Beyond incommensurability?Empirical expansion on diversity

in researchAndrea Davies

Management Centre, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK, and

James A. FitchettNottingham University Business School, Nottingham, UK

Abstract

Purpose – This paper is a practical attempt to contribute to the ongoing reappraisal of thedichotomies and categories that have become prevalent throughout marketing research.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviews current literature on incommensurabilityand undertakes a comparative re-examination of two studies.

Findings – How the authors view their research is constituted in retrospective terms through amarketing and consumption logic based on the principles of division, distinction and difference.Re-examination of some empirical case material suggests that in practice the perceived dualityseparating research traditions is unsound. A misplaced reading of paradigm incommensurability hasresulted in research practices appearing oppositional and static when they are essentiallyundifferentiated and dynamic. An over-socialised research epistemology has raised the tangibleoutcomes of research activities to be dominant in directing research practice.

Research limitations/implications – The comparative analysis is illustrative rather thanrepresentative.

Originality/value – The paper offers an applied exposition of theoretical debates in marketingresearch concerning paradigm incommensurability.

Keywords Market research methods, History

Paper type Conceptual paper

IntroductionMarketing and consumer research is once again experiencing a period of reappraisal,looking internally to question the direction and speed of its theoretical developmentand the jurisdiction of its theoretical boundaries (Levy, 2002; Brown, 2002; Zaltman,2000; Lowenstein, 2001; Rossiter, 2001; Wells, 2001; Bettany, 2002). Marketing has beendefined by its multi-disciplinary status for some time now and the processes ofgenerating knowledge have been characterised by considerable methodologicaldiversity (Wilk, 2001; Murray et al., 2002; Piercy, 2002). As with any field of academicenquiry the activities associated with theory making underpin disciplinary content andprogress in marketing science (Gummesson, 2001; O’Shaughnessy andO’Shaughnessy, 2002; Thompson, 2002). However, the extent to which researchcommunities in business research have a complete understanding of what constitutesand drives research practice is less clear and it may be either too much or too littledisciplinary self-confidence that accounts for an unwillingness to examine thepractices of knowledge production (Remenyi, 2002).

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Received January 2003Revised September 2003Accepted January 2004

European Journal of MarketingVol. 39 No. 3/4, 2005pp. 272-293q Emerald Group Publishing Limited0309-0566DOI 10.1108/03090560510581773

Paradigmatic debates were afforded a high profile in the marketing and consumerresearch literatures throughout the 1980s and 1990s. During this period questions werefrequently asked regarding the authority of different research traditions with severalways to move forward and guide the research community being proposed (e.g.Anderson, 1983, 1986; Deshpande, 1983; Hirschman, 1985; Hirschman and Holbrook,1992; Hudson and Ozanne, 1988; Ozanne and Hudson, 1989; Hunt, 1990, 1991, 1992,1994; Sherry, 1991; Kavanagh, 1994). Critical pluralists (Hunt, 1991, 1994; Kavanagh,1994) claiming openness and tolerance called for the status of qualitative methods to berepositioned in an effort to challenge what they perceived to be increasingly pervasivenihilistic and relativistic tendencies. These conciliatory efforts can perhaps be thoughtof as an attempt by influential groups within the academy at resolving, ending oroffering a “last word” in debates over epistemology or so-called “epistobabble”warfare. Whether one agrees or disagrees with resolution couched solely in anobjectivist and realist philosophy (Wilk, 2001), contemporary evidence would suggestthat the concerns raised during this era of paradigm debate have not been “resolved” inthe everyday practice and experience of researchers. Current debates concerning thelegitimacy of different research approaches may be less likely to adopt the oppositionaltone that characterised much of this earlier discussion but acknowledgement ofdivisions and boundaries between research programmes nevertheless continues tofeature regularly in respected journals (Thompson, 2002; Wells, 2001; Shankar andPatterson, 2001; Szmigim and Foxhall, 2000; Hackley, 1999).

The difficulties of “investigating”, “solving” or “resolving” issues of researchdiversity has the potential to deter researchers from undertaking empirical research, aswell as deterring much needed discussion about the status of theory and knowledgegeneration and the relationship to research practice. As Wilk (2001) reminds us,pluralism demands that we accept the possibility that two studies or methods cannotbe brought to bear on one another and that a single explanation is insufficient. Theabsence of agreed criteria that could be applied to adjudicate on the merits of differentapproaches to research investigation calls into question whether discussions aboutresearch practice or debates concerning the value of multi-method research constitutevalid topics of enquiry. Evaluative criteria are bound up in the same social world inwhich the operative knowledge they are sought to bear on is generated (Schmidt, 2001)and this produces a situation of underdetermination (Anderson, 1986). In marketingand consumer research (Wilk, 2001) other social sciences (Sayers, 1987; Guba andLincoln, 1998; Weick, 1989; Lewis and Grimes, 1999) and beyond (Nagel and Newman,1971) the inability to step outside our own theoretical and epistemological languages isrecognised as an impasse, or at the very least a stumbling block, that makes the studyof diversity in research traditions fraught with anxiety. Since it may be impossible to“adequately ‘solve’ the problems of being, truth and subjectivity” (Flax, 1990, p. 193)we must perhaps be content to live in “the middle of things” (Wilk, 2001) and to acceptthe “messiness of this condition” (St Pierre, 1997).

