Investment

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Analyzing and Reporting Qualitative Research

Learning Objectives
After reading this chapter, you will be able to:

1. Contrast qualitative and quantitative data analysis. 2. Explain the steps in qualitative data analysis. 3. Describe the processes of categorizing and coding data as well as developing theory. 4. Clarify how credibility is established in qualitative data analysis. 5.Discuss the steps involved in writing a qualitative research report.

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" W e are drowning in information and starved for knowledge." —TOM PETERS, Thriving on Chaos

Wireless Communication's Impact on Social Behavior

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obile p h o n e s w e r e once all business. But t o d a y they are all in the family. A recent s u r v e y of Americans b e t w e e n the ages of 18 and 64conducted by K n o w l e d g e N e t w o r k s , a market research firm in Cranford, N e w Jersey, revealed that most respondents underscore "family" as the top reason to go wireless. Y o u n g r e s p o n d ents, more so than older o n e s , cite "reaching friends" as their s e c o n d leading reason to go wireless, with "work-related calls" being the overall third most important reason for having awireless p h o n e . T h e s u r v e y also reported s o m e interesting descriptive information. For e x a m p l e , men tend to make m o r e calls on mobile p h o n e s per day (8.3 calls) than w o m e n (5.5 calls). A l t h o u g h both put family first, w o m e n w e r e more partial to calling friends, whereas men w e r e three times as likely to use their p h o n e s for w o r k . Inaddition, 65 percent of African Americans had mobile p h o n e s , compared to 62 percent of Caucasians. Hispanics remain well behind in mobile p h o n e usage, with just 54 percent penetration. Traditional s u r v e y s produce this type of information about cell phone usage; their findings are limited to aggregate descriptive interpretations and meaning.

In contrast, qualitative research on wirelessp h o n e usage offers greater opportunities to gain more in-depth understanding of w h a t lies b e y o n d those descriptive n u m b e r s . With o v e r 190 million Americans n o w o w n i n g mobile p h o n e s , the n e w p h o n e t e c h n o l o g y reaches further into our lives. R o b b i e Blinkoof, principal anthropologist and managing partner at Context-Based Research Group inBaltimore, Maryland, and other ethnographers believe that wireless communication is beginning to create a d e e p e r impression on the American psyche and to h a v e a notable impact on Americans' social behavior, o n e that could h a v e a long-lasting effect on society and the w o r l d a r o u n d us. Recent ethnographic studies h a v e yielded significant clues about cell .phone users' communicationhabits and related b e h a v i o r . In general, o b s e r v e d changes relate to h o w mobile phone customers form relationships and define a sense of time and place. In o n e study, researchers watched n e w l y connected users at w o r k and play and found that o n e of the biggest differences w a s these users became m o r e accessible to their social n e t w o r k s . Mobile p h o n e s n ow s u p p o r t e d entire social networks of relationships and were being used to sustain social ties for

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Part 2

Designing Marketing Research

Projects

purely psychological and emotional value. Participants w e r e more flexible in h o w they arranged their communication schedules and gradually more willing to speak on a mobile p h o n e in public. Inanother ethnographic study, context researchers o b s e r v e d changes in h o w the subjects related to their mobile life. Participants were far more concerned with wireless as an enabler rather than as a toy. T h e y learned to use the wireless features they needed while ignoring those they didn't need. Other

interpretive findings of qualitative research have been that wireless p h o n e s give...