Identifying and reducing response burdens in internet business surveys

Abstract

Response burden is of great concern in survey data collection activities. Despite extensive efforts on the part of data collection agencies to reduce the burden the problem seems to prevail. In this article we discuss how web surveys can be one way of reducing the burden in business surveys. We offer a perspective on response burden that is different from the one currently used and we include this conceptualisation into a model that links survey design and response quality to response burden. We describe some qualitative tests performed in Norwegian business surveys, which support the usefulness of our conceptual model.