Definitions of Terms in Survey Research
Attitude:
A feeling or emotion toward a fact. Learn more about employee attitude surveys.
Autonomy:
The degree of unsupervised freedom granted individuals to do their work.
Benefits:
Company paid or sponsored programs that benefit employees in addition to compensation.
Career Development:
Company sponsored programs that prepare employees for advancement within the organization.
Climate:
The general mood of the work place.
Communications:
The exchange of information relating to one's work.
Community Involvement:
The degree to which the company participates in charitable events.
Company Behavior:
The actions or reactions of a company in response to external or internal stimuli.
Company Image:
The public perception of the organization.
Compensation:
Money received for one's work.
Competition:
Those organizations who provide products or services which, if purchased by the public, reduces the revenue of the company.
Competitive Position:
The company's ability to thwart the efforts of competition.
Control Systems:
The means by which the company ensures compliance with policies and procedures.
Core Competencies:
Employee capabilities that the organization deems are central to its success.
Cost & Value Survey Topic:
The assessment of (Cost) the amount paid, and (Value) the worth of a product or service as measured in usefulness or importance.
Creativity:
The degree to which employees are encouraged to express innovative thinking.
Cultural Diversity:
The degree to which the organization mirrors the racial mix of the community.
Culture:
The history, traditions, and social mores of an organization.
Custom Survey:
A Custom Survey is created when a Client selects the specific topics on interest, and we provide all of the questions necessary to assess those topics. Clients then select only those questions they wish to include in their survey, and we design the survey specifically for that Client.
Customer Loyalty:
A customer's feeling or attitude of attachment to the company.
Customer Satisfaction:
The company's ability to fulfill the business, emotional, and psychological needs of its customers. Learn more about customer satisfaction surveys.
Customer Service:
The degree of assistance and courtesy granted those who patronize the organization. Learn
more about customer service surveys.
Customer Surveys:
A method of collecting data from customers. The reliability of a survey's results depends on whether the sample of people from which the information has been collected is free from bias and sufficiently large. Learn
more about customer surveys.
Diversity:
The degree to which the company supports differences between people.
Downsizing:
The elimination of redundant or unnecessary positions.
Employee Behavior:
The actions or reactions of an employee in response to external or internal stimuli.
Employee Commitment:
The degree to which employees are bound emotionally or intellectually to the organization.
Employee Engagement:
The extent to which employees are passionate about their work, emotionally committed to their company and to their coworkers. Learn more about employee engagement surveys.
Employee Satisfaction:
The company's ability to fulfill the physical, emotional, and psychological needs of its employees. Learn
more about employee satisfaction surveys.
Employee Surveys:
A method of collecting data from employees. The reliability of a survey's results depends on whether the sample of people from which the information has been collected is free from bias and sufficiently large. Learn
more about employee surveys.
Employee Values:
The expressed or implied underlying understandings between individuals in a work group. Employee values may supercede company values, rules or regulations.
Ethics:
The standards for behavior expected by management and commonly known throughout the organization, whether expressly communicated or not.
Exit Interviews:
A survey designed to allow employers to learn why employees leave their organizations and discover how to reduce turnover. Learn more about employee exit interviews.
Family Issues:
Individual responsibilities outside of work that impact one's ability to perform at work.
Field Test:
Also known as "pretest" or "pilot test." Gathering data in order to test survey questions, the scale, the survey instrument as a whole, or some other aspect of the study before the formal research study begins.
Growth:
The development of the organization to a higher state of being.
Health:
The degree of physical well being of individuals in an organization.
Job Satisfaction:
The degree of personal gratification one receives from one's work.
Job Training:
Company paid or sponsored education provided to individuals to improve their abilities to do their work.
Life Balance:
The degree to which an individual satisfactorily coordinates personal and professional responsibilities of his/her life.
Loss Reviews:
A survey designed to allow organizations to learn why customers stop doing business with them and discover what to do to prevent additional losses. Learn more about customer loss review surveys.
Management Development:
Company paid or sponsored instruction provided to broaden the capabilities of individuals in an organization.
Management Style:
The methodology of leadership employed by one's superiors in an organization.
Market Effectiveness:
The degree to which an organization dominates their market.
Mean:
The mean is the "average" and is calculated by adding all scores and dividing by the total number of scores.
Median:
The median is the middle score, and is determined by counting the total number of scores, dividing by two, and selecting whatever score fills the middle place.
Mergers and Acquisitions:
The combining of two distinct organizations through partnering or purchase.
Mode:
The mode is the most commonly occurring score, and is identified by counting how many times each score occurs and selecting the one that occurs most often.
Morale:
The mood of individuals in the workplace.
Motivation:
Organizational programs and management behaviors that encourage employees to act as desired.
Normative Data:
Normative data represents the normal or average score for any given survey question across
various levels of performance. For each survey question, the Client mean score and its corresponding
normative score are provided. For example, when a mean score of 3.86 corresponds to the 84th
percentile for a particular survey question, then high performance is indicated. However, when
a mean score of 3.86 corresponds to the 26th percentile, then low performance is indicated. In
this way, Clients are able to compare their scores with an objective, external standard of
performance, rather than making a subjective judgement of the value of the mean relative to
the survey scale. Since the purpose of surveying is to obtain hard data and eliminate subjective
judgements, normative data is critical for any research study. Learn more
about normative data and benchmarking.
