ESENER-PSR 2009 - European Agency for Safety and Health at Work
ESENER-PSR 2009 - European Agency for Safety and Health at Work
ESENER-PSR 2009 - European Agency for Safety and Health at Work
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decided to take part in the interview. The personnel manager of the chosen establishment<br />
might not be willing to particip<strong>at</strong>e or might not be available during the fieldwork period. 20<br />
By applying the described procedure it is ensured th<strong>at</strong> all establishments with 10 or more<br />
employees - including the headquarters where usually the respondent of the first contact is<br />
loc<strong>at</strong>ed - have a chance 21 to be chosen <strong>for</strong> the interview.<br />
4.2.2 Altern<strong>at</strong>ive approach: Yellow Pages-based sampling<br />
Theoretically, an altern<strong>at</strong>ive approach <strong>for</strong> getting establishment addresses in a country with<br />
no suitable establishment register would be to r<strong>and</strong>omly draw a number of addresses from the<br />
Yellow Pages <strong>and</strong> set up quotas <strong>for</strong> the various size-classes <strong>and</strong> sectors of activity. The<br />
chosen addresses then have to be contacted <strong>and</strong> screened <strong>for</strong> both size-class <strong>and</strong> sector of<br />
activity. Finally, an interview can be conducted in all those workplaces which turn out to have<br />
ten or more employees. In the course of the fieldwork, cell by cell then has to be closed as<br />
soon as the quota set <strong>for</strong> the cell (sector of activity/size-class) are complete. In the “closed”<br />
cells, no further interview can be conducted.<br />
This altern<strong>at</strong>ive solution seems quite plausible <strong>at</strong> a first glance, but it has a series of major<br />
disadvantages:<br />
As the chosen addresses do not provide any in<strong>for</strong>m<strong>at</strong>ion about the number of employees, an<br />
enormous number of futile contacts with establishments below the set size-threshold of 10<br />
employees is unavoidable. The absolute number of large-sized establishments is very low in<br />
most countries, but due to the disproportion<strong>at</strong>e sampling-approach a large number of<br />
interviews have to be conducted in larger establishments. Using an address-register without<br />
any in<strong>for</strong>m<strong>at</strong>ion about the size of an enterprise, it is there<strong>for</strong>e hardly possible to meet the<br />
quota of the largest size-classes, whereas the cells with the smaller enterprises fill up pretty<br />
soon 22 . The dimensions of this problem can not be over-emphasized, as the figures from<br />
Germany show in an exemplary way:<br />
20<br />
Yet the r<strong>at</strong>e of non-response can be expected to be lower than with a completely “fresh” address,<br />
because the interviewer can refer to the previous contact with another part of the company – usually<br />
the headquarters.<br />
21<br />
It has however to be noted th<strong>at</strong> this procedure does not produce a “perfect” sample, since the<br />
st<strong>at</strong>istical chance of being selected <strong>for</strong> the interview is not equal <strong>for</strong> all units: Units of multi-site<br />
enterprises have a smaller chance of being selected since of each multi-site enterprise only one of<br />
the establishments is selected <strong>for</strong> the interview. In an establishment address register, in turn,<br />
establishments of multi-sites have the same st<strong>at</strong>istical chance of being selected than single-site<br />
companies.<br />
22 Similarly, it would be difficult to meet the quota <strong>for</strong> the industry-sectors, as these are often only<br />
partially listed in Yellow Pages due to their limited interest in being contacted by the public.<br />
39