Stakeholder preference and stated vs. derived importance satisfaction research

This paper presents a case study that reveals how stakeholders in the research process, by recommending specific data collection and analytical techniques, exert significant ‘hidden’ influence on the decisions made on the basis of market research findings. While disagreements amongst stakeholders regarding research design are likely, the possibility that strategies adopted by companies are dependent upon stakeholder research preferences has not been adequately addressed in the literature. Two widely used quantitative customer satisfaction evaluation approaches, involving stated and derived importance, are compared within a real life market research setting at an international bank. The comparative analysis informs an ongoing debate surrounding the applicability of explicit and implicit importance measures and demonstrates how recommendations are dependent upon the methodological and analytical techniques selected. The findings, therefore, have significant implications for importance based satisfaction market research planning and highlight the need to consider the impact of stakeholder preferences on research outcomes.