CHAPTER 1The Role of Marketing Research in Management Decision Making

Photo illustration of a man and a woman discussing over something viewed on the tablet computer.

Welcome to our world of marketing research! How does marketing research help managers reach their goals? How did the field of marketing research evolve? What big changes are occurring? We will explore these topics in this chapter.

Nature of Marketing

Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.1 Good customer relationships often result in exchanges; that is, a good or service is exchanged for money. The potential for exchange exists when there are at least two parties and each has something of potential value to the other. When the two parties can communicate and deliver the desired goods or services, exchange can take place.

How do marketing managers attempt to stimulate exchange? They follow the “right” principle. They attempt to get the right goods or services ...

Get Marketing Research, 11th Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.