RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
4.8 INSTRUMENTS OF DATA COLLECTION
4.8.1 Questionnaire development
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current study’s final sample size of 307 SMCs measures well above the trend from previous studies.
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administered to the study participants. The questionnaire was divided into five sections, which were preceded by a preliminary section that sought the consent of the respondents to participate in the study. General background information of the companies and responding officers were collected in Section A. This included companies’ experience/years in business, Grade and class of works on cidb RoC, number of employees and their highest level of qualification, and responding officers’ designations. Section B and Section C sought to enquire about the SMCs participation in public-sector Targeted Procurement projects and contractor development programmes respectively. In Section D, the respondents were first asked to rate the development benefits derived from participating in Targeted Procurement contracts, followed by the quality of supply chain relationships experienced in the Targeted Procurement process.
This section was project-specific where the SMCs were asked to identify one Targeted Procurement project executed in the last five years, which they used to answer all questions in the section. Finally, information on the companies’ growth performance was collected in Section E. Responses were mostly subjective and measured on four or five-point Likert-like scales. Further details about the research constructs and the variables used in the questionnaire survey are provided in Section 4.8.1.2.
4.8.1.1 Pre-test of the questionnaire
Fellow and Liu (2008) and Saunders et al. (2009) suggested that the research instrument (questionnaire in this study) should be piloted to improve the quality and suitability of the collected data for analysis. Piloting of the questionnaire was done by sending copies of the final draft to seventeen contractors within the study population, and three academics with research interests in procurement and enterprise development as recommended by Xiaopeng and Pheng (2013) and Zhang (2011). This was done to confirm the simplicity of the questions, ease of reading and to ascertain the time required to complete the questionnaire. Out of the twenty copies of questionnaire sent out for piloting, five responses with useful suggestions were received, which were incorporated into the questionnaire before it was administered to the participants. Two questionnaires were also self-administered which allowed for interaction and immediate feedback. Approval from the university Ethics in Research Committee was also received on 13 April 2016, ahead of the start of data collection (see Appendix A4).
4.8.1.2 Measures and variables of research constructs used in the questionnaire design The research variables used in designing the questionnaire survey for this study were obtained though the extensive review of extant literature presented in Chapter Two. The three constructs
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of the study with their variables were also presented in Chapter Three where the conceptual framework was developed. This section provides further details on the research constructs and the variables used in the questionnaire survey.
Targeted Procurement Strategies
The variables for Targeted Procurement strategies as identified in the literature are (cidb, 2008b; Letchmiah, 2012; SANS, 2003, 2004; Watermeyer, 2000, 2005): unbundling of contracts, mandatory subcontracting, preferencing, third-party management, tendering equity and accelerated rotations. The respondents were asked to indicate the Targeted Procurement strategies that is frequently used on public-sector projects they have executed, using a five- point Likert scale ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (always).
Supply chain relationship quality
This study adopted thirteen assessment criteria for relationship quality adapted from Meng et al.’s (2011) supply chain relationship maturity model. The thirteen assessment sub-criteria classified into seven main criteria used in this study comprise of: Procurement (selection criteria, procurement method, form of contract), Objectives alignment (objectives alignment &
benefits, continuity of work), Communication (information exchange, learning and innovation sharing, cost data transparency), Collaboration (working relationship), Risk allocation (risk sharing & allocation, balance of risk and reward), Problem-solving (problem-solving effectiveness), and Trust (confidence in others’ behaviour). Using the relationship quality assessment criteria, the participants were asked to rate the quality of relationship experienced in the Targeted Procurement process (between SMCs and other supply chain parties) which was measured on a four-point Likert scale ranging. Scores ranging between 1 and 4 (the progression of the relationship through the maturity levels) was assigned based on the criteria and component that best fits the respondent’s project scenario. A score tending towards 4 will indicate a higher quality of relationship (close long-term collaboration) than a score that tends towards 1 (arms-length adversarial).
SMC Development
This study adopted multiple economic and social indicators to measure SMC growth performance and development in line with majority of empirical studies on firm growth that used multiple dependent variables (Kiviluoto et al., 2011). The economic indicators of SMC development used in this study are (Abu Bakar et al., 2011, 2012; Ofori and Chan, 2000;
Teruel-Carrizosa, 2006; Tucker et al., 2015): Turnover, Profits, Assets – plant and equipment,
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and Number of permanent skilled employees. Raw data for a five-year period (2011 – 2015) were obtained from the respondents which was then aggregated and converted into five-point Likert scale items based on the classification for construction SMEs by the National Small Business Act, No. 26 of 2003. This was in line with previous growth studies that designed questionnaires with lagged dependent variables or respondents being asked to account for their growth over a certain number of years (Shepherd and Wiklund, 2009), mostly one to three or five-year periods (Delmar et al., 2003; Kiviluoto et al., 2011). McKelvie and Wiklund (2010) asserted that the effect of time is important for understanding how new and small firms in particular, change and grow over time. Moreover, using aggregate values in calculating growth is preferred, since growth does not follow any linear pattern (Achtenhagen et al., 2010; Garnsey et al., 2006) which could be especially problematic, for example where differences between first and last year sizes are used (Weinzimmer et al., 1998). Davis et al. (1996) also proposed using firms’ aggregate size for classification.
