Article
Invitation Design Elements in Web Surveys – Can One Ignore Interactions?
This paper investigates the effects on response and breakoff rates in Web surveys of e-mail invitation design elements including: subject line, estimated survey duration, and invitation length. The analysis is focused not only on the main effects, but also on an issue which has not yet been studied systematically: interaction effects between these design elements. A factorial complete block design Web experiment – among students, faculty, and administrative staff at the Higher School of Economics in Russia – varying the estimated length of the survey (10 vs. 20 minutes), subject line (formal “monitoring” vs. informal “help” request), and invitation length (short vs. long) was conducted. We discuss the results of the experiment and argue that we should not ignore interaction effects between design elements to understand response in Web surveys more thoroughly.
The objective of this paper is to gain more evidence regarding how the design of the rating scales and open-ended questions influence data quality in Web surveys of MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) students. We present the results of four full-factorial randomized experiments that investigate the impact of the following factors: 1) order of response options; 2) user interface for rating questions 3) layout of question's options; and 4) size of answer boxes in open-ended questions. We found that responses to scalar questions with ascending (from negative to positive) or descending (from positive to negative) order of response options do not differ substantially. The use of the radio button format allows a reduction in the percentage of respondents who choose the “Don't know” option and makes responding to questions less challenging in comparison with slider and text box interfaces. There are no significant differences in the answers of respondents who completed questionnaires with a vertical or horizontal orientation of the questions' options. In addition, respondents who answer the questions with larger answer boxes are more likely to write longer comments.
This paper empirically shows that the market size of the media sector is important for freedom of the press, in addition to the wealth of the country and type of political regime. I estimated freedom of the press using three variables: size of the media market, GDP per capita and the type of political regime. Freedom of the press was estimated using data for 48 countries from 2006 till 2009. The most important variable influencing freedom of the press is the type of political regime, but the size of the media market is also important. In countries with a larger media market, the press is freer
This paper explores the moderator effect of firm size on the relation between different intangible resources and companies' performance. By analysing small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and large companies, the authors examine the differences in the employment of six types of intangible resources: human resources, management resource capabilities, innovation and internal process capabilities, customer loyalty and networking capabilities. Dummy regression is applied to establish the differential effect in the impact of these intangibles on firm performance, measured by return on assets (ROA). This study provides econometric justification using a database of more than 1,400 European public companies. The time period for the investigated data covers ten years, from 2004 to 2013. The findings revealed that SMEs have less endowment of almost all of the analysed intangible resources. At the same time, in comparison with large companies, SMEs benefit more from developing human resources, innovation and internal process capabilities.
In 2006, Russia amended its competition law and added the concepts of ‘collective dominance’ and its abuse. This was seen as an attempt to address the common problem of ‘conscious parallelism’ among firms in concentrated industries. Critics feared that the enforcement of this provision would become tantamount to government regulation of prices. In this paper we examine the enforcement experience to date, looking especially closely at sanctions imposed on firms in the oil industry. Some difficulties and complications experienced in enforcement are analysed, and some alternative strategies for addressing anticompetitive behaviour in concentrated industries discussed.
This article is talking about state management and cultural policy, their nature and content in term of the new tendency - development of postindustrial society. It mentioned here, that at the moment cultural policy is the base of regional political activity and that regions can get strong competitive advantage if they are able to implement cultural policy successfully. All these trends can produce elements of new economic development.