Background

The usefulness of the information derived from a survey depends on the wording of the questions that are asked, the information guides that are provided to the respondents, and the professionalism of the interview teams.

In Chapter 2, we provide a general outline of the nature of the survey and its operations. Here we list the set of questions that were sent out to the sample of companies included in the survey and a brief outline of some of the definitions that were provided as a guide to the respondents.

A successful survey requires the development of questions that respondents willingly answer, that are clear, and that do not pose an onerous response burden. For that reason, preproduction tests were conducted with potential respondents. These meetings taught us that companies were willing to talk about their major innovations because they took pride in them, especially individuals who were closely associated with the innovation process. The title of the individual who could answer detailed questions about innovation varied firm by firm. In some cases, this would be the R&D manager; in other cases, it would be the vice president in charge of production engineering, or a vice president in charge of new product development. But after we had outlined the nature of the survey, our main company contact was able to direct us to the individual in the firm who could answer our questions about the innovation process at that particular firm — and these individuals had detailed firsthand knowledge about product and process innovation.