The questionnaire was built on theoretical grounds (literature review) and through discussion with supervisory team and other experienced academics. A copy of the questionnaire is in the Appendix III. A list of matching the questions and the literature review is presented in the Appendix II.
In designing the structure of the questionnaire, different aspects were taken into account, as these can have an important impact on the nature and quality of responses (Mccoll et al. 2001). These were the length of the questionnaire, the level of measurement, the type of questions (Fowler 2002), where to put personal details questions (Clark et al. 1998), question wording (Bryman 2004), framing, sequencing (e.g. choice and order of response categories), the appearance (layout) of the questionnaire and consistency in the presentation of visual information (Oppeinheim 1999).
The questionnaire consisted of six parts, and detailed explanation of its structure and content is presented below.
At the beginning of the questionnaire, a general introduction explaining the meaning of cooperation for the purpose of the research was provided. Additionally, in order to make clear what type of businesses this research was approaching, an explanation was also provided.
Part I focused on information/details about the businesses, specifically their main characteristics. With regard to their businesses, respondents were asked about the legal status, age (years of existence), main markets, source of turnover, and number of full time employees. The number of full time employees was asked in order to classify the business by size. Business size can be measured using other criteria, such as gross sales and estimated value of the business (Romano et al.
2002; Wincent 2005) however this research is in accordance with other studies that have used the number of employees as the measure of the business size (Rice and Hamilton 1979; Goode and Stevens 2000; Gibson and Cassar 2002).
Parts II and III aimed to provide data about the respondents’ behaviour in relation to cooperation. Given that the research aimed to make a comparison between the two groups of respondents by industry, owners/managers of tourism and wine businesses, the same questions had to be asked to each. Part II encompassed questions regarding cooperation with businesses in the tourism industry. In turn, Part III contained questions relating to cooperation with businesses in the wine industry. This provided data about cooperation in the same industry and also cooperation with other businesses operating in the other industry: either the wine or tourism industry.
The set of questions in these two parts of the questionnaire covered behaviours in relation to cooperation in the past (three years prior to the interview), the present (at the time of the interview), and the future. Past and present behaviors were established by asking respondents about their experience of having participated in successful and/or unsuccessful cooperation initiatives/arrangements. Future
behaviors were established by asking respondents if they were likely to engage in cooperative arrangements in the short-term future. Questions such as: what, why, with whom and how were asked to get more detailed data about the respondents behavior, their perceptions of the potential results (advantages and disadvantages) and the reasons that might have influenced them to behave in a particular way (cooperating or not cooperating).
Questions about behaviours were mainly open-ended questions. This format was considered to be the most appropriate way of asking for this information as it gave the respondents the opportunity to answer using their own words (Oppenheim 1992; Bryman 2004) and to describe more closely their views (Fowler 2002), their perceptions and experiences regarding cooperation with other businesses.
Part IV aimed at establishing the perceptions (“the individual respondent’s personal view of the world and definition of reality” as defined by Capon 2010, p.
178) of the respondents about the advantages and disadvantages that could result from cooperation. Questions in this part were asked to all respondents, that is, those who had already cooperated in the past, or not, and those who intended to cooperate in the future, or not.
In this section, perceptions regarding the advantages and disadvantages were established though closed questions, namely questions focusing on rank-order and questions using five-point Likert type scale items. The aim of the rank-order questions was to establish not only the importance of each item (answer choice) to the business, but also to compare multiple items against one another. It allowed not only data on the degree of importance, but also the extent to which they were important when related to each other. Thus, the respondents were invited to rank the advantages, from 1 to 4, in terms of importance to their businesses. The advantage that was perceived as being the most important to the business should be ranked as first and there onwards, until the one that was considered the least important. The respondents were also invited rank the disadvantages, from 1 to 4, where 1 was the most disadvantageous and 4 the least disadvantageous to their businesses.
There then followed a set of specific statements (five) regarding each previously identified advantage and disadvantage. The respondents were asked to indicate the extent to which they agreed with each statement based on 5 point Likert type scale.