Social indicators of SMC development comprise of: skills development, joint venture partnerships, skills transfer, application of innovation and technology, and advancement on the cidb RoC. These were measured using five-point Likert scales ranging from 1 (very low) to 5 (very high). These indicators were employed because they are aligned to the cidb’s main requirements for progressing through the cidb contractor grading system, as well as the core objectives of the National Contractor Development Programme framework in South Africa (DPW and cidb, 2011). Moreover, the researcher engaged in critical reflection on the choice and operationalization of growth variables, based on the theoretical reasoning driving the study, to select relevant growth measures that represented an outcome that could be meaningful to practitioners (Achtenhagen et al., 2010).
4.8.1.3 Questionnaire administration and collection
The questionnaire survey is the most common method of collecting quantitative data in the social sciences, because it is a structured means of data collection from a large population (Blaxter et al., 2006; Creswell, 2014; Saunders et al., 2009). The questionnaire survey has been described as a simple technique that allows respondents to compare and establish relationships among the research variables (Saunders et al., 2009) by ranking questions using numerical scales (Creswell and Plano Clark, 2011). A questionnaire survey may be provided to respondents in different ways (for example, it may be sent in the post, provided as an online/internet survey, or self-administered), and the choice of the most appropriate depends on the accessibility of the targeted participants (Saunders et al., 2009). Given the geographical
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spread of the SMCs that constituted the focus of the study, an online/internet-based survey (SurveyMonkey Inc.) was primarily employed to reach as many participants as possible across the seven provinces of South Africa. Moreover, the online system afforded the researcher easier access to majority of the participants, who also had quick and easy access to complete the survey whenever it suited them. Although web-based surveys often encounter low response rates (Archer, 2008; Wiseman, 2003), other benefits include ease of sending reminders, lower cost, and built-in characteristics that make data cleaning easier (Boyer et al., 2010; Dillman et al., 2009; Israel, 2011). The online survey was conducted between August 2016 and February 2017, with follow-up reminder emails sent during this period.
A smaller group of 43 SMCs, also within the sample frame, that agreed to participate in a self- administered survey, were also surveyed face-to-face. These were SME contractors in the supply chain of a state-owned entity in South Africa with major infrastructure projects across the country. The questionnaires were administered in three phases to three different teams of SMCs. The first two teams were surveyed at Mthatha and Libode in Eastern Cape on 25th August; while a third team of women SME contractors were surveyed on 26th August at Port St. Johns, also in the Eastern Cape. The questionnaire administration period did not go without some challenges, for example, a few participants opted out of the study, some emails bounced, while others responded bitterly to the invitation with sometimes harsh, abusive and vulgar words. However, this did not deter the researcher’s resolve, and reminders and telephone calls to participate in the survey helped to build up a suitable response rate (Easterby-Smith et al., 2012).
Response rate
Out of the estimated 1,007 potential participants that were invited to participate in the study, a total of 360 (35.4%) completed responses were received at the end of the survey period.
However, after careful examination of the respondent profiles, only 307 responses from contractors that met the criteria for the study (for example, those classified as an SME and registered on cidb Grades 3 to 6) were identified and extracted for the empirical study. The response rate of 35.4% was considered high within the sphere of construction management research (Akintoye and Fitzgerald, 2000; Alreck and Settle, 2004; Black et al., 2000; Takim et al., 2004), especially for a largely web-based questionnaire survey where response rates as low as 2% have been reported (Petchenik and Watermolen, 2011). Moreover, previous research on construction company growth performance by Abu Bakar et al. (2011), Ofori and Chan (2000), and Tucker et al. (2015) recorded response rates of 17%, 26%, and 33.5% respectively. The
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total number of valid responses (307) for the current study was also over and above the recommended sample size of 293 for the study. Hence, it can be concluded that the number of participants in the study is representative of the entire study population of SMCs that have been part of a cidb-registered CDP in the five-year period of observation (2011 to 2015).