Our intention here is to offer another view on the diversity observed in our researchtraditions. From the outset it is necessary to draw a distinction between theappreciative and instrumental systems in research (Vickers, 1995), what we mightsummarise as the differences between the way the research process is viewed andtheorised on the one hand and the way it is conducted or enacted on the other. Thepaper focuses on the manner in which marketing and consumer research knowledge is

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produced and represented through research practice to critique and challenge somemisunderstandings that have now become entrenched. Marketing research remainsconstituted primarily in static and retrospective terms through a logic based on theprinciples of division, distinction and difference. Oppositional terms such asinside/outside, mind/matter, part/whole, self/other, academic/practitioner,qualitative/quantitative and positivist/interpretivist, are the direct products of suchlogic and have become the key conceptual categories that we rely on to expressresearch experiences and research practices.

Kuhn’s (1970a) incommensurability thesis is often drawn on to maintain and justifythe integrity of such oppositional dualisms. In the following section we suggest thatthis thesis has been misunderstood in marketing. Building on this discussion we go onto consider two studies both of which examine a similar subject but are conducted inwhat would be widely defined as alternative paradigms. Our analysis offers a practicalattempt to confront incommensurability by drawing on empirical case material. Bycritically contrasting the two studies we are able to examine the practice ofinterpretivism and the practice of positivism in the context of ongoing philosophy ofscience dualisms. The main outcome of this analysis is to contribute to the growingbody of work in the management sciences that seeks to reappraise prevailingdichotomies and categories (e.g. Gioia and Pitre, 1990; Schultz and Hatch, 1996; Lewisand Grimes, 1999).

Incommensurability and beyondThere is a widespread rejection of a unified meta-theoretical paradigm in marketingand consumer research (Anderson, 1983; Arndt, 1985; Mick, 1999; Zaltman, 2000).While the Kuhnian cycle of scientific revolution together with the thesis onincommensurability was described some time ago as a ”colourful exaggeration”(Venkatesh, 1985) and marketing was “not considered to have experienced robustalternative schools of marketing thought” (Savitt, 1990, p. 299), it remains a coreconcept in debates over paradigm credibility. At the workbench as it were, it seemsthat researchers are now being required to make an “either/or” choice between twoseemingly polar paradigmatic opposites of research practice (Howe, 1988, 1992; Rose,2001). In consumer research, for example, researchers choose between “positivist” and“interpretivist” (or “humanist”) approaches (Hudson and Ozanne, 1988; Wilk, 2001;Wells, 2001; Shankar and Patterson, 2001; Sherry, 2000; Brown, 2002; Thompson,2002). Although strict conceptual justification for paradigmatic choice might beappealing in theory, inconsistencies begin to emerge when these principles aretranslated and applied to specific research practices and to the general social context ofthe academy in which research is undertaken. For example, differences in researchers’personalities (Brown, 1999; Hirschman, 1985; Leong et al., 1994) and socialisation andcultural environments (Anderson, 1986; Hirschman and Holbrook, 1992; Trocchia andBerkowitz, 1999) have been shown to guide paradigmatic choices. Yet the spectre ofincommensurability continues to restrict and restrain advances despite calls formulti-paradigm enquiry in the marketing discipline (Mick, 1999; Zaltman, 2000), socialsciences (Schultz and Hatch, 1996; Lewis and Grimes, 1999) and by leading figuresbeyond the empiricist paradigm (Howe, 1992). This is all the more confounding whenone considers the multi-disciplinary agenda of the subject, its focus on diversity(Ferber, 1977; Frank, 1974; Kavanagh, 1994; Kernan, 1995; Wilk, 2001) and history of

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mixing, matching and importing ideas and techniques from many different areas(Tellis et al., 1999; Bettencourt and Houston, 2001).

Authors in both “positivist” and “interpretivist” camps have focused on the valueadded to research designed with some form of triangulation (e.g. Arnould and Price,1993; Deshpande, 1983; McQuarrie and Mick, 1992; Gummesson, 2001; McAlexanderet al., 2002; Thompson and Troester, 2002). A problem common to such integrationiststances is that different research traditions are rarely given equal authority in theagenda, findings or conclusions drawn from empirical work (Hirschman, 1985). Indeed,examples of studies that have used a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods,or cases where attention has been given to the triangulation of different kinds of data,have been criticised for relying on only one or a very narrowly defined set ofphilosophical and ontological beliefs (Wilk, 2001). Assigning equal value and weight todifferent traditions and methods of research is often considered problematic due toarguments regarding the apparent lack of common criteria to judge their quality (e.g.Szmigim and Foxhall, 2000; Thompson, 1990, 1993).

The potential of realising a workable and acceptable context for multi-paradigmand inter-paradigm research remains uncertain. Theoretical frameworks for multipleparadigm research have been explored in some detail in management studies (Gioiaand Pitre, 1990; Schultz and Hatch, 1996; Lewis and Grimes, 1999). In contrast to theintegrationist view common in marketing and consumer research, these frameworkscontend that paradigm interplay produces new forms of understanding by stressingthe interdependencies between constitutive oppositions. Their approach seeks toembrace disparity to build an enlarged and enlightened understanding of phenomenathus offering another perspective on paradigm reconciliation (Hirschman, 1985;Hirschman and Holbrook, 1992; Hunt, 1994; Hudson and Ozanne, 1988; Ozanne andHudson, 1989; Szmigim and Foxhall, 2000). Although Schultz and Hatch (1996) offer ameta-paradigmatic position that denies incommensurability, their theoreticalframework of meta-triangulation maintains rather than smoothes over notions ofdifferences and boundaries that uphold divisions between different research traditions.This is exemplified by their use of “bridging” and “interplay” and does not seemadequately to attain a meta-paradigmatic level where different research traditions canco-exist (de Cock et al., 1995). Instead these frameworks operate in a grey area betweenparadigms where the potential to privilege one side of a dualism remains. Eisenhart(2000) views this middle ground as a way to avoid the blandness of synthesis andcelebrates the co-existence of dualities. She calls for the need to uphold and acceptparadox in practice and questions whether incommensurability is a state of nature.The importance of representing the interdependencies and commonalities among andbetween diverse research traditions does however remain unattended in theories thatadhere to incommensurability as well as those based on meta-paradigmaticexplanations.

