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This section describes the background, design and administration of the survey, in particular: the composition and development of the questionnaire, the sample frame, the recruitment of interviewees, the period of survey data collection and the survey administration.

5.2.1

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A number of cross-sectional surveys were conducted to elicit information on the use of ICT and, more importantly, the use of Web 2.0 by SMEs in the agri-food supply chain during the period October 2011 through to March 2012.

The invitation emails containing the information sheet and the consent form for the survey interview were sent to a large number of potential interviewees. Once the consents were obtained there was a discussion with each of the participants regarding suitable times and a place for the meetings. These survey interviews were held in a range of places including the interviewees’ farms, farm houses, fishing boats, processing factories and the investigator’s office.

The surveys were carried out through face-to-face semi-structured interviews. Face-to-face interviews were undertaken because, given the time management difficulties faced by many farmers, there was the likelihood that their busy lives might well result in incomplete online survey questionnaires. Moreover, face-to-face semi-structured interviews can both minimise deviation caused by ambiguous questions and obtain rich information comprising both quantitative and qualitative data. The semi-structured interviews, based on a questionnaire, permitted the investigator to obtain both quantitative and qualitative information from respondents. (The questionnaire was piloted before the survey). Moreover, the initial questionnaire consisting of 16 questions was refined and, in particular, two additional questions that had been identified as important were incorporated into the questionnaire after several survey interviews.

Given that many interviewees were expected to have a limited understanding of Web 2.0, a demonstration of a Web 2.0 supply chain management prototype was presented during the survey. It took 25 minutes to complete the prototype demonstration before moving on to discuss the Web 2.0-related questions (i.e. Q.16, Q.17 and Q.18). During the demonstration, the Web 2.0 principles indicated by each step were addressed. A range of devices including laptop, iPad and smartphone were used to emphasize the flexibility and accessibility of the Web 2.0 prototype. The interviewees were also encouraged to trial the prototype using their own computers and mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones. The demonstration permitted the interviewees to observe how this Web 2.0 solution could enhance their supply chain management without risking their real businesses.

The interview was divided into three parts: completion of questions 1-15, the prototype demonstration, and completion of questions 16-18 which specifically focussed on Web 2.0 issues. Depending on the interviewees’ availability, the survey interviews varied from 20 minutes to more than 60 minutes duration. Due to their busy schedules, a few participants could only spend 20 minutes on the interviews, which made it impossible to complete all the designed procedures and the Web 2.0 prototype demonstration. In order to give these participants a basic idea about Web 2.0, the printed PowerPoint slides for the demonstration were presented and explained to them. These printed slides provided a fundamental outline of Web 2.0 principles to enable them to answer the questionnaire. Overall, this resulted in 28 usable surveys from across Tasmania.

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The majority of the interviewees in this project were primary producers and, in particular, farmers and fishermen. In order to obtain a better understanding of the interactions in the agri- food supply chain, a small number of processors and distributors were also invited to complete the survey. For clarity, the distributors are defined as those companies who purchase primary products from a number of primary producers and resell them to other parties, while processors provide a value added service to the primary products before on-selling the products. In some cases, there may be overlap between distributors and processors, which means that the distributors may process the primary products before selling them. Apart from three primary producers with processing activities, one distributor in the seafood sub-sector and one processor in the dairy sub-sector were recruited. This distributor in the seafood industry had been a fisherman before working as a distributor.

To obtain a broad representation of data, interviewees were selected from four important sub- sectors in Tasmania. These were seafood, dairy, fruit & vegetable and meat. In particular, there were nine from seafood, seven from dairy, two from fruit, six involved in both vegetable & livestock and four from the livestock sub-sector.

The interviewees for the survey were recruited by three approaches.

 Contacts referred by the informants who participated in the Key Informant Interviews;  Contacts referred by local farmers or fishermen associations such as the Tasmanian

Farmers and Graziers Association (TFGA), the Tasmanian Dairy Industry Authority (TDIA), the Tasmanian Seafood Industry Council (TSIC) and the Tasmanian Rock Lobster Fishermen’s Association (TRLFA);

 Contacts established at relevant exhibitions such as the Royal Hobart Show and Taste of the Huon.

The survey was conducted across Tasmania. The regions visited included Hobart, Kingston, Sorell, Margate, Cygnet, Gretna, Ouse, Birchs Bay, Campbell Town, Broadmarsh, Longford, Launceston, Westbury, Deloraine, Burnie, Ulverstone, Smithton, Latrobe, Devonport, Sisters Creek and Bicheno. These regions included the early NBN roll-out areas such as Smithton and Midway point, which thus permitted the assessment of the initial impact of NBN on businesses in those areas. Figure 5-2 illustrates the location of the interviewees and the available NBN rollout at the time the interviews were conducted. A small sample was chosen because of the expected difficulty in obtaining farmers’ or fishermen’s consent for face-to-face interviews. Constrained by time limits and resources, only 28 usable interviews were conducted. This accounts for a small percentage of the total number of businesses in the agri-food sector. All interviewees were primary decision makers in their businesses. The fact that the sample accounts for such a small percentage of the total population means that the survey results are not generalisable to the entire Tasmanian agri-food industry. However, the findings are meaningful when supplemented by the fully analysed qualitative data based on the transcription of the interviews.

Figure 5-2: Location of the interviewees

The blue pins indicate the interviewees’ locations. The pink pins are the areas with NBN roll- out at the time of the survey. The information is based on the NBN rollout map in Tasmania as at 25th March 2012 (http://www.nbnco.com.au/rollout/rollout-map.html).