Norms:
See Normative Data.
Opinion:
A belief or conclusion held with confidence, but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof. Learn more about employee opinion surveys.
Organizational Assessment:
The measurement of the key drivers of Company performance. Learn more about organizational assessment surveys.
Organizational Structure:
The hierarchical, departmental, and business unit configurations of a company.
Performance Evaluations:
The comprehensive review of an individual's work performance, usually occurring annually.
Personalization:
The addition of minor changes, such as a Client's logo, message from the President, demographics, etc. to a Standard Survey.
Policies:
High-level overall plans that embrace the general goals and acceptable procedures of a company.
Pricing:
The currency value charged to a Client by the company for a product or service.
Product Delivery:
The ability to convey the result of physical labor or intellectual effort to a Client.
Productivity:
The output of an individual, group, or company.
Products:
The result of physical labor or intellectual effort.
Professional Conduct:
Exhibiting a courteous, conscientious, and generally businesslike manner in the workplace.
Profit Improvement:
The increase of revenue, decrease of expense, or both.
Project Management:
The ability to effectively engage in the delivery of a solution to a problem or task.
Quality:
The degree of excellence in an individual's, group's, or company's product or service.
Recognition:
Formal acknowledgement given to an individual or group of individuals within a company.
Retention:
The company's ability to retain qualified employees.
Safety:
The degree of immunity from physical danger in the work place.
Sales Assistance:
A consultative approach resulting in the understanding and fulfillment of a Client's needs, wants, and desires.
Sample Size:
With sample sizes exceeding 30, we can reasonably expect to see whether the data are normally (symmetrically) or abnormally (asymmetrically) distributed.
Scientific Research:
Individuals with advanced training in a particular field use a number of methods to make discoveries and develop theories. These methods include (1) observation, (2) classification of data, (3) use of logic, (4) conducting experiments, (5) forming hypotheses (proposed explanations), (6) expressing findings mathematically, and (7) modeling with computers. Most scientific research involves some or all of these steps.
Service Delivery:
The ability to convey useful labor that does not result in a tangible product.
Services:
Useful labor that does not result in a tangible product.
Sexual Harassment:
The mental or emotional harm of one individual by another individual in the same company.
Short and Long Term Goals:
Immediate and distant plans to achieve growth.
Skewed:
The graphical distribution of the data is asymmetrical, indicating that the underlying population is not distributed normally. This may indicate errors, data may need to be transformed or the study replicated, or alternate statistical analyses may be needed. There are statistical measures of the degree of skewness, but they are not commonly used in the social sciences.
Social Activities:
Company paid or sponsored recreational programs for the human resources.
Staffing:
The supply of workers within a company.
Standard Surveys:
Research Instruments created by correlating topics and questions to specific subjects
of interest, such as Employee Satisfaction, Retention, Customer Satisfaction, or
overall Organizational Assessment. These surveys represent those topics and questions
that are most widely used by our Fortune 500 Clients. This allows for immediate, cost-effective
surveying for Clients who do not wish to specify survey content themselves. Learn more
about surveys.
Standardization:
A common linear transformation often employed to rescale data. It may involve subtracting
the mean from each score. Such transformed scores are called deviation scores, and the
transformation itself is called centering, since we are centering the mean at 0. An even
more common transformation involves dividing the deviation scores by the standard
deviation. Such scores are called standard scores, and the process is called
standardization.
Standardized Questions:
Survey questions or statements that have been field tested and statistically analyzed
to eliminate error until the wording is fixed and unchanging across research studies. Learn
more about survey questions.
Standardized Scores:
Transformed scores that are measured in standard deviation units.
Strategic Planning:
The process of positioning the organization for strength and advantage as if in warfare.
Stress Management:
Controlling the effects of internal or external pressure.
Supervision:
The act of overseeing another's work.
Survey:
A survey may be many things, but a survey should be a deliberate, well-planned research study of a number of individuals with regard to one or more variables, carried out in such a way as to significantly reduce the error inherent in all social science research by adhering to scientific research principles and methodologies.
Teamwork:
The collaboration of a group of people.
Telecommuting:
Producing work for a company from one's residence.
Unions:
Organizations of workers formed for the purpose of advancing its members' interests with respect to wages, benefits, and working conditions.
Values:
An organization's expressed expectations of its human resources' moral behavior.
Vendor Confidence:
The faith or belief that a supplier will act in a proper and effective way.
Vendor Relationships:
The strength, value, and effectiveness of business associations between organizations and suppliers.
Vendor Selection:
The process by which an organization evaluates and decides with which suppliers they will conduct business.
Vision:
The farthest horizon imaginable at the present time for the future of the organization.
Warranties Survey Topic:
The assessment of assurances from the seller that the products are as represented, or will be as promised, often for a specific period of time.
Website Survey Topic:
The assessment of files or information located on a server connected to the World Wide Web.
Work Life:
The quality of the human experience during working hours.
Working Relationships:
The strength, value and effectiveness of superior, peer, and subordinate associations in the work place.
|
