Ontology and Epistemology of “Consumer Research”

Submitted By:

Sharad Agarwal

FPM Student, IIM Ranchi

F004/12

Ontology and Epistemology of “Consumer Research”

Introduction

Business Dictionary defines Consumer Research as “Part of market research in which the

preferences, motivations, and buying behavior of the targeted customer are identified through

direct observation, mail surveys, telephone or face to face interviews, and from published sources

(such as demographic data)”

Calder & Tybout (1987) mentions that consumer research, whatever form it might take, seeks to

produce knowledge about consumer behaviour. Consumer research is about consumers and about

behavior, but this is hardly limiting or even informative. After all, anything can be construed as the

consumption of something and consumption must entail some kind of behaviour. This is the basic

ontological discussion regarding the ‘consumer research’. Can anything and everything be

constructed as consumption of something and if yes it must entail some kind of behaviour.so what

exactly is consumer behaviour if everything can be called as Consumer Behaviour.

Brief History

The term Consumer Research became to be used by the scholars around 1972, when the social

scientists especially those with interest in the phenomenon to understand their consumers were

envisaging consumer research as a separate field in itself. According to Sheth (1972) “Within a very

short period of time, we seem to have firmly laid the foundation for building a distinct discipline of

buyer behavior which will neither be a sub system of marketing nor that of any of the other older

social sciences”. Sheth went on to predict: "Within a decade, it is very Likely that other disciplines

will be actively interested In buyer behavior and consequently borrow from it a set of concepts and

research tools [and] sooner or later, the hard sciences are likely to be exposed to, and interested in,

buyer behavior. When that happens, it is Equally inevitable that they will extensively borrow both

the substantive findings and research methodology [of Consumer research] “ (Sheth1972) Consumer

research, whatever form it might take, seeks to produce knowledge about consumer behavior

(Calder & Tybout, 1987)

Another prominent scholar in the area of consumer research envisaged consumer as “My own

vision is one of consumer behavior as a discipline unto itself, with a variety of constituent

groups, but with no overriding loyalty to any existing discipline or interest group. That is,

consumer behavior should not be a sub- discipline of marketing, advertising, psychology,

sociology, or anthropology, nor the handmaiden of business, government, or consumers. It

should instead be a viable field of study, just as these other disciplines are, with some

potential relevance to each of these constituent groups” (Belk (1986)

Holbrook (1987), mentions following key features of consumer research:

consumer research studies consumer behavior

consumer behavior entails consumption

consumption involves the acquisition, usage, and disposition of products

Products are goods, services, ideas, events, or any other entities that can be acquired,

used, or disposed of in ways that potentially provide value

Value is a type of experience that occurs for some living organism when a goal is

achieved, a need is fulfilled, or a want is satisfied

such an achievement, fulfillment, or satisfaction attains consummation; conversely, a

failure to achieve goals, fulfill needs, or satisfy wants thwarts consummation

The process of consummation (including its possible breakdowns) is therefore the

fundamental subject for consumer research

From the above arguments, it follows that consumer research studies consummation (in all its

various facets, including its potential breakdowns). The term consumer research refers to the study

of consummation in all its many aspects. Consummation thereby designates the core of the concept

of consumer research. From this perspective, consumer research stands on its own as a separate

discipline and borrows from other established disciplines no more or less than they in turn borrow

from each other. The critics, however, had not agreed with the concept of consumer research and

one of them even noted "much too large a proportion of the contemporary consumer research

literature is not worth the paper it is printed on or the time it takes to read it "(Jacoby1976,p.2)

Cross Disciplinary nature of Consumer Research

The concepts of ‘Consumer Research’ drew its theories from allied sciences such as

Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, Philosophy Humanities

and Neuro-Sciences.

Neuro-Science

According to Agarwal & Xavier (in press), management scientists have started applying the principles

of neuroscience in the management applications especially consumer research and theory building.

The innovative approaches of ‘Consumer Neuroscience’ gives us the neural level understanding of

the processes in the brain of the human being which has applications in understanding the cognitive

decision making process of the consumers which are not captured through other methods of

management research. The most commonly used tools of neuro management are fMRI, EEG, ERP

and P300

Macroeconomics

The field of macroeconomics makes its major contribution to our understanding of acquisition, as

represented by a nation's aggregate spending behaviour. Consumption spending is what remains

after subtracting government purchases, gross private domestic investment, and net exports from

the Gross National Product; it equals disposable personal income less savings. It says little about the

process of choice among individual product categories. However, the latter issue provides the major

topic for the treatment of consumption in microeconomics.