One of the problems researchers face when trying to resolve paradigm debates is thecontradiction between the philosophy of research on the one hand, and the practice ofresearch on the other (Kaplan, 1964; Lauden, 1984; Marsden, 2001; Wilk, 2001;Bouchikhi and Kimberley, 2001). The majority of researchers involved in themarketing and consumer research community would probably be able to locate theirown and colleagues’ work within either a positivist or interpretivist tradition. The typeand style of data collected and analysis employed, as well the type and range of

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research issues attended to, are most likely to be assumed to provide surrogateindicators that locate researchers in one tradition rather than another. However, whilecurrent debates about philosophy of science would seem to imply that positivists andinterpretivists should be odds, in everyday practice this is not necessarily the case(Heath, 1992; Venkatesh, 1985). Researchers from different research traditions workalongside one another, discuss and argue common ideas and topics, attend similarconferences and publish in the same pool of journals. Furthermore, research conductedin one tradition often draws on work conducted in other traditions (Tellis et al., 1999;Bettencourt and Houston, 2001). There are of course disagreements and conflictsbetween researchers that should not be overlooked. However, these disagreements arearguably equally prevalent within the interpretivist and positivist traditions as theyare between them.

Research philosophy and research practiceAccounts of the “muddling of method” (Baker et al., 1992; Goulding, 1999), the “standbetween” metaphor as a description of research practice (Charmaz, 1995), and Heath’s(1992) boundary blurring description of consumer researchers as “liberal naturalists”or “conservative humanists” highlight the difficulty of linking paradigm theories toresearch practices. Examples of studies that have applied qualitative methods in apositivist tradition (Iacobucci, 2001) and quantitative methods in an interpretivisttradition (Potter and Wetherell, 1994) emphasise the widely accepted observation thatthere is a lack of correspondence between qualitative and quantitative methods ofresearch (instruments) and the theoretical paradigms of positivism and humanism inwhich they are used (Lauden, 1984; Howe, 1988; Silverman, 1997; Riley and Love, 2000).Despite this it has become common to define paradigm debates using surrogatemeasures of methodology choice, research community conventions, power locales, datacollection and analysis procedures, and accepted presentation protocols (e.g. Hunt,1994; Shankar and Patterson, 2001; Brown et al., 2001). There is a real difficulty, evenimpossibility, of isolating one theoretical research tradition from another withoutdrawing on more procedural aspects of research conduct.

Research papers with recognised and accepted methods, procedures, and reportingconventions, are the tangible representations of theory generating research activity.Reward systems are based on journal publications and citation frequency, and thematurity of the discipline is analysed by the degree of diversity and exchange ofreference citations (Zinkan et al., 1992; Bettencourt and Houston, 2001). We are theconsumers of new ideas presented in our journal papers and their review and editorialpractices guide what is right and good in the discipline. Studies of reference diversityin top journals show a negative relationship between subsequent article citation andthe conceptual distance or disciplinary variety of citations contained within them(Bettencourt and Houston, 2001). As consumers of new research we favour theoriesthat are readily understandable and easy to put into operation (Peter and Olson, 1983;Lynch, 1998). There is comfort in the certain and the familiar. As researchers we lookfor marketable findings, replicating the methodological and rhetorical strategiesnecessary to conform to the accepted practice of various sub-disciplines as they areconstructed (Bouchikhi and Kimberley, 2001; Wells, 2001; Thompson, 2002). Wepersuade our audiences primarily through the utilisation of specific narrative forms(Van Mannen, 1995; de Cock and Chia, 2001), staging credible truth effects in a

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progression of popularity contests (Sutton and Shaw, 1995; O’Shaughnessy, 1997;Shankar and Patterson, 2001).

Schmidt (2001) recognises the cultural location of norms and standards held by ourresearch traditions. He accounts for this “oversocialised epistemology” in terms of the“various parochialisms to which most academics (including himself) lean due toprocesses of deformation professionelle” (Schmidt, 2001, p. 148). It would seemresearch communities use Kuhn’s incommensurability thesis as an ontological act ofdifferentiation to authenticate the credibility and status of sub-groups andsub-disciplinary areas, and research traditions become “traps invented byresearchers to snare and dismember them” (Zaltman, 2000). Researchers focus ondissimilarities rather than similarities and reject the applicability of conceptuallydistant theories (Bettencourt and Houston, 2001). There is a drive to reduceepistemological uncertainty so as to establish credible research traditions. This hasraised methodological and representational concerns to the status of first principlewhere the means through which marketing knowledge or science has becomenormalised have become ends in themselves (Haslam and McGarty, 2001).

Research papers have become prized and valued over and above the researchactivities they describe. When valued only as research papers our research activitiesreified, becoming “thing-like”. One problem is that when viewed retrospectively, whatis accepted in our journals becomes viewed as a universal way or theoretical map ofwhat is right and good. This is at best a “counterfeit” account of research practice anddisciplinary progression. As Rescher (1996, p. 35) explains “‘things’ [research papers]are no more than stability waves in a sea of process”. Journal papers cannot representthe full extent of research activity. They fail to capture the dialogue and exchange thatis part of research practice.

