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Challenges in Conducting International Market Research

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• First Online: 25 March 2017
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• Andreas Engelen 4 ,
• Monika Engelen 5 &
• C. Samuel Craig 6  

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This chapter explains the need to conduct international market research, identifies the main challenges researchers face when conducting marketing research in more than one country and provides approaches for addressing these challenges. The chapter examines the research process from the conceptual design of the research model to the choice of countries for data collection, the data collection process itself, and the data analysis and interpretation. Challenges identified include differentiating between etic and emic concepts, assembling an adequate research unit, ensuring data collection equivalence, and reducing ethnocentrism of the research team. We draw on the extant literature to determine methods that address these challenges, such as an adapted etic or linked emic approach, to define the concept of the culti-unit, and to identify prominent approaches to cultural dimensions and collaborative and iterative translation and statistical methods for testing equivalence. This chapter provides researchers with the methods and tools necessary to derive meaningful and sound conclusions from research designed to guide international marketing activities.

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Special Session: Measurement Invariance and Innovation in Cross-Cultural Research: Revisiting Validity in an Interconnected World: An Abstract

Humanistic Inquiry Methods for Cross-Cultural International Marketing Research

For the sake of simplicity, we will subsequently refer to nations as the unit of research, acknowledging that other culti-units may be more appropriate as outlined in section “Conceptual Framework (Phase 1)”.

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TU Dortmund University, Dortmund, Germany

Andreas Engelen

TH Köln, Cologne University of Applied Science, Köln, Germany

Monika Engelen

New York University, Stern School of Business, New York, NY, USA

C. Samuel Craig

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Correspondence to Andreas Engelen .

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Universität Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany

Christian Homburg

Inst. Informations Systems and Marketing Marketing & Sales Research Group, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie, Karlsruhe, Germany

Martin Klarmann

LS für ABWL und Marketing I, Universität Mannheim, Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

Arnd Vomberg

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Engelen, A., Engelen, M., Samuel Craig, C. (2016). Challenges in Conducting International Market Research. In: Homburg, C., Klarmann, M., Vomberg, A. (eds) Handbook of Market Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05542-8_6-1

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05542-8_6-1

Received : 20 December 2015

Accepted : 05 September 2016

Published : 25 March 2017

Publisher Name : Springer, Cham

Print ISBN : 978-3-319-05542-8

Online ISBN : 978-3-319-05542-8

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Marketing Research - Limitations and Constraints

Last updated 22 Mar 2021

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Accurate, up-to-date information obtained by marketing research can be of enormous value to a business in gaining and/or maintaining its competitive edge. However, there are a number of reasons why, in reality, these potential benefits may not be realised.

Budgetary constraints

Gathering and processing data can be very expensive. Many organisations may lack the expertise to conduct extensive surveys to gather primary data, whatever the potential benefits, and also lack the funds to pay specialist market research agencies to gather such data for them. In these cases, organisations may be forced to rely on data that is less than ‘perfect’ but that can be accessed more cheaply, e.g., from secondary sources

Time constraints

Organisations are often forced to balance the need to build up as detailed a picture as possible regarding customer needs etc. against the desire to make decisions as quickly as possible, in order to maintain or improve their position in the market

Reliability of the data

The value of any research findings depend critically on the accuracy of the data collected. Data quality can be compromised via a number of potential routes, e.g., leading questions, unrepresentative samples, biased interviewers etc. Efforts to ensure that data is accurate, samples are representative and interviewers are objective will all add to the costs of the research but such costs are necessary if poor decisions and expensive mistakes are to be avoided.

Legal & ethical constraints

the Data Protection Act (1998) is a good example of a law that has a number of implications for market researchers collecting and holding personal data. For instance, researchers must ensure that the data they obtain is kept secure, is only used for lawful purposes and is only kept for as long as it is necessary. It must be made clear as to why data is being collected and the consent of participants must be obtained. In addition to this, there are a number of guidelines, laid down by such organisations as the Market Research Society, that, although not legally binding, encourage organisations to behave ethically when dealing with members of the public.

• Secondary research
• Quantitative research
• Qualitative research
• Marketing research
• Primary research

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