Study title:
What (Not) to Expect When Surveying Executives : A Meta-Analysis of Top Manager
Response Rates and Techniques Over Time
Author(s) :
Cynthia S. Cycyota and David A. Harrison
Authors’ Affiliation and Background
Dr. Cycyota is an Associate Professor of Management in the Management Department at
the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Her current
research and teaching interests include executive decision making, institutionalism and
entrepreneurial strategies. Dr. Cycyota received her MBA from Wright State University
in Dayton, Ohio with a concentration in finance. She completed her doctoral dissertation
on biotechnology executive decision making at the University of Texas in 2003.
Dr. Harrison is a Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resources
Management at Penn State. He earned a Ph.D. in social, organizational, and individual
differences psychology, as well as masters' degrees in psychology and in applied
statistics, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Harrison has
published and presented over 150 articles, book chapters, editorial reviews, monographs,
and papers. His editorial board memberships include Academy of Management Journal,
Personnel Psychology, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management,
and Organizational Research Methods.
Source (Journal with Year, volume, number, and Publisher):
Cycyota, C. S.,& Harrison, D. A., 2006. What (Not) to Expect When Surveying
Executives : A Meta-Analysis of Top Manager Response Rates and Techniques Over
Time, Organizational Research Methods, [e-journal] 9(2), pp. 133-160. Avaialable at:
Sage publications.
Research objective / Problem statement
The article takes into account the executive or top management’s response rates of mailed
surveys by the organizational researchers and the main objectives are:
• To find what are the typical response rates that executives’ researchers
have received in the past?
• To investigate trends over time to see if expected response rates are
diminishing and to know if same response rates should be expected in the
future?
• Is there something unique in surveying executives that could be exploited
by researchers or that could provide for more efficient data collection?
Theoretical Background
It is a meta-analysis study which means it combines the results of several previously done
studies that address a set of related current research hypotheses. It is recognized by
researchers worldwide that executives are the most knowledgeable
sources of firm-level information (Norburn & Birley, 1988), and they
might not just be the best but sometimes the only source of getting
information. However, the willingness or ability of these executives to
share such evidence with researchers is of significance importance and
that is what urged the authors to conduct a research on this topic and
to identify and guide techniques which increase the response rates of
the top management of any organization, also there are several
methods suggested to improve response rates from a general
population but not much work has been done for collecting data from
the executives.
Research variables
Independent variable: Mailed surveys
Dependent variable: Response rate
Research propositions / hypotheses
Hypothesis 1: Response rates for mailed surveys in executive populations are declining
(monotonically) over time.
Hypothesis 2: Topic salience will be positively related to response rates from executives.
Hypotheses 3a-d: Inclusion of (a) an incentive, (b) advance notice to executive, (c)
follow-up contact after mail date, and (d) personalization of the survey and cover letter
will increase the likelihood of executive response to mailed surveys.
Hypothesis 4: Prior consent screening of executive samples will generate higher reported
response rates.
Hypothesis 5: Sponsorship (and therefore access) by a member of the executive’s or
firm’s social network will increase the likelihood of response to mailed surveys.
Research Design
As the study engages in explaining the nature of relationships and variance in the
dependent variable, it is a hypothesis testing. The research is purely based on secondary
data i.e. already published articles, sample includes 231 non overlapping articles in which
surveys were mailed to the executives and these articles appeared in top management
journals from 1992 to 2003. Data is gathered once over a period of days or weeks, so it is
a one shot or cross sectional study, extent of researcher interference is minimal to none.
Research is done in the natural environment which makes it a non contrived setting.
Summary & Conclusion:
