intelligence, one that dates back to World War II. Although innovations from the qualitative social sciences and humanities were developed 50 years ago, they were allowed to atrophy as the principle researchers of the time re-entered civilian life. Walle updates and revives them, and shows readers how to do it themselves for their own business purposes. The book reintroduces the World War II-era culture at a distance method that applied qualitative social sciences and humanities to intelligence, but updates them in terms of advances that have taken place since then. It also provides useful means to merge competitive intelligence and contemporary marketing research in ways that will result in collaboration and mutual understanding. Finally, Walle provides an appendix that discusses how to recruit and motivate researchers, whose training comes out of the humanities but whose contributions to business will prove of exceptional value. This is an important new resource for marketing practitioners and graduate level students and their teachers.

Contents:

Intro

Preface

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction

I. Parallels, Agendas, and Options

2. Competitive Intelligence as Qualitative Alternative

3. Marketing Research: Merging with Another Qualitative Tradition

II. Competitive Intelligence and Cross-Disciplinary Tools

4. Justifying Qualitative Methods

5. The Qualitative Espionage Model

6. Competitive Intelligence, the Planning Process, and Marketing

7. The Process of Intelligence

8. The Qualitative Social Sciences and Competitive Intelligence

9. The Humanities and Competitive Intelligence

10. Culture at a Distance: A Lesson from World War II

III. Operationalizing the Social Sciences and the Humanities

11. Competitive Intelligence at a Distance: Learning from World War II

12. The Qualitative Audit

Epilogue: The 10 Percent Edge

Appendix 1: The Use and Abuse of Warfare and Sports Analogies

Appendix 2: The ''Care and Feeding'' of Humanists

Index.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781429476430

1429476435

9781567509649

1567509649

OCLC:

55664204