STA630 - Research Methods GDB 2

Chamber of commerce is interested to find out the factors which influence the success of inherited entrepreneurs. In this context, your have been assigned to conduct the interviews of inherited entrepreneurs.
For the purpose of data collection, you have downloaded list of entrepreneurs from the Chamber of Commerce website. But you were astonished to see that there is no information available about family entrepreneurs.
Task which seems quite easy becomes an uphill task for you. You are in the middle of no where and you discussed this situation with another researcher, Muhammad Ali. He advised, “You should find a person who is a family entrepreneur, and ask him, if he knows any one who is also a family entrepreneur i.e. contact will give you other contacts. This chain of information will give you the direction to find other family entrepreneurs. It is a long process but you will get authentic data.”

Which type of sampling technique Muhammad Ali is pointing out? Whether Muhammad Ali’s advice is right or wrong? Justify your opinion.

Idea Solution:

Snowball Sampling

Snowball sampling (also called network, chain referral, or reputational sampling) is a method for identifying and sampling (or selecting) cases in the network. It is based on an analogy to a snowball, which begins small but becomes larger as it is rolled on wet snow and picks up additional snow. It begins with one or a few people or cases and spreads out on the basis of links to thee initial cases.This design has been found quite useful where respondents are difficult to identify and are best located through referral networks. In the initial stage of snowball sampling, individuals are discovered and may or may not be selected through probability methods. This group is then used to locate others who possess similar characteristics and who, in turn, identify others. The “snowball” gather subjects as it rolls along.

For example, a researcher examines friendship networks among teenagers in a community. He or she begins with three teenagers who do not know each other. Each teen names four close friends. The researcher then goes to the four friends and asks each to name four close friends, then goes to those four and does the same thing again, and so forth. Before long, a large number of people are involved. Each person in the sample is directly or indirectly tied to the original teenagers, and several people may have named the same person. The researcher eventually stops, either because no new names are given, indicating a closed network, or because the network is so large that it is at thee limit of what he or she can study.

Note: Don't copy this text because its just a guide line extract from book - page # 91

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