Predicting potential respondents' decision to participate in web surveys

Web-­‐based surveys have received increasing attention given the potential benefits of convenience, low cost, and time saving compared with other survey modes. However, the use of the internet to collect data is restrained by the lack of willingness of people to respond. The objective of this research is to expose the determinants of intention to participate in a web survey. Based on the theory of reasoned action, this research proposes a model encompassing attitude toward a web survey, social norm, moral obligation, trust in the sponsor of a survey, topic involvement, topic sensitivity, and reputation of the sponsor to predict a potential respondent’s web survey participation intention. We examine the proposed model using a structural equation modelling procedure. The results indicate that attitude, social norm, moral obligation, reputation of sponsor, and trust in the sponsor exert positive effects on participation intentions in web surveys; attitude mediates the relationship between topic involvement and participation intention. However, topic sensitivity of the web survey has no effect either on attitude or on participation intention. Keywords: web survey; survey service; survey design; survey participation; response rate; data collection. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Fang, J. and Wen, C. (2012) ‘Predicting potential respondents’ decision to participate in web surveys’, Int. J. Services Technology and Management, Vol. 18, Nos. 1⁄2, pp.16–32. Biographical notes: Jiaming Fang is an Assistant Professor at the School of Management and Economics, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. His research interests include e-­‐service, consumer behaviour, and cognitive processes underlying consumer choice on the web. His research has been published in such academic journals as Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, Computers in Human Behavior, International Transactions on Systems Science and Applications, and Tsinghua Science and Technology. Chao Wen is an Assistant Professor at the School of Business, Eastern Illinois University. He earned his PhD degree from University of North Texas, MS degree from the University of Electronic Sciences and Technology of China. He has published in the Journal of Computer Information Systems and Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. He has more than ten conference proceedings and presentations. His research interests include e-­‐commerce, consumer behaviour, service operations, statistics education, and supply chain management. 1 Introduction Web surveys are surveys conducted online using computer and communications technology. Compared with the traditional paper-­‐based surveys, web surveys have several advantages (Bosnjak et al., 2005; Fang et al., 2009). However, the validity of web survey results may be reduced because of the coverage limitation and the lack of willingness of people to respond. Coverage limitations could be alleviated by using mixed-­‐mode design (Sala and Lynn, 2009), hence, low response rate of web survey becomes a more prominent concern (Fan and Yan, 2010; Millar and Dillman, 2011). Therefore, it is important to fully understand the likely mechanism underlying the non-­‐response in web surveys. With a better understanding of the decision making process of potential respondents, practitioners and scholars can identify why individuals comply with or reject requests to participate web surveys and can manipulate some factors to increase the response rate. Numerous studies have been conducted to explore the factors affecting participation willingness of web surveys, but most of these studies only inspected one or a few response-­‐enhancing survey design factors and did not identify the psychological determinants involved in a decision against participation. These studies are limited in helping to theoretically understand the psychological process in (non) compliance to survey request (Bosnjak et al., 2005). Thus, there is a need to move beyond these studies and focus on respondent behaviour (Helgeson et al., 2002). A better understanding of response behaviour can be obtained by studying factors such as perceptions and attitudes that underlie survey response (Wijnen et al., 2007). To our knowledge, little research has been conducted from this perspective. By applying a psychological theory of human action, the decision-­‐making process of participating in a web survey can be understood most appropriately (Bosnjak et al., 2005). Responding to suggestions by Bosnjak et al. (2005), we proposed a research model from a psychological perspective in order to better understand the psychological determinants in (non) compliance to survey request. Founded on the theory of reasoned action (TRA), this study mainly examines how psychological factors such as survey topic (e.g., topic involvement and topic sensitivity)and survey sponsorship (e.g., trust in the sponsor of a survey and reputation of the sponsor) influence the participation intention. The remainder of the article is structured as follows: we begin with a review of the existing empirical evidence on factors affecting response rates in web surveys. The next three sections present the research hypotheses, research methodology and data analysis results, respectively. The paper concludes with theoretical and practical implications of the findings, and recommendations for further research. 