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Environmental Accounting in the New Zealand Contracting Industry: Comments on the Use of Mail Survey Method

Samuel Tung (The Hong Kong Baptist University.)

Pacific Accounting Review

ISSN: 0114-0582

Article publication date: 1 January 2000

184

Abstract

Many accounting researchers use direct mail survey questionnaires as a means of data collection. There are many advantages in using mail surveys. For example, surveys are a cost‐effective and efficient means of collecting research data and they provide a means of obtaining data from a geographically diverse population. However, there are several potential problems associated with the use of questionnaires in general and mail survey questionnaires in particular. These include sampling bias, low response rates, response bias, and poor questionnaire design. Numerous suggestions and procedures have been proposed in the literature to reduce the impact of these factors — unfortunately, most of these suggestions have gone unheeded. A study recently published in this journal (Guilding and Kirman, 1998) is critiqued in order to point out the potential limitations associated with using survey questionnaires, and to indicate what researchers can do to mitigate the effects of these problems.

Citation

Tung, S. (2000), "Environmental Accounting in the New Zealand Contracting Industry: Comments on the Use of Mail Survey Method", Pacific Accounting Review, Vol. 12 No. 1, pp. 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb037946

Publisher

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MCB UP Ltd

Copyright © 2000, MCB UP Limited

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