The questionnaire was sent by post to the CEOs of the 1,466 RGFs in October 2009. The cover letter explained the intention of the study, the financing of the research project (The Research Council of Norway), confidentiality, estimated time for answering (20 minutes), and how to answer (see Appendix A). The respondents could either use the enclosed paper version
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and return it in the pre-stamped envelope, or use the web-based survey on the Internet: 51.7 percent returned the paper version, and 48.3 percent used the web-based survey.
Of all respondents, 88 percent were CEOs (see Table 2). Almost 50 percent of the CEOs were also the founders of the firms and more than one-third of them owned at least 50 percent of the firms.
From this, we can conclude that the respondents are people in central positions and with great knowledge of the firm. They form a quite homogeneous group, which should strengthen the statistical conclusion validity. However, the data are based on only one respondent from each firm and represent a possible single-source bias. Having both homogeneous respondents and only one respondent from each firm can be problematic if it represents systematic biases. One could suggest that the top management may tend to answer in a “favorable” manner for the firm (self-serving bias). Ideally, I should have collected responses from several sources in the firm. On the other hand, the questionnaire did not particularly focus on evaluating management performance but rather on the firms’ situation and recent historical events. This should reduce the possibilities for systematical single-source and self-serving biases.
The historical aspect is another possible source of bias. The respondents are evaluating their firms’ development over a period of four years in retrospect, and their memory might be distorted. I argued above that the respondents are people in central positions with great knowledge of the firms’ development. We can only hope this reduced the problem of retrospective bias. It is difficult to select RGFs before or during their growth period because we do not know which firms will become RGFs19. Altogether, it is unlikely that single-source,
19 We know that between 2–4 percent of the population will achieve gazelle status. A possible strategy will
therefore be to ask about 50,000 firms, hoping for 27 percent response (our response rate on our questionnaire), and hoping that 3 percent of those who responded become RGFs. This strategy will probably work if we use only a web-based questionnaire and email correspondence, but would be very expensive and resource demanding
Frequency Percent
Frequency of founders
Own > 50%
(freq.)
CEO 344 88.0 164 123
Chairman/board 18 4.6 7 9
Department manager 24 6.1 7 3
Administration 5 1.3 1 1
Total 391 100.0 179 136
Table 2. Frequency and percent of respondents' position, frequency of respondents being founders, and frequency of respondent owing > 50 percent of the firm.
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self-serving, and retrospective bias are systematically distributed in the dataset and should rather emerge as random errors. A possible systematical bias is survivor bias. Only those firms who survived were investigated.
As reported in papers 2 and 3, no significant difference between respondents (391) and non-respondents (the rest of the population of 1,466 firms) were found. With regard to generalizability, Calder et al. (1981) recommend selecting a representative sample of the population. The target population in this dissertation is RGFs, as described. I find no statistical difference between respondents and non-respondents, and the individual respondents hold similar positions. As such, the sample seems to be representative.
No differences were found between web answers and paper answers, either. In the following I will discuss possible problems of web-based versus paper-based studies. Secondly I will describe how I tested the differences. There are limited space and possibilities to discuss these issues in depth in my articles.
Researchers argue that highly educated people with higher incomes use web-based questionnaires more often than other people, and that the same goes for younger people as opposed to older people. Web-based samples are therefore not representative, even though the data provided are of at least as good quality as the traditional paper-based (Gosling et al., 2004). Similar conclusions were made by Kaplowitz, Hadlock, and Levine (2004), but they showed that the response rate is the same for web and paper. A later survey found no differences between education and income, only age, where the youngest prefer web-based, and older persons prefer to use paper (Windle and Rolfe, 2011).
There are reasons to believe that the availability and knowledge of using the web has increased from the referenced studies in 2004 to those in 2011. The socio-demographic differences of education and income related to the choice to respond via the web might be erased, but perhaps age still discriminates. Even though the research by Gosling et al. (2004) indicated that the quality of the responses via the web was as good of quality as the paper-based, there are still concerns about the quality, based both on the visual and technical limitations related to web-based surveys. Windle and Rolfe (2011) argue that respondents using the web find such surveys more difficult to follow than those who use paper and could turn the pages back and forth. Based on the recommendations by Vandenberg and Lance
if we decide to send them a personal letter by post asking them to participate. The email/web survey strategy is, however, an interesting opportunity to test in future projects.
