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121 NEW BOOKS IN REVIEW Windows 3.0, and DOS 3.1 or higher. For 3-D charting, it is recommended that users have a 386-based PC compatible computer, 4MB RAM, 8MB hard disk space, and VGA or Super VGA graphics card and monitor. Extra memory is highly recommended. A full installation, with help flies, clip art, and so forth, requires about 20MB of hard disk space. Users should also be familiar with basic Windows functions. Extensive memory is necessary with either package to take advantage of complex features, such as building slide shows. (Reports indicate that some users have run out of memory on machines with 8MB of RAM and who attempt to use complex charts and transition effects in the same slide show, as well as with sound effects on the Macintosh.) The well-documented manual recommends several memory-saving techniques for such situations. A color monitor is important to enable the user to visualize charts and graphs before printing. Printing can be rather slow because of the complexity of the images, and seeing them first on the screen is the most efficient way to operate. Further, a color monitor is essential to take advantage of the packages' slide show and full color capabilities, and access to a color printer is important. Like many software initial releases, DeltaGraph Pro for Windows has a couple of minor bugs. It is necessary to have Adobe Type Manager (ATM) fonts installed on the system for printing (an ATM utility is provided for installation). Currently, a conflict with ATM and DeltaGraph prevents the use of bold or italic styles with ATM fonts if one is using the PostScript option in the printing dialog. However, these difficulties are rather minor and do not appear to warrant any delay in purchasing the product. Summary DeltaGraph Pro's charting capabilities are much more advanced than those of its predecessor, DeltaGraph. Excel or other specialty business charting software is unable to compete with DeltaGraph Pro's options and ease of use. The available colors in other packages seem boring in comparison with DeltaGraph Pro's 90-color palette. The program's flexibility for formating, tweaking, and modifying every chart element, including vanishing points and the rescaling of any or all axes, is unequaled. Also unmatched is the excellent company user support and the program's ability to enable files to be transferred directly across platforms. (Currently only Mac to Windows transfers are possible. The company reports that Windows to Mac will be incorporated into the next upgrade of the Mac version). Other programs also lack DeltaGraph Pro's variety of drawing tools for customizing charts and support for backgrounds, clip art libraries, graphics, and gradient fills. I strongly recommend DeltaGraph Pro as the best all-around tool for graphing and presenting data. In essence, DeltaGraph Pro faces no serious competition. CHARLES W . GROSS University of New Hampshire HEARING THE VOICE OF THE MARKET: COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE THROUGH CREATIVE USE OF MARKET INFORMATION, Vincent P. Barabba and Gerald Zaltman. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1991, 294 pages. During the past few years, a variety of books have been published that attempt to encourage companies to become more market oriented and point out the competitive pitfalls of failing to do so. The problem with many of these books is that they provide little tangible guidance as to what managers can do to become more focused on the marketplace. Barabba and Zaltman offer a different approach. They use a variety of conceptual models to help develop and communicate the points they want to make, and the effect created by this approach is refreshing. Unlike many of the popular trade books published recently, the Barabba and Zaltman book is built on a solid foundation. As a result, it should readily appeal to the academic community and generate some interest among business executives as well. The authors are well qualified to write about the creative use of market information. One of the book's coauthors, Vincent P. Barabba, was Executive Director of Marketing Research and Planning at General Motors Corporation when this book was first published. Since then, he has been named executive-in-charge of General Motors' newly formed Marketing Research Center and is responsible for helping GM better anticipate emerging consumer trends and develop appropriate marketing strategies. Prior to joining GM, Barabba held marketing research positions at Xerox and Eastman Kodak and served twice as the Director of the U.S. Bureau of the Census. He also served as President of the American Statistical Association. The book's other coauthor, Gerald Zaltman, also has had a distinguished career in the field of marketing research. Until recently, Zaltman was a professor at the University of Pittsburgh's Katz Graduate School of Business. Currently, he is a member of the marketing faculty at the Harvard Business School. Well-known for his research using concepts from sociology to better understand the marketplace, Zaltman has received many honors from the consumer behavior and marketing disciplines. He served as President of the Association for Consumer Research and was a recipient of the Irwin Award, which is presented by the American Marketing Association for outstanding contributions to the marketing profession. Zaltman's recent research has addressed the management and use of information by decision makers (see, e.g., Moorman, Zaltman, and Deshpande 1992), and Hearing the Voice of the Market seems