Studies in marketing research often start with data rather than with a theory. This exploratory or inductive approach is at odds with the more preferred scientific method where the theory precedes the data in any single research study. (See, for example, the discussion by Francis, 1957) Because...

The importance of the researcher^Rs interpretation of factor analysis is illustrated by means of an example. The results from this example appear to be meaningful and easily interpreted. The example omits any measure of reliability or validity. If a measure of reliability had been included, it...

Graffiti is regarded by many as a blight on our cities because it contributes to visual pollution. City governments spend vast sums in an effort to clean the ubiquitous graffiti from urban walls. I suggest that the ^Scleansing strategy^T is an expensive, ineffective way of dealing with the...

Recently, I published a letter in the Wall Street Journal (Armstrong 2004a) with the basic message that business school education has been losing effectiveness. Most important, students are not learning to do things, such as making an effective oral presentation, writing a persuasive management...

Despite the lead article^Rs title ^SValidity Concerns and Usefulness of Student Ratings of Instruction^T (Greenwald 1997) in the American Psychologist^R^Rs special section on teacher ratings, the papers did not provide direct evidence on ^Susefulness.^T There is no evidence that the use of...

When people forecast, they often use analogies but in an unstructured manner. We propose a structured judgmental procedure that involves asking experts to list as many analogies as they can, rate how similar the analogies are to the target situation, and match the outcomes of the analogies with...

Current practice uses statistical tests to determine whether seasonal factors should be applied in a given forecasting situation. Research suggests that an optimal policy might lie somewhere between using full seasonal factors and using no seasonal factors on series. This research proposes and...