An organization has an option to, or not to participate in a professional or trade organization. If a study's sample frame is limited to those organizations who choose to join an organization that promotes a specific mission, goal or mindset, this would seem to infer that the study results would be biased toward that perspective. I am currently looking at the literature to see if this is or is not supported. Thoughts?
No matter how little it may be (overt or hidden) , we can't totally eliminate subjectivity within members of an organisation and consequently the "group think" which would suggest bias.
Two potentially interesting aspects to your question. First, within certain sectors, do organisations really have a choice as to whether to opt in or not? The CSR literature might offer some insights about why organisations choose to participate in schemes such as Electronics Industry Code of Conduct (EICC). For some organisations, it's a marketing imperative. Locke (2013) offers a good comparative study in this regard. The second aspect arising is that in comparing the stated goals and objectives of firms and those of the associations to which they affiliate, are there gaps? Are firms' communicated objectives different or overlapping with those of the professional associations? Identifying those in your research could offer a richer description and analysis.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Mathematics
- Statistics
- Applied Statistics
- Survey Design
- Questionnaire