Nonresponse Bias in Organizational Surveys: Evidence from a Survey of Groups and Organizations Working for Peace

Abstract

Nonresponse bias is a major concern for scholars using survey research, as low response rates can lead to serious problems in the generalizability of survey results. Numerous studies have been made to estimate the effects of nonresponse bias on survey results, but these have typically considered only surveys treating individual respondents as the unit of analysis. Organizational theory should lead scholars, however, to expect important differences between individual and organizational survey designs in the sources and effects of nonresponse bias. In this article, the author compares characteristics of organizations responding to a survey of organizations working for peace with those of organizations that failed to respond. The analysis shows that organizational informants behave differently from individual survey targets and that a theory of nonresponse bias in organizational surveys is needed to improve organizational survey designs so as to minimize and account for nonresponse bias.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Colwell, M. A. (1989). Organizational and management characteristics of peace groups (Working Paper No. 8). San Francisco: University of San Francisco, Institute for Nonprofit Organization Management.

Dillman, D. A. (1978). Mail and telephone surveys: The total method. New York: Wiley.

Gais, T. , & Walker, J. L., Jr. (1991). Pathways to influence in American politics. In J. L. Walker, Jr., Mobilizing interest groups in America: Patrons, professions, and social movements (pp. 103-122). Ann Arbor University of Michigan Press.

Groves, R. M. (1990). Theories and methods of telephone surveys. Annual Review of Sociology, 16, 221-240.

McCarthy, J. D. , Britt, D. W , & Wolfson, M. (1991). The institutional channelling of social movements by the state in the United States. Research in Social Movements, Conflict and Change, 13,45-76.

McCarthy, J. D. , Shields, J. , & Hall, M. (in press). The American Catholic bishops and the empowerment of the poor through community development. In J. Stansfield II (Ed.), The nonprofit sector and social justice. Indianapolis, IN: Indianapolis University Press.

McCarthy, J. D. , & Wolfson, M. (1996). National federating structure and local resource mobilization: The case of the early drunk driving movement. American Sociological Review 61:1070-1088.

McPherson, J. M. , & Rotolo, T. (1995). Measuring the composition of voluntary groups: A multitrait-multimethod analysis. Social Forces, 73,1097-1115.

Schlozman, J. T. , & Tiemey, K. L. (1986). Organized interests and American democracy. New York: Harper & Row.

10.

Smith, T. W (1983). The hidden 25 percent: An analysis of nonresponse on the 1980 general social survey. Public Opinion Quarterly, 47,386-404.

11.

Spaeth, J. L. , & O'Rourke, D. P. (1994). Designing and implementing the national organization study. American Behavioral Scientist, 37,872-890.

12.

Tomaskovic-Devey, D. , Leiter, J. , & Thompson, S. (1994). Organizational survey nonresponse. Administrative Science Quarterly, 39,439-457.

13.

U.S. Department of Commerce . (1989). Statistical abstract of the United States. Washington, DC: Author.

14.

Weed, F. J. (1987). Grass roots activism and the drunk driving issue: A survey of MADD chapters. Law and Policy, 9, 259-278.