Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing

Emerald Article: All research is interpretive! Evert Gummesson

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To cite this document: Evert Gummesson, (2003),"All research is interpretive!", Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 18 Iss: 6 pp. 482 - 492 Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/08858620310492365 Downloaded on: 12-10-2012 References: This document contains references to 19 other documents Citations: This document has been cited by 43 other documents To copy this document: permissions@emeraldinsight.com

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An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this issue

All research is interpretive!

Evert Gummesson
Professor of Service Management and Marketing, Stockholm University, School of Business, Stockholm, Sweden Keywords Business-to-business marketing, Research methods, Case studies Abstract This article advocates recognition of interpretive elements in business research and the need for improvement of the researcher's interpretive skills. The scientific tradition specifically concerned with interpretation is called hermeneutics. However, interpretation exists in all types of scientific studies, be they quantitative or qualitative. The article presents lessons from hermeneutics and spells out the interpretive content of research in general and with specific focus on business-to-business marketing. Interpretive methods, when applied to business, are characterized by efforts to understand the complexity of the business world and its products, services and markets, and to add meaning to strategies, actions and events. A set of methods designated interactive research is discussed. These are more inspired by the humanities, sociology, anthropology and modern natural sciences than by the social sciences research paradigm as it is currently applied in most mainstream research in marketing.

