IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/jorsoc/v57y2006i10d10.1057_palgrave.jors.2602053.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The optimum prepaid monetary incentives for mail surveys

Author

Listed:
  • J Saunders

    (Aston University)

  • D Jobber

    (Bradford University)

  • V Mitchell

    (City University)

Abstract

Increasing mail-survey response using monetary incentives is a proven, but not always cost-effective method in every population. This paper tackles the questions of whether it is worth using monetary incentives and the size of the inducement by testing a logit model of the impact of prepaid monetary incentives on response rates in consumer and organizational mail surveys. The results support their use and show that the inducement value makes a significant impact on the effect size. Importantly, no significant differences were found between consumer and organizational populations. A cost–benefit model is developed to estimate the optimum incentive when attempting to minimize overall survey costs for a given sample size.

Suggested Citation

  • J Saunders & D Jobber & V Mitchell, 2006. "The optimum prepaid monetary incentives for mail surveys," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 57(10), pages 1224-1230, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:jorsoc:v:57:y:2006:i:10:d:10.1057_palgrave.jors.2602053
    DOI: 10.1057/palgrave.jors.2602053
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/palgrave.jors.2602053
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/palgrave.jors.2602053?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. O'Keefe, Terrence B. & Homer, Pamela M., 1987. "Selecting cost-effective survey methods: Foot-in-door and prepaid monetary incentives," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 365-376, August.
    2. Jobber, David & Birro, Karl & Sanderson, Stuart M., 1988. "A factorial investigation of methods of stimulating response to a mail survey," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 158-164, November.
    3. Braunsberger, Karin & Gates, Roger & Ortinau, David J., 2005. "Prospective respondent integrity behavior in replying to direct mail questionnaires: a contributor in overestimating nonresponse rates," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 260-267, March.
    4. Armstrong, J. Scott & Yokum, J. Thomas, 1994. "Effectiveness of Monetary Incentives: Mail Surveys to Members of Multinational Professional Groups," MPRA Paper 81691, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Bellizzi, Joseph A. & Hite, Robert E., 1986. "Face-to-face advance contact and monetary incentives effects on mail survey return rates, response differences, and survey costs," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 99-106, February.
    6. Armstrong, J. Scott, 1975. "Monetary incentives in mail surveys," MPRA Paper 81695, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Harris, Lloyd C., 2008. "Fraudulent Return Proclivity: An Empirical Analysis," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 84(4), pages 461-476.
    2. Penn, Jerrod & Hu, Wuyang & Alfaro-Inocente, Adriana & Bastola, Sapana, 2020. "Payment versus Charitable Donations to Attract Producer Survey Participation," 2020 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, Kansas City, Missouri 304329, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    3. Agnieszka Chidlow & Pervez N. Ghauri, 2014. "What incentives are being used by International Business Researchers in Their Surveys? A Review," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series wp1086, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jobber, David & Saunders, John & Mitchell, Vince-Wayne, 2004. "Prepaid monetary incentive effects on mail survey response," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 21-25, January.
    2. Agnieszka Chidlow & Pervez N. Ghauri, 2014. "What incentives are being used by International Business Researchers in Their Surveys? A Review," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series wp1086, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    3. Rebecca L. Collins & Phyllis L. Ellickson & Ron D. Hays & Daniel F. Mccaffrey, 2000. "Effects of Incentive Size and Timing on Response Rates to a Follow-Up Wave of a Longitudinal Mailed Survey," Evaluation Review, , vol. 24(4), pages 347-363, August.
    4. Rick Newby & John Watson & David Woodliff, 2003. "SME Survey Methodology: Response Rates, Data Quality, and Cost Effectiveness," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 28(2), pages 163-172, March.
    5. Arvydas Jadevicius & Brian Sloan & Andrew Brown, 2013. "Property Market Modelling and Forecasting: A Case for Simplicity," ERES eres2013_10, European Real Estate Society (ERES).
    6. Collin Weigel & Laura A. Paul & Paul J. Ferraro & Kent D. Messer, 2021. "Challenges in Recruiting U.S. Farmers for Policy‐Relevant Economic Field Experiments," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 43(2), pages 556-572, June.
    7. Michael W. Robbins & Geoffrey Grimm & Brian Stecher & V. Darleen Opfer, 2018. "A Comparison of Strategies for Recruiting Teachers Into Survey Panels," SAGE Open, , vol. 8(3), pages 21582440187, August.
    8. Armstrong, J. Scott & Yokum, J. Thomas, 1994. "Effectiveness of Monetary Incentives: Mail Surveys to Members of Multinational Professional Groups," MPRA Paper 81691, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Uri Gneezy & Pedro Rey-Biel, "undated". "On the Relative Efficiency of Performance Pay and Social Incentives," Working Papers 585, Barcelona School of Economics.
    10. Li, Julie Juan, 2008. "How to retain local senior managers in international joint ventures: The effects of alliance relationship characteristics," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 61(9), pages 986-994, September.
    11. Michael Bowling, J. & Rimer, Barbara K. & Lyons, Elizabeth J. & Golin, Carol E. & Frydman, Gilles & Ribisl, Kurt M., 2006. "Methodologic challenges of e-health research," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 390-396, November.
    12. Jobber, David & Saunders, John & Mitchell, Vince-Wayne, 2004. "Prepaid monetary incentive effects on mail survey response," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 57(4), pages 347-350, April.
    13. Allyson L. Holbrook & Isabel C. Farrar & Susan J. Popkin, 2006. "Surveying a Chicago Public Housing Development," Evaluation Review, , vol. 30(6), pages 779-802, December.
    14. Yuan Li & Yi Liu & Feng Ren, 2007. "Product innovation and process innovation in SOEs: evidence from the Chinese transition," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 63-85, April.
    15. JS Armstrong, 2005. "Review of Don A. Dillman's Mail and Telephone Surveys, New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1978," General Economics and Teaching 0502043, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Aleksandra Gajic & David Cameron & Jeremiah Hurley, 2012. "The cost-effectiveness of cash versus lottery incentives for a web-based, stated-preference community survey," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 13(6), pages 789-799, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:jorsoc:v:57:y:2006:i:10:d:10.1057_palgrave.jors.2602053. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.