Paradigms revisitedKuhn’s (1968) original incommensurability thesis positions all research and knowledgewithin specific contexts of institutions, expectations, languages, instruments, andmodes of understanding. These boundaries define and locate research paradigms.Hassard (1988) emphasises that paradigm change has been misinterpreted as a gradualtransition where existing paradigms are seen as nurturing, growing, sitting alongside,and finally being subsumed to new paradigms. For Kuhn (1970a, p. 85), however,paradigm shifts are points of fracture and transformation from one form of “normal”science to another. Such a reading does not adequately reflect the current status ofdifferent research communities nor the relationship between interpretivists andpositivists for disciplines that see themselves as pluri-paradigmatic and hold constanttwo (Hudson and Ozanne, 1988; Szmigim and Foxhall, 2000), or more “paradigms”(Hirschman and Holbrook, 1992; Sherry, 1991).

Other recent re-examinations of Kuhn’s understanding of paradigms and paradigmrevolutions highlight the logical and discursive inconsistency between the idea ofscientific progress on the one hand, and paradigmatic conflict or rivalry leading toincommensurability on the other. Conflict and rivalry require at least some level oftranslation, common location and reference or meaning, whereas theories expressed inalternative incommensurable paradigmatic languages can have no common meaningand comparable content. Davidson (1984) and Putman (1981) show that it is incoherentto suggest theoretical languages are untranslatable, unless the content of theories in

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one paradigm are received as “farm yard noises” with no meaningful expression inother paradigms. Indeed, both Kuhn and Feyerabend did not adhere to anindeterminable notion of semantic incommensurability, but rather to one of “localincommensurability” (Kuhn, 1983). Sankey (1994) also rejects a reading of “paradigm”based on discontinuous transition between theories which have no common referenceor which refer to distinct worlds of their own making. Instead he considers there to be areferential continuity where supposedly divergent paradigmatic theories can becompared on content because they only have “divergent referential relations to acommon theory-dependent reality” (Sankey, 1994, p. 219). Drawing on Feyerabend(1965) he suggests that translation, at least at the level of non-instantial theory orcommon descriptive concepts can occur due to the presence of background theoriesthat are in some way generically common and therefore applicable in more than oneparadigm. Evidence of semantic understanding and exchange between seeminglyalternative paradigmatic traditions would suggest that current paradigmaticboundaries are at least permeable or, perhaps more dramatically, that boundariesand divisions have been drawn pre-maturely and do not reflect substantially differentcontent.

O’Shaughnessy (1997) suggests that there may be little substance in the differencesidentified in marketing and consumer research traditions and that we are subject to the“granfalloon effect”. We believe and act as though we have something in commonbecause we can be, and need to be, identified with a legitimate research tradition. In asimilar vein, Wilk (2001) argues that knowledge of any sort is fundamentally built oncomparison. He suggests all research papers are in fact re-studies of what has gonebefore. It would seem that we have created difference as a disciplinary legitimisingtactic and this limits our ability to foster discontinuous innovation (Zaltman, 2000;Feyerabend, 1965). The absence of a unified or authoritative paradigmatic position andthe subsequent lack of a commonly agreed consensus to define mechanisms ofevaluation, has tended to over-emphasise and inflate differences in terms of conflict,and in some cases as “paradigm warfare” (Anderson, 1983, 1986; Hunt, 1990, 1991,1992; Kavanagh, 1994). As a consequence, evidence of common language (Putman,1981) or shared cognitive goals (Howe, 1992) is under represented.

Methodological approachThe incommensurability thesis is a difficult one to examine if paradigmatic boundariesare considered to be fixed or partial incommensurable. Debates surroundingincommensurability question the very assumptions of scientific examination. To seekand “verify” the thesis would from a certain paradigmatic position seem acceptableand necessary, whereas from others such efforts are inappropriate, even irrelevant. Interms of a method we adopt a critically-reflexive re-inquiry (Thompson, 2002). Theprimary methodological motivation is to address the issue of incommensurability intwo research traditions by employing a data-driven agenda. The lack of broadlycomparable case studies undertaken in similar research contexts, but from alternateparadigmatic traditions, has hindered the exploration of paradigm commensurabilityas practised, as opposed to how the debate is conceptualised. The aim of the analysis isto illustrate the contrasts evident between studies with different so called paradigmaticbases, to compare respective assumptions and justifications, and to identify agreementand disagreement in the main findings. Here we shift our attention from the “reality”

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being presented in studies from different research to the representation of thoserealities in each tradition.

This enquiry draws on two empirical studies that examine consumption experienceand consumer behaviour in the leisure industry, and in particular the museum “sector”.The two studies were conducted independently of each other, with neither researchprogramme or research team involved with the other. Only following the completionand peer review of both studies did the researchers become aware of the other piece ofresearch. Study A was undertaken in accordance with what would be identified as apositivist approach, whereas Study B was undertaken in the interpretivist tradition.

Study A takes the traditional psychological/ behaviourist paradigm in consumerresearch as its basis, applying the Theory of Planned Behaviour to compare severalpredictive models of museum visiting behaviour, based on a stratified spatial randomsample of 400 individuals, and using a two-stage structural equation modellinganalysis technique. The intangible experience-outcomes shared by museum visitors,and disliked or undervalued by museum non-visitors, are offered as the basis forenlarging the explanation of museum visiting and non-visiting intentions by improveddescriptive depth and predictive validity.

Study B draws heavily on Marxist and Post-Marxist critical theory to examinewhether the museum experience is organised in terms of a commodity code, andvisiting a museum as an act of consumption. Study B offers a cultural/macroexplanation of museum visiting, identifying the cultural processes that have enabledaspects of history and culture (museum exhibitions) to become represented andconsumed as commodities. Based on a naturalistic/ethnographic methodology where40 qualitative interviews are supplemented with photography to ensure sensitivity tothe natural setting, the design of the study aims to maximise thickness and depth andstresses the authority of the author in developing/presenting the description andinterpretation the museum experience.

