As international market research specialists, we have experienced first-hand the many differences – cultural, linguistic, economic, etc – of different countries and markets around the world.  Sometimes the extent of these unique ‘quirks’ can be greater that many people realise, influencing the way we conduct our market research in any given country, and sometimes impacting on the findings and conclusions we uncover.  While we have written widely on some of the differences we have encountered around the world, we are always very interested to hear about other people’s research and experiences.  In the following article –

Dragons of different hues – which featured in the July/August 2009 Association for Qualitative Research magazine, Irwin Hanks contrasts qualitative research in two very different countries: China and Japan.

Let’s start with a little history

Japan has a strong market research culture going back to the early 60s, led by the rise of post-war manufacturing and exporting. Formal research agencies grew from what was, initially, an internal activity among large Japanese companies. Many are now over 40 years’ old and national household names.

China, by contrast, despite its astonishing recent economic and MR growth, had few formal agencies in this field until around 17 years ago, before which few capitalist businesses were around to buy research.

Initial industry growth was fed by the ‘conversion’ of State economic and statistics gathering units into quasi MR units. More significant, however, was the advent of investment by foreign agencies, driven by awakening interest in China’s market potential from their own clients.

So what affects the two countries’ MR industries?

The Economy

The contrast between both markets is currently huge. China, even if it has taken a well publicised hit in the export-driven low-cost manufacturing sector, remains in growth mode. Major clients remain reasonably robust domestically, and there is little decline in foreign interest.

In Japan, unfortunately, it’s a different story. Companies are, for the first time, laying off workers, consumers cutting spending, and the Government has lurched from one crisis to another recently without any effective remedial action. Worse, because the Japanese MR industry depends far more on domestic clients than international, business is seriously down. Qual is doing better, but only because it is seen to be cheaper.

Professional skills

In China, the strongest skills set agency-side is found mainly among the first wave of a small group of (now senior) managers from the late 80s/early 90s. More recently, they’ve been joined by a wave of imported expats. The latter, though professionally skilled, usually rely very much on local staff for cultural input and language. Qual is growing in China and takes a far larger slice of the ‘pie’ than in Japan. This is fuelled by sophisticated clients who want to gain deeper insights, and those less sophisticated who like qual because it is fast, cheap and they can ‘see it with their own eyes’.

Japan now has a broad base of trained and skilled market researchers (although biased towards quant), and a research culture which has long since spread to service sectors and government related organisations. Generally, professional standards are high, and ethics are strong within the context of Japanese business society.  The typical Japanese client, however, places far more faith in numbers, including those from the ubiquitous group interviews than from true qualitative.

Awareness

This affects how one sells, how one recruits and in some ways, even how one interviews. In Japan there is generally a well absorbed understanding of the benefits and uses of MR among business people, despite a strong preference for numbers rather than ‘feelings’. Even the general public is familiar with the concept of taking part in MR studies and are also well informed about issues like privacy and rights.

In China, however, the picture is rather different. Aside from perhaps the top 12 Chinese companies and the many joint-venture and foreign-invested ones there is little understanding among business owners of the benefits of MR, let alone of qual. Among the general public the picture is very varied. The urban elite in major cities may now be familiar with surveys, but elsewhere we often spend as much time explaining what we are doing as actually doing it.

Lower professional standards in China, along with a tendency for many city dwellers to seek easy money by any means, have however had one unfortunate consequence. Professional respondents have become a nightmare, far worse than in the West. They even use different names and multiple ID cards, an activity with which less reputable agencies connive.

In Japan, while professional respondents exist, western clients can expect few issues if screening protocols are explicitly agreed. The stereotypical view of Japanese honesty is, generally, fairly valid. Many Japanese MR companies do, however, use people called ‘monitors’ who are recruited for surveys regularly. That’s why clients need to specify if they want ‘fresh’ respondents, or at least place restrictions on how recently they participated.

Lifestyle and Culture

Along with differences, there are also similarities. Focus groups can be difficult to conduct successfully in both countries. Other forms of qual, in particular individual depth interviews, are often much more effective.

The Japanese find it extremely hard to express feelings or opinions, particularly to strangers. ‘Warm ups’ take much longer here and very good (cross-cultural) moderators are needed as so much of the ‘truth’ from groups here is the unspoken.

Furthermore, the Japanese are taught from a young age that for every situation or occurrence there is essentially a right or a wrong response, with nothing in between. So when asked ‘why’, many are left groping for a response. Different techniques to those used in the West or even other Asian markets are often needed.

