Organizations and Survey Research

Abstract

Surveys provide a critical source of data for scholars, yet declining response rates are threatening the quality of data being collected. This threat is particularly acute among organizational studies that use key informants—the mean response rate for published studies is 34 percent. This article describes several response enhancing strategies and explains how they were implemented in a national study of organizations that achieved a 94 percent response rate. Data from this study are used to examine the relationship between survey response patterns and nonresponse bias by conducting nonresponse analyses on several important individual and organizational characteristics. The analyses indicate that nonresponse bias is associated with the mean/proportion and variance of these variables and their correlations with relevant organizational outcomes. After identifying the variables most susceptible to nonresponse bias, a final analysis calculates the minimum response rate those variables needed to ensure that they do not contain significant nonresponse bias. Heuristic versions of these analyses can be used by survey researchers during data collection (and by scholars retrospectively) to assess the representativeness of respondents and the degree of nonresponse bias variables contain. This study has implications for survey researchers, scholars who analyze survey data, and those who review their research.

The influence of time on employee engagement in the SA business environment

“…This implies that the sample consisted of a large number of well-educated and older individuals who hold senior positions at their companies. The biographic information supports the observations of Fulton (2016), with the exception of the high response rate from (senior) managers, who usually do not respond to surveys owing to time pressures. Fulton (2016) argued that a high response rate from senior executives is desirable because they know their organisations best and thus are the best source of information.…”

“…The biographic information supports the observations of Fulton (2016), with the exception of the high response rate from (senior) managers, who usually do not respond to surveys owing to time pressures. Fulton (2016) argued that a high response rate from senior executives is desirable because they know their organisations best and thus are the best source of information. This can have a cascading effect on the employees at other levels of the organisation.…”

Use and Affordances of ICTs in Interorganizational Collaboration: An Exploratory Study of ICTs in Nonprofit Partnerships

“…Although we recognize research has explored the variances of technology affordances among employees of organizations (e.g., Treem & Leonardi, 2013), our research operates with the organization as the unit of analysis. Thus, we relied on organizational leaders, as they typically serve as key informants for their organizations’ collaboration experience and ICT use (Fulton, 2018). In doing so, our aim was to explore variations in ICT use among a set of NPOs, instead of among employees of a single or few NPOs.…”

Fostering Muslim Civic Engagement through Faith-Based Community Organizing

“…This census study achieved a response rate of 94%, gathering data on 178 of the 189 organizations in the country and demographic information on the 4,145 member institutions, 2,939 board members, and 628 paid staff members affiliated with these organizations (Fulton, 2016).…”