to be an outgrowth of that research stream. The underlying theme of the book is simple: learning about the marketplace and making creative use of marketing information to develop strategies and tactics can have a substantial impact on an organizations's ability to prosper in today's competitive marketplace. Even small improvements in the effective use of market-related information can have such an impact. Further, every or- 122 ganization, regardless of its size or nature, can substantially improve its use of market information to develop and deliver goods and services that reflect consumer needs and desires. Consistent with this theme, the purpose of the book is to help managers and mjirketing researchers improve their efforts to obtain, analyze, and use market information as a way through which to benefit both consumers and the market-oriented organization. However, the book contains few of the traditional data collection and data analysis topics typically covered in a marketing information and/or research text. Instead, the content of the book centers more on the development of an organizational environment in which managers become inquisitive about their markets, are able to satisfy their "need to know" with accurate and useful market information, and develop skills to make market-based decisions that lead to success. By emphasizing the organizational aspects of marketing research and decision making, the authors present a persuasive argument for changing the way business executives think about marketing research. Rather than viewing marketing research as an expensive and impractical exercise that is useful only for supporting decisions that have already been made solely on the basis of managerial judgment, the authors point out the many opportunities created by research that is both properly conducted and properly used. If the organization can be adapted so that it uses market-based information more frequently and more intelligently, it will benefit through enhancing its competitive edge. In contrast, companies that fail to properly use information coming from customers, distributors, and competitors are bound to lose touch with their markets in today's complex world. The authors' approach provides a strong counterargument to the view of many business executives who question the benefits of marketing resesarch (e.g., see Landler 1991). The book is organized into an introductory chapter and four major parts that contain a total of 12 chapters. An Appendix discusses the use of current and near-term technologies to implement the concept of the inquiry center, one of the main constructs developed in the book. A Glossary and an Index also are included. Numerous exhibits are integrated into the text to communicate graphically the ideas developed in the book. In their introductory chapter, the authors begin laying the groundwork for subsequent chapters by discussing the use of information in today's world. They give several examples of organizations that found their business environments were changing rapidly but did not have the appropriate information to properly interpret the impact of the changes on their markets. The introduction then tums to a discussion of quality—both as it relates to the quality of managers' decision-making processes and as it relates to the quality of marketing information. Two interesting dimensions of information quality are noted. One dimension, the collection and analysis of data in technically sound and appropriate ways, is well developed and should not be overly problematic. The other JOURNAL OF AAARKETING RESEARCH, FEBRUARY 1993 dimension, the psychological, sociological, and other organizational dynamics associated with information usage, is much less developed and is more likely to cause a problem within the typical company. An interesting discussion ensues, and the authors provide considerable insight into these two elements of information quality. In Part I of the book, Barabba and Zaitman address the problems associated with using the voice of the market to make better decisions. They use the phrase "voice of the firm" to express the idea that a company must decide what it is capable of and what it is willing to present to the market in terms of products, services, and marketing programs. A market-based firm, according to the authors, is created when the company's decisions are based on the reconciliation of the voice of the market (i.e., what the customer wants) and the voice of the firm (i.e., what products and services the company wants to offer to the customer). In Chapter 1, "When Customers Speak and Firms Don't Listen," emphasis is placed on the competitive edge that often comes from knowing how and when to use information rather than simply having the information. Unfortunately, as the authors correctly point out, too many organizations fail to achieve this competitive advantage because they fail to properly use the information already available to them. The authors discuss the need for better information use and point out the factors that discourage it. Chapter 2 presents the concept of the inquiry center, which is defined not as an organizational unit, but as a corporatewide attitude or way of thinking that fosters better use of information as part of the decision-making process. This company wide attitude breaks down the organizational barriers between functions and facilitates improved management decisions and action. The inquiry center concept focuses on the acquisition of information and its subsequent use. In today's complex environment, a firm cannot be market driven without