Abstract:

This paper considers the educational needs of market researchers and how they can best be employed to further the growth and prosperity of the profession as a whole,. It starts from the premise that market research is a practical business discipline which will be judged or condemned according to the extent to which it gives manifest aid in decision making to businessmen. It is agreed that from this point of view there are two major educational needs: 1. The need to educate market research practitioners in the technicalities of their profession; 2. The need to educate market research practitioners in the nature of business decision making and of business problems so that they can employ their technical expertise more relevantly in these areas. The idea of educating business decision makers in market research is rejected as being unnecessary and possibly counter productive.