Both studies justify their chosen research philosophies, and conduct, analyse andreport the research process and their findings in accordance with the principlesascribed by their respective methodologies. Study A presents and verifies data bydrawing on conventions of quantitative modelling. Study B relies on textual data anddescription. Study A maintains a focus on individual cognitive processes to explainmuseum visiting, whereas Study B focuses exclusively on the explication ofsocio-structural codes to describe and understand the experience. A summary of themain conceptual, methodological and analytical components of both studies is given inTable I.

Qualitative and descriptive contrastsTo examine the two pieces of research we considered the textual structure andconstituency of both studies using a literary critical, or discourse analytical approach.This level of analysis calls for the two studies to be examined as texts written inaccordance with certain protocols, languages and traditions. Paradigms have beenseen as differentiated by conventions of discourse and modes of representation makingcommunication between paradigms appear unfeasible. While we focus part of thisanalysis on the findings and data generated by the two pieces of research, we also takethe research texts themselves as units for analysis. This analysis considers the

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discursive framing, modes of justification and argument, styles and language ofrepresentation and the underlying assumptions and rationales for each text.

In accordance with discourse analysis a close reading of the two texts was used toidentify common “codes” or tropes (Elliott, 1996). The approach involved each authorpreparing a close reading of the other text, that is, the author of Study A begananalysing Study B, and vice versa. A series of panel sessions were organised wherebythese initial analyses were discussed, with both differences and similarities beingconfronted and further examined. The first theme discussed below refers to thepresence of a “marketing zeitgeist”. It can be read as a “common world view” or sharedset of underlying assumptions. The second theme explores the basis of the researchassumptions and the manner in which they are constructed, justified and representedin the texts. The third theme goes on to examine the some of the principle researchfindings developed in both studies.

Study A: marketing goes to themuseum

Study B: consumption and culturalcommodification

Principal literature Experiential consumption and museumvisitor researchReview of motivation theory in socialpsychology, leisure and tourismstudiesReview theoretical and methodologicalconcerns for Theory of PlannedBehaviour

Anthropology and material culturetheory of gift/commodity exchangeReview of Marxist critical theory andsociological research on commoditycultureReview of post-Marxist critique,postmodernism and theories ofconsumer culture

Conceptualframework

Explain visitor and non-visitorintentions by anticipated experiencesmoderated by value and museuminterpretive style (serviceenvironment), skills and resources andsocial normsMethodological and conceptualmodification to the Theory of PlannedBehaviour

The museum/collection inpre-industrial, industrial andpost-industrial societyThe consumer “experience”Typology of consumer value

Methodologicalargument

Justification of a modelling approachQualitative variable definitionQuantitative data collectionTwo-stage structural modelling

Justification of an interpretivistapproachQualitative data collection and analysismethods

Research design In-depth interviewingStructured survey questionnaireRandom-spatial sampleScenario method with two contrastingpictorial stimuli

In-depth interviewingEthnographic approaches to consumerresearchDescription of the research locations

Structure of mainfindings

Patterns of museum behaviourIdentification and description ofstructural modelTesting predictive and descriptiveutility of alternative models of Theoryof Planned BehaviorIdentification of principal determinantsof visiting behaviour

The value of museum visitingExamination of sign value in themuseumCommodification of museum exhibitsExperiences of authenticity andproximityNarrative construction

Table I.Composition of Study Aand Study B

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A marketing zeitgeistWhen analysed as a socially and historically located phenomenon, consumer researchlike all modes of enquiry has common traits or dominant themes (Kernan, 1995).Knowledge is emergent and organic rather than explicitly planned or chosen by anyone group or institution (Kuhn, 1970b). That two researchers decided to consider theidentical subject of museum visiting consumption reveals a great deal about thezeitgeist or underlying state of ideas and theories in marketing at the time. Thefollowing excerpts illustrate the extent to which both studies represent and respond tothese prevailing:

Study A:In an over-supplied heritage attractions market . . . and against a background of increasinglydemanding and discerning consumers bent on avid “experience” seeking of the past, presentand future . . . it has now become a matter of urgency for museum professionals to understandthe determinants of museum visiting intentions, customer satisfaction and the potentials formarket development . . . Studies from diverse literatures beyond heritage research have beenrelatively more substantial in their concern with consumption experiences . . . Anexamination of studies from [consumer research] offer[s] potential classifications ofexperience useful to understand the possible “nature” of the museum experience, and toforward the conceptual development of a research agenda focused on consumer andnon-consumer experiences of heritage consumption . . . The overall aim of this paper is tocontribute to the understanding and knowledge of museum consumption behaviour framedwithin an experiential management approach.

Study B:The museum profession, like many other “culture industries”, has had to respond to achanging environment. The structure of public funding together with the limitations placedon national and regional government expenditure has meant that many museums have beenforced to reconsider their priorities and strategies for continued survival . . . As aconsequence, the role of the visitor has undergone somewhat of a metamorphosis. Asmuseums become organised like businesses, visitors become increasingly redefined asconsumers. The problem however, which is central to this investigation, is what exactlyconstitutes the museum commodity? If museum visitors are consumers, then what do theyconsume? The museum, as a site of consumption, presents several problems in terms ofexisting theories of consumer behaviour, namely the lack of any economic exchange, materialacquisition or functional utility relating to “needs”. The primary objective of this empiricalinvestigation is to examine whether a semiotic, cultural theory of consumption can be appliedto understand museum consumption.

