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He was responding to the particular activity of speech-making, and not to the necessity of promoting public relations for the interests of his company. The 'double barrel' or even 'multiple barrel' nature of the items is an inherent technical difficulty of the forced choice method. That is why it is essential to ask the respondents to explain their choices. In future replications, the group of statements on community participation should be changed so the respondents' attention will not be diverted to the making of speeches. The second way to rearrange the data is to look at consistencies in individual sets of responses. As should be expected, complete consistencies in the form of all four choices falling in one ideological set were rare. Nevertheless, nearly half of the respondents made three choices in one set, showing that the attitudinal items were regarded as related by the respondents (see Table 3).
It is thus clear that the second hypothesis that Hong Kong industrialists are profit-seeking entrepreneurs unfettered by social ethical considerations is not the self-image of the spinners. But how about the first hypothesis that Hong Kong industrialists are less likely to uphold the idea of social responsibility than Western businessmen? Again, a comparison with Nichols' findings is instructive. For the sake of comparability, I shall follow his classification scheme in placing businessmen into ideological categories. In view of the highly skewed distribution of choices,
Table 3: Individual consistencies in the Ideological Preferences of the Hong Kong Cotton Spinners Ideological Set Laissez-faire Interest Responsibility 4 choices inone set 3 choices in
one set 4 choices in
one set 3 choices in
one set 4 choices in
one set 3 choices in
one set Actual no. of consistencies 0 2 1 2 3 15 Possible no. of consistencies 0 13 2 15 33* 34* Note: * One of the 35 respondents only reacted to two groups of
statements, while another reacted to three groups. Source: Interviews, 1978.