Surveys/questionnaires concerns

As far as costs are concerned, one section of an environmental reporting survey by EAG Environ, a UK consultant, is devoted to this. Using a comprehensive questionnaire, over 100 reporting companies were contacted and asked for their views on the three issues of drivers, benefits and costs of environmental reporting. The questionnaire was designed to capture cost information from companies with different approaches to environmental reporting. These ranged from companies that carried out in-house CER production to companies that relied totally on external assistance. 

To develop the survey instrument, previous studies about ECR and cooperation as well as own research results were used. Overall, the eight-page questionnaire consisted of three groups of questions. The first part investigated to which extent the requirements for successful cooperation between manufacturers and retailers were fulfilled. In the second part, the current implementation ratio of the different ECR instruments was investigated. In the third part, additional data concerning the enterprise and the respondent were collected. 

The survey was introduced to the children by a member of the research team and it was explained that the questionnaire was concerned with various things that might affect the health of young people. The confidentiality of the child s questionnaire responses was explained and the children were encouraged to seek advice from the person administering it if they were unsure about how to answer any of the questions. To emphasise confidentiality, the teachers were openly encouraged to feel free to leave the classroom as soon as the children had settled. 

Another, more comprehensive way, is to conduct formal benchmarking studies by questionnaires and telephone interviews. These latter studies are best done through outside, neutral parties, for example, consultants or market research firms, who have the necessary experience in conducting such surveys in a nonintrusive way. Mailing out bland survey forms to customers is not an acceptable or reliable way to learn how your customers view your company. In fact, such surveys are as likely to irritate your customers as they are to obtain genuine expressions of their concerns. 

The type of studies included in non-clinical safety evaluation programmes for pharmaceutical products of biotechnology and the reasons for their inclusion were identified through a questionnaire-based survey, in response to industry s concern that certain studies are being inappropriately included. 

These general findings must however be read against two other factors. First, there are marked cultural differences in attitudes to a whole range of things, not just work. Persons growing up in different cultures become socialized into the values of their culture. Their responses to questionnaire surveys concerned with attitudes to work will tend to reflect these broad values. Second, people s responses to... 

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