Professional Prognosticators? Market Research and the Formation of Business Expectations in West Germany and the United States after 1945

专业预报员？

• 批准号: 275312023
• 负责人: Privatdozent Dr. Ingo Köhler
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Hessisches Wirtschaftsarchiv
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Priority Programmes
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2014-12-31 至 2018-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/275312023?language=en
• 关键词: Professional; Prognosticators; Market; Research; Formation

The proposed project traces the development of market research in the second half of the twentieth century. The emphasis will be both on the emergence of prognostic methods and on their practical application in company-level decision making. The question of how the fundamental basis for economic actions of companies changed as market research experts offered a growing array of market analyses since the 1950s will be at the core of this study. I hypothesize that well-established intuitive forms of strategic planning were replaced by more systematic management concepts when internal adaptive expectations intermingled with external market perceptions. While it is clear that market research became an established instrument of marketing management only after 1945, historical research has largely ignored this development up to today. To fill this gap, this project offers an empirical analysis of the rise of commercial market research firms as information agencies and of the parallel institutionalization of in-house market research departments from the 1950s to1980s. Consumer goods firms in West Germany and the United States and their consulting agencies will serve as case studies. The comparative approach aims to reveal spatial, temporal and qualitative differences in adaptation processes while calling into question the common narrative of an "Americanization" of management strategies.The project is located at the intersection of the three defined areas of emphasis of the Priority Programme: "Expert Knowledge," "Companies," and "Consumption." First, it aims to sketch the development of a (global) market for economic prognoses and to theorize the commodification of market information as information goods. Secondly, it will trace the diffusion of new methodologies in survey design and prognostic modeling from the academic realm to their practical application within companies. Here, the tensions between claims to increased scientific objectivity and the demand of an increasing profit-orientation will receive special attention. This leads us thirdly to the central question of how companies operationalized such newly acquired information goods as part of their decision-making processes. Based on a wealth of company records and other empirical source material the project will show by means of a micro-level analysis, how established practices of experience and expectation formation were not only devalued in the eyes of decision makers, but increasingly augmented or even substituted by new, more standardized and seemingly more objective prognostic models. The comparative framework will make it possible to discern differences in speed and intensity in this process as well as possible cultural preferences in modes of information management. Before the backdrop of changing economic contexts, finally, I will be able to analyze, if changes in expectation formation followed patterns of sequential learning or were rather driven by situational crisis management.

拟议的项目追溯了20世纪下半叶市场研究的发展。重点将放在预测方法的出现和它们在公司层面决策中的实际应用上。自20世纪50年代以来，随着市场研究专家提供了越来越多的市场分析，公司经济行为的基本基础如何变化的问题将成为这项研究的核心。我假设，当内部适应性预期与外部市场认知交织在一起时，成熟的直观战略规划形式被更系统的管理概念所取代。很明显，市场研究直到1945年后才成为一种既定的营销管理工具，但历史研究直到今天在很大程度上忽视了这一发展。为了填补这一空白，本项目对20世纪50年代至80年代商业市场研究公司作为信息机构的崛起以及内部市场研究部门的平行制度化进行了实证分析。西德和美国的消费品公司及其咨询机构将作为案例研究。这种比较方法旨在揭示适应过程中的空间、时间和质量差异，同时质疑管理战略“美国化”的普遍说法。该项目位于优先方案的三个确定的重点领域的交叉点：“专业知识”、“公司”和“消费”。首先，它旨在勾勒出一个(全球)经济预测市场的发展，并将市场信息的商品化作为信息商品进行理论推导。其次，它将跟踪调查设计和预测建模中新方法的传播，从学术领域到公司内部的实际应用。在这里，声称增加科学客观性和要求日益以利润为导向之间的矛盾将受到特别关注。这就引出了第三个核心问题，即公司如何将这些新获得的信息产品作为其决策过程的一部分来运作。基于丰富的公司记录和其他经验来源材料，该项目将通过微观分析展示，经验和预期形成的既定做法如何不仅在决策者眼中贬值，而且越来越多地被新的、更标准化的、看起来更客观的预测模型所强化甚至取代。比较框架将使人们能够辨别这一过程的速度和强度的差异，以及信息管理模式中可能的文化偏好。在经济环境不断变化的背景下，最后，我将能够分析，预期形成的变化是遵循顺序学习的模式，还是更确切地说，是由情景危机管理驱动的。