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Facebook: Future of Business Survey 2019, December

World, 2019
Central
Facebook, The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), World Bank
Created on September 08, 2020 Last modified September 08, 2020 Page views 3233 Download 95 Documentation in PDF Metadata DDI/XML JSON

Identification

Survey ID Number
WLD_2019_FBS-DEC_v01_M
Title
Facebook: Future of Business Survey 2019, December
Subtitle
December
Country
Name Country code
World WLD
Study type
Enterprise Survey [en/oth]
Series Information
The Future of Business survey is a collaboration between Facebook, the OECD and the World Bank to provide monthly data on the perceptions, challenges, and outlook of online Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). It was first launched in 17 countries in February 2016. Now the survey covers 101 countries and includes additional fields related to gender for example. The survey is administered each month by German research company FactWorks. In 2019, the Future of Business survey increased coverage to 97 countries and moved to a bi-annual cadence.
Abstract
The Future of Business Survey is a new source of information on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Launched in February 2016, the monthly survey - a partnership between Facebook, OECD, and The World Bank - provides a timely pulse on the economic environment in which businesses operate and who those businesses are to help inform decision-making at all levels and to deliver insights that can help businesses grow. The Future of Business Survey provides a perspective from newer and long-standing digitalized businesses and provides a unique window into a new mobilized economy.

Policymakers, researchers and businesses share a common interest in the environment in which SMEs operate, as well their outlook on the future, not least because young and innovative SMEs in particular are often an important source of considerable economic and employment growth. Better insights and timely information about SMEs improve our understanding of economic trends, and can provide new insights that can further stimulate and help these businesses grow.

To help provide these insights, Facebook, OECD and The World Bank have collaborated to develop a monthly survey that attempts to improve our understanding of SMEs in a timely and forward-looking manner. The three organizations share a desire to create new ways to hear from businesses and help them succeed in the emerging digitally-connected economy. The shared goal is to help policymakers, researchers, and businesses better understand business sentiment, and to leverage a digital platform to provide a unique source of information to complement existing indicators.

To date, more than 60 million SMEs have created a Page, and more than 140,000 of these Facebook Page owners have taken the survey. With more businesses leveraging online tools each day, the survey provides a lens into a new mobilized, digital economy and, in particular, insights on the actors: a relatively unmeasured community worthy of deeper consideration and considerable policy interest.
Kind of Data
Sample survey data [ssd]
Unit of Analysis
The study describes small and medium-sized enterprises.

Scope

Notes
The survey includes questions about:

- Perceptions of current and future economic activity
- Challenges
- Business characteristics
- Strategy

Coverage

Geographic Coverage
When the survey was initially launched in February 2016, it included 22 countries. The Future of Business Survey is conducted in over 90 countries in every region of the world, including 33 countries in Europe, 19 countries in Latin America, 15 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, 3 countries in the Caribbean, 5 countries in Central America, 20 countries in Asia, and all of North America.
Universe
The target population consists of SMEs that have an active Facebook business Page and include both newer and longer-standing businesses, spanning across a variety of sectors. To date, more than 90 million SMEs have created a Facebook Page, and more than 700,000 of these Facebook Page owners have taken the survey. With more businesses leveraging online tools each day, the survey provides a lens into a new mobilized, digital economy and, in particular, insights on the actors: a relatively unmeasured community worthy of deeper consideration and considerable policy interest.

Producers and sponsors

Primary investigators
Name
Facebook
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
World Bank
Funding Agency/Sponsor
Name
World Bank
OECD
Facebook

Sampling

Sampling Procedure
Twice a year in over 90 countries, the Facebook Survey Team sends the Future of Business to admins and owners of Facebook-designated small business pages. When we share data from this survey, we anonymize responses to all survey questions and only share country-level data publicly. To achieve better representation of the broader small business population, we also weight our results based on known characteristics of the Facebook Page admin population.

A random sample of firms, representing the target population in each country, is selected to respond to the Future of Business Survey each month.
Response Rate
Response rates to online surveys vary widely depending on a number of factors including survey length, region, strength of the relationship with invitees, incentive mechanisms, invite copy, interest of respondents in the topic and survey design.

Note: Response rates are calculated as the number of respondents who completed the survey divided by the total number of SMEs invited.

Data Collection

Dates of Data Collection
Start End
2019 2019
Data Collection Mode
Internet [int]
Data Collection Notes
The questionnaire was pretested by the target audience, as well as experts from the area of research interest. Additionally, steps were taken to translate the survey in order to reduce sensitivities to cultural response bias:

- Respondents were given the option to respond to the survey in any of fifteen languages native to the countries in which it was conducted.
- Translations were done only by native speakers, with two rounds of additional online checks in the context of the survey environment.
- Translators were provided with context material for this survey (e.g., the Facebook for Business website) in order to understand the context of the survey. They were also instructed to take the English survey at least two times before starting with the translations.
- Translations were discussed in a group in order to ensure a common understanding of questions and items.
- The tone (formal vs. informal) of the survey was based on cultural conventions, e.g., Facebook usually uses an informal tone, while in cultures such as the Japanese this is very uncommon and thus a formal tone was used there.

Questionnaires

Questionnaires
The survey includes questions about perceptions of current and future economic activity, challenges, business characteristics and strategy. Custom modules include questions related to regulation, access to finance, digital payments, and digital skills. The full questionnaire is available for download.

Data Appraisal

Estimates of Sampling Error
Any survey data is prone to several forms of error and biases that need to be considered to understand how closely the results reflect the intended population. In particular, the following components of the total survey error are noteworthy:

Sampling error is a natural characteristic of every survey based on samples and reflects the uncertainty in any survey result that is attributable to the fact that not the whole population is surveyed.

Other factors beyond sampling error that contribute to such potential differences are frame or coverage error (sampling frame of Page owners does not include all relevant businesses but also may include individuals that don’t represent businesses), and nonresponse error.

Note that the sample is meant to reflect the population of businesses on Facebook, not the population of small businesses in general. This group of digitized SMEs is itself a community worthy of deeper consideration and of considerable policy interest. However, care should be taken when extrapolating to the population of SMEs in general. Moreover, future work should evaluate the external validity of the sample. Particularly, respondents should be compared to the broader population of SMEs on Facebook, and the economy as a whole.

Access policy

Contacts
Name Affiliation Email
Joshua Seth Wimpey WBG jwimpey@worldbank.org
Confidentiality
Original dataset may not be shared or distributed outside of the WBG. Derived analyses may be shared, with citation.
Access conditions
- Licensed datasets, accessible under conditions.
Citation requirements
Use of the dataset must be acknowledged using a citation which would include:
- the Identification of the Primary Investigator
- the title of the survey (including country, acronym and year of implementation)
- the survey reference number
- the source and date of download

Example:

Facebook, OECD and World Bank. World - Facebook: Future of Business Survey - December 2019. Ref: WLD_2019_FBS-DEC_v01_M. Downloaded from [url] on [date].

Metadata production

DDI Document ID
DDI_WLD_2019_FBS-DEC_v01_M_WB
Producers
Name Abbreviation Affiliation Role
Development Economics Data Group DECDG The World Bank Documentation of the DDI
Date of Metadata Production
2020-08-14
DDI Document version
Version 01 (Aug 2020).