Description
Marketing Research with IBM® SPSS Statistics
Nowadays a lot of researchers involved in marketing face the problem of correctly using statistical procedures and accurately interpreting the outputs. Usually these people are scared off by the statistics behind the different analyses procedures and thus often rely on external sources to come up with sound answers to the proposed research questions. This book intends to show its readers how to select the right statistical procedures and how to put these methods into practice by always starting from a real managerial problem. It shows its readers, through a step-by-step approach, which procedures to use in which particular situation and how to practically execute them in an IBM SPSS Statistics environment. It offers a very user-friendly environment for executing marketing research projects. This software uses a simple drag-and-drop menu interface, also suitable for non-experienced users. It is widely employed by companies, universities and business schools.
The purpose of this book is straightforward: it offers a pragmatic approach based on real-life marketing research examples to help the reader solve their day-to-day (business) problems. Furthermore, a complete section is dedicated to the managerial interpretation of the results.
This book is aimed at several target audiences, all of whom need robust answers to existing business problems.
•This book intends to be a reference manual for all professional marketers who would like to use statistical procedures in IBM SPSS Statistics. Consequently, the manual does not only give an overview of the basic options for the statistical tests used, but it also digs deeper into more specific and detailed options.
•This book is suitable for all undergraduate and postgraduate academic programmes in which Marketing Research and Research Methodology are taught.
•This book is also suitable for all researchers analysing survey-based data in a wide range of frontier domains such as psychology, finance, accountancy, negotiation, communication, sociology, criminology, management, management information systems and so on.
The statistical procedures considered in this book refer to the most common marketing issues encountered by the various target audiences listed above. But in order to enable novice users of IBM SPSS Statistics to feel empowered, Chapter 1 is devoted to a thorough description of the software. First, we propose a tour of the environment and different data preparation steps. Chapter 2 is devoted to descriptive statistics and their usefulness. Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 consider exploratory procedures: Exploratory Factor Analysis and Cluster Analysis, respectively. The next chapters discuss the confirmative statistical tests. Chapter 5 is devoted to hypothesis testing for parametric and non-parametric data, Chapter 6 explains the relevancy of correlations, Chapter 7 shows how to run Regression Analyses (linear and logistic). Chapter 8, the last chapter, digs into the frequently used Moderation and Mediation Analysis.
Chapters referring to the various statistical procedures (Chapters 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8) could be read independently of each other. According to the type of analysis one has to consider, one may limit the reading to the relevant chapter. However, the first two chapters are recommended for readers new to IBM SPSS Statistics and/or statistics.
All the statistical procedures mentioned above are explained using the same pedagogical scheme. As such, the reader will become familiar with the methodological and mental process of solving a particular marketing research problem. For most analyses, the following structure is used within the book.
Fundamentals
Managerial Problem
Translation of the Managerial Problem into Statistical Notions
Hypotheses
Dataset Description
Data Analysis
Interpretation
Managerial Recommendations
In the Fundamentals section, the objective of the statistical procedure is explained. The managerial situations in which the analysis can be used are presented. This section also communicates the important steps required to successfully lead the analysis. The section Managerial Problem describes a real-life managerial problem with which every researcher or manager could be confronted. The reader is guided on how to solve the problem him/herself. Once the managerial problem is clearly defined, it is translated into the description of the statistical purpose of the analysis in the section Translation of the Managerial Problem into Statistical Notions without formally using symbols or statistical formulas. In other words, the research question is translated using statistical terminology. This is a necessary step that enables choosing the appropriate statistical procedure, but it is kept very simple to facilitate understanding. Providing in-depth theoretical explanations of statistical issues is beyond the scope of this book (nevertheless, a few references are provided at the end of each chapter for the diggers). Furthermore, a statistical representation of the statistical problem is proposed by translating it into a null and an alternative hypothesis in the section Hypotheses. In the section Dataset Description, a detailed overview of the data delivered is given the name of the file, number of observations, descriptions of the variables and the measurement scale of the variables used. All datasets may be obtained by contacting one of the authors. At this stage, the readers should completely comprehend all elements, including the business problem and the way to solve it. The next step is data analysis. The section Data Analysis will show through a step-by-step approach how to perform the statistical procedure in IBM SPSS Statistics. Readers of this book will be taken by the hand and shown how to run a procedure using multiple screenshots of the software environment. This will drastically enhance the readability of the book. Based on the outputs of the statistical program, guidance is proposed to facilitate interpretation of the results. The interpretation is done in a fragmented approach in which the title of each table or the header of each figure is stated, followed by the corresponding IBM SPSS Statistics output in the section Interpretation. In the last stage, the statistical output is converted into a detailed answer on the managerial problem in the section Managerial Recommendations.
We would like to thank the various people and institutions that directly or indirectly contributed to this book project and our students, whom we constantly had in mind while working on this book.
Dr Karine Charry
Dr Kristof Coussement
Dr Nathalie Demoulin
Dr Nico Heuvinck
Contents
Author Biographies
Foreword
Preface
1Getting Started with IBM SPSS Statistics
2Descriptive Analysis
3Exploratory Factor Analysis
4Cluster Analysis
5Hypothesis Testing
6Correlations
7Regression Analysis
8Moderation and Mediation Analysis
Index