ABSTRACT
Whether confined to the business to consumer (B2C) environment, or extended to business to business (B2B) and even to consumer to consumer (C2C) environments, ethnic marketing research poses many problems for researchers and for managers, involving epistemological, ethical, strategic, and practical aspects. Not surprisingly, concern for ethnicity and the deliberate consideration by business of target groups of people that have a cultural context other than that of the mainstream context (as per Grönroos’ definition in chapter 1) does not exclude the many conventional methods used in quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-methods research. The use of thematic and content analysis to examine data collected by means of focus groups, interviews and archival research, or the use of the vast array of quantitative methods common in most fields of research, are just as relevant in ethnic marketing as in other areas of marketing research. However, beyond a relative lack of reliable secondary data that is specific to an ethnic group, the intricate problem of ethnic marketing is that, to be effective, research needs to be ethnic sensitive.
