Akron Childrens Hospital

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didn’t step up to the challenge the future of the hospital would be threatened.

Question Six

The research design can be put into context as both qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative research is unstructured, exploratory research methodology based on small samples intended to provide insight and understanding of the problem setting. (Maholtra, 2010) In this case, qualitative focus group centered the research initiatives driven by Powell. They also contained elements of quantitative research methodologies by including statistical information like surveying females between the ages of 25-54 with children ranging from newborn to 18 who spent at least 3 consecutive days in the hospital.

Question Seven

By comparing the total marketing costs with the benefits gained the group will determine the effectiveness of their marketing investment. The main inferences of the Akron Children’s Hospital case are that the effective positioning of the hospital will require a number of planning options, with focus group research being among those options.

Question Eight

Exploratory research can be used successfully to improve a firms positioning within their industry. Powell’s group identified alternative courses of action, defined approaches by which to study the results of those plans, isolated key variables and relationships and planned to gain additional insight with focus group research. These methods are both flexible and versatile methods by which to conduct research and would be viable for any firm to use. If this reasoning is applied to other firms, those firms would probably be highly successful in improving their positioning within a given industry.

References

Malhotra, N. (2010). Marketing research: An applied orientation (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ. Prentice Hall.