Qualitative Research in the NHL

This week’s blog post is about qualitative research.  As we learned in class and through the text book, qualitative research tires to describe things, like meanings, comprehension, and processes.  A qualitative study is often done through personal interviews, in-depth interviews, panels, focus groups, field studies and similar research methods.  When a qualitative research study is being done, people are often asked to respond to general questions that later on, the researcher will formulate those answers into additional questions to get a better understanding of what the person means and to figure out the respondent’s feelings, interpretations and responses.

It wasn’t hard for me to find an article about qualitative research with in the national hockey league.  For those who don’t know, the Ducks formally the Mighty Ducks are from Anaheim California.  A couple of years ago the Mighty Ducks organization did not know if they should keep the Mighty or get rid of it and just be the Ducks.  After Samueli and his wife Susan bought the team, they decided that in years to come there would be some changed made to the team, one being the name.  After interviewing some season ticket holders, as well as a few of the teams players, they decided to take away the “Mighty.”  It was said that everyone was alright with the change of the name because it was not changed completely.  A quote in the article says that qualitative and a formal use of quantitative research was used in this decision. 

Another article that I found has to do with the NHL and Sling Media Inc.  Together, the league and the company have come together where Slingbox owners can record their favorite hockey moments on Slings’ website.  People that have SlingPlayer software are able to share their favorite clips with family and friends.  Even though someone has to have an account in order to view the clips, the company will organize the clips according to the different teams to see who is watching the clips and where they are from.  Also, the NHL will post its own content on the website as well.  The article says that this study will last one summer to see the outcome.  By being on this website, the league is the first one to be on this website and they are excited to give their viewers this service.

These two site’s really show how research is performed in the NHL.  Although, the research conducted was for two different reasons, one can still see that there are ways to conduct research in any area of an organization.