Frequently Asked Questions about GLOBE 2020

This page is dedicated to addressing the questions and concerns that CCIs have raised in the process of building in-country teams, gathering data, communicating with respondents, and other ongoing tasks as a part of GLOBE 2020. We invite you to view the information below in the hopes that you may learn more about how to improve your performance as a CCI, and benefit from the expertise of others engaged in GLOBE 2020 around the world. In addition to the info contained here, we also invite you to access the CCI Handbook, which contains a wealth of information for GLOBE 2020 CCIs. Lastly, if you have information or experiences that you think may come in handy for other CCIs, we encourage you to share these with us at globe20@sfu.ca so that we can pass along your insights to other GLOBE 2020 CCIs.

We are very grateful for the interest we have received from people around the world who wish to contribute to GLOBE 2020. Thank you for your offers of support! At this time we have over 300 researchers engaged in collecting data in over 150 countries. To determine whether you can contribute in one of these places, we invite you to visit www.globeproject.com and view our interactive map of the project.


Not at this time. Partial research funding for GLOBE 2020 has been obtained from Canadian government’s  Social Science & Humanities Research Council  (SSHRC) through a highly competitive application and review process. Our limited funds are reserved for administrative continuity to ensure that this complex, multi-stage, multi-year project can continue into the future. This includes a very limited number of research assistants and Post-Docs who can assist in the planning, development, data cleaning and other ongoing administrative tasks required to keep this project running, as well as expenses associated with the use of the Qualtrics platform. In special circumstances an extremely limited amount of funding may be provided to assist with data collection in more disadvantaged countries where internal resources are particularly scarce.


There are many ways to motivate respondents to participate. Some of these have been suggested by our CCIs who have generously shared their experiences to support other CCIs. You may find these suggestions helpful.

If you are looking for sources of managerial respondents, you could contact:

  • University Alumni groups or mentor groups
  • Current EMBA or part time MBA courses
  • Qualified students in on line courses
  • University career centers
  • Private or public companies in your area having large numbers of managers
  • Alumni networks of other universities in your country (e.g., via email lists or social media groups like those found on Facebook or LinkedIn)
  • Networks of faculty for other courses in your university, particularly those courses that tend to attract managers
  • Colleagues in person, over email or via social media to encourage them to engage their networks to share your survey with their class(es) and/or organizations and/or managerial colleagues
  • Outlets serving those in HR organizations/ associations, professional organizations/associations, or executive education programs in order to place a targeted ad to solicit survey respondents
  • Your own or other schools’ web masters to post targeted ads soliciting participation
  • Local or regional chambers of commerce
  • Other groups that are unique to your region that may have managers as members (e.g., Toastmasters groups, organizations providing professional development, certification and/or leadership programs, etc.)
  • Your university deans. They often have good contacts in the industry and can help link you together. We are pleased to write a letter of appreciation, recognizing your work and contribution to the GLOBE study to your Dean if it helps.

That is a very good question!

While GLOBE 2020 broadly targets managerial respondents who identify themselves on the survey as Upper Level Managers, Middle Level Managers or Lower Level Managers, we also accept into the sample professionals who fulfill common managerial roles and responsibilities (e.g., decision-making, strategizing, communicating/negotiating with stakeholders, administrating and providing leadership, etc.). Please note that managers in our sample may be those who manage people and/or those who manage resources. We have made a minor change in the relevant question stem so that in such cases, respondents are encouraged to specify their position title in text box provided for one of the other job position question responses: Non-manager (please specify) or Other (please specify).

Sample job titles that fulfill these professional roles and can be accepted into the sample include project manager, accountant, engineer, lawyer, professor/instructor/researcher, advisor, consultant, and functional specialist/expert/coordinator/administrator of various areas/departments (e.g., sales, marketing, HR, IT, business development, etc.).

Additionally, senior leaders who may not consider themselves ‘managers’ per se, but who nonetheless very much fulfill multiple managerial roles and responsibilities are also perfectly acceptable to include in the GLOBE 2020 sample. In such cases, respondents are also encouraged to specify their job roles in the Non-manager (please specify) or Other (please specify) response options as well and typically include job titles, such as: business owner, chairman/chairwoman, entrepreneur and dean.


The following are steps you can take to increase the number of respondents in your country:

  • Emphasize to the respondent that they will get a personalized ideal leadership profile at the end of the survey. This may be useful information for enhancing cross-cultural communication and their career success.

  • For companies that that have a multi-country or global presence, you can highlight how the GLOBE 2020 study offers information on diverse workforces that could be useful for their HRM planning and strategy, employee development or business development. Organizations may be motivated to support data collection if they understand how the survey findings on leadership and cultural dimensions may be useful for them.