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(2000) we20 conducted cross-group comparisons to test measurement invariance across groups (answers on web versus paper).
At first we tested whether there were significant differences between those who answered by paper versus web on variables like industry, geographic location, age, size, etc.
No differences were found. Then a variety of items from the questionnaire used in the analyses were selected. First a t-test for equality of means was performed. From the 22 questions, two significant differences in items q14p (p = .006) and q17a (p = .036) were found (see Table 3).
Secondly, a preliminary test of four possible variables of these items was conducted (see Table A in Appendix D). The alpha was quite similar for all together, web and paper. We further tested whether there were significant statistical differences between web and paper using Feldt’s W-statistics. No differences were found (see Table B in Appendix D).
A measurement invariance test was carried out for all four constructs. A presentation of the results is supplied in Appendix D (see Table C). We did not find any differences to be
20 With important statistical help from Olav Kvitastein.
Item Item text t Low Upper
q13k Our focus on long-term planning and development .463 .644 .040 -.130 .221
q13n We have formalized our management and control system 1.194 .233 .109 -.070 .288
q14 The unique qualities of our products or services 1.177 .240 .130 -.087 .346
q14a Our patents and licenses .267 .790 .031 -.196 .257
q14b Our knowledge of branding and product protection 1.275 .203 .152 -.082 .386
q14c Our understanding of our customers' specific needs 1.805 .072 .128 -.011 .267
q14f Our experience with research and development of new products or services .200 .842 .026 -.233 .285 q14m Our ability to develop tailor-made products or services 1.037 .301 .098 -.088 .283 q14n Our ability to apply new knowledge and develop our competence .778 .437 .079 -.120 .277
q14o Our internal organizing of the firm 1.659 .098 .158 -.029 .345
q14p The culture and cooperative spirit in the firm 2.761 .006 .258 .074 .441
q14q Our ability to develop and follow-up strategic choices .938 .349 .088 -.096 .272 q14r Our ability to handle changes, increase our capacity and use flexible production 1.420 .156 .136 -.052 .325
q14s Our focus on economic government and control 1.019 .309 .092 -.086 .270
q17 Experience with establishing other firms 1.878 .061 .251 -.012 .513
q17a Experience from other fast growing firms 2.105 .036 .256 .017 .495
q17b Experience from other firms within the same industry 1.140 .255 .158 -.114 .430
q17c Experience from firms in other industries 1.297 .196 .156 -.081 .392
q17d Experience as board members in other organizations -.334 .739 -.039 -.269 .191
q17f Experience with strategy development in other firms -.086 .932 -.011 -.255 .233 q17j Experience from previous work with patents or branding -.233 .816 -.025 -.236 .186 q17k Experience from previous work with research and development processes -.159 .874 -.022 -.288 .245 N = 391. df = 389 Table 3. t-test for Equality of Means for web versus paper. Significant differences are highlighted in the table.
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concerned about. According to Vandenberg and Lance (2000), the delta chi differences between the models should not be larger than p > 0.01. Although a slight deviance can be found for the construct customer knowledge21, all concepts passed the test for strong invariance across groups. However, there is no general agreement concerning what to consider to be an acceptable level of measurement invariance. I claim that these tests show that the answers for web and paper can be used simultaneously and that there is no need to employ them separately in the analysis in papers 2 and 3.
Using factor analysis, I constructed new variables based on different items in the questionnaire22, as explained in papers 2 and 3. These variables are not “frequently tested”
(Mitchell, 1985), and the construct validity is therefore problematic. Even though the questions are based on theory and research, we cannot verify if the constructs are valid.
Moreover, some of the variables, like organizational capability, are quite broad in scope.
However, in later discussions with several RGFs, those who experienced growth later argued that their focus on internal organizing was important for them to not lose control and secure steady development after 2006. Those who experienced problems claimed that they lost control and should have focused more on building a strong organization. As such, this variable might be “events close to the real world” (Calder et al., 1981). However, when seen in retrospective, I am the first to admit that these variables should be further elaborated and refined into different variables. Hopefully I will be given the opportunity to do so in future research.