This is a brief and personal advocacy for interpretive research. It is based on experience both as a researcher and a practitioner within business-tobusiness (B2B) marketing. The article first presents my perception of problems encountered in B2B research and practice and their dependence on interpretive approaches. It proceeds to discuss the content of hermeneutics, which is a general science and art of interpretation; the pervasiveness of interpretation in scientific research and the pseudo-conflict between quantitative and qualitative approaches; and, finally, my personal methodology-in-use, interactive research. Introduction Let's stop fooling ourselves: All research is interpretive! No ready-to-consume research results pop out like a soda can from a vending machine once we have inserted sufficient money and pushed the right button. There is interpretation all along, from the very start of a research project until the very end. Continue the metaphor To continue the metaphor, a vending machine is a standardized, mechanized and, today, also computerized package of services. It has been possible to assemble this package as all the elements and activities of its services have been identified in detail and put together in logical sequences. It replaces the human being who used to take the order, hand the soda over the counter, and receive our money. The machine mirrors the behavior of a very straightforward and simplistic service. Some scholarly research has an affinity with the vending machine. It can be a highly standardized procedure for the production of data and, if the instructions are followed in every detail, out comes the desired product. The closest to this is perhaps a customer satisfaction survey. All the same, the results have to be interpreted. What does it mean that 73 per cent of our customers are satisfied; is it good or bad? What decisions need to be taken;
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how should the implementation of the decisions be handled; what will be the reactions of the customers if we change our strategy; what will be the effect on the bottom line; and how do we monitor these outcomes and make amendments and improvements? Complex research questions When we are dealing with more complex research questions, the vending machine metaphor is insufficient. We have to act ad hoc, both manually and intellectually, even if bits and pieces can be standardized. We have endless options, none offering a self-evident choice. They all require judgment calls and the major source to excellence is our own experience, wisdom and inventiveness. B2B marketing situations are often complex and thus demanding on the data and knowledge you can generate. They require general knowledge of markets and industries, such as market size and market share. But they also require in-depth specific knowledge of what is going on in other companies and who their individual executives and other actors are, their position, power, personality and networks. In B2B environments both current and future technology including design, engineering, manufacturing, purchasing, installation, maintenance, repair, systems, software and the surrounding services is the soil in which corporations grow and flourish. B2B marketers often (but not always) need to be well versed in the technology they are dealing with. Only with such knowledge can they select strategies and become credible in sales and negotiations. The company's position in its network of relationships to customers and lots of other stakeholders own employees, own suppliers, intermediaries, competitors, allied partners, governments, investors, the media and others influences the actual marketing of its products and services. Furthermore, this network is continuously pulsating and on the move. All this is equally evident, even if the company is small and local; it only occurs on a more limited scale. Meaning of single concepts This is a situation where marketing knowledge can only in special respects be built on surveys and detailed studies of the meaning of single concepts such as commitment and trust and statistically significant cause-and-effect links. B2B firms live with complexity, ambiguity, chaos, uncertainty, fuzzy boundaries and continuous change in both technology and the marketplace. Research methodologies have to adapt to this reality. We must keep in mind that the core of business is production and marketing/sales. A company should offer something of value to the market and society, and to do so it is necessary to know your customers, feel what the market needs, promote the product or service, and make sure it is accessible to customers. All the rest is peripherals and supporting services. Crucial role Despite its crucial role, marketing and sales seem to have lost much of their clout in corporations or perhaps they never had any. The peripherals finance, accounting and information technology stand out as ``winners''. They have taken power, but unfortunately not when it comes to sustainable development of the business world, a sad fact we can note in the media every day. Although most companies confess to the marketing concept claiming they are customer-centric with customer needs and customer satisfaction as their prime goal, few seem to act that way. On the academic side, one explanation to this state of affairs can be that research in marketing rests on a narrow range of research techniques capturing superficial phenomena and details and is therefore not perceived as valid in supporting marketing practice; and that marketing education and ``textbook theory'' still primarily rest on a business-to-consumer (B2C) paradigm (Gummesson, 2001; Minett, 2002). Explanations on the business
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side can be that industry is too focused on short term profit and is unwilling to pursue long term goals; demands ``facts'' and quick-fixes where there are no such wonder pills; and has deeply rooted but obsolete cultures with, for example, an unfortunate attitude to customers and competition. As should be obvious by now, my stance is that all types of research, not least in B2B marketing, rely heavily on interpretation. An approach to interpretation will be discussed in the next section. Hermeneutics One way (but not the only way) of dealing with interpretation is to lean on the art and science of hermeneutics. The word hermeneutics is derived from the name of the Greek God Hermes (in Rome called Mercury). Hermes had many responsibilities, among them as the guardian of language and texts and of business. Hermeneutics is a general methodology for interpretation. As interpretation is inherent in all human effort to understand the world, specific aspects of interpretation appear in all types of research, although it is most often perceived to be typical of qualitative approaches. It will be shown in the next section, however, that it equally well embraces quantitative methodology. The section is based on Gummesson (2000) and greatly inspired by Odman (2003) and his work to sort out the characteristics and strategies of hermeneutics. Prerequisites for social life Languages and words are prerequisites for social life. We give names to things and events to help understand them and to communicate with others. In this flow of spoken and written words, observations, feelings and thoughts, interpretation becomes part and parcel of our daily routine. Hermeneutics wants to help us find meaning, and it reflects what a businessperson does in his or her practice. Hermeneutics is also concerned with the interpretation of non-lingual expressions of human life, where the researcher tries to transform tacit knowledge into words. In the extension of interpretation, hermeneutic