the appropriate use of information in decision-making situations. As this chapter progresses, the inquiry center concept is illustrated with a discussion of General Motors Corporation's quality function deployment (QFD) process used in the design of automobiles. Chapter 3 emphasizes that the "true customers" of a company's marketing research can be found both internally and extemally. Though it is well understood that many groups within the organization use marketing research, the authors argue that the customers of marketing research also include two extemal groups that have strategic alliances with a company—its suppliers and its end users. Hence, the inquiry center can serve as a way to establish a solid relationship between an organization and its extemal customers. Part II of the book contains two chapters. One of them (Chapter 4) pertains to the process of marketing research as well as a few research fundamentals that yield useful information. This chapter is adapted from Barabba's (1990) article on this topic. The other chapter (Chapter 5) is much more engaging. It primarily describes ways NEW BOOKS IN REVIEW to enhance the use of research within a company environment, emphasizing that this process is dependent on human behavior and its related imperfections. In addressing this problem, the chapter includes a discussion of seven major obstacles encountered in effectively using research data and the authors' special approach for surmounting them. In Part III, Barabba and Zaitman present some vague, but intriguing, ideas about human beings' acquisition and use of information. The three chapters in Part III are said by the authors to encourage "toying with ideas" that may be useful but somewhat abstract. Chapter 6 discusses managers' frames of reference and how they infiuence managers' abilities to reach conclusions in light of new information. Frames of reference consist of a set of general assumptions, decision rules, and expectations that vary with the managers' position within an organization. This concept explains why managers in different parts of an organization interpret the same marketing research information in totally different ways. Chapter 7 emphasizes the need to ask the right question in the right way, and Chapter 8 addresses such issues as the relative costs of acquiring various types of data, creating synergy among various research efforts within the organization, and the relevancy and reliability of data. In the four chapters in Part IV, the focus is on the information user. Specifically, Chapter 9 is concerned with the interpretation of data for the purposes of decision making. Topics include the ability of human beings to recognize patterns in data and the biases that often distort the meaning of these patterns. Chapter 10 takes the view that an organization should be considered a network, or system, of decisions resulting in actions and judgments that represent the voice of the firm in the marketplace. A framework is presented for identifying alternative courses of action and then selecting the most attractive one. Chapter 11 continues this line of thinking by presenting the authors' ideas on how an organization can improve whatever inquiry center is currently in place. Emphasis here is on (i) the need for a "champion" to. serve as a change agent in implementing the inquiry center concept and (2) the need for senior management's commitment in order for a company to become truly marketbased in its decision making. In Chapter 11, the focus is on the leaming that goes on in organizations as individual managers make decisions. The implicit models used by managers in their decision making, which the authors refer to as "theories-in-use," are discussed. The point is made that these theories-in-use need to be made more explicit so that they can be evaluated and improved. Organizational leaming takes place as systematic improvements in theories-in-use lead to systematic improvements in decision making. In reviewing this book, I quickly found that the authors provide a unique perspective on the use of marketing research. No other book, at least to my knowledge, comes close to Hearing the Voice of the Market in terms of its specific content. More important, the book 123 does not provide a "how to" approach or a "10 easy steps" approach to making companies more market oriented. The difficult organizational issues discussed in this book are presented carefully, but the manager's expertise and creativity are needed to implement these ideas in his or her organization. As a result, the book not only presents new material, but does so in a way that managers would find challenging. The book is especially important as the U.S. attempts to improve its position in the world marketplace. To be more competitive, companies not only need to know how to acquire information, but also need to be able to use it to improve the quality of their decision making. Many of the concepts presented here can be used as the basis for thinking about how to improve the chances of making correct decisions and thus developing more successful strategies. Though this book as not nearly as straightforward in its message as some of the business trade press books (e.g., Naisbitt and Aburdene 1985), the implications are the same: companies need to improve the way they use information in order to gain a competitive advantage in their marketplace. Clearly, this book will have limited appeal to university professors for use in their courses. First, the book is inappropriate for the vast majority of undergraduate students. Second, it is also inappropriate