Microeconomics

This approach accounts for product purchases only by virtue of taking the tastes that determine the

shapes of indifference curves as given and relegating the investigation of such tastes to other

disciplines. This problem of brand choice has received illumination from the work of psychologist

Psychology

Of particular value in handling the phenomenon of choice among brands have been the multi

attribute attitude models and multidimensional joint spaces used by consumer researchers to

account for the formation of brand preferences via (compositional) linear compensatory models,

(decompositional) conjoint analysis and ideal point formulations, or some (integrative) combination

of the two.

Sociology

The sociological perspective in consumer research has considered the social context in which

consumption activities are embedded and has proven especially fruitful in addressing problems

raised by product usage. For example, concepts of conspicuous consumption and role performance

have helped to elucidate the use of products as dramaturgical props that define and display the

consumer's self-image

Anthropology

Anthropological approaches have made valuable contributions to our understanding of product

disposition. For example, several researchers have studied gift giving, a process wherein one

person's disposition simultaneously becomes another's acquisition. At a more mundane level of

product disposal, garbological research examines people's discardings to reach conclusions about

their product acquisition and usage behaviour.

Philosophy

As yet, the general philosophical tradition has contributed relatively little to the study of consumer

behaviour. One possible avenue of rapprochement might borrow from praxeology to construct a

consumer theory of reasoned action. However, such a rational approach would hardly cope with the

aforementioned problems of deviance. To address the latter, we might profitably borrow from ethics

to construct a conceptualization of consumption morality and thereby to address the phenomena of

consumer misbehaviour.

Humanities

Recently, the humanities have begun to sneak into consumer research in a variety of ways that may

help deepen our understanding of value in acquisition, usage, and disposition.

Types of Knowledge and Consumer Research

Everyday knowledge consists of the shared thoughts people have about their own

consumer behavior. It is how they interpret and give social meaning to their behavior using

their own terms and their own frames of reference.

Scientific knowledge consists of theories that are capable of and have been subjected to

rigorous empirical testing. These theories should not be regarded as proven or true; rather,

they have scientific status because of and subject to attempts to refute them

Interpretive knowledge uses a system of ideas developed by a particular group to analyze

consumer behavior. It provides an understanding of behavior in terms of this system of ideas

and from its frame of reference

Conclusion

This article gives a brief about the journey of ‘Consumer Research’, the views prominent scholars of

the field had while they proposed that consumer research should be an independent field of study.

The article also discuss the dependency of the field on other aligned areas such as psychology,

philosophy etc. and more recently added ‘Consumer Neuroscience’. The article then gives a glimpse

into the kind of knowledge which is created by the consumer neuroscience. On the basis of

arguments made in this chapter, It can be comfortably concluded that consumer research is an

independent field of study with an existence of its own, while borrowing concepts from the allied

sciences. This is how any field of study is developed and grows further. Consumer research study the

behaviour of consumers which has a standing of its own and hence addrsses the epistemological

question of What is Consumer research.

References

Agarwal, Sharad & Xavier, M.J. (in press) Innovative Approaches to Study Consumer Science Using

Neuro Research Tools in (Alexender, Brem & Eric Viardot) eds. Balancing Internal and External

Stakeholders Interest for the Management of Innovation, Springer

Belk, Russell W. (1986), "What Should ACR Want to be When It Grows Up?" in Advances in

Consumer Research, Vol. 13, ed. Richard J. Lutz, Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research, 423-

424

Calder, B. J., & Tybout, A. M. (1987). What consumer research is... Journal of Consumer Research, 136-

140.

Holbrook, M. B. (1987). What is consumer research?. Journal of Consumer Research, 128-132.

Jacoby, Jacob (1978), "Consumer Research: A State of the Art Review," Journal of Marketing, 42 (April),

87-96

Leong, Siew Meng (1985), "Metatheory and Metamethodology in Marketing: A Lakatosian Reconstruction,"

Journal of Marketing, 49 (Fall), 23-40.