processes also embrace preunderstanding, understanding and explanation. Preunderstanding is what we know about the phenomenon of study when we start out on a research expedition; understanding is the (hopefully) improved knowledge we come up with as a result of our research. Explanation is usually claimed to require unambiguous cause and effect relationships established through numbers, but as business life is in many ways ambiguous, softer and more transient explanations are required in practice. Preunderstanding to understanding The hermeneutic circle states that in a research project we move from preunderstanding to understanding, where understanding from phase 1 furnishes the preunderstanding for phase 2, and so forth. There is thus an oscillation between what we knew and what we have learnt. But it is also a pendulum movement between the parts and the whole, where we can only give meaning to the part if we can put it into a systemic and holistic context. If we take the statement ``Your bid on the contract is too high'' it means nothing unless we know what the bidding is about, what the competition is bidding, what the customer can pay, how valuable our offering is for the buying organization, and how urgently the seller wants a contract. There may even be hidden agendas that the experienced negotiator is able to sense and interpret. One way to consider the whole context in B2B research is to approach marketing as networks of relationships in which interaction takes place (Gummesson, 2002). A network view has been advocated for decades both by a large community of European and international researchers and to some
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extent also in American research. The network view has turned out to be a most powerful aid for discovery. It is not only reflected in B2B research but also in the broadened approach to relationship marketing and CRM. Research as a dynamic process To stress the research as a dynamic process, the circle is better described as the hermeneutic spiral. Research should not stay put as a flat circle but should be an upward spiral in which we interpret and re-interpret data in a never-ending trial-and-error process of both theory generation and theory testing. There is a thin line between our everyday efforts to understand and take action on one hand and scientific research on the other. What then differentiates hermeneutics from mere day-to-day practice? The difference is rather a matter of degree and transparency. There are no rules in the bureaucratic, legal and statistical sense but there is advice and there are research strategies and guidelines. Here is a brief listing. The hermeneutic spiral has already demonstrated the need for consistency and coherence between parts and the whole and that research is a never-ending process toward improved understanding. In this spirit, the researcher should demonstrate ability to handle texts in a broad sense, including both words and numbers, and do so through systematic and conscious effort. The researcher should further be constructively critical to data and its sources, consciously striving to avoid speculation and bias from one's own ideology and pet ideas. Data should be accounted for in a transparent, rich and complete way and not leaving out contradictory data. This strategy takes readers closer to reality, but a mere detailed description is not sufficient; the account must offer conceptualization and condensation or the researcher has not contributed interpretation and meaning. To increase credibility, the researcher should offer possible alternative interpretations and argue both for and against them. Academic research should be published and be open to the public, but even if the research is proprietary through commissioned assignments or internal investigations, it needs to be communicated to its target group through words. An important scholarly virtue is also to be cautious and pay attention to the accuracy of details. Interpretation process Interpretation cannot be taken over by computers even if software for treating qualitative data can facilitate research. One of the best-known software packages is NVivo (formerly Nudist), which can increase speed and efficiency of the interpretation process (see, for example, Bazeley and Richards, 2000, but as the software is continuously refined, a visit to Web sites, for example, www.qsrinternational.com is recommended). The software can store data in an orderly way, provide structures and hierarchies of data, perform certain analytical tasks and respond to questions that the researcher puts to the data. Software assists, but does not take over interpretation. Interpretation requires subjects researchers and their ability to continuously fine-tune their skills with each research project. The approach thus is not just tied to an objective or intersubjectively approved procedure, but also rests inside each individual researcher as a professional scholar. Game and Metcalf (1966) even advocate ``passionate sociology'' where the good sides of subjectivity merge with the good sides of objectivity. Interpretation and the red herring of the quantitative vs qualitative pseudo-conflict Whether we use numbers (quantitative) or words (qualitative) in our research is unimportant per se. Mathematics, statistics, formal logic and computer talk are artificial and condensed languages, which can sometimes help us see things, sometimes not. The spoken and written language is less precise but
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far richer not to mention the non-verbal language of such subtle signs as gestures, facial expressions and symbolic objects. This wealth of fuzzy data is bewildering and leaves us with uncertainty. But so do numbers, even if they pretend certainty or at least controlled uncertainty in the form of probabilities (risk). Both numbers and words require interpretation. By polarizing quantitative and qualitative research, a red herring is introduced and our attention is taken away from the real issue, namely the choice of research methodology and techniques that support access and validity. How do we get access to reality and how do we get results that are good fits to reality? Both depend on how we generate, analyze and interpret our data, be it numbers or words. Statistical tables need interpretation just as badly as data from in-depth interviews and focus groups. Research edifice Figure 1 shows the construction of the research edifice. All research starts in the basement with the researcher's paradigm and preunderstanding. Here we make a mixture of subjective, intersubjective and objective choices and assumptions, such as what to research, which research questions to ask, how to find an answer, and in marketing that a market economy is better than a planned economy. These are mainly qualitative assessments representing our interpretation of the world. They can be very personal, but also be embedded in the research culture of the environment and the discipline and be influenced by objective knowledge. If we press the elevator button to the middle floors of the research edifice, we find ourselves confronted with data generation, analysis and interpretation. I prefer the term data generation to data collection, as data in social settings are not objects that are ready for collection. Instead data are generated, meaning that they are the creation of the researcher in interaction with, for example, a respondent in an interview. It means that even at this early stage of the empirical research, the researcher is treading the path of analysis. Researchers may choose the numbers track in the belief that they can then be entirely systematic and rigorous. But even here there are a series of

