Good day fellow Researchers,
I am currently doing research in the area of vertical alignment and horizontal integration in the Procurement function, to determine the effectiveness of procurement's integration in an organisation.
The procurement-Logistics interface's integration is well covered in past research, however only a limited number of locations, organisation types and, market sectors were used. This leaves supplier-procurement, marketing-and-sales-procurement, and financial-procurement interfaces' integration as a scope to build on the groundbreaking work of past researchers.
Now to address the limited scope of research locations, organisational activities, and market sectors, the input of a wide scope of participants will be needed. Are there any other databases besides Hoover, that one can get company data from? With especially e-mail contacts. Which method will deliver the best results to mail the information with a self addressed envelop or electronic contact details like emails?
Which method do most researchers use to distribute their surveys? Are there more efficient methods that can be suggested?
Although e-mail is a great option anbd the built in analytical tools makes the analysis easier Joel is right in that some companies have spam blockers in the organization and if the survey requires information that may put their competitior at and advantage they will need verification of the senders purpose. I have had to do, none disclousure agreements, during some surveys.Slow mail as an introduction followed by e-mail,especially if going to companies
The preferred method of survey distribution is mail as it may save cost and time.The mail method saves time.The response authentication and quich response can be ensured by mail method.The no of respondents can also be increased with the help of a just one click of the mouse.Moreover the data compilation can also be done in highly sophisticated way.
When I conduct survey research I definitely prefer email over snail mail for various of reasons. These reasons include cost effectiveness, scope of distribution, ease of data collection/coding; In addition, there is some great survey software that allows you to create very interactive/smart surveys. For example, with email one can send a survey to thousands of potential participants for the same price. With email (using software such as Qualtrics) you can measure progress, conduct validity checks, embed video/sound, and much more. One of the main issues with email survey is that people are getting inundated with surveys and completion rate is plummeting (average completion rate about 30%). However, you can increase this by conducting raffles, making surveys sound pertinent their interest, and keeping survey length to ~ 8 minutes or less.
Although e-mail is a great option anbd the built in analytical tools makes the analysis easier Joel is right in that some companies have spam blockers in the organization and if the survey requires information that may put their competitior at and advantage they will need verification of the senders purpose. I have had to do, none disclousure agreements, during some surveys.Slow mail as an introduction followed by e-mail,especially if going to companies
Yes Michael, I agree with your experience. I got a list of companies from the Hoover database. And call about 150 of them to get their email addresses, but got through to only 3 people, in the procurement department. It appears that procurement is quite a busy department.
I know it is a small amount but out of a bout 200 emails less than 10% were actually read and from that less than 1% actually responded. So the odds for emails to get the word out is looking really grim. Then that answer that question.
Has anyone tried faxing the introduction letter and link to a survey. What are some good databases to use that do not charge an arm and a leg, as I am a self supporting researcher with limited funding.
I would offer that the best is to use both. You'll capture sometimes different people with different sampling methods. Assuming the email gets to people, there is still good evidence that people respond more to snail mail than email. it's more work on your end, but you get better responses. Research in Higher Education, Vol. 44, No. 4, August 2003 ( 2003) ASSESSING RESPONSE RATES AND NONRESPONSE BIAS IN WEB AND PAPER SURVEYS
You can also try an adaptive design and adjust the method that you emphasize as you go.
If you read it thus far let me provide feedback regarding the last option that I enquired about "Has anyone tried faxing the introduction letter and link to a survey." As I was extremely desperate to find research subjects to fill out my questionnaire I selected 1000 fax numbers from Hoover and faxed a one-pager with a short link to the survey. Most of the faxes were received and a grand total of ZERO looked at the survey, needless to say it was 100% unsuccessful.
Summery of methods that could be used in order of successfulness.
- Personal contracts
- Mailed surveys with self addressed envelope with postage (costly).
- Call people up and do it over the phone (costly)
- Email link to survey (cheapest, hard to get email address, and low response rate)
- Faxing (costly, potentially Zero response rate)
How can one improve ones participation ratings?
-Try to find a personal contact or referral. The person will then either know you or informed another about you.
- Give potential participants some incentive to spend the time to fill out your survey, e.g. a lucky draw for an Amazon voucher, drone, or something that the target audience would be interested. Just to reiterate "I am a self supporting researcher with limited funding", so I could not test this concept that most magazines use.
What method did you use to increase your success in quantitative research surveys?
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- Science method
- Similar topics
- Mathematical Sciences
- Statistics
- Applied Statistics
- Survey Design