Search results

The subject of part‐time work is one which has become increasingly important in industrialised economies where it accounts for a substantial and growing proportion of total employment. It is estimated that in 1970, average annual hours worked per employee amounted to only 60% of those for 1870. Two major factors are attributed to explaining the underlying trend towards a reduction in working time: (a) the increase in the number of voluntary part‐time employees and (b) the decrease in average annual number of days worked per employee (Kok and de Neubourg, 1986). The authors noted that the growth rate of part‐time employment in many countries was greater than the corresponding rate of growth in full‐time employment.

The purpose of this paper is to assess to what extent the Smoking and Alcohol Drinking Behavior Survey (SADBeS), the national alcohol survey, could be used in monitoring goals and cost-effective measures suggested by the National Alcohol Strategy (NAS) issued by public health authorities in 2010.

The NAS was reviewed. Strategies, measures, and corresponding indicators were extracted. Questionnaire items used in the 2014 SADBeS were assessed in comparison with those indicators.

Four primary indicators indicate overall success of the NAS. In all, 6 out of 15 measures were in accordance with best-buy or good-buy policies – cost-effective policies suggested by the World Health Organization. After excluding indicators unlikely to be obtained from population-based surveys, the SADBeS could be used in monitoring 5 out of 14 indicators corresponding to best-buy or good-buy measures. Of 103 questionnaire items, 26.2 percent of items could be used to monitor primary indicators of the NAS; 34.0 percent could be used to estimate indicators corresponding to best-buy or good-buy measures. Overall, only 35.0 percent of questionnaire items provided useful information for monitoring primary indicators and cost-effective measures suggested in the NAS.

The SADBeS questionnaire items should be added or replaced to cover feasibly obtained indicators corresponding to best-buy or good-buy policies in the next wave of the survey.

This is the first study addressing the compatibility between the national strategy and the national alcohol survey. It also includes the overview of Thailand’s alcohol strategy, which is, to the author’s knowledge, never presented in any English articles.

The purpose of this paper is to understand national cultural dimensions and identify their relationship to survey‐response strategies.

This empirical paper will highlight the importance of understanding national cultural dimensions for adopting normative equivalence strategies in international survey research. The survey was sent to 104 Human Resource Directors located in Mexico via email and efax. The paper will identify survey strategies that contributed to a response rate of 49 per cent, which is considered high in cross‐cultural research.

The importance of normative equivalence strategies in international survey research is highlighted. While semantic and conceptual equivalence are aimed at survey coherence, normative equivalence strategies highlight the significance of the relationship‐building with the respondents. Normative equivalence strategies include identifying people that the respondents will trust and respond to, building an excellent rapport with the respondents, and identifying strategies to be perceived as part of the respondents’ group.

This paper identifies strategies that potential researchers can adopt to increase response rate. Further, it integrates national cultural dimensions and strategies and provides a model that potential researchers can adopt.

This paper associates the latest national cultural dimensions (global leadership and organizational behavior effectiveness study) and survey research strategies – an aspect that has not been addressed in the literature before.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact that research governance processes in the National Health Service (NHS) are having on the conduct of research that involves a national survey and to point to ways that existing processes may develop to facilitate such research.

The paper describes the experiences of a research team of seeking approval in 357 NHS organisations to carry out a national postal survey to investigate specialist services and specialist staffing for older people in England in the wake of recent policy developments. Through reflection on this experience, the team propose approaches for the development of existing research governance processes. The national survey was the first stage of the study, which was followed by a detailed investigation of the development of specialist service provision for older people in six case study sites across England. The national survey aimed to map specialist service provision for older people by identifying the range of service models, agency and professional involvements, and nature of the case load in statutory services (health and social care), independent and voluntary sector organisations.

Of the 357 NHS organisations approached for approval to carry out the survey within the organisation, this was achieved only in 247 organisations over 12 months. Many organisations were facilitative of the process; however, protracted and extensive approval processes in others led to long delays and redesigning of the research that was commissioned by the Department of Health.

The paper is of value in that it highlights processes and practices that hinder research and builds on those that work well.

Purpose — The paper is analysing the effect of adding a web survey to a traditional telephone-based national travel survey by asking the respondents to check in on the web and answer the questions there (Computer Assisted Web Interview, CAWI). If they are not participating by web they are as usual called by telephone (Computer Assisted Telephone Interview, CATI).

Design/methodology/approach — Multivariate regression analyses are used to analyse the difference in response rates by the two media and to analyse if respondents' answering by the two media have different travel patterns.