Figure 1. The research edifice

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intersubjectively agreed assumptions to lean on, and in the process of the research, judgment calls have to be made. On these floors, data should also be conceptualized and compared to extant theory and other research. If the goal is theory generation, the researcher has conceptualized the data and compares them with extant models and theory, or it remains mere description leaving the interpretation to the reader and listener. False security One example of false security in data generation and analysis is offered by surveys in which questions are sent to businesses (usually with structured response alternatives) to find out, for instance, how marketing planning is done in a B2B setting, how decisions are made on strategies to retain organizational buyers, how the key account managers operate, or what technology can offer in the future. A lower and lower response rate of 10 per cent or even less is currently considered adequate but only intersubjectively, not objectively. These scattered slices of data are accepted as amenable to statistical treatment. The explanation I have received for this acceptance is that businesses are reluctant to respond for lack of time, supported by a feeling that the questionnaires are of little import. In my view, therefore, it is the application of the technique that is at fault. It does not offer proper access to reality and consequently cannot offer valid results. The numbers that come out of it are incomplete and distorted, even if checks on the non-responses are done. The survey does not penetrate complex and ambiguous issues; it only touches some spots on the tip of the iceberg. It can, of course, be combined with other sources and techniques to add to completeness, but the survey may only just be a costly detour with little value added. Interpretation is not made possible for want of reliable data. We finally arrive at the top floor, the penthouse. Here the research data, results and conclusions are presented in written and oral form. If the research is focused on action, the researcher could make recommendations and then those concerned have to make decisions, execute decisions, monitor the outcome and make amendments. Whether the research is aimed at academic theory generation and testing, or is consulting or part of operative work to solve a specific problem, interpretation is required. There are no simple, objective formulas. Truth is a myth In summary, Figure 1 shows that the completely systematic and objective pursuit of the truth is a myth. The systematic and objective part is only a fraction of the research, albeit sometimes a pivotal fraction. Interpretive, subjective, intersubjective and qualitative elements are found throughout the research edifice. Whether research is labeled qualitative or quantitative is immaterial. There is no genuine conflict; we should use whatever tools are best suited to assist us. Interactive research Far back I did a research project on professional B2B services, among them management consultants, consulting engineers, accountants, advertising agencies and business lawyers. Cases were made on how they marketed their services and how these were bought by clients. A few of the cases included interviews with all the major stakeholders, meaning the buying organization, the consultant firm who got the assignment, and the competing firms who lost. Within each group, several people were interviewed. It became blatantly obvious that by just interviewing one party the information would be incomplete and severely biased; the more parties interviewed the richer and more complex the cases turned out to be. I learnt the importance of including all interacting parties, but I hardly ever see this done in B2B research. Interaction stood out as an intriguing variable and opened my eyes for its
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omnipresence and importance. This experience and others have formed my current methodology-in-use and the decision to label it interactive research. Grounded theory Interactive research encompasses a series of strategies such as case study research and grounded theory, which are less prevalent internationally in business school research but are frequently used in Northern Europe within the Nordic School tradition of both services marketing and B2B marketing (Gummesson et al., 1997). They will be briefly described below, but are further elaborated on in Gummesson (2001). Case study research In case study research one or several cases are used to arrive at specific or general conclusions about certain phenomena, recognizing the multitude of variables, complex interrelations and ambiguities of business life. Case study research provides the researcher with an input of real world data from which concepts can be formed and propositions and theory can be tried. A case study could be primarily inductive where the cases provide data for conceptualization and theory generation, or primarily deductive where cases are used to confront existing theory with reality and tests validity. Cases can be selected and defined in many ways depending on the problem being examined and the access and time and other resources available. The purpose of case study research is usually systemic and holistic, to give a full and rich account of a network of relationships between a host of events and factors. Ideas of hermeneutics Case study research is sympathetic to the ideas of hermeneutics. The quality criteria for quantitative studies, such as reliability and representativeness, can only be applied to case study research if the cases include specific quantitative elements. For example, a general rule for the number of cases needed to draw conclusions cannot be set up. Anything from one case to several, even hundreds, can be justified depending on the research purpose and the research questions. The sample is theoretical and purposeful find the cases that give a maximum of information and guided by saturation stop when the new information of additional cases approaches zero. A single case study of a successful launch of new technology not only helps us understand a specific case, but can teach us general lessons about marketing. Minett (2002) advocates case studies as a tool to explain the soul of B2B marketing. These studies can be used to observe the unique properties of B2B marketing situations and learn for the future. In this way, B2B marketing is tried on its own terms and not forced to be perceived through the lenses of the primarily B2C based marketing management theory. Four Ps Inductive research and grounded theory Marketing as presented in textbooks is still very much based on marketing management and consumer behavior research from the 1960s with its four Ps (product, price, promotion, place) and marketing mix. B2B has entered marketing as a special case although; B2B marketing is estimated to be at least as big as consumer marketing, perhaps even bigger. B2B marketing has partly been forced to interpret its reality from allegedly general concepts and models derived from B2C marketing and which may or may not fit the B2B environment. An unreflected choice of a deductive approach, without input from live B2B activity, can therefore be highly deceptive. An alternative or complementary strategy is inductive research. Simply put, inductive research lets reality tell its story on its own terms and not on the terms of received theory and accepted concepts. I feel a strong commitment to inductive, empirical research, above all the strategies to create grounded theory as developed by sociologists Barney
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Inductive, empirical research

