Editorial

Citation

Tiu Wright, L. (2013), "Editorial", Qualitative Market Research, Vol. 16 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/qmr.2013.21616daa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, Volume 16, Issue 4

The collection of papers in this normal issue adds to an understanding of how practices by individuals and organisations influence the way that research methods can be developed. In what ways are researchers developing qualitative methodologies and on what scale are the analyses of their implementations from exploratory country studies to existing and new practices on the larger global stage?

The commentary paper from the USA is an exploratory study featuring the development of theory. The authors, Anita Whiting and David Williams point out that over US$60 billion is spent annually on social media advertising so the how and why of consumers using social media is, therefore, of critical interest to academics and practitioners. The authors suggest the application of a methodological approach to apply a uses and gratifications theory to demonstrate what consumers receive from using social media. To support the theory 25 in-depth interviews were carried out to explore ten uses and gratifications of individuals ranging from social interaction to surveillance and knowledge about others. The effective contribution of this paper is the building of a theoretical framework that could be applied in comprehensive way to understand consumer motivations for social media usage.

Exploring and evaluating web sites, especially those of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), are much less featured in academic marketing research and marketing journals. So it is of interest to have in the first paper a study of NGO web sites from the University of Castilla-La Mancha in Spain. Estrella Díaz, Juan José Blázquez, Arturo Molina and David Martín-Consuegra examine the effectiveness of NGOs’ web sites associated with the United Nations from several viewpoints: “web site facilities information quality, system quality and service quality in relation to target audiences”. This is a qualitative paper and one that relates to businesses by seeking to improve business performances through better cost-effective methods in a practical way, ultimately improving delivery to communities. The majority of their web sites appear to be average in interactive communications. There is ostensibly more room for improvements to be made for NGOs’ social marketing communications via their web sites.

An emerging, but different topic is “brand hate” from consumer perceptions provided by Douglas Bryson and Glyn Atwal from France and Peter Hultén from Sweden. The authors capture the essence of extreme negative responses. In this second paper, reflections about “conceptualising the antecedents of extreme negative affect towards luxury brands” stem from a critical incidents approach to interviews. Consumer perceptions of luxury brands from the extremes of positive and negative incidents were investigated from a small sample of German and British consumers. Common themes were extracted from the interviews allowing evaluations, such as negative incidents taking account of country of origin and consumer dissatisfaction with service. A potential antecedent of brand hate within the luxury sector comes from negativity in stereotyping luxury brand users. The authors propose avoidance of dissonance that would affect negative perceptions of luxury brands as perceived by consumers.

On the subject of branding it is appealing to note the contribution of a study on Malaysian fashion brands, given the dominance of iconic global brands, many of which have emanated from the West. The third paper from the UK by Benaliza Kuang-Ying Loo and Chris Hackley reports on in-depth interviews with four international stores exhibiting high fashion brands. The authors point to the paper “opening up a qualitative line of inquiry in internationalisation research and from an Asian business perspective”. The paper is interpretive by nature with themes extracted from interview data.

From the East, Kara Chan and Hao-Chieh Chang in the fourth paper contribute a study about the applicability of “public campaigns in the mass media” in marketing communications. The authors studied a small sample of young people in Hong Kong and their attitudes toward government publicity by evaluating their responses to two public service advertisements promoting green lifestyles. The authors make the claim of the paper providing “the first study to measure youth’s attitudes toward public service advertising campaigns in Hong Kong”. The paper contributes practical insights to agencies organising public service advertisement campaigns to take account of social marketing to Chinese youths.

The fifth and last paper is by David Dowell and Troy Heffernan from the UK and Mark Morrison from Australia about “trust formation at the growth stage” in the relationships of businesses with each other. Implicitly, lack of trust between businesses is detrimental to their gaining the confidence to grow their relationships. The authors provide a pertinent conceptualisation of trust in combining the elements of “ability/competence, integrity/contractual and benevolence/goodwill” within their study. The qualitative case method investigation contributes by showing linkages and development for engendering trust and its managerial implications for businesses.

Finally, as this is my last normal issue in retiring as Editor of QMR, I thank all the authors, reviewers and members of the Editorial Board for making QMR a success. It has been a great time being an Editor looking after QMR. I welcome Dr Andrew Lindridge from the Open University as the incoming Editor of QMR and Chris Hart as the new publisher looking after QMR at Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Len Tiu Wright