Book Review: Self-Inference Processes: The Ontario Symposium

To make the subject come to life, the authors have related concepts and techniques to understandable reader frames of reference. Many current business and newsworthy examples are offered to support conceptual topic development. Above all, though, the writing style is interesting and well-positioned to the audience's level. The material flows well because the authors make good use of logic and transitions between topics. To facilitate learning, each chapter begins with a set of learning objectives and a brief real-world vignette. Both set the stage for what follows in the chapter. The learning objectives provide a partial chapter outline and sensitize the reader to important material. The introductory vingettes enable the reader to understand how the chapter material is actually used in a business-related setting. At the least, these features should provide direction and realism before the reader digs into the detail. Each chapter in the text ends with a brief summary, a list of key terms, a series of review and discussion questions, and two brief case studies. The cases are well tied to the chapter contents and are followed by insightful questions. Some of the chapters are followed by appendices that address a stand-alone topic such as careers in market research, published secondary sources, databases, focus group excerpts, conjoint analysis, and questionnaires. On the whole this material is very pragmatic and useful, but it might be overlooked because it is relegated to appendices instead of being included in a chapter. The text is organized into five main parts comprising 20 chapters. The set of chapters are followed by a section containing five comprehensive cases and a section presenting statistical tables. Part One contains four chapters and explains what marketing research is, how it helps managers, and who does it. Chapter 4, entitled "Who Does Marketing Research? ", is a refreshing addition to this type of text. From the outset it educates the reader as to the structure of and players in the industry. The very next chapter is also a welcome addition because it is devoted entirely to taking a marketing research situation from the proposal stage through the results stage. It provides real-world exploratory and descriptive studies and shows how they ultimately assist the decision maker. Part Two primarily covers sources of primary and secondary data and types of primary data research methods. Part Three focuses on measurement issues, instrument design, and sampling. In my opinion, the two sampling chapters come too late in the book. Part Four consists of four chapters on data analysis issues, including data processing issues, descriptive statistics, tests of differences, bivariate correlation and regression, and multivariate data analysis. As in the sample size chapter, the coverage of these technical areas is handled well. The intent is to educate, not to lose the audience by impressing them. Conceptual development is always accompanied by easy-to-follow computational examples-making the treatment much less arduous for the reader than it is in most competitive offerings. JOURNAL OF MARKETING RESEARCH, AUGUST 1992