2 Theoretical backgrounds As an easy-­‐to-­‐use, low-­‐cost, and highly flexible survey method, web survey is becoming increasingly popular (Bachmann et al., 1999; Cobanoglu et al., 2001; Fang and Shao, 2007). The advent of web survey is believed to be the next significant development in the survey methodology tradition after the random sampling in the 1940s and the telephone survey in the 1970s (Dillman, 2000). A large number of studies have been conducted to ascertain potential factors affecting web surveys. Roughly, these factors can be categorised into non-­‐psychological and psychological factors (Bosnjak et al., 2005). Non-­‐psychological factors affecting response rates in web surveys can be further classified into survey design factors and demographic factors. A large volume of survey studies are striving for response maximisation by varying survey design factors. (e.g., Christian et al., 2007; Deutskens et al., 2004; Göritz, 2006; Heerwegh and Loosveldt, 2007) In general, visually-­‐presented questionnaires, personalised salutations, incentives, number of contacts and precontacts are factors closely associated with higher response rates. Nevertheless, these studies aimed at increasing response rates by using post hoc analysis, and thus the opportunity of chance findings is increased. In addition, they are also rather limited in helping to theoretically comprehend the antecedent psychological processes resulting in (non)compliance to survey requests (Bosnjak et al., 2005). Compared to the research involving inspecting non-­‐psychological factors, far fewer studies to date have explored the factors from psychological perspectives. Bosnjak et al. (2005) initially utilised the extended version of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) by incorporating moral obligation into their model to predict the number of participations in a web survey. They revealed that all coefficients of the four variables (attitude, subject norm, perceived behaviour control, and moral obligation) were significant. Fang et al. (2009) inspected the effects of innovativeness and trust on web survey participations and the results showed that these two factors could significantly affect web survey participation intention. Recently, Fang et al. (2012) examined the effects of the reputation of a survey’s provider and the reputation of a survey’s sponsor on the willingness of potential respondents to participate in a web survey. Considering that the technology acceptance model (TAM), the TRA, and the TPB all concur behavioural intention, the extent to which an individual intends to perform specific behaviour is a critical variable in determining future behaviour. We anticipate the intention of a potential respondent to participate in a web survey leads to a subsequent action and a positive association exists between the intention and actual behaviour. In essence, intention reflects the extent to which people are willing to perform something. This relation has also been documented by many prior studies (e.g., Bosnjak et al., 2005; Pavlou and Fygenson, 2006). Therefore, to better understand the non-­‐response mechanisms, it is sensible to identify the factors affecting potential respondents’ intention to participate in web surveys. Among all of the potential factors affecting response rates, survey topic and survey sponsor ought to first attract potential respondents’ attention (they always appear on a welcome page or in an e-­‐mail survey invitation or survey banner ad). Previous research indicates that information acquired earlier in the decision process plays a much more significant role than information acquired later (Hoyer and MacInnis, 2010). It is expected that potential respondents formalise their initial participation intention or willingness mainly based on the assessment of these two factors. Hence, survey topic (topic involvement and topic sensitivity) and survey sponsor (trust and reputation) should exert substantial impacts on the decision of web survey participation. However, to our best knowledge, existing research has not yet explored whether and how these two factors can exert influences on survey participation willingness theoretically. Obviously, this is a crucial omission and an important topic to be investigated. Additional theoretical insights are needed to understand the role of topic and sponsor on participation willingness. This study attempts to fill the gap by proposing and empirically testing a model incorporating these two factors to explain and predict potential respondents’ decision to participate in web surveys. 3 Research framework and hypotheses 3.1 The research framework The TRA model provides a background for understanding the relationship between attitudes, intentions, and behaviours. Hox et al. (1995) used this model to specify psychological constructs and processes leading to a decision for or against participation in mail surveys. This model encompasses attitudes toward the behaviour and the subjective norm mediated by intention to influence the behaviour in question (Bosnjak et al., 2005). Bagozzi et al. (2000) also shows that the TRA model can be used to predict behaviour in different cultures. To keep in line with the prior research, TRA is also used as the fundamental model in this study. The model is extended in this study by adding several constructs including moral obligation proposed by Bosnjak et al. (2005), topic involvement, topic sensitivity, trust in sponsor of survey, and reputation of the sponsor. Given that the demographic variables such as age, gender, education, and web experience may exert effects on participation intention; these variables are also included as control variables to avoid potential influence on intention to participate in web surveys. Figure 1 depicts the research model. Attitude is defined as the positive or negative feelings toward a web survey. Subjective norm refers to the perception of social pressure by the potential respondents when they are required to participate in web surveys. It can be interpreted as whether a potential respondent’s perception of the likelihood of participation in a web survey is encouraged or not by others. Moral obligations are defined as the extent to which an individual feel morally obligate to participate in web surveys. According to Bosnjak et al. (2005), moral obligation reflects internalised moral rules, not perceptions of others’ ideas about what one should do. Bosnjak and Batinic (2002) reveal that the moral obligation plays a vital role in predicting the willingness to participate in web surveys. Since the effects of the attitude, subjective norm, and moral obligations have been tested empirically (e.g., Bosnjak et al., 2005; Fang et al., 2009), there is no need for hypotheses about their main effects on participation willingness. Instead, the following several hypotheses involving topic involvement, topic sensitivity, trust, and reputation are proposed.