Repetitive Model Refinement for Questionnaire Design Improvement in the Evaluation of Working Characteristics in Construction Enterprises

Abstract

This paper presents an iterative confidence interval based parametric refinement approach for questionnaire design improvement in the evaluation of working characteristics in construction enterprises. This refinement approach utilizes the 95% confidence interval of the estimated parameters of the model to determine their statistical significance in a least-squares regression setting. If this confidence interval of particular parameters covers the zero value, it is statistically valid to remove such parameters from the model and their corresponding questions from the designed questionnaire. The remaining parameters repetitively undergo this sifting process until their statistical significance cannot be improved. This repetitive model refinement approach is implemented in efficient questionnaire design by using both linear series and Taylor series models to remove non-contributing questions while keeping significant questions that are contributive to the issues studied, i.e., employees' work performance being explained by their work values and cadres' organizational commitment being explained by their organizational management. Reducing the number of questions alleviates the respondent burden and reduces costs. The results show that the statistical significance of the sifted contributing questions is decreased with a total mean relative change of 49%, while the Taylor series model increases the R-squared value by 17% compared with the linear series model. OPEN ACCESSSustainability 2015, 7 15180

Effects of Employees’ Work Values and Organizational Management on Corporate Performance for Chinese and Taiwanese Construction Enterprises

“…After precluding 30 invalid questionnaires (non-response samples) and 69 unreturned ones, a total amount of 181 questionnaires were found to be valid. The response rate was 72.4% as illustrated in Table 1 (adapted from Lin et al [31]). With the data obtained from the questionnaires, the reliability analysis was first conducted, followed by a series of statistical analyses.…”

“…Based on the arguments above regarding the effects of employees' work values and organizational management on corporate performance and based on the extension of the work by Lin et al [31], Lin and Shen [32], Shen [33], we proposed three novelty statements.…”

“…Validity means "exploratory factor analysis" [31], characteristics of main features being the following assessment, with the corresponding results listed in Table 3.…”

“…The six variables from work values as listed in Table 6 (questions selected from [31][32][33]), including (1) "I devote myself to my work"; (2) "Even if there is no extra pay for working overtime, I would still work overtime to finish my work at night"; (3) "I usually go to work earlier to prepare the tasks I have to handle"; (4) "I am proud of my work"; (5) "I want to be perfect when it comes to my work"; and (6) "I never feel confused or scared while working", were selected as the independent variables X to explain the dependent variable Y: "My boss thinks I am doing a great job at work". The R value was 0.709 with the Taiwanese employees and 0.791 with the Chinese employees, indicating that there was a relationship between superintendents' praise for the employees and the employees' devotion to their jobs.…”

“…From this information, how important work values were for the employees from both sides of the Strait and their differences could be determined. The ranking of work values for the employees from both sides of the Strait and the ranking of the organizational management of cadre members from both sides of the Strait were summarized in Tables 4 and 5 respectively (questionnaires adopted from [31][32][33]). Table 4.…”