As a population of interest we had such people living in (Northern) Europe that
might invest some of their savings in shares of publicly traded companies. We
approached 300 individuals per four companies from different industries (1200 in total),
listed in Helsinki Stock Exchange, Finland: the individuals were randomly sampled
from a list of such Finnish shareholders of the companies who had become their
shareholders during the past 1.5 years. The lists were provided by the companies. The
individuals were sent a survey questionnaire by mail, with a prepaid reply envelope. Of
the usable questionnaires, 400 were returned, yielding a fairly good response rate of
36.7 per cent. The eventual sample size was adequate for the main data analysis
method used: PLS path modelling (see Chin and Newsted, 1999). We contacted the
participants in the summer of 2007. The contacted individuals were informed of a
possibility to win small prizes in a lottery (of three prizes in total, with value of
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approximately 100 euros each), arranged among those who would return the
questionnaire.