Why bad things happen to good research Ideas: A salutary lesson in misplaced confidence?

The purpose of this article is to draw attention to the hurdles which face academic researchers who simply want to get on with their job and learn about how marketing and related matters are conducted in business. You would think that the subject of competitiveness and how to improve their understanding of competitors would be a subject which would resonate with the UK manufacturing sector. It appears not. In the project reported here, just about every box that was possible to be ticked, was ticked. The people involved were all experienced researchers with good publication records. We thought we had got it all right, yet the response rate was dismal. In the debate which follows, I examine where we might have gone wrong, what we could have done differently and invite you to consider whether any of this would have made the slightest difference. It is a sad reflection on how difficult it is to obtain good quality primary data from firms these days. As academics, we are being told that our research has to have “impact” and be “relevant”. For this to happen we need to secure dialogue with the commercial world, something which seems to be getting increasingly more elusive.