After receiving the surveys, we contacted the alumni office to seek information relating to any potential systematic demographical differences between respondents and non-respondents. we were informed that the demographic
characteristics of non-respondents were similar in age, years since graduation, gender, types of jobs, and other characteristics our respondents. to
of the surveys that were returned, 89 were not usable for reasons such as employees indicating that they worked in very small businesses (often 5 or less people), they had been with their employers for a short period of time, they were currently unemployed, or because they provided incomplete data. After eliminating these unusable surveys, the resulting usable sample size was 244 respondents (12.2% response rate). Although somewhat low, this final usable response rate is consistent with previous studies utilizing alumni survey research sampling (e.g., Seibert, crant, & Kraimer, 1g99)