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Executive summary
As the role of the small businesses in the wider economy is even more important given the global financial turmoil that we have been experiencing and each individual’s financial situation would influence the overall financial environment, the Victoria Government is setting up a research team to investigate the financial management practices in small businesses of Victoria and Western Region of Melbourne. The following report will include the research objectives, various methods of data collection, survey method, the sample size and sampling method, the research process and common errors as well as the designed questionnaire. By discussing these data collection methods and design the questionnaire, it would help the academics to get a close look at the preparation of investigations and involve more individuals participating in our research.

Content

Research objective
The objectives of this research can be divided into two main parts which are combined with the overall objective and specific objectives. Firstly, overall objective is to understand the financial management practices in small businesses of Victoria and Western Region of Melbourne to help government setting up a benchmark in small business to help small business running in a good way.
About the specific objectives, our team tries to investigate the demographic factors, profit and loss and management strategic.

Method of collecting date
To successfully get the useful information, the survey method to collect data is of great because of following reasons. Firstly, Survey method is a very useful method when the data cannot direct collect in library, in our research we need the latest data that means survey is the best way to collect immediate data. Secondly, survey is low-cost way to collect data that we do not need to pay any fees to respondents just like an experiment investigation, for instance, in medic experimental investigation. Moreover, it can reduce the working time. Thirdly, survey method can handle the large size data collection requirement and the data will be more reliable.

Survey methods
There are four main ways to collecting date in survey methods which are personal interviews, telephone interviews, mail survey and internet survey.
Personal interview: interviewers can ask interviewees directly, it is easy to get more information when interviewers have some problems about questionnaire. Furthermore, a well training staff can increase the validity of survey. However, it is more expensive than other methods.
Mail survey: posting our questionnaire to respondents and waiting for respondents repost our questionnaire, it is cheaper than personal interview but the process will spend a long time and the rate of repost is very low.
Telephone interviews: using computer to assist interviews call random and when the interviewee have problems for the question, it can be solved quickly. However, most people do not want to take an interview through the phone, it may have a higher rate of rejection.
Internet survey: using internet to email interviewee the questionnaires or to put our questionnaires in websites. It is a fast way to collect data and we also can design a attractive website to get more people to join the survey, however, the validity and variety of data can be a problem.
In our research, we must focus on the speed of collecting data, cost, flexible and quantity. Thus, we will recommend combine telephone survey with internet survey. Internet survey can get data very fast but depend on the interest user group, the variety of data can be reduced and because of the questionnaires are already been designed the flexible will reduced. So we also use the telephone interview to offset the shortage of variety and flexible.

Sample size and sampling method
Our team plan to choose 100 small enterprises as the sample. As this investigation is aboutto understand the financial management practices as small businesses in Victoria in general and in the Western Region of Melbourne in particular, the sample size cannot be too small, or the research will be inaccurate, on the other hand it would increase costs of the research if the sample size is too large. Thus we decide that 100 enterprises would be the best sample size for the research.
In this case, our team chooses stratified random sampling method to collect information as it can give us a higher quality information and relatively lower chance of errors. Moreover, stratified random sampling method is the method which can lower the cost of investigation because the necessary sample quantities will be small. Meanwhile, this method will divide all of the samples into groups, for example, they will be divided by age, gender, salary class and living area. This is a good way to ensure the accuracy of the collected data and information from the different aspects and to save the time of research that would increase efficiency.

Research process and errors
In reality, it is impossible to survey each unit, the sample method we will use can be important. However, we have to consider the potential risk of having sampling errors. There are two frequent sampling errors that require consideration which are sampling error and non-sampling error. Although we may have no ability to avoid them completely in the actual operation, they can be minimized.
The sampling error which refers to the difference between our sample and the whole population is caused by the observation and this error is usually acceptable. Sampling error can be valued through the true value of the population mean minus the sample estimate, which equals to
The non-sampling error occurs when the observations being selected inappropriately or the inaccuracy data being collected. There are three main errors, which are the error in data acquisition, the nonresponsive error and the selection bias. For instance, the data entry clerk entered the wrong data or the respondents understand the question in a wrong way.
In order to avoid non-sampling error, we can go through the data entry again and check the data when processing the survey data into SPSS, clarify the meaning of the question while the respondents are answering them, or try to involve every member from the target sample.