These excerpts illustrate that there was a motivation to question traditional boundariesaround the discipline that have tended to locate consumer research firmly in the sphereof commercial product-based contexts (e.g. Kotler, 1979; Hirschman and Holbrook,1982; Holbrook and Schindler, 1989). A number of opportunities were emerging inwhich empirically to examine further increasingly popular conceptual ideasconcerning the consumption experience, and tourism and leisure activities asmarketing-related processes (Arnould and Price, 1993; Celsi et al., 1993; Hirschman andHolbrook, 1992; McCracken, 1988). During this period, popular ideas relating topostmodernism, consumer culture, and consumption symbolism (Belk, 1988; Brown,1995; Firat and Venkatesh, 1995) were also being given empirical attention. Thesetrends in the subject demonstrate the importance of disciplinary socialisation. Despiteseemingly incommensurable methodologies, both studies share and build on a

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common legacy within the field of consumer research. Issues and topics popular in thediscipline do not only determine these underlying areas of similarity, but also thelocation where the research was conducted, the resources available to support theresearch, and the specific social and cultural community where the research wasundertaken.

The broader social and cultural location of the researchers should not be ignored.Both studies were completed in marketing faculties of business schools in Scotland(UK) in the late 1990s. The prevailing cultural conditions in Scotland at the timefocussed heavily on questions of Scottish identity, Scottish (as opposed to English)culture, and Scottish institutions, with museums playing a highly visible role indebates surrounding the celebration and representation of Scottish culture. Whenlooked at in relational terms, the salience of Scottish identity issues and the role ofmuseums in representing these issues have influenced project and issue formulation.The role of marketing in promoting and encouraging public support for theseinstitutions of culture, as well as the generic trend towards recreating museums asvisitor (consumer) attractions for the increasingly significant tourism and leisureindustry in Scotland provides some explanation for why both studies selected acommon context in which to conduct the empirical aspects of their researchprogrammes.

While both studies can be seen to address a shared basic question or “problem”, theform that this question takes in the studies differs. Study A presents no theoreticaljustification for the observed shift in consumer research. That other non-commercialsettings have been peer reviewed as credible sites for consumer enquiry is a sufficientjustification for the museum as a location of research. Unlike Study A, Study B is notconcerned with issues that demand explanative, or definitive styles of investigation butrather with the reasons why this set of conditions emerged is a given cultural-historicalcontext. This reveals that debates about commensurability become complex andsomewhat open to negotiation when applied empirically. Both studies can be seen toshare underlying themes and motivations despite clear paradigmatic differences interms of their respective theoretical expressions and cognitive aims (Howe, 1992;Sankey, 1994). The prevailing zeitgeist in both the discipline and the socialenvironment provides some kind of meta-paradigmatic context that simultaneouslyenables alternative paradigmatically bound explanations to be pursued.

Research assumptionsThe two studies have distinct research assumptions that conform to their respectivemethodological positions and this provides an opportunity to apply a conventionalincommensurability thesis. Study A explains consumption at the individual level ofbehaviour that is influenced by various environmental stimuli. Study B is notconcerned with the individual level but rather with the macro, or cultural conditionsthat have enabled contemporary consumption (represented by the proliferation ofcommodities) to emerge. The experience, behaviour and beliefs of consumers are takenonly as illustrative of this general condition. While Study A is concerned withconsumers and their behaviour, Study B is concerned with consumption and consumersociety. Claims that the two studies should be considered commensurable because theyboth investigate the general topic of “consumption” in a museum setting could bequestioned since both take a different view on what constitutes consumption and

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consumption-related behaviour. However, it is not that Study B rejects or disagreeswith the assumption that consumption can be understood as a behavioural condition,or that Study A attempts to refute a cultural critique of consumer society. Rather thatthe discourses used to develop Study B do not require behavioural readings, and thediscourses used to develop Study A provide no space to account for cultural critiquesother than as marginal behavioural determinants. However, collective insights can begained from reading both studies together despite the lack of commonly informedresearch assumptions, as our comparative assessment of findings in the next sectionillustrates.

Both studies apply a schema or theory to put into operation their respectiveapproaches to the study of museum consumption, although this is achieved in subtlydifferent ways. In common with the hypothetic-deductive approach, Study A is largelypredetermined by the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1991). Moderation of thetheoretical model is justified in the literature review and then tested in the study. StudyA rejects the conventional method of measuring antecedent attitudinal, subjectivenorm and control beliefs to suggest a revision based on disaggregation (Bagozzi, 1985)and a modelling procedure previously unused with this schema. The schematicclassification used in Study B is not represented as a model, but rather as a simplified,and logical reduction of theories of commodity value. Whereas Study A usesbehavioural antecedents as principal conditions for its model (classification), Study Bdraws on linguistic, or structuralist antecedents for its categorical description. Whilethese schematic structures are not directly commensurable both seek to confirm aschematic premise that can be comprehended from each paradigmatic position. Bothstudies develop their arguments in a way that is appropriate to their respective rootparadigms. For Study B, which locates itself in an interpretivist perspective, theoryevaluation is implicit and not stressed. Study A, which associates itself with apositivist perspective, explicitly recognises model testing as an important part of theresearch design.

Comparative assessment of findingsStudy A reports its findings with little concern for the cultural, historical or socialconditions of consumer behaviour, and Study B offers little behavioural explanation forrespondents’ actions. The coherence and rigour demanded of all research, whetherinterpretivist or positivist, by necessity leads to specialised modes of enquiry. Thefindings evident in both studies, whilst leading to somewhat disparate ends can,however, be seen to share some common traits. The main areas of commonality relateto visitors’ perceptions of authenticity, the issue of active participation andconstruction of the museum experience, and visitors’ desire to maintain a degree ofpersonal control in the museum experience.

