Limitations
Question:
What are the limitations of Ethnographic Research?
Answer:
Just as in other forms of qualitative research, there is in ethnographic or observational research a tendency to run with consumer reactions. But by its very nature the search is confined to a relatively small number of respondents. Most studies range from fifteen to fifty people or households, so the results are not necessarily projectable to large market segments. It explores consumers in depth, rather than en masse. The data collected from an observational research is human and not statistical. That is a great advantage, allowing marketers to know their customers on an intimate, personal basis.
Ethnography is usually appropriate when research goals include one or more of the following:
Cultural
When research seeks to identify the underlying patterns within an organization or a community, ethnography can be a useful discovery tool. Understanding culture is usually valued as a component in an intervention strategy or an opportunity assessment.
Environmental
Ethnographic methods are appropriate when the location and context of behavior are considered critical variables. These might include the work environment, the places where products are used and purchased, or the signs and symbols in a place where particular behaviors are guided (e.g. shopping mall, airport, railway station etc.)
Engagement
When the researcher wishes to get as close to the customers as possible, ethnography provides the pathway. There is no higher level of encounter with the customer than being right in the home, stor, or workplace. Being “right there” delivers a high level of insights and a rich, unfiltered view of reality that are unavailable in laboratories or through the use of research technology.
Holistic
Ethnography provides a solution were objectives are holistic: where information about consciousness. lifestyle, hopes, and aspirations is viewed as essential to an understanding of consumers.
Visual documentation
Ethnography unites image-based data, such as photography and video, with consumers’ written and verbal reports. These visual components provide an added dimension for analysis and communication of results.
Even though ethnography is a qualitative research tool, quantification and systematic enumeration are not entirely inimical to its objectives. If results from a large sample of geographically dispersed respondents are necessary, ethnography cannot deliver the required sample sizes of dispersion in an economical and efficient manner.
