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The research involved a funeral home manager who used case research within another funeral home to learn more about how to manage his own workplace. This research aims to investigate for the first time how funeral homes can strategically manage the marketing of their services to customers during emotional times in their lives.

The two methodologies of convergent interviewing and case research in a funeral home workplace are described in detail.

The case research revealed what strategic marketing management principles have to be emphasized in the unique context of funeral homes, and the related need to develop a hybrid strategy. The project demonstrated that a case research project can align a formal research project with the professional development of managers.

The paper provided the first author with a valuable learning experience of management in his industry, and provides other funeral home managers with a detailed guide to doing their strategic marketing management.

The authors’ contributions are the first example of case research used for workplace learning in a blend of formal academic research and workplace learning. It is also the first academically rigorous coverage of strategic marketing management workplace practices in the unique context of funeral homes; they were uncovered in interviews across a range of staff levels in a funeral home.

This research used the somewhat new methodology of convergent interviews to develop a conceptual framework about relationship constructs in an Internet environment. More generally, this article describes and illustrates the processes and the strengths of convergent interviewing to investigate under‐researched areas, and compares it with alternative qualitative techniques like in‐depth interviews, case research and focus groups. The illustration involves interviews conducted with marketing managers and business consultants from ten service companies, about Internet and relationship marketing. It is argued that convergent interviewing is more appropriate than some other qualitative methods to investigate under‐researched areas where there are few experts because it provides a way of quickly converging on key issues in the area, an efficient mechanism for data analysis after each interview, and a way of deciding when to stop collecting data. Convergent interviews could become another useful qualitative research method to explore new issues about emerging marketing phenomena.

Investigates whether success factors for Australian services firms that export to Asia are consistent with the theory of relationship marketing, and demonstrates the power of the in‐depth interview methodology for exploring marketing theory. Relationship marketing theory suggests that services firms should adopt a relationship marketing approach while goods firms might use a transactional approach. To investigate this theory, a series of in‐depth interviews were conducted in firms marketing agribusiness products to Asia. We found that growth in the agribusiness services sector could be attributed to their strategy of “pairing” with Australian commodity exporters rather than to entering the market directly. Contrary to expectations, we found that Australian goods firms consider building relationships with Asian distributors and customers crucial to initiating and maintaining an export strategy. Furthermore, Australian agribusiness services firms do not seek to enter the market on their own but build relationships with Australian firms as a means of accessing the Asian market. The results demonstrate the power of qualitative methods for uncovering results that confirm or disconfirm existing theory.

This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/EUM0000000000564. When citing the article, please cite: Chad Perry, Terry Euler, (1989), “Marketing Simulations in Tertiary Institutions: A Review and Future Directions”, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 23 Iss: 4, pp. 40 - 49.

Aims to address a gap in the literature about quality criteria for validity and reliability in qualitative research within the realism scientific paradigm. Six comprehensive and explicit criteria for judging realism research are developed, drawing on the three elements of a scientific paradigm of ontology, epistemology and methodology. The first two criteria concern ontology, that is, ontological appropriateness and contingent validity. The third criterion concerns epistemology: multiple perceptions of participants and of peer researchers. The final three criteria concern methodology: methodological trustworthiness, analytic generalisation and construct validity. Comparisons are made with criteria in other paradigms, particularly positivism and constructivism. An example of the use of the criteria is given. In conclusion, this paper’s set of six criteria will facilitate the further adoption of the realism paradigm and its evaluation in marketing research about, for instance, networks and relationship marketing.

In 1971, Kilby likened research about the psychology of entrepreneurs to search for a “heffalump”, with no convincing descriptions resulting from the research. This paper surveys later research which compares entrepreneurs with other people, and concludes that more is now known about the psychology of entrepreneurs, but that entrepreneurs are not as different from other groups within the general population, managers included, as was once assumed.

An action research project is usually restricted to improving one workgroup's practices within one organisation. However, after that project is done, some academics or consultants may want to try to generalise the findings from that one particular project to several other situations. The aim of this paper is to identify the two scientific paradigms appropriate for each of these two purposes, and to identify the criteria that could be used to judge how well each purpose is achieved. Essentially, it argues that the critical theory paradigm underlies the action research project of a workgroup within one organisation, and the realism paradigm underlies the generalisation from those findings to other situations. Criteria from the two paradigms can be used to evaluate the validity and reliability of these two processes. An example of how this has been done in practice, is provided.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate examiner reactions to doctorate of business administration (DBA) theses at an Australian university applying Perry’s structured approach to thesis presentation, which had its origin in the marketing discipline, but is now widely applied to other business disciplines.

This paper examines 49 DBA examiner reports relating to 19 DBA theses using the structured Perry approach, with emphasis paid to comments relating to thesis structure and presentation. Only those theses that acknowledged Perry or demonstrated Perry-like characteristics were interrogated.

The use of Perry’s structured approach can lead to DBA theses that place excessive emphasis on description rather than practical outcomes, as should occur with a professional doctorate, and also fosters excessive repetition and scaffolding that unduly interferes with the candidate’s “story telling”. Many examiners found theses using Perry’s structured approach problematic, particularly with respect to a lack of integration with the literature and reflection on the findings in relation to previous studies.

The use of Perry’s structured approach potentially acts as a further barrier to DBA theses, and other professional doctorates by extension, sufficiently differentiating themselves from PhDs. This has implications for the examination of such theses, which are sometimes viewed as lower-quality PhDs instead of professional doctorates.

Applying a traditional PhD thesis structure, such as the model advocated by Perry with its use of five chapters, to DBA theses potentially exacerbates existing professional doctorate “image” issues, thereby leading to ambiguity for examiners and the candidates themselves.

Develops a definition of action research that is particularly suitable for marketing and based on the articles in this issue of European Journal of Marketing, emphasising the breadth of action research in marketing and its distinctive interest in analytic generalisation, that is, in building a theory that extends beyond the particular situation that is being action researched to other situations.. The three sections of this commentary include: definition of traditional action research, action learning and case research. Second, drawing of four implications from the articles within this special issue about how action research can be done in marketing. Finally, presents a broad definition of action research in marketing.

This article aims to help bankers and managers of financial institutions to understand the importance of customer service. It shows that poor customer service is a cancer and that service quality is now more important than the “4Ps” of the marketing mix. Four steps of a customer service strategy are outlined: establish commitment to the key components of customer service; identify relative importance of service components to customers; identify market segments by service requirements; design customer service policies.