Both studies identify consumer research as having traditionally viewedconsumption as a passive activity, with the main focus being on the object ofconsumption and the manner in which it is provided or supplied. The two studies useempirical evidence to argue that consumption in a museum context is a mutuallyconstructive process involving active interpretation. They both further ideas of theconsumer as producer (or co-producer) of the consumption experience (Firat andDholakia, 1998). The excerpts given below illustrate differences in discourse (orsyntax) but commonality in terms of meaning (semantics):

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Study A:“Imagineering” or the professional dreaming-up of three dimensional fantasies which areplanned and reconstructed for the total experience has become common place in ourdeveloping urban landscape . . . [and] characteristic of postmodern society as hyperreality. Interms of perceived positive reactions to the museum exhibitions, the idea and object basedmuseums were found to significantly diverge in terms of hedonic cognitions and wakefuldaydreaming, . . . personal and non-personal imagery (Hirschman and Holbrook, 1982). Inparticular, strong differences were noted for “feeling the past is brought to life” (p , 0:000,Cramer’s V ¼ 0:38) and “creating images in your mind of how and who used the objects”(p , 0:000, Cramer’s V ¼ 0:36). For instance, 80.0 per cent of idea-based museumrespondents said it was extremely or quite likely that the “past would be brought to life”(p , 0:000, Cramer’s V ¼ 0:38), compared to only 46.5 per cent of object-based museumrespondents. Similarly more respondents in the idea-based museum thought it was extremelyor quite likely (77.0 per cent) that this would “create images in their minds of how and whoused the objects’, compared to 46.0 per cent respondents in the object-based museum sample(p , 0:000, Cramer’s V ¼ 0:36) . . . These findings confirm that the idea-based museum is farmore effective at facilitating respondents’ imaginations. “Imagineering”, has been shown as apositive and enabling change agent rather than an inability to come to terms with the pastwith its associated experiences of nostalgia and escapism . . . The fourth dimension extractedfrom principal component analysis (to describe the structure of museum experience)represents the experiential cognitions described by Hirschman (1985). Variables which loadedsignificantly on this dimension included “feeling a connection with the past”, “imagining whatyour life would have been like living in the past”, “imagining who used and how the objects wereused” and “feeling admiration for the skill and craftsmanship of people in the past”.

Study B:When visitors come into contact with museum artefacts, they use this experience to makestories about the past. In some cases this narrative construction was highly personal, relatingto aspects of the visitor’s own past. This was particularly evident in the Museum ofTransport with visitors who could remember the exhibits when they functioned as vehicles ofpublic transport. In producing these stories about the past, visitors used the artefacts tostructure their narratives, as if by being close to objects, the memories and stories about thepast were more visual and more real and therefore more useful for visitors when constructingtheir own narratives . . . Museum artefacts have a unique use value for visitors in the sensethat no other form of presentation can provide this insight into the past or provide thecomponents for this type of narrative construction. Visitors did not only construct storiesaround objects they had personal experience of but also with objects from periods beyondtheir own life time or from other cultural spaces.

These findings present both studies with the opportunity to develop and progress theirrespective theoretical starting points although for very different reasons. Study A usesthe finding to suggest that behavioural assumptions need to accommodate a greaterlevel of individual action which it has tended to lack, while Study B uses a similarfinding to propose that commodity theory (which represents the consumer as beingalienated from the productive sphere) needs to be modified to incorporate an active orinterpretative component. Common or broadly comparable (commensurable) findingsare represented through different syntactic conventions, and are used to substantiatedifferent types of arguments and interpretations. The use of numerical and statisticalinformation in Study A is the clearest example of differing conventions (Potter andWetherell, 1994).

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A joint reading of the two pieces of research explicates a basic deterministicassumption running throughout seemingly incommensurable theories of consumption.Study A considers consumer behaviour to be determined by sets of cognitiveantecedents, whereas Study B considers consumption to be structurally determined.Both studies argue for a greater recognition of individual facticity in value creationthan is generally permitted by either behaviourist or cultural theories. They view theagency of the consumer as constrained although present. Consumption experiences inwhich the consumer is permitted to take a significant degree of control are perceived tobe of greater value and significance than those where control is restricted ormaintained by some other group, for example by museum curators:

Study A:The largest differences in perceptions of the two museums were related to the interpretativeenvironment, and in particular, the ability of visitors to engage with the objects displayed andto interact with interpretative media. “Being able to touch objects” (p , 0:000, Cramer’sV ¼ 0:49), “using computers” (p , 0:000, Cramer’s V ¼ 0:43) and “using models” (p , :000,Cramer’s V ¼ 0:41) were all more strongly observed in the idea-based museum. For example,43.0 per cent of respondents rated “being able to touch objects” as extremely likely in theidea-based museum compared to only 8.5 per cent of respondents who found this to be thecase for the object-based museum.

Study B:The reality principle is a compromise. On one level a video presentation offers greaterpotential in terms of an accurate depiction of history because it can show far more than theobjects alone. It can depict the artefact in use, it can show how the object was integrated intoeveryday social life and thus represent history more authentically. However, the level ofabstraction that such a presentation imposes is considered to be limiting and verging onsimulation. It adds a further barrier between the visitor and the already vague anddisappearing past. Since close proximity to objects is of principle concern to museum visitors,the video, film or picture media loses its authenticity because of the distance it imposesbetween artefact and the object-desiring visitor. The object display, as seen in the museum,allows this disadvantage to be overcome – but at a price . . . The visitors’ choice isunanimous. The object discourse is given principle value and the visitor is prepared to ignoreand even fail to recognise, the obvious disadvantages.