  • You can also share aggregate company level information on the ideal leadership profile of the managers in participating organizations. This might help them manage their employees better and more effectively. If you want to do this, we will need to include a company code in the survey.

  • Highlight to the participating managers how important their survey responses potentially will be in enhancing cross-cultural communication and understanding. Suggest that they are playing an important role in informing the rest of the world about their society and values.

  • Share information about previous and current GLOBE projects through the GLOBE website (www.globeproject.com) so respondents can see how impactful GLOBE research has been. Have fun and use the very friendly GLOBE visualizations on the website to show how countries differ on GLOBE indices. Talk about the new thrust of investigating how trust differs across countries and how we come to trust new colleagues.

  • Highlight that the survey is easily accessed and that respondents can take the survey in the comfort of their home or on the go using online devices including phones and tablets etc.

  • Several CCIs with local funding have used Qualtrics/ other panel providers to collect data. If this is available to you, you can consider using the same. Preparing a Qualtrics or other respondent panel can be a complex process and therefore please allow a few weeks to set up these panels of respondents.

  • You could solicit the help of your students in a research methods or statistics class to collect data. We can then share back demographic information that will enable the students to enhance their learning of statistical methods and data analysis techniques.

Some successful CCIs have offered the following suggestions. We are thankful for their contributions.

  • Use personalized invitations as much as possible to get people to respond to the survey. Of course, the survey is designed to protect the anonymity of the respondents.

  • Use personalized follow-up reminders as much as possible to increase survey completion rates.

  • Remind participants that they don’t have to complete the entire survey all at once. As long as they use the same phone or computer on which they started, they will be able to continue adding to their responses for up to one week after they click on the link.

  • Create videos featuring you or your CCI team describing GLOBE 2020 that can be included in survey solicitations to increase awareness of the survey and project among potential respondents.

  • Work with your university’s communications, public relations or external relations department(s) to create press releases and/or to leverage their media contacts to generate newspaper, radio or TV interviews that can be included in survey solicitations to add credibility and to generate awareness about the project.

  • Leverage your contacts to identify additional university or company partners, outside your CCI team, particularly with business schools, whom may be willing to participate in the survey if you promise to share results as soon as they are known either on-line or even at their school/business (if feasible).

  • Promise that once the data is available you will invite respondents to a formal event (likely on-line) to share the survey results.

  • Remind respondents that the last GLOBE survey was more than two decades ago and that this is a rare opportunity for their country’s cultural profile to be included in the results.


Yes, but only after we take a number of steps. The GLOBE 2020 study is ongoing and data collection has not been completed. Upon completion of GLOBE data collection in all countries, each CCI will receive a GLOBE approved and finalized copy of their own country data.Please read more about the ownership of data in the GLOBE 2020 CCI Handbook.


Please send us (anirbank@sfu.ca/medha_satish_kumar) the following redirect links from your panel provider:

  1. Complete redirect links for those who complete the surveys.

  2. Screen out redirect links for those who do not qualify to fill out the survey, including the conditions for not qualifying (e.g., non-manager, non-resident of the country, etc.)

  3. Quota full redirect links in case you would like to restrict the number of respondents; in such a case please let us know about the quota.

Please note that in case you are gathering data through panel providers we will make it mandatory to answer each question on the survey. This is considering that you will pay the panel provider.

Further information on the process of integration is available here: https://www.qualtrics.com/support/survey-platform/common-use-cases-rc/panel-company-integration/. We will integrate the redirect links of the panel providers into the GLOBE 2020 survey link that will be customized for you.


Understand the GLOBE Survey

  • Reflect on what your targeted respondents will likely get from answering the survey and be sure to convey those reasons in your communication with them.
  • Tell respondents up front that upon completing the survey they will receive a free, on-screen “Personal Profile of an Outstanding Leader” that compares their own leadership style preferences to respondents from their home country and to GLOBE’s larger sample.

Panel Providers

  • Use panel providers. Target national business panels with respondents in the target population of managers/professionals.

Students

  • Administer the survey to MBA students. It helps if you can integrate the survey constructs/measures with the course topics.
  • Turn the GLOBE project into a research project for advanced students where they need to recruit managers and have them complete the survey.

Alumni

  • Utilize alumni groups, particularly those who you previously taught or contacted. Advertise the GLOBE survey in university and school alumni newsletters and leverage alumni databases to get updated emails. Send personalized emails and consider using a mail merge to efficiently email students. Ask them to forward the survey to their colleagues, if possible.
  • Leverage alumni networks of other universities in your country (e.g., via email lists or social media groups like those found on Facebook or LinkedIn and alumni groups from institutions you attended.

