The Rate of Return of Postal Reviews in Marketing Research in the Light of Experiences of Polish University Professors
Abstract
Postal reviews are widely used in social sciences research because of their great popularity both with respondents and researchers. In Poland postal reviews are used less often than other methods of communication. A low or very low percentage of returned questionnaires is most often mentioned as the reason. This opinion results first of all from not knowing that condition the rate of their return, and particularly from not knowing the cultural peculiarity of Poland in this respect. The sources of this state should be looked for in underestimating the importance of the problem in academic handbooks that only popularise and deepen negative stereotypes about postal review, and in a small number of specialist publications on the variables that are significant for the rate of return in the case of Polish population.
In order to fill the existing gap in the knowledge of peculiarity as far as the reaction of potential respondents in Poland is concerned to marketing research with the use of postal review it was decided that opinions and experiences connected with postal review should be collected and analysed. They came from people who occupy themselves in marketing research, first of all in its theoretical aspect, but also having practical knowledge in this field. 89 professors were chosen who specialise in the field of marketing. They were sent aquestionnaire, specially worked out for the study. The questions were concerned, among others, with the peculiar character of postal reviews done by those people. The rate of return after two contacts was 43.7%.
The article contains a specification of the rate of return of questionnaires depending on the used factors of review personalisation, financial gratification, the number and form of contacts with respondents and factors connected with the specificity of sending and returning the research materials by respondents. The obtained results are compared and analysed against the background of results of research done in the West. These specifications and analyses may be a good source of hypotheses for future research of cultural conditioning and combination of factors that allow maximising the rate of return of postal review questionnaires in Poland.
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