for MBA's who have no significant work experience. Only MBA students who have first-hand experience working in organizations will understand the issues related to organizational dynamics and organizational politics that are brought up in the book. I could also envision the use of this book in executive MBA programs, where the students fully understand how difficult it is to modify organizational behavior. If I were to bring up some of these issues in the executive MBA course in marketing management that I teach at Michigan State, I would expect a lively debate. At the doctoral level, the book may be appealing. Many PhD students in marketing perhaps would not have the necessary interest in the use of marketing research (given the more typical interest in research methods at the doctoral level), though the book may be more appropriate for PhD students in the field of organizational behavior. However, the growing research literature on the topic of infomiation use (e.g., Moorman, Zaitman, and Deshpande 1992) ties in nicely with the book and could provide an incentive to adopt the book for use in a doctoral seminar covering this topic. Another possibility might be to assign Barabba and Zaitman's book as well as the recently published book by Clancy and Shulman (1991), which presents anecdotes on the collection and use of market-based information and the development of strategies from this information. It would be instructive to use the Barabba and Zaitman framework to evaluate some of Clancy and Shulman's anecdotes. Overall, I believe Hearing the Voice of the Market is an interesting book. It addresses an important topic in a unique way and provides a solid foundation for understanding how organizations use research (or abuse it!). 124 JOURNAL OF MARKETING RESEARCH, FEBRUARY 1993 It provides a new twist on well-established topics such as the marketing concept and marketing myopia. In addition, the book presents some interesting examples of the concepts being developed. It should be read by anyone who wants to delve into the organizational aspects of the use of marketing research information. R. DALE WILSON Michigan State University REFERENCES Barabba, Vincent P. (1990), "The Market Research Encyclopedia," Harvard Business Review, 68 (January-February). Clancy, Kevin J. and Robert S. Shulman (1991), The Marketing Revolution: A Radical Manefesto for Dominating the Marketplace. New York: Harper Business. Landler, Mark (1991), "The 'Bloodbath' in Market Research," Business Week, 3199 (February 11), 72, 74. Moorman, Christine, Gerald Zaltman, and Rohit Deshpandd (1992), "Relationships Between Providers and Users of Marketing Research: The Dynamics of Trust Within and Between Organizations," Journal of Marketing Research, 29 (August), 314-28. Naisbitt, John and Patricia Aburdene (1985), Re-inventing the Corporation: Transforming Your Job and Your Company for the New Information Society. New York: Warner Booics. BOOKS AND SOFTWARE RECEIVED Books BOURQUE, LINDA B. and VIRGINIA A. CLARK, Processing Data: The Survey Example, Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences # 8 5 . Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, Inc., 1992. CZEPIEL, JOHN A., Competitive Marketing Strategy. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1992. DEMARIS, ALFRED, Logit Modeling: Practical Applications, Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences #86. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, Inc., 1992. HEATH, ERNIE and GEOFFREY WALL, Marketing Tourism Destinations: A Strategic Planning Approach. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1992. HOLTZ, HERMAN, Databased Marketing. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1992. JOBSON, J. D., Applied Multivariate Data Analysis: Volume I: Regression and Experimental Design. New York: Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., 1991. KREMER, JOHN, The Complete Direct Marketing Sourcebook. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1992. LESSLER, JUDITH T. and WILLIAM D. KALSBEEK, Nonsampling Error in Surveys. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1992. POL, LOUIS G. and RICHARD K. THOMAS, The Demography of Health and Health Care. New York: Plenum Press, 1992. RUDESTAM, KJELL ERIK and RAE R. NEWTON, Surviving Your Dissertation. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, Inc., 1992. SEARLE, SHAYLE R., GEORGE CASELLA, and CHARLES E. McCULLOCH, Variance Components. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1992. THOMSEN, ESTEBAN F., Prices & Knowledge: A Market-Process Perspective. New York: Routledge, Chapman & Hall, Inc., 1992. BORNSTEIN, ROBERT F. and THANE S. PITTMAN, eds.. Perception Without Awareness: Cognitive. Clinical, and Social Perspectives. New York: The Guilford Press, 1992. Reprint No. JMR301I09 "AMA is the only professional or»anizatlon for people who intend to make a difference to the marketing comnuinity. And, given all of these benefits, who can afford not to be a member?" JOIN THE 28.000 PROFESSIONAL AMA MEMBERS AND ENHANCE YOUR MARKETING CAREER THROUGH: • Marketing News, o biweekly newspaper designed to keep its readers informed of the latest developments In ttie many-faceted field of marketing. • The AMA Software Review Center Is a lending library that gives you an opportunity fo look at and compare programs to see if they fit your needs before you make a purchose. • Conferences and seminars focused on your area of expertise. These conferences can enrich your personal and professional growth In a variety of ways. 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