We chose to conduct a mailed questionnaire
survey for two purposes: (1) our budget for the
execution of this part of research was limited,
and (2) a mailed questionnaire survey gives the
respondent the possibility of answering at their
own leisure, therefore it is not as intrusive as other
types of surveys. The nature of the survey was
cross-sectional, meaning that our intention was to
collect data at one point in time. The population
we wanted to study was the R&D, marketing
and management people within Slovenian SMEs
that conducted NPD processes. In a multistage
procedure we identified organisations that fitted
our criteria, and afterwards obtained names and
addresses of individuals from marketing, R&D
and management functions. 197 companies
involved in NPD were contacted in order to
complete the questionnaire. They were randomly
chosen out of SMEs involved in NPD, with the
help of statistical programs IPIS and iBON, that
group data on Slovenian companies. The data
collection was carried out in November 2007
when we sent out the first questionnaires. After
two weeks, we did a follow up by sending e-mails
and after another two weeks we telephoned the
respondents to remind them of the questionnaire.
The effective response rate was 26%.
All the items used for measuring the
defined constructs in the questionnaire were
measured on a 7-point Likert scale and were taken
from well-established and validated scales (for
details se [1], [7] and [15]).