The influence of post-modern thought, questions over authentic representation,hyper-reality, and the primacy of the image over referents are evidenced in bothstudies. The then contemporary debate in the museum profession over the importanceof the “authentic” and criticisms about the ”disneyfication” of museum interpretation(Cannon-Brookes, 1991; Terrell, 1991) emerge as common traits. Both studies focus onissues of authenticity as a vehicle to contribute to this debate. Rather than being anexternally verifiable construct, authenticity is argued to be a subjectively constructedcondition. Even when museum exhibits were clearly not “real” in the sense that theywere not original or actual examples of the objects being represented, consumers wereable to find authenticity in the “fake”. Reality emerges from the experience of being inthe position to experience rather than being seen as located in the object presented.This shared interpretation is the strongest evidence against the incommensurabilitythesis when applied to these studies. From an empirical lived experience of research,the incommensurability thesis is very difficult to sustain in a clear and simple fashion.It is as if incommensurability is itself inappropriate simply because it negates and

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restrains the commonalities between different paradigmatic schools in terms ofresearch practice.

Concluding remarksAdherence to strict or partial incommensurability is shown to be inappropriate in thecontext of evaluating the contributions provided by these two studies. Our analysis hasclearly demonstrated the need to consider alternative epistemological foundations inconsumer research but rejects viewing different paradigms as fixed choice alternatives.This analysis has shown that the post-Kuhnian critique of incommensurability is aviable proposition in terms of research practice. It raises a number of critical questionsregarding the theoretical basis and pragmatic incorporation of research findings intothe marketing and consumer research canon. The fact that marketing and consumerresearch, now has a breadth that spans a whole spectrum of research identities,including everything from technical and scientific explications, to studies in the artsand literature of consumption, suggests that a more fluid understanding of paradigmsis desirable. Far from representing impermeable worldviews or a lack of relationallanguage or common signification, the analysis of these two studies clearly shows“evidence” of commonality, points of shared interest, and mutual experience.

The lasting legacy of the incommensurability debate is that it draws attention to,and demarks difference as a core feature of all disciplinary identity. Differences can bethe source of conflict and power but also enhanced understanding. An uncriticaladherence to the concept of incommensurability can be seen as placing somewhatartificial barriers around the exchange and discussion of research from studies in otherparadigmatic camps. A generation of researchers have been trained to conceptualiseresearch issues in terms of paradigmatic boundaries and to underplay theirpermeability and interrelation. Marketing and consumer research has been subject towhat Giddens (1984) terms “opposing error” that has produced state of disunifyingdualism. This “error” is manifest in theoretical and methodological oppositions and interms practice (experience).

This paper has shown that adhering to a misplaced reading of paradigmincommensurability in a search to establish credible research identities has maderesearch practices appear oppositional and static when they are essentiallyundifferentiated and dynamic. The need for paradigmatic consensus as a process ofidentity validation for our research traditions has seen our methods, procedures, modesof representation, and journal editorial decisions become the dominant source ofreason, which then serves to direct research practice (Haslam and McGarty, 2001). Ifthe procedural aspects and representation of research activities account for most or allof the discrepancies between different types of research then there may be little or noneed to reify the higher order construct of paradigm incommensurability. If this is thecase, locating disagreement and conflict at the inaccessible and non-observable level ofparadigms has the potential to stifle initiatives that seek to bridge the gap betweenspecific aspects of research practice. Legislating methodological concerns to the statusof first principle where the means through which marketing knowledge or science hasbecome normalised have become ends in themselves and reveals a discipline movingtowards homogeneity and standardisation which is paradoxical to the scientific valuesour discipline has sought to follow.

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Our discipline suffers from false confidence (O’Shaughnessy, 1997). We mayrecognise that research tools and our representation of the procedural aspects of ourresearch endeavours rarely reflect research experiences, but we comply with theseconventions as a matter of expediency to obtain journal article acceptance(O’Shaughnessy, 1997; Zaltman, 2000). Compliance to these now establishedacademic conventions, effectively a privileged methodological and representationalcode, may relegate and ultimately divorce the experience of research practice from itssubsequent publication. The production of research comes to rely more heavily on theconventions of style and adherence to a kind of hyper reality of research expectations.The relevance and presence of good research will inevitably suffer, beingindistinguishable from a body research that is dislocated and lacking in any senseof reference to the experiences of either the researching or researched community. Thistrend is of course evident is other social contexts and well reported. As signs lose theirreferents to reality they eventually become self-referential resulting in a hyper realimage that has no value or purpose other than within the boundaries of the simulationitself (Baudrillard, 1981). The debate between interpretivism and positivism forinstance often seems to take on a quality of hyper reality, being relevant only to andbetween itself. To others outside of the narrow community of scholars who engage inthe debate the outcomes of such arguments often seem bewildering and intelligible, notto say irrelevant and esoteric. Kavanagh’s (1994) review of the then ongoing sparringmatch between Shelby Hunt and Paul Anderson and together with contributions fromtheir respective advocates illustrates that such hyper real wrangling only serves totrivialise research processes and alienate a broader readership from engaging with theoften genuine and positive insights that emerge from academic research practices,irrespective of the paradigmatic approach taken. We are in serious danger ofmarginalising potential contribution and diversity both among academicsub-communities and between academics and industry practitioners (Elliott andJankel-Elliott, 2003; Wotton et al., 2002; Marsden, 2001; Hackley, 1999; Sankey, 1994).Other research traditions that are not burdened by these debates, such as commercialconsumer research for example, will take an increasingly visible and powerful positionin which principles of reliability and reflexivity are marginalised. Adopting apragmatic position, although one that is progressive and non-confrontational, Weick(1999) recommends researchers to “drop their heavy tools of paradigms”, which areonly relevant to their own modes of representation and constitute a largely internal andacademic debate. Common resources, institutions, experiences, distance andvocabulary are shared resources within the marketing and consumer academicresearch community that should not be underestimated.

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