Better Conditions, Better Business 

The February 2006 Sensis® Business Index results are based on telephone interviews conducted with 1,800 small and medium business proprietors. The sample size is divided between 1,400 small businesses and 400 medium businesses (the latter defined as businesses employing between 20 and 199 people). It is important to remember that not all small businesses employ staff. Questions in this survey that relate to employment provisions were only asked of those SMEs that did have employees. Other questions that were not employment dependent, for example those relating to the business operator’s family and caring responsibilities, were asked of all business operators, regardless of whether or not they had employees.

Businesses interviewed for the February 2006 Sensis® Business Index were drawn from all metropolitan and major non-metropolitan regions within Australia. Quotas were set on geographical location and type of business in order to produce the standard sample structure shown opposite. Where replacement businesses are recruited, this sample structure is maintained.

At the analysis stage, results were weighted by selected Australian New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC) divisions within the metropolitan and non-metropolitan region of each state and territory. This ensured the sample refl ected the actual small and medium business population distribution. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Business Register, as at June 1998, was used to weight the sample to be representative of the total business population.

The Sensis® Business Index asks whether there is more than one predominant decision-maker in the business. Where there is only one predominant decision-maker, the survey records the gender of that decision-maker. Where there is more than one predominant decision-maker in the business, the survey records whether the predominant gender is female, male or an equal joint mix of female and male operators. In the February 2006 Sensis® Business Index, 13 per cent of the SMEs in the weighted sample were predominantly operated by females, with 71 per cent predominantly operated by males, and 16 per cent being operated by both males and females as equal joint decision-makers, as shown in Chart 1.

In addition, the survey asks about many aspects of the business and the operators, and this information is used where relevant in the analysis. In particular, respondents are asked whether they consider their business to be a family business. A rigid definition is not used for this question. Business operators are also asked whether they operate their business primarily out of their home, or out of a business premises. Home-based businesses are then further stratified to determine whether they operate their business “at the home” or “from the home”, with home-based businesses in this report including both of these groups. Interviewing for this survey was conducted over the period 18 January to 8 February 2006.