Conocimiento de los programas:

An important part in the development of the survey process and the ultimate design of the questionnaire was the decision to conduct an informal qualitative study. This had a number of benefits, including the likely distribution of responses to the key variables, aggregation of knowledge on business to business networking by informed respondents and to promote the wider benefits of the survey amongst influential business leaders, which it was hoped would ultimately encourage wider participation in the survey.

Snowball sampling worked to good effect in the qualitative study where respondents

were asked at the conclusion of each face to face interview whether they could recommend others who might welcome the opportunity to participate in the survey. The impact and influence of acknowledged business leaders recommending others to participate in the survey was extremely positive and encouraged the development of the main survey instrument.

Having decided for reasons of ease of completion and economy that a self administered postal survey would be the primary survey instrument, the questionnaire design followed the widely adopted guidelines recommended by (Alreck and Settle 1995). The survey had 38 questions, grouped in 7 sections. The individual sections followed a logical sequence of categorical questions designed to qualify the respondent, structured questions having a mix of numeric and verbal item scales. The questionnaire was designed to be completed by respondents in approximately twenty minutes. It was pre-printed as a 4 page document (A3 folded to A4), folded and mailed in a white C5 envelope, with a personalised covering letter and a pre-printed returns envelope addressed to the University of Wolverhampton, Management Research Centre, Appendix D refers.

The questionnaire was pre-tested by a small group of respondents who met the sample frame criteria and as experienced business ‘networkers’, they were able to offer a constructive critique of the questionnaire. The design process entailed nine major revisions to the survey instrument, with valuable input from my PhD supervisors and a final check conducted by the data bureau contracted to code the questions and enter the data into a bespoke software package ready for analysis in SPSS v16 by the author. The

final version of the survey questionnaire is included at Appendix C to this thesis, with a summary of the process to design the questionnaire sections presented below.

Questionnaire Section 1 - Experience

The first section sought to qualify the respondent by asking whether they were a member of a business networking group, networking club, professional association or professional institution. This was considered very important to the integrity of the survey and was a pre-qualification question demanding a positive response if respondents were to proceed.

Respondents needed a level of networking knowledge and experience to meet the sample frame criteria, to understand and to be able answer the questions.

To assist completion of the question, a list of 14 networking organisations was provided as a prompt, with a supplementary question (2) requesting the numbers of years the respondent had been a member of each organisation. Space was provided to supply data on additional network clubs or organisations not shown in the list. Respondents were reminded at this stage to only complete the questionnaire if they appreciated the purpose and scope of the survey.

Questionnaire Section 2 – Networking Behaviour

The second section sought data on the key construct of networking behaviour. The first 3 questions request specific numeric answers to questions on how many networks, associations, institutions the respondent belonged to. The next question asked about whether the respondent held an executive position or directorship in any of the

organisations, as this was also an indicator informing the degree of embeddedness in each business network. The next question (5) asked how many networking events were attended per month, as this was an important indicator of networking experience and behaviour. The following question (6) had nine statements with a 7 item scale where respondents were asked to state by ticking the circle to what extent they disagreed or agreed with each statement, where 1 was Completely Disagree and 7 was Completely Agree on a linear numeric scale. The intermediate points were not labelled as following the recommendation of Alreck and Settle (1995) there is concern that the consensus as to the meaning of intermediate words such as ‘very’ or ‘slightly’ is less likely than the common understanding of the equal distance between the numbers which form a conceptual ‘mapping’ of the of the underlying evaluation. With numeric values there is no possible mistake about there being only a single dimension or continuum. The final question (7) in section 2 importantly asked ‘what percentage of your company’s turnover do you estimate is generated by networking?’ The term ‘networking’ was qualified by being described as meaning any word of mouth marketing activity. This question tested very well in the pilot survey and added a level of confidence in the answers obtained, as any questions relating to financial performance are traditionally difficult areas to get meaningful data from.

Questionnaire Section 3 – Strength of Relationship

Section 3 sought data on the construct based on the strength of relationship. Following the pattern of questions established for the prior section, the first questions in the section dealt with issues surrounding which business network provided the best business

contacts, how many members were in this network and what percentage of the network members did the respondent trade with? The following question (11) listed nine statements with a 7 item scale, where respondents were again asked to state by ticking the circle to what extent they disagreed or agreed with each statement, where 1 was Completely Disagree and 7 was Completely Agree on a linear numeric scale. These were designed to test opinion on loyalty, trust, collaboration and business friendships, considered important indicators describing strength of relationship.

Questionnaire Section 4 – Network Membership

Section 4 sought data regarding the degree of embeddedness in the network. Despite being an established academic construct, the meaning of the word ‘embeddedness’

proved difficult for respondents to describe at the pilot study stage, which prompted the substitution of the phrase ‘networking group membership’ in the questionnaire, avoiding the word embeddedness, yet serving to elicit responses relative to the construct. The opening questions in this section dealt with networking group memberships, years of membership and information on the numbers of members. The final question (17) detailed nine statements, each with a 7 item scale, where respondents were asked to state by ticking the circle to what extent they disagreed or agreed with each statement, where 1 was Completely Disagree and 7 was Completely Agree on the linear numeric scale. This was designed to test the concept of embeddedness, commitment and involvement, with business outcomes and return on investment in networking group membership.

Questionnaire Section 5 – Network Attractiveness

Section 5 asked questions relating the construct based on network attractiveness. The concept of attractiveness in networks did not need explaining and was readily understood by respondents in the pilot study. The first two questions in this section asked about which network gave the respondents most pride and to qualify this with the number of members in that particular group. Question 20 sought to investigate opinions surrounding network attractiveness based on nine statements, once again each with a 7 item scale, where respondents were asked to state by ticking the circle to what extent they disagreed or agreed with each statement, where 1 was Completely Disagree and 7 was Completely Agree on the linear numeric scale. The next two questions asked whether the respondent had ever left a networking group because it ceased to be attractive and for the final question (22) in this section, where the respondent had left a networkin to select from a list why they considered the group to no longer be attractive.

Questionnaire Section 6 – Business and Professional Services

Section 6 was designed to specifically address questions suggested by the regional development agency Advantage West Midlands, requesting specific information and recommendations on the future development of business and professional services networks in the West Midlands. As this section was not part of the conceptual framework designed to assess networking performance, it will not be included as part of this thesis covered here but is part of a separate report, referenced at Broad (2009) and included in Appendix G.

Questionnaire Section 7 – About you and your organisation

The final Section 7 sought information specific to the respondent and their organisation.

Question (30) asked about the respondent’s primary business for sector segmentation analysis. The next two questions requested information on the business postcode for geographic data and how many sites the respondent’s firm has in the West Midlands and how many employees the firm employed in the region of the West Midlands. Question (30) asked the respondent to indicate by ticking a circle what their sales turnover was in bands from up to 1.0m to over £25m. The final questions asked for information on the respondent’s job title, gender, age and finally question (38) how many years they had been with their present employer.