Trade-Association Endorsements, Postal & Online Responses, and Other Factors Affecting Response Rates: Reflections on a Survey of Micro-Firms

Researchers using survey-based methods must do everything they can to enhance their response rates in order to improve the robustness and validity of the data they collect for analysis. Extant literature has explored several techniques to do this across many contexts, including experiments/meta-analyses. This paper addresses two particular deficits by considering the difficult context of micro-firms and also the impact of trade-association endorsement (rather than sponsorship). This is done by conducting an in-depth ex-post review of a single, successful survey case conducted and utilised in a study of English tourism firms and regulation. We explore several factors: the type of trade-association support (including levels of endorsement, access to member firms, and messages sent on behalf of the research team); postal versus online questionnaires; message type/frequency; and the importance of giving respondents an opportunity for open comments. The paper ends with a comprehensive set of suggestions for future researchers.