Chapter 3 --- Methodology
Secondary research
In this dissertation, in order to obtain broad knowledge about customer loyalty programmes in the hotel industry, a wide range of secondary sources will be reviewed.
Birley and Moreland (1998, p.14) define secondary research as:
“Secondary sources of research consist of material written some time after the event, involving commentaries on situations and events”.
Also Stewart and Kamins (1993) suggest that:
“Secondary research can provide a starting point that allows the research for any
unanswered questions”.
There are data that have already been collected for another purpose and subsequently requires a detailed analysis of whether the information would be suitable. Thus, distinguishing between credible and unreliable literature through analysing the literature can be regarded as ‘suitable’ in evaluating readings for their appropriateness and validity. In this research project, secondary research will enable the research to integrate valid and reliable data, so that all the gathered data can answer the research questions relating to the effectiveness of loyalty programmes.
Secondary research provides a wide range of information, and conceptual and theoretical framework to support the study (Saunders et al., 2003). In this research, secondary sources will be consulted through academic journals, textbooks, and the Internet.
Academic journals are published on a regular basis and they are a vital literature source for any piece of research (Saunders et al, 2003). Journals such as “Journal of Consumer Marketing” and “Journal of Marketing research” illustrate some research studies that have been conducted concerning the effectiveness of loyalty programmes, and the relevant issues related to loyalty programmes. Therefore, all the relevant information will be gathered from these sources and will be analysed to answer the questions relating to the effectiveness of loyalty programmes in the hotel sector. However, a disadvantage of the journal articles was that they had often been collated to research aims that differ from that of the current project, therefore, data has to be carefully evaluated and sometimes disregarded due to its generalisation qualities. This sifting through and clarifying data was to ensure the research was based upon dependable knowledge that was carefully reasoned and constructed. Evaluating the secondary information proved challenging at times as complex arguments had to be understood and interpreted.
Books are written in a more ordered and accessible manner and therefore will help to clarify the research questions and objectives (ibid). “Understanding Customers” by Rice, “Brand Loyalty: Measurement and Management” by Jacoby and Chestnut, and “Once a customer, always a customer” by Daffy, are books that provide an in-depth knowledge about loyalty programmes in relation to consumer behaviour. Loyalty programmes are discussed as a part of many marketing textbooks. Although textbooks are not up to date as journals and the Internet, they are mainly used in both to identify how loyalty programmes affect in the hotel sector and to give comment and criticism of different loyalty programmes put forward by different authors, and to analyse the practices of the different loyalty programmes within different hotels.
On the other hand, the Internet can provide a lot of updated information. It is very helpful to collect information on hotels without an actual visit. Many academic journals can be found quickly through the online databases, such as the Emerald, which provides a lot of useful information about the nature, the value and objectives of loyalty programmes and how loyalty programmes could affect the performance of a particular hotel. However the reliability of the information has to be considered carefully. The mass of information resulted in false leads causing time waste and frustration. It was therefore necessary to be continuously mindful of the validity and reliability of the information found on the Internet. A set of credited academic databases, such as electronic journals from the Ingenta, the Emerald and official hotel websites, these websites were used as they held credible, current and relevant information required for this research.
Additionally, all secondary sources for this study were gathered from the library of Birmingham College of Food, Tourism and Creative Studies, and the Birmingham Central Library. Many secondary resources may not match the specific research question properly. For example, most textbooks and journals contain only information about customer loyalty in the retail business or in restaurants, but few of them focus specifically on the hospitality industry. Hence, primary research needs to be conducted to gather more recent information.
Primary Research
According to Bailey (1995, p.40):
“Primary resources are first hand accounts not based on other written works, nor interpreted by others researchers”.
Primary data are invaluable as it is not only the most current data available but are also specific and concise. Ghosh and Chopra (2003, p.280) define primary data as:
“…originally collected by the concerned investigator or enumerators from the source of their origin in the process of investigation”.
Primary research is a method of finding out the most up-to-date information on a particular topic that is directly relevant for the study. In primary research, data is collected specifically for the study at hand, so in this study, primary data can be obtained either from the interviews and questionnaires. Although it is often difficult to interpret on its own, reference sources and secondary analysis will give the author a framework for interpreting primary sources.
(1) Qualitative method
Qualitative research can add a totally new dimension to an issue or a question under study. Strauus (1990) defines qualitative research as being:
“Any kind of research that produces findings not arrived at by means of statistical
procedures or other means of quantification. It can refer to research not only
peoples’ lives, stories, behaviour, but also about organisational functioning,
social movements or interactional relationships”.
