Business and social research innovation measures up as latest ‘Research Strength’

When a scientist measures something in the natural sciences such as the mass of an object or the magnitude of an earthquake the accuracy of the measurement process is beyond dispute.

The equipment and calculations used to conduct these measures have been thoroughly tried, tested, and accepted by the scientific community and, as a consequence, by the population as a whole.

Business and social science researchers and practitioners rely on interviews or surveys to measure perceptions, needs, desires and beliefs among different human subgroups -- customers, staff, clients and/or competitors.

These attributes are not easily captured or understood due to their subjective and changeable nature.

For example, in the case of a business aiming to improve its sales or image by understanding what makes its business attractive to customers, what questions do they ask that will give them a definitive answer of current and future demand?

Is conducting market research on current customers enough or should they be conducting research with other segments of the population? What questionnaire scales generate the most reliable answers? Are the results something that the business manager can easily interpret and understand?

Unfortunately, there is no scientifically verified or accepted procedure for market research that ensures the output of unquestionable results, nor are there user-friendly guides that business and social practitioners can rely on to help them conduct useful and valid market research campaigns themselves.

University of Wollongong academics from the Faculty of Commerce and the Faculty of Informatics have been interested in developing and testing innovative and reliable measures (both qualitative and quantitative in nature) to solve questions in the fields of business, management, marketing, tourism and social services.

Researchers operating within the Centre for Business Services Science (CBSS), the Market Research Innovation Centre (MRIC), and the Centre for Applied Systems Research (CASR) have been making significant contributions to this field of study, prompting the University to recognise their combined work as a ‘Research Strength’.

The resulting establishment of the Institute for Innovation in Business and Social Research (IIBSoR) now brings all of these academics together under the one banner.

IIBSoR projects currently include the development of new ways to measure brand image, marketing methods for identifying and recruiting successful foster parents, strategies for identifying tourism target markets, understanding what factors will increase public use of recycled water, models for managers to visualise how resource decisions will affect each step of a complex manufacturing process, and the development of new methods for understanding passenger experiences of public transport systems.

Many of these projects involve international collaborations and partnerships and have significant Australian Research Council funding as well as contract and/or commercial research arrangements.

The establishment of IIBSoR demonstrates the University’s intention to become recognised as a leader in the field of innovation in business and social research methodology and its commitment to the importance of this research to local and international growth.