The influence of topic involvement on mail-survey response behavior

Abstract

This study experimentally investigated the influence of topic involvement on mail survey response rate and speed. The results show that response rates were higher for topics that are generally considered as high involvement than for topics that are generally considered as low involvement. Moreover, we observed an interesting interaction effect. On the one hand, a positive and significant relationship existed between topic involvement and response rate for topics that on average are viewed as high involvement, leading to a non-response bias. On the other hand, no significant relationship was found between topic involvement and response rate for topics that on average are viewed as low involvement. Finally, we were not able to observe a relationship between topic involvement and response speed for topics that are, on average, either high or low involvement.