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Why should I? : Employing Social Psychology to Increase Cooperation from Large Survey Establishments
*Jaki McCarthy, National Agricultural Statistics Service 


Keywords: compliance principles, non-response, survey cooperation

For many establishment surveys there are often a small group of establishments that are large, complex or critical to the statistics being generated from the survey. Due to their importance, these establishments also often appear in the samples for many surveys. Before any data can be collected from these operations, their cooperation must be enlisted. Given that statistical agencies cannot provide a commensurate immediate benefit to a survey respondent for the effort they must expend to report, respondents are cooperating for other reasons. Research in social psychology identifying factors that may influence survey participation have been discussed with respect to household survey participation (see e.g. Groves, Cialdini and Couper, 1992). However, these principles can be viewed differently with respect to large complex establishments, considering both the establishment and the individual person providing the data. This paper will discuss how survey organizations can use these principles to aid in motivating establishments to cooperate with survey data requests.