3Methodology and Research Design

3.1Overview

The research on a topic of cross-cultural differences in marketing communications gave me deep insight of the area and helped with choice of methodology and research design.

In this chapter I will explain why I did research applying Interpretivism paradigm, the use of which affected the whole process. In relation with chosen philosophy the qualitative research will be carried out through semi-structured interview and secondary data. One-to-one semi-structured interviews were applied using phone and online technologies for the sample of 3 organizations, which are related to tourism and hospitality industry. Overall, paper will be conducted in terms of deduction so that the literature review will be applied to explain and contrast the effect of culture on marketing communication as well as contributed to the research for main purpose of this work. In addition, access and ethical issues will be covered as essential parts of any study and afterwards it will be explained how primary data will be assessed and analysed with the reference to main research themes.

3.2Research Philosophy and Approach

Research philosophy is a certain approach of conducting work, based on assumptions about reality. Basic beliefs affect not only the way of obtaining the knowledge and truth, but also create a specific view at connections, situations and activities in the world. In thesis work, the choice of paradigm influences and navigates research with regards to data collection and analyses (Collis and Hussey, 2003).

There are several research philosophies, this paper was conducted in terms of interpretivism research paradigm. Interpretivism implies belief that reality is subjective and proposes the basic interpretations and values shared by individuals and social Interpretivists don’t only look for descriptions and facts, but also look into reasons “why” and try to translate and explain it. I believe it it the best way to identify and interpret the pattern of cultural differences between Russia and Ireland in terms of their perception of marketing communications. My choice can be justified by the idea that companies, which were involved to my research, were companies from different countries. They deal with both Russian and Irish tourists and are able to identify difference in terms of perceptions of marketing activities, from their experience and backgrounds, and interpretivism recognizes and interprets the main pattern and trends of findings (Saunders et al., 2007). Moreover, interpretivism is frequently applied for social science and cross-cultural qualitative researches accordingly (Collis and Hussey, 2003).

The research was made in terms of deduction, because the theoretical background is mainly organized around already formed statements of other authors in this area (for example, Hofstede’s dimensions) and consequently was tested specifically applying for Ireland and Russia.

The research methodology for this work is the qualitative method, because the main goal is to obtain data, reflected in words as paper deals with perceptions and reactions and not with numerical data. Additionally, qualitative method led to consideration of the relationship between marketing communications and tourists from two different countries based on the experience and knowledge of companies, which developed marketing activities. This was supported and contrasted with the secondary sources outlined in literature review as well in order to enhance the accuracy of the research.

Additionally, from academic perspective it is widely accepted that if there is a comparison between countries, then research should be done at a national country scale rather than at individual level, because results obtained in both cases might be different due to the fact that the characteristics of the group assessed vary. Therefore the more larger scale, the more valid results. (REFERENCE)As in this research mostly considered advertising appeals and technics applied for Ireland and Russia, it was more reliable to interview companies, which create marketing communications for both countries rather than individuals.