Transferblog

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Sam Ladner writes quite an interesting blog on her Copernicus Consulting site. She’s a consumer insights researcher for products, services and processes.

Sam just wrote a post called The essence of qualitative research: “verstehen”, which looks at the role of qualitative research. Obviously I found it amusing to see her use the German word “verstehen” based on Max Weber’s usage. The post itself is occasionally a bit glib (great English word there), but the comments contain a useful balancing out.

What I also found interesting was that I suddenly understood that I never really understood verstehen. (How meta and self-reflexive was that sentence?) I had always assumed it meant understand, but now I understand that verstehen means a deeper understanding than “understand”. (It’s just getting better and better – language is so entertaining). It just goes to show how careful and aware you have to be of your own cultural background and assumptions when doing research, especially in another language.

It also reminds me that George W. Bush allegedly once said “the French have no word for ‘entrepreneur’” (though apparently this is untrue).

You might also want to read her posts on the difference between quantitative and qualitative research and when to use them.