The course will examine the specific issues involved in developing and implementing marketing research to solve a managerial decision problem. Students will obtain computer skills such as SPSS for Statistics. Knowledge from this course can be also used for writing a master thesis. In detail, the course aims to: • Illustrate the procedures and methods to develop a marketing research project; - Provide the basis for defining a marketing research problem and for searching and using relevant academic literature; • Discussing the various qualitative and quantitative procedures used for data collection; • Creating a structured questionnaire through Qualtrics; • Describe the use and application of measurement scales in marketing research • Explaining the fundamentals of sampling in marketing research; • Explaining the techniques to check and describe data (e.g., frequency tables, cross-tabulations); • Performing and interpreting parametric and non-parametric tests in SPSS; • Explaining the right multivariate technique for data analysis given a marketing research problem; • Understanding objectives, use and interpretation of multivariate data-analysis techniques (e.g., regression, factor analysis, ANOVA); - Conduct mediation and moderation analyses using the PROCESS macro for SPSS; • Understanding how to prepare a research report

• Knowledge and understanding: At the end of the course students will acquire knowledge on the qualitative and quantitative research tools needed to solve specific marketing-related problems. • Ability to apply knowledge and understanding: At the end of the course students will be able to design and manage the marketing research process, adopting data collection tools (Qualtrics) and software for statistical analysis (SPSS). Additionally, these capabilities will help students in developing marketing research projects. They will be able to critically understand research papers and to propose their own research project. • Independent judgment: At the end of the course, students will acquire the ability to analyze marketing problems and to identify the right insights for their solution. Specifically, they will be able to apply the acquired knowledge to design marketing research, analyze data critically and draw informed conclusions. Further capabilities (critical thinking, problem solving, team-working) will be adequately developed, thus enhancing their interdisciplinary skills. These abilities will be acquired both during the lessons and through group work. • Communication skills: Students will acquire adequate skills and tools for data management and research reporting, both to specialists and non-specialists. • Learning skills: The course mainly aims to develop methodological and analytical skills to develop a marketing research project and demonstrate theoretical and practical understanding of the qualitative and quantitative research methods available to the researcher. At the end of the course students will be able to autonomously deepen their knowledge on the basis of the acquired competencies.

The course is virtually divided into two main blocks. The first part concerns the acquisition of basic knowledge related to the marketing research process, the knowledge of qualitative research tools, the creation of online questionnaires using Qualtrics, and sampling techniques. In particular, the main problems associated with research design, data collection techniques, and the questionnaire will be discussed, and basic elements on experiments will be provided. The second part provides an overview of the quantitative tools and basic statistics available to the marketing researcher using the SPSS software. Main topics covered in this part include the analysis of exploratory data, univariate and bivariate tests, as well as the methods of conducting analyses useful for solving frequent marketing problems (t-tests, regression models, analysis of experiments, mediation/moderation approaches). The details of the contents are reported in the “Weeks” section that follows.

Malhotra, N.K. (2019), “Marketing Research: An applied approach, Global Edition”, 7yh edition, Pearson Prentice Hall Slides will be posted on the course website (Luiss Learn) before each lecture Suggested textbook: Field, A. (2017) “Discovering Statistics using IBM SPSS Statistics”, Sage

1. Conventional lectures 2. Lab sessions 3. Teamwork

Attending Students: 1. Written individual final exam: 70% 2. Intermediate team assignments: 30% Non Attending Students: For non attending students the final grade will depend 100% on the final written exam. In order to be considered as non attending students have to be previously authorized by the Graduate School.

Students are required to prepare a preliminary research proposal that will be carefully evaluated by the teaching team. More details will be discussed at the end of the course.