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Research projects occur in the context of a researcher’s interest, expertise and experience of human contacts and of the physical environment (Fellows & Liu, 2003). In spite of the best intentions and rigorous attempts, the impact on the research results derived from circumstance and sample characteristics is inevitable.

For research questions where it would be impracticable to collect data from the entire population, properly designed sampling techniques would be necessary in guarantee the on-time delivery while maintaining the overall research accuracy (Saunders et al., 2009). Therefore, careful selection of the sample characteristics is essential before the empirical study could be carried out.

The target population is “all the members of a real or hypothetical set of people, events, or objects to which researchers wish to generalize the results”

(Dillman, 2007). In this research, government agency officials, financial lenders, developers, builders, architects/designers, other consultants and real estate agents were chosen as the survey population. Although the probability sampling is the most commonly associated with survey-based research strategies, this approach may either not be impractical or inappropriate for achieving the particular study purposes (Saunders et al., 2009). Since sustainable housing development is still in its infancy in Australia, this study intends to provide an expert evaluation rather than a full-fledged industrial viewpoint. Therefore, it centres specifically on 53 organisations acknowledged as at the forefront of sustainability implementation across Australia.

This is a group who have made consistent efforts to engage sustainability as identified by Housing Institute of Australia (HIA) and Australia Green Development Forum (AGDF). Compared with others, these selected organisations have adequate experience in sustainable housing and considerable understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of sustainable development, and hence will be revealing to assess the motives, preferences and inconveniences of their own from engaging in sustainable housing developments. A focus on these pioneer organisations will ensure a valid representation of the sustainability issues in the Australian housing industry, which suits the ultimate objective of the research towards creating an industry-guiding framework.

In comparison, another 27 reputed organisations without strong sustainability focus were also randomly chosen across Australia, to reflect the general trends in housing development. They were selected through professional associations such as the Master Builders Australia. Such cross-referencing with the pioneer companies ensures the representative feedback from the Australia Housing industry.

Individual respondents from the 80 organisations were selected from information available on the internet and relevant seminar and forums according to their position within the above organisations. Additionally, extra hard copies were delivered in person to cover another two major stakeholder groups: financial institutions and real estate agents due to the fact that these target groups are less involved in decision-making and may not have the same level of enthusiasm.

The questionnaire survey was conducted from August to November 2010. All the responses were collected and compiled into an initial report generated from Qualtrics. Before sending out the full-scale questionnaires, six pilot surveys were conducted in September 2010 with two builders, two university professionals and two consultants for validity checking. These pilots aim to ensure that each question could functionally measure what it sets out to measure. Respondents were asked to make comments regarding the clarity, language, layout, format and effectiveness.

Amendments were made accordingly. Following the pilot study, survey invitations were sent via email and in person to 163 respondents from the selected sampling frame. Each respondent received the questionnaire link or hard copy with a cover letter (refer to Appendix A1), the QUT Research Ethical Consent Form (refer to Appendix C), and an opportunity to participate in a lucky draw. Four weeks were given for the respondents to complete and return the questionnaire, and a follow-up reminder were sent two weeks after the initial delivery.

Duron (2001) suggested three criteria to evaluate the non-probability sampling processes: (a) a clear description of the sampling frame; (b) the sampling procedure;

and (c) the valid response rate. The first two aspects have been discussed above, leaving the response rate for further examination. Attaining the highest possible response rate is important to ensure the sample is representative of the target population (Saunders et al., 2009). The validity of the questionnaire response was measured by reference to two basic principles: (1) the survey questions are fully answered; and (2) there are no obviously irrational answers (e.g. giving identical

ratings to a number of variables). Accordingly, 50 out of the 65 received responses were considered valid, which amounts to a response rate of 30.7% given the totally targeted number of 163. This figure conforms to the acceptable respondent rate of approximately 30% for a survey focused on gaining responses from construction industry practitioners (Akintoye, 2000; Love & Smith, 2003). Therefore, the respondents are representative of the total population.

Table 4.1 gives the descriptive statistics for the type of organisations of respondents. Out of the 50 respondents, 50% were from consultant organisations including architects, designers and other consultants, with the remainder largely from government (16%). The majority of the responses coming from consultants and governments signalled the enthusiasm of these two groups regarding sustainability issues. In contrast, the other four stakeholders showed less interest with each only accounting for 10% or less of the responses.

Table 4.1 Sampling Distribution of Respondents by Professional Background

Respondent background Frequency Percentage

By “roles played by organisations of respondents”

RO1: Government agency 8 16%

RO2: Developer 4 8%

RO3: Builder 4 8%

RO4: Architect/Designer 10 20%

RO5: Other consultant 15 30%

RO6: Financial institution 4 8%

RO7: Real estate agency 5 10%

The respondents’ length of working experience in the housing industry is also a defining index of their knowledge about housing development processes and thus the reliability of the data. Figure 4.1 shows that the respondents’ lengths of working experience are reasonably spread across the five groups in terms of this aspect.

Around 60% of the respondents have had at least 10 years working experience in the industry, among which 36.17% indicated they have worked in the housing industry for over 20 years. The high level of respondent seniority ensures a fruitful and reliable source of data.

Figure 4.1. Sampling distribution of respondents by experience

Manager and director positions are held by 60.4% of the respondents. Feedback from 36%, 16%, 20% and 8% of respondents were received from metropolitan areas of Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart, respectively. The rest of the responses were spread around other cities in Queensland. It is worth mentioning that a large percentage of the respondents from Queensland belong to national or transnational organisations with offices operating around Australia or the world. Given the overall high executive level of the respondents, this geographical spread should provide an Australia-wide view of sustainable housing development.