This paper is based on 12 years experience of research and consultancy for the UK public sector in 'business markets' - those areas of public policy which are directed at, or derived from, business establishments. Examples of such policy areas are: regional policies, job creation, export marketing support, equal opportunities, and vocational education and training. Specifically, the paper deals with some issues arising from over 12 years work for the Department of Employment and the Manpower Services Commission, the government agency responsible for vocational education and training, and for employment services. This area has been selected as that in which our work has given us most extensive and intensive insights into policy issues - frequently based on longer experience than that of the officials commissioning the work.
Those who have been keeping up-to-date with developments in information science and technology, and have access to the enormously expanded volume of information now available, can be forgiven for wishing sometimes that they knew the spell which would make it stop. There is no such spell: only a better understanding of how to make information the servant, not the master, of the researcher and the manager.
Like most European countries, Britain has attempted in recent years to attack discrimination against women, both by introducing penalties for discrimination, and by taking positive action to relieve disabilities which cause underachievement by women in society. The survey now reported was envisaged as a vehicle for providing such essential informations about the employment of women.
The starting point for our discussion was the recognition that social change is proceeding faster than at any time in human history. Politicians, administrators, and those involved in the political process are therefore like managers of industrial and commercial establishments in this respect: their 'microcosm' of the world around them, being dependent on previous experience and earlier learning, risks loss of touch with the real world. The role of social researchers is to help those involved in the political process to improve the correspondence between the microcosm and reality. Social research can perform this role in two ways. The first, which is the approach mainly adopted in the papers of this seminar, is the description and analysis of social attitudes and behaviour, over time. The second, which received little attention, is the evaluation of public policy, of the actions of government, extending possibly to the evaluation of social experiments. The second role is perhaps more closely.
This paper concentrates on one particular area, that of employment policy research. With unemployment in Europe, and in the United States, now at between 5 and 6% of the labour force, measures to combat the economic and social scourge of unemployment are clearly critical to public policies of EEC member states, as well as of the US.
The British Department of the Environment is conducting a programme of 22 research projects on the problem of the regeneration of the inner areas of British cities. The IFF project with which the paper is concerned is on the expansion of employment opportunities in the inner city, and involves detailed study of location decisions by manufacturing industry and commerce, and how these might be influenced by central and local government policy. The paper describes the way in which research projects were commissioned and controlled.
This paper is about some of the practical problems, and opportunities, of quantitative research in non-domestic markets. It deals with day-to-day questions of universe definitions, sampling frames, sample sizes and fractions, grossing up to universe levels, analysis and weighting, and finally the effect of sampling and field design on the cost of industrial marketing research. Most of the examples used are of cross-industry surveys, but the principles apply equally to projects in single industries.
This paper presents data from two surveys conducted in the Spring and the Autumn of 1972 plus three case histories. The Spring Survey studies the role of sampling in industrial market research in the U.K. as employed by the manufacturing and service industries themselves. The Autumn survey supplemented- the Spring survey and confined itself to re-contacting some of the earlier respondents to assess the size of their industrial market research budgets, the use of their industrial market research budgets, the use of market research companies and consultants and the sampling frames known to have been' used by the market research companies and consultants on behalf of the market researchers in industry. The paper finishes with three case histories. The first case history deals with a study of the micrographics market using a sample of industrial and commercial establishments drawn from local taxation lists. The second case history concerns itself with a sample of small businesses-drawn-from the Yellow Pages unduplicated lists. And the third, and final, case history covers minority sampling in agriculture employing the mailing list of a farming journal.
The Stapel Scale is the ideal scale for sampling survey work from a number of important aspects. It requires no effort to produce this scale; it is already printed on a card. It does not vary from time to time or from country to country. It is easy to operate in the field. It is readily comprehensible, so far as the vast majority of respondents are concerned. It is clear what the scale is about, i.e. the subject matter in the light of the questions put in conjunction with the scale. For instance, "Where on this scale would you rate the flavour of strawberries?" or "Where on this scale would you rate going to France for a holiday for a fortnight ?". Moreover, the scale does not change its characteristics over time and, therefore, it can be used from one year to another. All these advantages are of great importance.
The Stapel Scale is the ideal scale for sampling survey work from a number of important aspects. It requires no effort to produce this scale; it is already printed on a card. It does not vary from time to time or from country to country. It is easy to operate in the field. It is readily comprehensible, so far as the vast majority of respondents are concerned. It is clear what the scale is about, i.e. the subject matter in the light of the questions put in conjunction with the scale. For instance, "Where on this scale would you rate the flavour of strawberries?" or "Where on this scale would you rate going to France for a holiday for a fortnight ?". Moreover, the scale does not change its characteristics over time and, therefore, it can be used from one year to another. All these advantages are of great importance.