Glaser and Anselm Strauss. Grounded theory strives to be realistic and valid. To start a theory generating research project by first designing clear-cut categories and criteria in a complex and dynamic domain like B2B might kill or mutilate reality. As long as the search is directed to an area of interest, patterns will emerge with the gentle assistance of the researcher, not through forcing (Glaser, 1992). My interpretation of a recent book by Glaser (2001) is in line with Figure 1:
Take the elevator from the ground floor of raw substantive data and description to the penthouse of conceptualization and general theory. And do this without paying homage to the legacy of extant theory.

Quantitative research

In doing this, the bewildering richness of data is received with cheers by researchers and not shunned as disorderly and threatening as they often are in quantitative research. Oddly enough, natural sciences which are by mainstream social scientists, including researchers in marketing, looked upon with envy as being rich in objectivity and orderliness accept chaos, complexity and unpredictable change (see, for example, Stacey, 1996). In his discourse on the application of lessons from natural sciences to social sciences, Capra (2002) begins by quoting the poet and ex-president of the Czech Republic Va clav Havel who says: ``Education is the ability to perceive the hidden connections between phenomena''. For the academic researcher it may seem inconceivable to be ``unpolluted'' by methods experience, received theory, a paradigm, and preunderstanding, as this is his or her stock in trade, their ``knowledge equity''. The trick is, in my interpretation, that those in search of grounded theory have to train themselves to momentarily disregard existing knowledge while breathing in new real world data. At a later step, new data are compared with extant theory and a snowballing learning effect is achieved.

Social sciences literature

Grounded theory is one of the most frequently cited methods in the social sciences literature but it is clearly underused in marketing. Its concepts and guidelines are not necessarily new or unique, but they have been coherently organized and reached a high degree of completeness, combining theoretical sensitivity, memos, comparative analysis, theoretical sampling, saturation, open and selective coding, the identification of core variables, and the generation of specific and general theory. Anthropology/ethnography The prevailing research strategy of anthropology/ethnography is interpretation of data generated through direct or participant observation supplemented by interviews and conversations. The research is systematic and in-depth, documented not only in field-notes but also in photos, films, audiotapes, and artifacts. Van Maanen (1982, pp. 103-4) makes the following characterization of ethnographic inquiry in a specific culture:
It calls for the acquired knowledge of the always special language spoken in this setting, first-hand participation in some of the activities that take place there, and most critically, a deep reliance on intensive work with a few informants drawn from the setting.

