In recent years, research on the effects of survey sponsorship on response patterns has almost disappeared. This disappearance may be explained by a lack of new knowledge arising from such research. After a long hiatus, a newspaper published on this subject ( Groves & Peytcheva, 2008) affirms a well-established finding that government sponsorship of a survey yields a higher response rate than other types of survey sponsorship. Online surveys raise new questions about the role of sponsorship, particularly in relation to communicating the authenticity of the survey and the importance of participation.

This research note summarizes the results of an experiment in which an email invitation was sent to university faculty, staff, and students asking them to participate in an online survey about campus transportation issues. Subjects were randomly assigned to receive an email invitation from either the university survey center or the university transportation department, the actual sponsor of the survey. Rather than manipulate the actual sponsor, our experiment manipulates the prominence of the sponsor (e.g., Transportation Department) in the recruitment process as well as the topic (e.g., transportation issues) as a result of the sponsor prominence. We examine the effects of sponsor prominence on …