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There is wide agreement among scholars that pre-testing is an integral part of the questionnaire development process. As Hunt, Sparkman and Wilcox (1982) stated, ‘Will the instrument provide data of sufficient quality and quantity to satisfy the objectives of the research?’ The benefits of pre- testing prior to conducting the field survey have been well emphasised in the literature by numerous researchers (Hunt et al., 1982; Blair and Presser, 1992; Churchill, 1995). A pre-test is defined as ‘a trial run with a group of respondents used to screen out problems in the instructions or design of a questionnaire’ (Zikmund, 2003, p. 229). This section outlines the pre-testing procedure to be followed in this study.

There is no general agreement about the best pre-testing procedure among scholars. Reynolds and Diamantopoulos (1998) noted that several disagreements among scholars exist in relation to the best method for pre-test administration. Overall, the methodological literature distinguishes between three types of pre-test methods (Hunt et al., 1982; Blair and Presser, 1992; Churchill, 1995; Zikmund, 2003). These are: expert panel, interviews, and pilot study. The first type ‘expert panel’ is when an expert panel is asked to judge the instrument in relation to certain criteria. The second type ‘interviews’ is where the interviewer is required to identify any obstacles, difficulties or incomprehensible questions blocking the respondents’ ability to provide accurate answers. Reynolds and Diamantopoulos (1998) suggest that the personal interview is an effective means of conducting a pre-test due to the accuracy and completeness of the information generated. However, this method is subject to errors resulting from interaction between the interviewer and participants (i.e. bias introduced by interviewers). The third type ‘pilot study’ employs testing research instruments on a small sample of target population ‘pre-testing’ (Zikmund, 2003). Reynolds and Diamantopoulos (1998) found that a planned survey (pilot study) is useful because it covers all aspects of the field survey and is less likely to be affected by interaction between the respondents and the researcher. Because there are limitations to each of the pre-test types, many researchers have recommended using different combinations (i.e. Blair and Presser, 1992; Churchill, 1995). As a result, and in order to minimise any bias or error, all three types of pre-test procedures have been employed before conducting the actual field study.

151 5.4.1 Expert panel procedure

The first procedure involved assessing survey questionnaires by a panel of five experts who have extensive knowledge and experience in strategic planning. The experts were selected from Dubai Electricity & Water Authority; Dubai Customs; Dubai Municipality and Dubai Health Authority. The experts hold senior managerial positions: Vice President (VP) Human Resources, Senior Manager Excellence, Director Strategic Planning, Manager Strategic Planning, and Senior Specialist Performance Management. The experts were asked to evaluate the survey questionnaires in relation to four evaluation criteria: understandability (the question is understandable and has the same meaning to different respondents); importance (the issue the question is addressing is important); relevance (the question is related to the measure/subject) and length (the length of the question asked is suitable). The experts were asked to rank each of the four evaluation criteria with a Likert scale from 1 to 5 (1 – Very Poor; 2 – Poor; 3 – Neither Poor nor Good; 4 – Good; 5 – Very Good), the results of expert ranking were analysed and the questions with an average rating less than 3 for any of the evaluation criteria were modified accordingly. For example, if average ranking for length criterion is less than 3, an action is taken to modify the length. The result of the expert panel ranking is available in Appendix (B.2).

5.4.2 Personal interviews’ procedure

The second procedure followed Bowen and Shoemakers’ (1998) suggestion in which five personal interviews were conducted. Unlike the attempt to conduct interviews as a data collection method that was faced with a number of constraints (see 5.2.2), arranging the interviews as part of the pre- testing procedure was possible because the interviewees were not asked to answer but evaluate the questions. The researcher contacted five managerial employees working in public sector organisations in Dubai and arrangements were made to interview each of them after sending a draft copy of the survey (including modifications from the first procedure). The purpose of these interviews was to ask the interviewees to identify any problems with regard to the questionnaire format, wording or design, and to address any comments or suggestions they had, and especially, that all interviewees work in public sector organisations in Dubai and are aware of the administrative and cultural issues within those organisations. As a result of this procedure it was suggested that the survey be translated from English to the Arabic language and both versions be available to choose from by respondents. Also, the interviewees had some concerns about the

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distribution and collection of the research survey and suggested having the survey online which would increase the response rate as stated by three of the interviewees; another comment was to simplify the language or provide definitions for some terms such as ‘strategy maps’ and ‘environmental analysis’ which might not be understandable for some respondents. All suggestions were implemented and taken into consideration and the survey was translated into the Arabic language. The process use to translate the survey is presented in section (5.4.4).

5.4.3 Pilot study procedure

Before sending letters of formal invitation to the research survey as a pilot study, two main questions had to be answered, according to Hunt et al. (1982): ‘Who should the subjects be in the pre-test?’ and ‘How large a sample is needed for the pre-test?’ For the first question it was necessary to include subjects who were similar to those targeted in the actual survey (Churchill, 1995). Therefore, managerial employees working in Dubai public sector organisations were contacted to participate in the pilot study. In relation to the second question, there is little agreement in the literature about the appropriate sampling size (Hunt et al., 1982). For example, Zatalman and Burger (1975) did not specify size, simply recommending a ‘small’ sample. Others such as Boyd, Westfall and Stasch (1977) indicated that a sample of 20 is adequate. Lukas, Hair and Ortinau (2004) pointed out a size of 50 respondents allows the running of proper statistical testing procedures. For the purpose of this procedure, 22 responses were collected and analysed. The reliability of the measures was calculated through measuring Cronbach’s coefficient alpha, showing that all key variables had high alpha scores exceeding (0.7), as recommended by Francis (2001). Further to the above empirical results, respondents’ answers and suggestions showed that there was a need for minor modifications. For instance, the development of vision- and mission- related questions was clarified. In addition, and in conjunction with recommendations of interviewees (procedure two), the respondents recommended doing an online survey that would give the respondents the flexibility of time and location to complete the survey and improve the response rate.

5.4.4 Translation process

Given that the research is conducted within the Middle Eastern context, translation and back- translation of the instrument was undertaken as recommended by procedure two described above. Methodological authors such as Malhotra, Agarwal and Peterson (1996), and Salciuviene,

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Auruskeviciene and Lydeka (2005) maintain that this procedure is important because cultural differences could result in non-equivalence, which may confound results. Two steps were conducted in translating the current instrument. First, after the original questionnaire (English version) was developed it was translated into Arabic by an accredited translator. Second, another accredited bilingual translator, whose native language is Arabic, back-translated the Arabic version to English to ensure equivalence of the questionnaire translations and adjust minor inconsistencies. According to Malhotra et al. (1996, p. 24), ‘if the translator is not fluent in both languages and familiar with two cultures, direct translation of certain words and phrases may be erroneous’.

As a result of the three pre-test procedures described above, the initial survey was modified, translated and an online version was created. The final survey for this study was formulated and ready for distribution. A copy of the final survey in both languages, English and Arabic, is provided in Appendices (A.1 & A.2). In the following section the procedure used to manage the distribution and collection of the research survey will be described.