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Q
qualitative research
Qualitative method draws a distinction between
subjective or humanistic research techniques and
`formal' or mathematical models, known as
quantitative methods or research. While partisans
often assert the inherent superiority of one
research style over the other, each has a legitimate
role to play and neither should be considered
inherently subservient or weaker to the other.
Within business research, quantitative methods
were long considered to be superior and the true
means of gathering information and testing
hypotheses. In this intellectual environment, qualitative
research was often used in order to make
preliminary assessments or to forge a testable
hypothesis for future quantitative research. Eventually,
business researchers discovered situations
where qualitative research is more effective than its
counterpart; when decisions must be made immediately,
for example, qualitative research can be
readily conducted while quantitative research can
typically be more time-consuming.
More significantly, business researchers have
learned that certain qualitative research tools �such
as the focus group) are able to provide findings that
more quantitative techniques cannot deliver. In a
focus group, subjects are brought together to
discuss an issue. Supervised by a skilled facilitator,
the group brainstorms the topic and often comes
up with findings that the researchers could not
have discovered using other more formal methods.
The focus group experience has convinced many
researchers that qualitative methods are superior to
quantitative methods in a variety of circumstances.
In recent years, business scholars �such as those
in marketing and consumer research) have
developed a variety of qualitative techniques that
generally borrow research methods from the
humanistic disciplines and the social sciences. In
marketing, for example, ethnographic methods,
inspired by anthropological fieldwork, have come
into vogue �see ethnography). In addition,
techniques closely related to literary criticism and
cultural history have been embraced. Much of this
work stems from the subjective orientation of
deconstructionism and poststructuralism. This
work has proved to be especially useful when
investigating unique aspects of diverse groups of
people.
By its nature, much tourism research is
especially amenable to qualitative techniques.
Researchers, for example, often seek to evaluate
how a tourism opportunity will impact the host
community of a region. Quantitative techniques
may not take the unique feelings of specific people
into account, a fact that can result in future
problems being unrecognised. Humanisticoriented
qualitative research, however, may be
more effective in such circumstances. Tourism
research has a long tradition of embracing various
qualitative techniques �such as those that derive
from sociocultural anthropology) and the results
of this qualitative investigation have been impressive
and appropriate.
Today, tourism professionals are increasingly
interacting within the framework of business. As a
result, their research needs to be considered as
legitimate by the standards and frameworks of
business scholars and practitioners. On the one