Survey of Innovation and Business Strategy

Detailed information for January 2007 to December 2009

Status:

Active

Frequency:

Occasional

Record number:

5171

Statistics Canada has undertaken this survey to provide statistical information on the strategic decisions, innovation activities and operational tactics used by Canadian enterprises. The survey also collects information on the involvement of enterprises in global value chains.

Data release - November 22, 2010

Description

Statistics Canada has undertaken this survey to provide statistical information on the strategic decisions, innovation activities and operational tactics used by Canadian enterprises. The survey also collected information on the involvement of enterprises in global value chains. The survey's questions address the following themes: business strategies and monitoring, enterprise structure, operational activities, relocation of business activities, sales activities, business practices and relationships with suppliers, advanced technology use, product/process/marketing/organizational innovation, production performance management, human resource management, main product and market structure, government support programs, and obstacles to innovation.

To increase the analytical potential of this survey, Statistics Canada plans to combine the data obtained from this survey with data from other Statistics Canada surveys or administrative data. Statistics Canada may combine the information collected through this survey with information collected from publicly available sources, including websites. The information compiled from this survey will be used by the Canadian government to better understand the impact of strategy and innovation decisions and operational adaptations on the Canadian economy, as well as to develop policies to help businesses improve their productivity and competitiveness.

Subjects

  • Business performance and ownership
  • Innovation
  • Science and technology

Data sources and methodology

Target population

The target population for the Survey of Innovation and Business Strategy was defined to meet information needs at different levels of industry detail for the core survey content (business strategies), for a module on global value chains and for a module on innovation. The population was limited to enterprises within the following 14 sectors defined according to the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS, Statistics Canada, 2007):

- Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting
- Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction
- Utilities
- Construction
- Manufacturing
- Wholesale Trade
- Retail Trade
- Transportation and Warehousing
- Information and Cultural Industries
- Finance and Insurance
- Real Estate and Rental and Leasing
- Professional, Scientific and Technical Services
- Management of Companies and Enterprises
- Administrative and Support, Waste Management and Remediation Services

To reduce response burden on small businesses, only enterprises with at least 20 employees and revenues of at least $250,000 were considered for sample selection.

Instrument design

The questionnaire was developed in partnership with Industry Canada and Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada.

Three main areas of interest are addressed in the questionnaire including a "core" survey questions on business strategy and two modules:
- Participation in global value chains; and
- Innovation.

Cognitive testing of the questionnaire was carried out with prospective respondents, whose comments contributed to the final version.

Sampling

This is a sample survey with a cross-sectional design.

A set of 67 industries and groupings of industries were identified in consultation with Industry Canada survey stakeholders for the survey core (Table 2). An initial sample, assuming at 50% response rate, was drawn from the October 2009 version of Statistics Canada's Business Register to satisfy the following criteria:

- Census of large enterprises, those with at least 250 employees; and
- Sample of small and medium enterprises to expect the production of estimates with an expected standard error no greater than 10% for percent estimates at the national level (no size class estimates).

This resulted in a sample of 3,685 enterprises.

In addition to these 3,685 enterprises, industry detail and reliability needs identified in consultation with Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada (Table 3) resulted in sample augmentation by 1,985 enterprises according to the following supplementary criteria:
- Sample of small, medium and large enterprises to expect the production of estimates with an expected standard error no greater than 8% for manufacturing industries by size class for percent estimates at the national level.
- Sample of small, medium and large enterprises to expect the production of estimates with an expected standard error no greater than 10% for non-manufacturing industries for percent estimates at the national level (no size class estimates).

Finally, this augmented sample was further augmented to meet industry detail and reliability needs identified in consultation with Industry Canada (Table 4). Industry detail requirements were based on the industries sampled for Eurostat's Community Innovation Survey (CIS5). The following criteria were applied:

- Sample of small, medium and large enterprises to expect the production of estimates with an expected standard error no greater than 8% for manufacturing industries for percent estimates at the national level (no size class estimates).
- Sample of small, medium and large enterprises to expect the production of estimates with an expected standard error no greater than 10% for non-manufacturing industries for percent estimates at the national level (no size class estimates).

This resulted in the addition of 560 enterprises to the sample.

The sample of 6,233 enterprises can be described as a random sample stratified by industry and size class (Table 5). It was drawn from Statistics Canada's Business Register (October 2009 version) in October 2009 from the population of 37,216 enterprises (Table 1) in industries defined according to the North American Industry Classification System (Statistics Canada, 2007)

Data sources

Data collection for this reference period: 2010-01-04 to 2010-03-31

Responding to this survey is mandatory.

Data are collected directly from survey respondents and extracted from administrative files.

