Cultural Values and Potential Nonresponse Bias

Using data from a prior survey of managers in 20 European countries, the authors conducted multilevel analyses to illustrate the value of examining relationships of both individual characteristics and country characteristics to likelihood of responding. Consistent with inferences about likely salience of the survey topic, they found that likelihood of responding was higher for women than for men and was also higher in countries with more gender equality than in countries with less gender equality. These findings underscore the need to examine national cultural values that might be related to both survey topic salience and country response rates as potential sources of nonresponse (and nonresponse bias) in international survey-based research.