Viewpoint: Writing stuff - why bother?

Gill Ereaut

People in the market research industry don't write much about what they do or why they do it that way. Our professional reputations show in the volume and quality of work offered to us and the star rating of our clients. Speaking at seminars or courses creates good PR, but it's not a key measure of reputation. And writing papers for journals, while not actually harmful, is not exactly vital to a researcher's career.

But – where is our collective knowledge and how do we grow it? Say you come up with a startling insight about research, or a brainwave about how we might do it better. Sure, there are commercial considerations – you don't want to teach your competitors too much. But where does your hard-won conceptual and methodological knowledge go when you retire/get fed up and buy a vineyard/fall under a bus?

Yes, your unique take on the business might blossom and grow, nurtured by your colleagues and juniors. They will remember you fondly and talk often of all those things you taught them. Your way of doing things might even become 'common sense' – so good it spreads by word of mouth and becomes unquestioned, accepted practice. Very gratifying. But this is the way an industry gets stuck in a rut, attached through an oral tradition to practices that 'just are'. No one has much idea where the core concepts came from, so they become insulated from critique, healthy challenge and development. (Some rules about 'good' qualitative practice became like this: why for years did we have to have eight people in a focus group?)

Your insight – based on years of sound practice – will also remain inaccessible to interested outsiders. Even graduates who've done market research modules effectively start from scratch when they join the business. They've read all the academic stuff about MR – but we know practice is often very different.

'But writing conceptually about market research is just too – well – theoretical', you cry. 'What matters is commercial relevance.' I just cannot see what is 'uncommercial' about research that is grounded firmly in theory, or conscious of its conceptual underpinnings. The early market researchers certainly understood the theoretical basis of their practice. And the recent rise of commercial semiotics and ethnography shows the real innovation that comes from going right back to basic assumptions about what we do, and doing it differently. 'Theory' is not the objective of commercial research, but is its anchor and can be its inspiration.

And another thing ... We talk endlessly about professionalism – but are we serious about this? The professionalisation of a group of people includes building up collective knowledge, a canon of literature (Fournier 2000). Take a look through IJMR and count the practitioner contributions. Are we going to leave our professionalisation entirely to the academics?

'Ahh', you sigh, 'I would, but have no time to write. And actually all that academic referencing stuff
is just a bore.' Well, there's an easy way to start – write a Forum piece. You can base it on something
you did for a client, or an internal course, or an idea you put together in PowerPoint for something or
other. It just needs to be interesting, lucid and readable, and to make some contribution to our shared
knowledge. And you can manage that. Can't you?

International Journal of Market Research, 48(5), 2006

Reference
Fournier, V (2000) Boundary work and the (un)making of the profession. In: N Malin (ed) Professionalism, Boundaries and the Workplace. London and New York: Routledge.

Gill Ereaut (FMRS) specialises in the application of linguistic and discourse analytic methods in the commercial field, founding the consultancy Linguistic Landscapes in 2002. Gill has 25 years' experience in market research, more than 20 of these as a qualitative specialist. She co-edited and co-authored the seven-book series 'Qualitative Market Research: Principle and Practice' (Sage 2002) and has contributed articles and chapters to academic and non-academic publications on this subject. She speaks regularly at industry conferences, events and training courses and edits the AQR publication In Depth. Her particular interests are qualitative analysis and the evolution of qualitative methods in market research. In 2004 she was made a Fellow of the Market Research Society. She has a degree in Psychology and a postgraduate degree in Contemporary Cultural Process.

Would you like to respond to this Viewpoint? Or perhaps you have an idea for another? Responses and new submissions are welcome. They should be emailed to the IJMR, where they'll be considered for publication.

What's New - Membership - Company Partner Service - Members' Area - Code/Guidelines - Qualifications - Training - Awards
Events - Networking - Publications - Media Info - Market Research - Search - Site Map - A-Z Directory - Contact Us - Home