BOSS Survey Methodology

The BOSS survey was conducted for Hawaii Business Magazine by the research division of the Anthology Marketing Group.

The study was conducted using a company listing purchased from Equifax Polk Business Directory as well as Hawaii Business Magazine’s Top 250 list and classified Yellow Pages listings. The sample of companies was stratified based on number of employees. Small businesses were divided into two subgroups.

Businesses with three to nine employees were designated as “very small” and those with 10 to 49 employees were designated as “small.” Medium-size firms were those with 50 to 99 employees while companies with 100 or more employees were classified as “large.” The goal was to complete interviews with executives heading 50 businesses in the large and medium sectors with the remaining 300 interviews falling into the two smaller business size categories.

A secondary goal was to complete interviews with a minimum of 100 businesses that derive a significant proportion of their revenue from the visitor industry. A total of 146 companies were surveyed in this segment.

A total of 433 random interviews on all the major islands were conducted from Oct. 2 to 24, 2019. The data was weighted to reflect the proper proportions of each company segment based on number of employees as reported by the Hawai‘i Department of Labor. A sample of this size has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.71 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

808 Poll Methodology

The research team at Anthology Marketing Group conducted an internet/telephone survey from Oct. 8 to 15, 2019, and 473 completed surveys were collected statewide. The resulting data was weighted to reflect population estimates of adults 18 and older on each island.

The margin of error for a total sample of this size is plus or minus 4.51 percentage points with a 95% confidence level.

The online sample was purchased from a third-party supplier. The telephone sample (both landlines and mobile phones were called) was derived using Anthology’s Random Digit Dialing software. Each respondent was screened to ensure they were at least 18 years of age and resided on the island for which they were being contacted.