Findings — The analyses show that web interviews are saving money, even though a more intensive post-processing is necessary. The analyses seem to show that the CAWI is resulting in a more careful answering which results in more trips reported. A CAWI is increasing the participation of children in the survey and of highly educated. And it is offering a higher flexibility to answer after a couple of days off. The CATI is on the other hand more useful for the elderly. In addition, the CATI survey proved to be more useful for busy people and people not willing to participate in a survey at all. Young people and people with low resources who are difficult to reach by telephone are neither met on the web. Most of the differences in the response shares can be compensated by a weighting procedure. However, not all seems to be possible to compensate for. An effort to increase the number participating in the CAWI survey might increase the quality of the survey in general.

Originality/value of paper — In many countries authorities are considering how to reduce the cost of their national travel surveys. The value of the paper is to show that a combination of a CAWI and a CATI could be a good solution. Furthermore, it shows that the mixed mode could improve a CATI and therefore be the reason in itself to change methodology.

I. INTRODUCTION In this monograph we point out and analyse various dimensions of bargaining structure, which we define broadly as the institutional configuration within which bargaining takes place, and attempt to provide some guidelines for management action. We look at the development, theory, and present framework of bargaining structure in Britain and then examine it in terms of choices: multi‐employer versus single employer, company versus plant level bargaining, and the various public policy issues involved.

This paper provides an extensive review of surveys and data-collection programmes focused on urban goods movement (UGM). Surveys investigating passenger urban travel have a decades-long tradition. The same is not true for UGM. The first specific UGM surveys appeared about 10 years ago in response to the rapid growth of car traffic, congestion, pollution and lack of space. Most of the time, these surveys have been carried out to resolve specific, local problems concerning traffic. Only a few of them have taken a global approach to urban logistics by including all logistics operators (own-account and carriers), all delivery vehicles (heavy and light vehicles), all deliveries and pickups (from express to full payload) and an entire metropolitan area and surroundings. Due to various European programmes, an inventory has been created to analyse urban goods data collection according to spatial level and methodology of capture. With this inventory, European urban freight indicators can be described, along with the units in which they are measured and their purposes. The relevance of urban goods transport surveys lies in their capacity to give decision-makers an account of urban freight transport functioning, ratios and data, so as to help in formulating planning, regulation and forecasting. It appears that focusing on the movement (delivery/pick-up), as the unit of analysis in establishment-driver surveys is the most efficient approach to describe the generation of vehicular flow in the city. This fact is revealed in the French UGM surveys, which take into account the complexity of urban logistics.

Applying an intersectional approach to the analysis of nationally representative population data collected through the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), this chapter attempts to address the congruence between functional status (disability) and other relevant socio-demographic background variables (gender, race, self-reported health status, etc.) that may potentially result in disparate access to education and employment.

Disability is defined and measured using the six American Community Survey (ACS) disability questions. Disability, intersectionality, and equalization of opportunities are assessed in a representative sample of the U.S. adult population as measured on the 2010 NHIS. Data on approximately 32,000 adults age 18 years and over are used to explore, using multivariate techniques, the intersection between disability, age, gender, race/ethnicity, marital status, health insurance, and reported health status, and education and employment outcomes.

The results presented describe a disparity in outcomes of education and employment between disabled and nondisabled adults when controlling for several important background and socio-demographic variables. Exploring the relationships between these variables provides a richer understanding of disability as it exists within the social world.

In order to further improve our understanding of the population dynamics of disability, disability data must be routinely incorporated into national statistics programs. The ACS questions provide a common approach to the definition and measurement of disability within the Federal Statistical System.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a general review of “student engagement” with a focus on the measurement of student engagement in UK higher education. A wide variation in how the construct is measured has made it difficult for institutional researchers to compare findings across studies. This study seeks to understand more about the measurement of student engagement by examining the reliability and validity of three national student surveys: National Survey of Student Engagement, National Student Survey and UK Engagement Survey.

Using a narrative review of literature, each survey method is examined to identify the strands of student engagement they can be applied, to determine to what extent survey results can be benchmarked across institutions, and to explore their potential use in institutional led research. Kahu’s (2013) four perspectives of engagement are adopted as a framework for analysis as they represent student engagement as a fluid, multifaceted and, at times, abstract construct.

Findings support the notion that a single instrument cannot examine all facets of this complex construct and that student surveys currently collect information on limited and discrete perspectives of engagement. The use of these three surveys provides a depth and breadth of information about student engagement; however, institutions need to maintain an open dialogue about the construct to ensure its validity, and how to measure and understand it.

Student engagement as a construct continues to evolve and change. This paper adds to the call for institutional researchers to continue to engage in debate about the validity of the construct. The need to maintain essential knowledge of the construct and its many facets is necessary, as is the need to incorporate such knowledge into ongoing work to provide accurate, actionable data to guide improvement and enhancement research.