``Corporate anthropology'' is a viable research strategy in B2B settings. It gives researchers access to where it happens. Characteristic of true anthropology is the long periods over which a culture is studied several months or years as compared to the minutes or hours allocated to interviews in surveys. When a company and market is local and accessible, the researcher can be reasonably present and register what happens.
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Companies that operate in many locations and global companies operating around the world and around the clock, require careful selection of the points of observation, since the marketing and sales staff are more often on the road or in the air, in hotels, and at their client's premises, than they are in their home base. Management action research Action research brings the researcher even closer to the object of study than participant observation; in fact the researchers themselves become both subjects and objects. Action research is reserved for situations when researchers assume the role of change agents of the processes and events they are simultaneously studying. In contrast to the mainstream researcher who is expected to be serenely detached, the demand on the action researcher is deep involvement. Management action research is an application to the study of business phenomena. The action researcher is a person who does scholarly research and is both an academic researcher and either a marketing practitioner or an external consultant. His or her purpose is twofold: to contribute to science and to help solve a practical situation. By being involved, the object of study creeps under the skin of the researcher in a way that is not possible in the study of documents or in interviews, even in participant observation. The access is as close as can be, and tacit and embedded knowledge can be uncovered. Guidelines from hermeneutics Whether a study should be accepted as action research or merely as an account based on personal and practical experience depends on how systematic and reflective it is; it should be confronted with the guidelines from hermeneutics. Action research should preferably be conducted in real time, but retrospective action research should not be wasted by the marketing community. There is a wealth of information stored in the minds of people who have lived through important and often dramatic events with unique access. Further discussion on action research and action science is found in Clark (1972), Gummesson (2000) and Coghlan and Brannick (2001). Narrative research Narrative research is concerned with the ways: ``. . . in which social actors produce, represent and contextualize experiences through narratives'' (Coffey and Atkinson, 1996, p. 54). Narratives are accounts stories about experiences, and they can take many forms. There is usually an initial state of affairs, then actions and events occur and there is perhaps a plot, and there is an end, at least a temporary end and more rarely the definitive ``and they lived happily ever after''. Narratives can be chronological but can also weave a web of events around various themes or concepts. Good story telling By presenting research as a story, we avoid the fragmentation that is inevitable when we break down a statement in concepts and categories. Minett (2002) consults with B2B companies using cases of successful marketing to communicate with the general public and specific trades through the media, but also to help a selling company better understand its marketing. These stories must be told in a readable and condensed way or they will not get published, nor get read by practitioners. They become story telling and an informed interpretation of reality, but not fiction. Good story telling is close to investigative journalism, but with proper research and efforts to pinpoint the essentials of reality it becomes both a marketing tool and an input to general understanding of B2B marketing. From a scholarly
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perspective, such stories must, of course, be critically scrutinized as they are published in a company's self-interest. But so must interviews and statistics provided to researchers from companies. Various interactions Summing up The approaches suggested above represent various interactions, such as between the researcher and the object of study and its actors; between our consciousness and qualities of our inner self; between substantive data and general concepts; between the parts and the whole; between words, numbers, body language and tacit language; and concurrent, non-linear and dynamic interaction between data generation, analysis, interpretation and conclusions. The elements of interactive research all strive to achieve close access to reality and high validity. In addition, interactive research includes both academic and practitioner interaction with audiences. By presenting research approaches, concepts, ideas and results in a written and oral format, we test our ability to interact with students, colleagues, CEOs, marketing managers, salespeople, the media and others. Encounters with audiences are not merely the end of a research program aiming to sell the findings. They also help us in our effort to interpret. In interactive research, theory generation and theory testing are twins and not separate, consecutive stages. It is not a matter of doing conceptual, qualitative pilot studies first and then ``do the real thing and go empirical'' by testing hypotheses with numbers. Through further theory generation and within the spirit of hermeneutics, we build a helix of continued development of knowledge. We go from preunderstanding to understanding to a new level of understanding and so on, and from substantive, specific data to concepts that serve as vehicles for reaching more general theory levels. In certain phases, statistical deductive testing can enter, but the strategy is continuous theory development, where improved or completely changed theories constitute the test results. Interpretive approaches Interpretive approaches with an interactive research strategy perhaps only codify the best of common sense, insights, wisdom, sound judgment, intuition and experience. But the differentiating factors between personal everyday interpretation and opinion is the scholarly demands of being systematic, connected to theory, and be as transparent as possible by publishing the research and making it accessible for the academic community and business. Most of what has been said here has been written about before but not specifically with B2B marketing in mind. Kuhn (1962) has advised us not to be restricted to mainstream research and to realize that knowledge is only cumulative to a point; then a paradigm shift is needed to build a fresh scientific foundation. Grounded theory accentuates the dangers of received theory that may block our minds to reality. Feyerabend (1975) has told researchers not to be stuck in methodological rites and technicalities, but to choose the tools best fitted to investigate the issue being studied. Ideal researcher The ideal researcher in business and marketing is an Indiana Jones hunting hidden treasures and a Sherlock Holmes solving the mystery of The Speckled Band. Both are researching, courageous and passionate explorers. Walking in their footsteps, B2B researchers should not be bureaucrats and administrators of regulated research rituals. They should be entrepreneurs and their priority should be to find market treasures and to solve marketing mysteries.
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In summary:
.

Recognize that interpretive elements are influential and present in all types of research and see them as an asset rather than a cross to bear. Get familiar and practice the paradigm represented by hermeneutics and interactive research, as well as the accompanying methods and techniques. Evaluate the research on its own terms with adequate criteria and not on the terms of mainstream quantitative research. Accept the thrilling complexity, ambiguity, fuzziness and unpredictability of B2B marketing and strive for more in-depth and basic understanding of its mechanisms.

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