Personal Networks

  • Tap into your personal network of managers/professionals. Approach them with a letter/email explaining the study’s purpose and what they will get out of it. Make it interesting. No massive emails.
  • Focus on people (colleagues, friends, etc.) with strong corporate networks, persuade them about the project significance, and ask for contacts. Rely primarily on personal meetings or telephone calls (emails do not work so well in this respect).
  • Invite friends and family, who fit the required respondent profile and feel obliged to complete the survey.
  • Emphasize that being a part of the country sample for the survey is a BIG deal. Play it up as an historical undertaking -- for which it is!

Associations of Managers / Leaders

  • Contact various managerial and HR associations in your country to contact professionals interested in topics like leadership, cultural understanding and inclusiveness

Social Media

  • Look into your LinkedIn network. There are many ALUMNI who have advanced in their careers and are occupying managerial or professional positions. Write posts and articles about the survey and Globe Project on LinkedIn and share it in your network. Sort your network by country and consider writing personal messages with the survey to those respondents.
  • Contact managers and professionals in particular geographies on LinkedIn.
  • Collaborate with HR-focused social media companies that operate their own online/offline user networks.
  • Send the email with the link to the survey to your Facebook contacts.

Corporations

  • Contact companies via their websites, particularly private or public companies in your area having large numbers of managers and professionals.
  • Target a top organization in your country - offer a free leadership across cultures workshop to all who take part in the survey.
  • Highlight to corporate leaders that the engagement of their companies in this research as an important ingredient of the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility.
  • Prepare a visually compelling and easy to follow PowerPoint presentation about the project background, significance, and aims, and highlight the benefits for the participating companies, e.g., in leadership development, cross-cultural communication, managing diverse teams.
  • Offer to present the research results (once they are ready) during a training session for managers of the respective company. Or alternatively, offer free training (or consultancy) within areas of your expertise for the company in "exchange" for agreeing to participate in the research.
  • Access alumni networks of former employers that you and others have worked for especially those that typically are a springboard for careers.

CCI Collaboration

  • Leverage teamwork between CCI's of a particular country. Different CCIs may be able to collect data from different samples and using each other as a sounding board can help everyone.

Strategic Partnerships

  • Explain to your university the value of you being a GLOBE CCI - in terms of international and/or domestic impact – and then gain internal funding to help your work.
  • Make strategic alliances with universities and research institutions and offer to share results and make joint diagnosis work plans for when data becomes available.

Monetary Incentives

  • Offer cash incentives. Offer monetary rewards via the collaborators' existing system (e.g., users get certain amount of points that can further be converted into gifts or discounts).

Benefits to the Respondents

  • Prepare a short summary on the content and implications of the personalized ideal leadership profile that respondents get upon completing the survey. Explain how they can benefit from this. In sum, it is all about persuasive communication and ability to explain in a very clear manner what the project is about and, more importantly, why it is important, and what companies and individual respondents can get out from it.
  • Re-emphasize that at the end of the survey, respondents will receive a free, on-screen “Personal Profile of an Outstanding Leader” that compares their own leadership style preferences to respondents from their home country and to GLOBE’s larger sample.
  • Offer for respondents to participate in interpretation of results when they become available.
  • Add a deliverable as an additional incentive. Offer free webinar for managers. Offer an invitation to a workshop (organized by you and free of cost for them) to discuss this content further.
  • Offer a summary of your survey results in return as incentive when those results become available. Promise them quick feedback on the results of the country data (publication, workshops, conferences) as soon as a database is available and processed.
  • Provide feedback to participating organizations on published work from the data.

Importance of the Project

  • Explain the importance of this survey for understanding behaviors and making public policies. Highlight to the participating managers/professionals how important their survey responses potentially will be in enhancing cross-cultural communication and understanding. Suggest that they are playing an important role in informing the rest of the world about their society and values.
  • Explain that this study is unique to the area and business and that it will also have insights that should be very valuable particularly to multinational corporations and corporations looking to enter new countries.
  • The GLOBE Survey is an extremely long instrument. Remind respondents that the last GLOBE survey was more than two decades ago and that this is a rare opportunity for their country’s cultural profile to be included in the results.
  • Remind respondents of the importance of this survey, and indicate that they will become a part of the sample that represents the country and that getting their perspective included is very valuable.

Communication

  • Aim high – let respondents know that you would love to have a 100% response rate from their group and that every respondent matters.
  • Incorporate follow-up communication as part of your strategy for the sample.
  • Share information with your LinkedIn network about how many questionnaires were already completed.
  • Follow up with your sample. They need to feel connected to you, the researcher. Be prepared to follow up with email reminders.
  • Launch press releases or seek interviews with the press to let people know about the survey.
  • Use personalized invitations as much as possible to get people to respond to the survey.