Sensitivity of Electronic Commerce Measurement to the Survey Instrument
研究电子商务调查结果对测量工具的敏感性,比较不同调查模式(尤其是网络问卷与电话、邮件)的影响,发现电子商务话题对问卷形式敏感,需谨慎解释调查结果。
Sample surveys are increasingly being used to measure electronic commerce activities. They often play a key role in efforts to describe and understand e-commerce phenomena, particularly in respect to attitudes, motives, and intentions. This paper studies establishment surveys of e-commerce, focusing especially on the sensitivity of the results to the measurement instrument. Several survey modes are compared, with special attention to the Web as a possible alternative to more expensive telephone and mail data-collection techniques. Controlled experiments show that e-commerce survey topics are sensitive to the measurement instrument, and especially to the Web questionnaire. In consequence, precise elaboration of the methodology is important when interpreting survey findings related to e-commerce.