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Alumni Surveys as a Data Collection Methodology

The use of alumni surveys as a data collection methodology for empirical studies of innovation and entrepreneurship is a relatively recent phenomenon. Since limitations of data access have traditionally been a key bottleneck in the progress of systematically understanding the process of the commercialization of new ideas through entrepreneurial firms, it is worthwhile to consider the advantages and disadvantages of this method. By way of introduction, this chapter will first discuss the few existing alumni surveys that have been used to yield insights into entrepreneurship. Through these examples the types of questions that an alumni survey is well suited to answer become more clear. The following section will use these examples, along with the author’s own experience with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) alumni survey dataset and in designing and executing the first alumni survey overseas, at Tsinghua University (Beijing, China), to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the alumni survey methodology.