Chapter 10: Research Matters: Introduction and Overview
In this case study, an entrepreneurship researcher discusses the complexities of researching trust within customer buyer behaviour, particularly with regards to product marketing. He highlights the crucial roles which both customer and entrepreneur play in establishing a credible, commercial relationship. Read more here: Chapter 10 - Case study
Chapter 10: Questions
1. How would you categorize the above research in terms of Swedberg’s continuum (Figure 10.2)?
Guidance answer:
It can be argued that this research had implications for entrepreneurs and researchers. For the former it would highlight situations in which customers’ perceived risk was an important issue in acquiring customers and thereby needed to be addressed using trust and entrepreneurs would also see how trust could be used. For researchers this project would show what contributes to trust in a marketing context and why, therefore it would help improve the understanding of what trust is – something which researchers in a number of different fields (both in management and the social sciences) had been studying for a number of years.
2. Section 10.3.1 identifies the different approaches, drawing on a variety of academic disciplines, that have been used in order to research entrepreneurship. Which approach do you think has been used here and what insights do you think it has been able to offer?
Guidance answer:
This research used what is referred to as a qualitative method, grounded within a broader sociological approach. This approach enabled the researcher to study trust within the context of a business enterprise. This was supposed to be of some practical value to practitioners as well as researchers because the results would show what a range of different entrepreneurs actually did in their ventures. In contrast a more anthropological approach which focused on an in-depth study of one venture would perhaps have provided less information of value to a range of different types of businesses.
3. How do you think trust within entrepreneurship could have been studied in other discipline areas that have been identified in Section 10.3.1.?
Guidance answer:
Research grounded in psychology could, for example, have tested different entrepreneurs in terms of their trusting behaviour or their degrees of trustworthiness and perhaps sought to show how this could be related to sales success. Research grounded in a more anthropological approach could have focused on studying the actual actions of entrepreneurs and whether/how they use trust.