Data were collected through respondent completed questionnaires in electronic questionnaire and paper formats (mail or fax). All enterprises were "pre-contacted" to determine the name, email and correct mailing address for the respondent, the CEO or senior manager with thorough knowledge of the enterprise and its strategic vision at the enterprises. Electronic invitations to the E-questionnaires were sent to respondents and paper questionnaires were mailed out (to those respondents who requested them ) with electronic, mail, telephone and fax follow ups carried out to elicit a response from non-respondents. In some cases, respondents completed parts of the questionnaire over the phone with responses entered on a paper questionnaire by the interviewer.

View the Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s) .

Error detection

All returned questionnaires were reviewed and subjected to flow edits prior to data capture. Validity and flow edits were built into the data capture system and were applied during data entry. Validity edits ensured that responses to particular questions fell within a limited range of possible values. Post collection consistency edits were applied to completed questionnaires. Data for completed questionnaires underwent database validation both pre and post imputation.

Imputation

Imputation was employed for missing responses to non-mandatory questions. The Banff software was used to select donors.

Mandatory questions included questions 1, 14, 16, 21 (only if the response to Question 16 was "Yes"), 46, and 82. Question 1 was used to identify whether the enterprise had a long term strategy that was focused either on product positioning or on low-price and cost leadership. Question 16 was used to identify enterprises with business activities outside of Canada, making them part of a global value chain. Question 21 was used to identify that relocated business activities from Canada to another country from among the enterprises with activities outside Canada ("Yes" response to question 16). Questions 46 and 82 were used to identify if the enterprise had a process or product innovation respecitvely.

There are several cases where the relevance of a subsequent set of questions relies on a response to a preceding question. The ability to proceed along a path of questions was reliant on the nature of the response and the subsequent responses are influenced by the firm behaviour indicated by the response to the preceding question. Block imputation (one donor) was used for these correlated questions as a means to avoid edit failures and to ensure logically consistent responses.

Estimation

Given the low rate of non-response to the survey (29.0%), it was decided that it would be reasonable to assume that the characteristics of the non-response population were the same as the respondent population. Accordingly, it was decided that the contribution of non-response to the estimates was to be accounted for by adjusting the sample weights of the respondent population.

Estimates based upon the responses to the survey questions are population estimates; that is, they represent the percentage of businesses in the population that exhibit a particular characteristic. The population estimates are generated through the accumulation of the product of the response variable and the sample weight for the defined tabulation cells.

Quality evaluation

The quality of the data has been checked against quality standards at Statistics Canada, namely, data relevance, accuracy, timeliness, accessibility, interpretability and coherence.

Data relevance was insured by the active collaboration in the questionnaire design between Statistics Canada, Industry Canada and Foreign Affiars and International Trade Canada.

Data accuracy was insured by conducting cognitive interviews in both official languages with potential respondents. Their comments were integrated into the final design and wording of the questionnaire.

From the close of data collection to the first data release seven months elapsed, thus insuring data timeliness.

Accessibility to data users is made through descriptive tables provided to the survey sponsors.

To help users interpret the data, the definitions of the underlying concepts, classification, data collection methodology, as well as indicators of data accuracy are made available.

Standard Statistics Canada symbols have been used in all data tables thus insuring data coherence.

Disclosure control

Statistics Canada is prohibited by law from releasing any information it collects that could identify any person, business, or organization, unless consent has been given by the respondent or as permitted by the Statistics Act. Various confidentiality rules are applied to all data that are released or published to prevent the publication or disclosure of any information deemed confidential. If necessary, data are suppressed to prevent direct or residual disclosure of identifiable data.

In order to prevent any data disclosure, confidentiality analysis is done using the Statistics Canada Generalized Disclosure Control System (G-Confid). G-Confid is used for primary suppression (direct disclosure) as well as for secondary suppression (residual disclosure). Direct disclosure occurs when the value in a tabulation cell is composed of or dominated by few enterprises while residual disclosure occurs when confidential information can be derived indirectly by piecing together information from different sources or data series.

Revisions and seasonal adjustment

This methodology does not apply to this survey.

Data accuracy

Data accuracy was insured by conducting cognitive interviews in both official languages with potential respondents. Their comments were integrated into the final design and wording of the questionnaire.

The response rate for the survey was calculated as the total number of completed questionnaires as a percentage of the total active, in-scope survey sample. The overall response rate for the survey was 71.0% for a total of 4,249 completed questionnaires.

As the sample drawn for this survey was only one of many possible samples that could have been drawn, a sampling error was attributed to it. Standard errors were used to provide a guide as to the reliability of the results where estimates are expressed as a percentage. The coefficient of variation was used where estimates are an average of responses.

Documentation

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