In China, qual receives a much higher proportion of spend, but some of the same problems surface. While the Chinese don’t have quite the same communications problems in public as the Japanese, their character is still reserved and introverted. In addition, 50 years of post-revolutionary rule means that for older respondents, formulating independent opinions is problematic. Under this circumstance, the ability of moderators is crucial. Unfortunately, the industry’s meteoric growth means that many moderators don’t have such capabilities. The good ones are world class, but there are too few.

So, very different markets and challenges. Which is why, in China and Japan, choosing an agency with true cross-cultural abilities is so very critical.

Irwin Hanks
Copyright © Association for Qualitative Research, 2009

B2B International, through its Asian headquarters in Beijing, conducts b2b market research projects across many industry sectors, markets and geographical locations throughout the Asia-Pacific region.  Its qualitative and quantitative research specialists are fluent in many Asian languages, including Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Malay and Korean, as well as English.  In conjunction with its European and North American offices, the group is able to conduct multi-country studies across the world.  For more information on any of our offerings, please call +86 (0)10 6515 6642 or email beijing@b2binternational.com 

To read some of our international market research white papers, please click here: http://www.b2binternational.com/library/whitepapers/

I was originally asked to prepare a piece to share thoughts and experiences on our work in China with that of colleagues in Europe and the US, and this post revisits the piece I did a few weeks ago on www.b2binternational.com.

After two and a half years being back in Beijing permanently, there are obvious similarities between our work here and that of colleagues, ad fellow researchers in other markets: we have to win and design projects, identify respondents and sources of information, collect data and analyse data, the same as my colleagues elsewhere. This is pretty much as you may expect anywhere.

Things get slightly different, however, on the type of projects: for the first two years the majority of projects have been market analysis and market development, with less interest in more quantitative projects like customer satisfaction. There is though more and more customer satisfaction work, as clients become more established, and of course we become more established with existing companies. In our experience market analysis tends to focus on both the factual (size, structure and trends), and the analytical, i.e. what does it all mean for developing sales. These projects tend to feature more qualitative investigative techniques and in some ways are more akin to a jigsaw, but where you first have to find the pieces, before you put them together.

Full service clients have included Western multi-nationals, larger medium sized foreign companies, Chinese domestic companies and companies from elsewhere in Asia. There is about a 50/50 split between those commissioned from abroad and within China. Both types, present some practical differences related to project delivery and client liaison. Firstly projects focussing specifically on China, are, in our experience, commissioned from abroad for different reasons. Firstly, this is often the case, because the MR function or strategic decision making unit is located in corporate headquarters. Another reason for foreign based commissions is the need for third party verification (or otherwise) of information coming from their China based operations. On a practical level, having a large proportion of clients based in Europe and North America means that face to face meeting for commissioning and presentations are not so common, and telephone conferences and web presentations form a larger part of communications. This also means that interesting hours are often worked at commissioning and presentations.

An increasing number of clients are from within China and other parts of Asia. Again, the overlying characteristics of working with them, i.e. understanding their needs, proposing a suitable methodology, negotiating timescales and price, are the same. Where differences occur, however, is in lead times (often longer) and very often in the brief itself. We have seen an increase in the number of very specific written briefs, but these are still very much in the minority. Another interesting characteristic is how these clients prefer to communicate. After initial contact, many, particularly more middle level or junior staffs, who are liaising with us on a day-to-day basis, prefer to rely on instant messaging over the internet, mainly QQ or similar services, for day to day communication, rather than telephone or e-mail. This is also having an impact on research methodologies.

Methodologies for data collection here include all the usual suspects and, language aside would be largely familiar to clients and colleagues in the other countries. There are though some differences in application, for example focus groups tend to work better in smaller numbers, 6 to 8 being optimum. It is often argued that especially in business, face to face interviews are necessary. Very often this isn’t the case. We recently had a project looking at the market in the “bio-solids” industry, meaning we had to talk to respondents in Chinese sewerage works. Initially this seemed quite daunting, until it became clear that these people were extremely receptive, no pushy sales people come and call (for perhaps obvious reasons), and they are seldom asked about the intricacies of their work. Recruitment was aided by the incredible take up of social networking and bulletin boards among Chinese professionals. As a country undergoing rapid change, it is perhaps no surprise that methodologies and attitudes to them are changing too. From a “consensus” of f2f being the only acceptable technique just a few years ago, telephone and indeed online have moved in importance incredibly quickly, with instant messaging even being used for in–depth qualitative work. Whilst respondents are often very keen to work with different approaches, the market outside China and occasionally inside sometimes sticks to believing outdated truisms.

In this short space available, it is clear that the many principles and approaches are of course similar there are nuance affecting all aspects of the process. Where this may be more complicated or even contentious is around how this is manifested in every day work, for example the amount of time required on quality check and HR issues and administration, and this will be covered soon.