Therefore, qualitative research will be employed in this dissertation in order to assess managers’ opinion about how they think loyalty programmes’ effects which might base on either their experiences or company reports of their hotels. The qualitative research to be used in this study is the interview. The aim of interviews is to gain considerable in depth information on the hotel managers’ opinions about the effects of loyalty programmes.
Interview
Using interview can help the author to gather valid and reliable data relevant to the research questions. Bell (1998) defines an interview as a very versatile way of collecting information, where the interviewer can probe for responses and examine issues such as motives and feelings based around a topic. The more standardized the interview is however, the easier it is to interpret the data.
In this study, the face-to-face semi-structured interview will be adopted. A face-to-face semi-structured interview means that the researcher will have a list of themes and questions to be covered during the interview (Saunder, et al., 2003). A semi-structured interview was chosen to gather the primary information, because it could provide a framework for the researcher, and it allowed the researcher questions some interesting area as the interview move on. Moreover, it could provide the researcher with an opportunity to ask interviewees to explain, and build on their responses to questions.
In a semi-structured interview, the researcher will consider using open ended questions and closed questions. Kvale (1996) states that open ended questions allow respondents to give their own answers, usually starting with ‘what’, ‘how’, and ‘why’.
The advantage of the open ended interview is that it can express the interviewee’s ideas freely. Closed ended questions ask an interviewee for specific information or to confirm a fact or opinion, and generally require a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. The advantage of the closed ended interview is that this kind of question is easy to answer, and requires minimal writing.
The disadvantage of a face-to-face semi-structure interview is that it is time consuming. If too many questions are used, the interview time can not be controlled, so questions of this type will be kept to a minimum.
In this study, a face-to-face semi-structure interview will be conducted with hotel managers from Holiday Inn Birmingham City Centre and Novotel Birmingham City Centre. As those managers of these two 3-star hotels have more successful experience regarding loyalty programmes. In order to avoid disturb managers too much, and save the interview time, the interview will be limited to open ended questions.
Sampling
This part will be added after interview questions are designed.
Procedure
This part will be added after make an appointment with hotel managers.
(2) Quantitative method
Quantitative research incorporates numerical data, which will then be displayed in the form of charts, graphs or tables. A quantitative variable refers to an item of information a researcher is interested in evaluating or monitoring which can be described through one or more words and which assumes different numerical values (Clark et al., 1998). The advantage of quantitative method is that it provides information about consumer behaviour, market trends and so on. Quantitative approaches offer quickly processed and analysed data. As the quantitative method, in this study, a questionnaire will be used to identify effects of loyalty programmes in the hotel industry from the customer’s perspective.
Questionnaire
The author will use a questionnaire as a tool to measure the effects of loyalty programmes on the hotel industry form the customer’s perspective, as they are inexpensive and can be targeted at specific customers. Also, Thietart (1999) claims that this is the most efficient way of collecting primary data without pressuring customers. Customers voluntarily fill in the questionnaire as it preserves the anonymity of the data source. The author decided that questionnaires would be the most suitable means of gathering the information needed rather than interviews as interviews can sometimes be very time consuming and the analysis of the data collected from them can be difficult. In addition, there is an argument that it is hard to collect precise data to answer the research question and this may be due to a lack of sufficient data or errors in the questions being asked (Saunder et al. 2003). Hence, a questionnaire should have carefully designed individual questions, a clear layout and clear explanations so that the data will be useful in the research.
Construction of questionnaire
The questionnaire construction for this research will under three sub-categories: question wording, response choices and question sequence.
The wording of the questions can have pronounced effects on the results, even a small difference in wording may produce substantial response effects (Denscombe, 1998).
The author will use a simple structure with familiar words and avoid any complicated jargon. Also, the questionnaire will never resort to using double negatives. The questions will be as concise as possible to convey the intended meaning and respondents will be able to answer them with relatively minimal effort.
The author will adopt both open-ended and closed-ended questions. For the close-ended items, the respondent should select one (or more if applicable) answer from given alternatives. For the open-ended items, the respondents should phrase their own replies rather than try to fit their answers into the provided choices. Therefore, the former are referred to as “fixed responses” and the latter as “free responses”.
Furthermore, the questions will be put in a logical order and in a manner non-threatening to the respondents (Jonhs & Lee-Ross, 1998). Usually, similar questions are grouped together. Questions begin with those of a more general topic moving on to more specific ones. The author will tend to ask the most sensitive information in the last section. Within this section items should be organized topically and from the least to the most sensitive, in order to avoid people give up the questionnaire as the sensitive questions at the beginning.
Pilot study and results
This part will be added after the questionnaire has been piloted.
Sampling and distribution of the questionnaire
This part will be added after the questionnaire has been piloted and final designed.
0 comments:
Post a Comment