Essay About Decision Approach And Research Approach

International Marketing
Essay Preview: International Marketing
Report this essay
RESEARCH APPROACH
The methodological problems of the IMP-project and the way they were solved are
probably best understood in terms of the basic research approach of the project.
This can be explained by distinguishing between two basic types of possible
approaches. The first we refer to as the Co-ordinated Decision Approach and the
second as the Incremental Commitment Approach.
In the co-ordinated decision approach a single major decision is made about the
design of the project. Of course this decision is composed of a number of partial
decisions, but they are assumed to be made simultaneously and in a co-ordinated
way. In this approach the emphasis is on the rationality of the decision. The
implicit assumption is that there are few implementation problems and that the
implementation is not affected by the decision-making procedure. The research is
assumed to take place in some type of organizational vacuum. This approach
probably requires that the research organization is centralized and that the financial
resources of the central authority make it possible for them to control the research
work. Even so, it probably neglects some of the realities of research work.
The incremental commitment approach stresses the series of commitments by
the research workers to carry out the research work. Its emphasis is on the
motivational aspects of the process. It does not assume that research decisions are
not made. Instead it sees the main research problems as one of implementation
rather than of the correctness of the research decisions. Furthermore, it assumes
that implementation is dependent on the decision-making procedure of the
researchers. The commitment of the researchers is crucial to the success of the
project. It is assumed that their commitment depends on their participation in the
decision-making, and that the commitments must be made incrementally and be
reinforced by progress in the research work. This approach is probably more suitable
when there is a decentralized organization, shortage of financial funds initially
and no central competence regarding the particular characteristics of research work
in the various dispersed research groups.
The research approach of the IMP-project can be characterized as being very
close to the incremental commitment approach. The reason for this is simply that
there were no alternatives. The project was initiated on the basis of one, somewhat
unclear although promising idea held by some researchers with very small resources
in terms of both money and time. Consequently the whole research process had
more the characteristics of `muddling through than of implementation of a
meticulously planned research design. This concept of `muddling through is taken
from Lindblom (1959) and Braybrooke and Lindblom (1963).
This methodological chapter has been structured in accordance with our basic
approach to the research. Thus each section deals with one phase of the research
process.