What is the Philosophy of Research? ―Rethinking the Present of Research from Its Origins―①

(※Affiliations as listed in "Ad Studies" at the time of publication)

As information and techniques surrounding research become increasingly complex and diverse, what is truly needed in the world of marketing?

This time, we invited Mr. Akira Kajiyama, who has been involved in research for many years in both academia and the practical world, and Mr. Hideki Katahira, who has led the marketing world broadly from data analysis to branding. They pointed out the major trends in the research world and the problems and challenges arising there. While exploring the very essence of what research is, they also discussed the philosophy and positioning of research in future marketing activities.

Two Trends in Research

Katahira: Recently, I've heard various perspectives from people in research firms, and I sense that the world of research is facing unprecedented challenges. Today, I'd like to broadly set the keyword as "research" and hear your thoughts, Mr. Kajiyama, to delve deeply into the world of research.

Kajiya: Actually, for today's discussion, I revisited Mr. Katahira's books. I reread the classic 'Marketing Science' from the 80s, 'The Essence of Power Brands' from the 90s, and the recent 'The Essence of 100-Year Brands: Learning from Zeami'. Rereading 'Marketing Science' now, I got the impression it was written by fusing American logical positivism with the principles of operations research. While I didn't notice this in the subsequent Power Brand: The Essence of Branding, in The Essence of 100-Year Brands: Learning from Zeami, your approach to reasoning shifts significantly. You seem to be exploring the essence of brands through analogy, overlaying Zeami's theories of art onto brands.

I suspect this represents a form of hermeneutic approach—arguing about brands using entirely unexpected analogies, neither deductive nor inductive. I'm very interested in how this relates to the scientific methodology of Marketing Science.

Katahira: Thank you.

Kajiya: First, allow me to briefly discuss my perspective on research. Today's theme, "The Philosophy of Research," is a broad one, but before delving into it, I considered what research fundamentally is. The university where I worked once had a course on market research theory, and other universities also offer research-related courses. Research theory is a discipline within academia, existing as an interdisciplinary applied science. It can be considered a field born within the intellectual climate of American pragmatism.

How should we define survey theory? If we were to distill it to its greatest common denominator, perhaps it could be described as "the academic discipline that studies methods for explaining, understanding, and predicting the consciousness and behavior of individuals and groups." It's a field expected to deliver practical value, isn't it?

Katahira: That's right.

Kajiyama: At its core, it remains a practical discipline centered on conducting surveys. Broadly speaking, it involves fieldwork, analysis, and evaluation. Specifically, it encompasses various issues like sampling, questionnaire design, modeling, analytical methods, and hypothesis testing. The very foundation of this survey system is now undergoing significant change. This change is first occurring in "statistics," the theoretical pillar of survey research.

We have traditionally relied solely on inferential statistics. Mass surveys, in particular, have followed a tradition dating back over 80 years since Daniel Starch. Inferential statistics fundamentally assumes the existence of a population with a "true value." It treats the obtained data as a random variable, imagines the characteristics of the original population, calculates its mean and variance, and derives various statistical measures. In university, we learned only this kind of statistics and never questioned its approach. However, the emergence of Bayesian statistics has changed the situation. Bayesian statistics does not assume the existence of such a population. Instead, it views the data as uncertain information, calculates the probability distribution of its mean and variance, and uses Bayes' theorem to derive statistical measures. While it seems to have been used in science and engineering fields for quite some time, it has now rapidly entered the social sciences.

Another major shift is in "research methods." Previously, empirical approaches dominated, implicitly premised on the quantification and reduction of elements—a tradition dating back to Descartes. In contrast, hermeneutic methods have gained prominence in recent years. While it's difficult to generalize due to the variety of approaches, these methods involve depicting the real human condition or deciphering the author's hidden mental images within texts. Originally influenced by European postmodern philosophy, interpretive trends entered Japan in the 1980s following the American marketing science debate. Interestingly, this approach aligns well with Japan's intellectual climate and has secured a solid position within academia.

Diminishing Focus on Human Behavior

Katahira: Could you elaborate a bit more?