The possible answers ranged from 1-strongly agree to 5-strongly disagree. The five point scales contained a neutral response (3=neither agree or disagree) which was considered appropriate because respondents may, legitimately, not know or not have any experience with regard to the research topic (Fowler 2002). Therefore, the neutral position enabled respondents to provide valid answers in spite of their lack of experience or opinion. Such 5-point scales were used therefore because they were considered to be appropriate because they had been used frequently in the past and were considered reliable (e.g. Oppenheim 1992). In developing ranking questions and scale measures (Likert type scales) the literature was screened to identify previously used items (in terms of advantages and disadvantages) in other studies of cooperation. These items were then adapted to this study and gathered into different groups. As referred to previously, a matching list of the questions with the literature review is presented in the Appendix II.
Drawing from this literature review, the statements used in this part of the questionnaire were grouped according to a classification suggested by Eason (1988) and also to the ‘logic’ recognised in the literature (Chapter 2) that there may be some tangible advantages/disadvantages as well as intangible ones. Thus, with regard to the advantages, considered to be the positive (potential) outcomes that can result from cooperation, the respondents were asked about whether they agreed with five statements for each of five different potential advantages of cooperation:
financial issues, productivity, quality and business performance. In the particular case of productivity, it was operationalized through scale items that referred “to the extent to which a firm produces outputs by using given inputs” (Farrel 1957 cited Oum et al. 2004, p. 845). Given this definition, a productivity gain can be achieved by reducing inputs, increasing outputs, or both (Oum et al. 2004, p. 845). In this study, the empahsis in terms of productivity was the use of more or less inputs (resources) to produce outputs, that is products/services or the offer of businesses.
Furthermore, disadvantages, also considered as the drawbacks of cooperation, were related to (potential) downsides of cooperation and/or to risks that were associated
with cooperation (Wood and Gray 1991; Burgers et al. 1993; Das and Teng 1998;
Barnir and Smith 2002). The disadvantages were considered in this research as they can reduce long-term performance of the businesses, particularly SMEs (Lohrke et al. 2006), and will make them hesitant to cooperate with others, unless they have a clear incentive to do so (Burgers et al. 1993). Disadvantages were categorised into four groups, namely ‘Worsen financial position’, ‘Loss of business operation control’, ‘Adverse relationships with other businesses’, and ‘Poor business performance’. These classifications also followed the ‘logic’ used in the classification of advantages that is ranging from more tangible to intangible ones.
Part V contained questions about the influences on their decision if they would be likely to cooperate with other businesses in the future. This part aimed to measure respondents’ perceptions and attitudes with regard to five groups of factors. They were: ‘The objectives for my business’, ‘My knowledge of the other business’,
‘My personal aims for my lifestyle’, ‘My perception of the person I am dealing with in the other business, and ‘My perception of the institutional environment’.
These factors and their dimensions were also drawn from the literature. Similar to the previous part of the questionnaire, perceptions were firstly measured though closed questions, namely rank-order to establish not only the importance of each item to the respondent, but also to compare multiple items against one another. It allowed not only measurement of the degree of importance, but also the extent to which they were important when related to each other in the context of the decision to cooperate. Secondly, perceptions and attitudes were measured through five-point Likert type scale items. This type of scale has been included to measure attitudes and perceptions, as suggested in the literature (Clark et al. 1998; Bryman 2004). For each group of influences, ten statements were included to measure attitudes and perceptions. Respondents were asked the extent to which they
‘Strongly Agreed’ or ‘Strongly Disagreed’ with each statement.
In addition, this part also contained a question, with ten statements, that referred to the respondents’ personality. Personality was also measured using agree/disagree five-point Likert type scale (Bateman and Crant 1993; Becherer and Maurer 1996).
Personality was included separately because it has also been identified in the
literature as a factor likely to have an influence on the decisions of owners and managers, in general. Thus, the aim in this research was to assess whether the decision to whether cooperate, or not, and cooperation seemed to be related to the personality of owners/managers of wine and tourism businesses. In order to provide the answer to this objective, respondents’ answers were then grouped through a hierarchical cluster analysis.
Finally, Part VI comprised personal factual questions about the respondents (Bryman 2004) to establish the number of years they had worked in the business, their current position in the business, age, gender, occupation and educational background.