Survey response rate levels and trends in organizational research
2008/08/01 by Yehuda Baruch, Brooks C. Holtom · 3,391 citations
Mathematics · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Data collection #Econometrics #Economics #Focus Groups and Qualitative Methods #Incentive #Mathematics #Non-response bias #Nonprofit Sector and Volunteering #Phone #Psychology #Response bias #Social psychology #Standard deviation #Statistics #Survey Methodology and Nonresponse
paper · doi:10.1177/0018726708094863
published in Human Relations 61(8), 1139-1160 (SAGE Publishing)
openalex publication_date 2008/08/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Abstract
This study examines the response rates for surveys used in organizational research. We analysed 1607 studies published in the years 2000 and 2005 in 17 refereed academic journals, and we identified 490 different studies that utilized surveys. We examined the response rates in these studies, which covered more than 100,000 organizations and 400,000 individual respondents. The average response rate for studies that utilized data collected from individuals was 52.7 percent with a standard deviation of 20.4, while the average response rate for studies that utilized data collected from organizations was 35.7 percent with a standard deviation of 18.8. Key insights from further analysis include relative stability in response rates in the past decade and higher response rates for journals published in the USA. The use of incentives was not found to be related to response rates and, for studies of organizations, the use of reminders was associated with lower response rates. Also, electronic data collection efforts (e.g. email, phone, web) resulted in response rates as high as or higher than traditional mail methodology. We discuss a number of implications and recommendations.
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