Kajiya: There's also movement regarding "inference" in research. While inductive reasoning using probability theory dominates the research world, historically, the concept of deduction—dating back to Galileo and Newton—has existed, and it remains the mainstay in the sciences. The 19th century was the age of positivism, where induction held sway. However, with the emergence of logical positivism in the 20th century, deduction and induction came to stand side by side. Setting aside philosophical debates, they have continued to this day, with their roles divided depending on the research field.

But is relying solely on deduction and induction sufficient? No, because this approach alone rarely yields major discoveries. This is where abduction—breakthroughs achieved through hypothesis formation—becomes essential. Originally proposed by Charles Sanders Peirce, abduction addresses a critical limitation: deduction does not generate new discoveries, and induction cannot produce insights beyond observed facts. Recently, I've heard complaints that research hypotheses are uninteresting. But if the hypothesis is dull, no matter how rigorous the verification, the results will be mundane.

Not long ago, Gilbert Shapiro sparked discussion by highlighting serendipity—the unexpected aspect of creative discovery. This refers to the fortunate accidents or flashes of insight often found among Nobel laureates. Research also shows that attempting any new discovery first requires an appealing hypothesis.

Beyond these core research activities, the development of ICT has brought advanced networks and high-performance computers, enabling the accumulation of massive data and complex computations, giving rise to big data. While "big" varies in scale and nature, a new form of research suited to the big data era is undoubtedly needed. Amidst these diverse changes, I believe we are being asked to reexamine what research truly is.

Katahira: I'd like to speak from a practitioner's perspective. Since around the immediate postwar period when our mentor began his studies, marketing research existed in America. In Japan, however, the tradition of statistics—specifically inferential statistics—developed primarily within the natural sciences and was cultivated in fields like education and social survey theory to enhance the precision of inference. Both of these approaches entered the world of marketing. The tension persists in the natural sciences. For instance, how to measure and verify hypotheses about atoms, or how to provide evidence that convinces everyone about the efficacy of a new drug – these represent the very essence of research.

Marketing, originally an analogy to these fields, has fundamentally been built on understanding things like consumer price sensitivity or whether the Liberal Democratic Party or the Democratic Party holds the advantage. However, consumer goods manufacturers began investing in this. For instance, major advertising agencies began using research to prove points in proposals, like "Your brand is vulnerable in this way," or to persuade their own companies that "Current consumers want something different from the product direction we're considering." This created a market for research, and simultaneously, research firms grew significantly.

Within this trend, I feel the weight placed on research fields aiming to rigorously verify robust hypotheses has diminished, making it unclear whether genuine verification is even occurring.

Methodologically, we see a lot of analysis-driven research like covariance structure analysis, or before that, logit analysis and regression analysis. Little attention is paid to whether the sample quality is adequate. Sampling—how respondents are secured—matters profoundly; different structures yield entirely different results.

Earlier, I mentioned that hypotheses have become less compelling. I believe there are two reasons for this. The first is a problem with researchers themselves. Even though we call them hypotheses, they concern human subjects. Natural sciences study nature, but we deal with human behavior. The researcher's attitude – engaging with living people, sensing them, and trying to convey some message – has become weak.

The second is methodological. Even in papers, discussions center on tertiary or quaternary levels—using covariance structure analysis or such-and-such analysis, comparing this model with that model. The core question of what human behavior actually is gets lost, and human experience itself is severely lacking. Without genuine interaction with family or meaningful human connection, merely engaging superficially with superiors, subordinates, or clients as clients, one cannot produce truly excellent research. The same applies to practitioners. While this is the application beyond applied science, I believe there is much to learn from serendipity, which is fundamentally one of Japan's strengths.

Kaji: Are there any examples of serendipity in Japan?

Katahira: Take Heinz ketchup, for example—that upside-down tube. It's used worldwide now, but the original story comes from Kao. Kao visited users' homes, observed their kitchens, washrooms, and toilets, and discussed urgent issues and complaints raised by housewives. That tube was conceived by chance when they saw how cramped the kitchens and washrooms were, with everything stored vertically. Essentially, they knew how to discover new mechanisms within human behavior that users themselves hadn't noticed. But Japanese researchers struggle to theorize this. American researchers started talking about things like postmodernism, and some companies market this as a way to generate creative ideas. Yet the various methods they employ are essentially the same as Kao's approach.

[ Continued in Part 2 ]

*The full text is available on the Yoshida Hideo Memorial Foundation website.