Questionnaire design
Generally, the questionnaire should be read simply and easily, and answer must be understandable. The questionnaire must start with very simple questions like age and gender. Moreover, the number of questions should keep it between 10 and 20. In the survey, we have both close ended and open-ended questions, which can make our survey get more information.
To be more specific, we want to know the situation of financial management practices apply in small businesses of Victoria and Western Region of Melbourne from our research objectives. Therefore, we design questionnaire in three main parts. First part is that we want ask basically personal information about demographic of people who work in small business or own small business. Second part we will question about general information about interview's company like scope of business and profit and loss and company. Last part, we will design question about company future strategy and interview's opinion about small business.

Cover letter
Dear residence,
This is a questionnaire from the Finance institution of the State Government, which intends to collect information concerning the the financial management practices in small businesses of Victoria and Western Region of Melbourne.
We are now inviting you to fill out this form and answer the following 16 questions. It is a voluntary survey and will be uncorrelated with your personal information, even if it does; this information will be fully disclosure under our promise. Please note that it is not a compulsory questionnaire, so feel free to pass the question to others who wants to answer, although we would highly recommend you to help the government build a better future for each resident’s financial life.
For further information, please contact [e-mail], or call 966 079. Thanks again for your help. Kind Regards,
Finance research team

Questionnaires:
Personal information
1. What is you gender?
Male
Female
(The reason why asking this question: getting information about company demographic and can get a percentage of male and female work in small business)

2. What age group are you in?
18-35
35-55
55 and over
(The reason why asking this question: getting information about company demographic)

3. What is your education level?
Primary
Incomplete secondary
Secondary
Diploma
Bachelor’s degree
Higher education

(The reason why asking this question: getting information about average education level of people who work in small business)
Working and enterprises information
4. Do you work in the small business in Victoria and Western region of Melbourne?
Yes
No (thanks for participate this survey end)
(The reason why asking this question: this is survey for investigate financial management practices in Victoria and Western region of Melbourne, if ask is 'NO' this survey can end.)

5. How long have you worked in the small business in Victoria and Western region of Melbourne______________________.

6. Are you the boss's relative or you have relative work for you?
YES
NO
(The reason why asking this question: getting information about company demographic, as we know mostly small business is running by family so we want to finger the percentage)

7. What is your company structure?
Sole trader
Partnership
Company
Trust
(The reason why asking this question: getting information about the small business management structure)
8. How many staff in you work place?
2-5
6-10
11-15
15-20
(The reason why asking this question: getting information about company demographic)

9. Company's annually profit
Under $ 10,000
$10,000-50,000
$50,000-$100,000
Over $100,000
(The reason why asking this question: getting information about average profit in small business)

10. Does Global Financial Crisis have the negative impact for your company?
Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Have no idea
(The reason why asking this question: finger our the global economic circumstance whether or not have impact on small business)

11. Your small business decision making depend on:
Employers
Advice of employees
Economic policy
Professional advisors
Others:____________
(The reason why asking this question: getting information about the small business management structure and whether the company has an open management policy)

12. Which method has already been used in your enterprise information management?
Accounting computerization
Office automation system
Informationize of purchase, sale and inventory
Company website
None of above
(The reason why asking this question: getting information about the small business management structure)

13. For increasing the company’s management, which way will be adopted by your company?
Improve operator level
Improve employee level
Enhance management
Set up more open company management policy
Find advisors
Learn from competitor
Others:_____________
(The reason why asking this question: getting information about the small business management structure)

Future strategy
14. Do your company considering expanding the scale of business
Yes
No
Have no idea

(The reason why asking this question: getting information about the small business future business planning and whether the staff have a idea about their company next step or not)

15. Depend on your knowledge, what do problems exist in small business management in Victoria and Western Region of Melbourne?
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
(The reason why asking this question: getting more information about the problems, which exist in small business. In the future, it can help new small business avoid this problem)