Survey Design
Survey designers use the TEN Survey Design Tool to design custom
surveys. The TEN Survey Design Tool allows customers to
review and select from over 100 measures of innovation enabler
impact, where each measure corresponds to a survey question.
Once the measures have been selected, the customer reviews the
corresponding questions that comprise the completed survey.
Selecting measures
Survey designers use the TEN Survey Design Tool to select
mission performance measures, service performance measures, and, if
they choose, create custom questions. The figure below shows
the four-step process. The selection of mission performance
measures first requires the selection of mission performance
dimensions and then the selection of pairs of firm performance and
enabler impact measures. Similarly the selection of service
performance measures first requires the selection of service
performance dimensions and then the selection of broad or narrow
service performance measures.
1. Mission performance measures
1a. Selecting mission performance dimensions
Survey designers begin by selecting suitable mission
performance dimensions from our list of nine mission performance
dimensions. Suitable mission performance dimensions are those
that correspond to the innovation enabler's mission and to likely
changes in the performance of the typical member or client
firm.
Mission Performance Dimensions
- Revenues
- Valuation
- Investment
- Employment
- New or improved products, processes or services
- Time to market of new or improved products, processes or
services
- Market share
- Patents
- Environmental impact
1b. Selecting mission performance measures
For each mission performance dimension selected, survey
designers select specific mission performance measures.
Specific mission performance measures vary in terms of whether they
measure current firm performance, or change in firm performance;
whether they employ quantitative or qualitative measures; and the
specificity of quantitative measures. This flexibility is
important because some firms may be reluctant to report on revenues
or valuation in quantitative terms. For example, survey
designers that select the revenue dimension are presented with the
following five pairs of measures and instructed to select one or
more measurement pairs.
2. Service performance measures
2a. Selecting service performance
dimensions
Survey designers select suitable service performance dimensions
from our list of eight service performance dimensions.
Suitable service performance dimensions depend upon the types of
services offered by the innovation enabler in question.
Service Performance Dimensions
- Information and advice
- Promotion and influence
- Business linkages
- Research linkages
- Community and consensus building
- Technology services
- Financing services
- Business services
Attributes of services include value, usefulness, price,
timeliness, quality, convenience and so on. These specific service
attributes are typically the subject of detailed customer
satisfaction surveys. Using an approach more appropriate to overall
impact assessment, The Evidence Network 'bundles' the service
attributes into one measure - effectiveness.
2b. Selecting service performance measures
For each service performance dimension selected, survey
designers are instructed to select specific service performance
measures. Service performance measures include broad measures
designed to measure performance on a given dimension with a single
question, to narrow performance measures designed to yield insight
on the value and effectiveness of specific services. For
example, survey designers that select the information and advice
dimension are presented with fourteen specific measures from which
to choose that range from the provision of scientific and
technological information, to information on industrial and
consumer markets, to information on standards and regulations.
3. Custom questions
Survey designers are free to create as many custom questions as
desired.
