Sampling Methodology Used for the Global Connections Survey (GCS) 2011
The survey sample was extracted from the Inter Departmental Business Register (IDBR) and included all industries with the exception of public administration, private households with employed persons and extra-territorial organisations. Sampling took place at reporting unit level and reporting units were asked to provide information on the combined Scottish activity of all their local units.
The sample was stratified by industry (4 digit SIC) and 5 employment size-bands (Scottish employment). There were almost 4,500 known and potential exporters identified using information provided by Highland's & Islands Enterprise (HIE), participating Local Enterprise Companies (LECs) and previous survey data. Known and potential exporters were weighted in order to have a greater chance of being sampled than non-exporters or companies whose export status was unknown. Companies were then selected at random from the strata. Those with 100 or more employees were automatically sampled regardless of their export status and all known/potential exporting companies were sampled regardless of their size. This resulted in a sample of 5,035 reporting units.
A total of around 2,000 survey responses were received (including nil responses) to give a response rate of 39 per cent.