Research &
Communications, Inc
Maryland Poll
January 2000
Part III
State
Businesses
Contact: Carol Arscott 410-461-5744
Methodology
Patrick E. Gonzales and
Carol A. Arscott, the former president and vice president of Mason-Dixon
Campaign Polling & Strategy, Inc., formed Gonzales Research & Marketing Strategies, Inc. at the beginning of 1999.
Gonzales is a 1981 graduate
of the University of Baltimore with deep roots in the Anne Arundel County
Democratic Party who served as a principal advisor to Janet Owens’ 1998
campaign for County Executive. Arscott
is a 1977 graduate of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and a
former chairman of the Howard County Republican Party.
Gonzales and Arscott together
have over 30 years of professional experience in politics. They have served as pollsters and
consultants to dozens of political clients in Maryland since the mid-1980s,
including County Executives Janet Owens, Doug Duncan, Jim Harkins, Chuck Ecker,
Eileen Rehrmann, and Robert Neall; and State Senators Tom Bromwell, Marty
Madden, John Astle, Chris McCabe, and Jean Roesser.
This survey was conducted by
Gonzales Research & Marketing Strategies, Inc. from January 7th through
January 11th, 2000. A total of
826 registered voters in Maryland were interviewed by telephone. All stated they regularly vote in statewide
general elections. A cross-section of
calls were made into each jurisdiction within the state to reflect general
election voting patterns.
The margin for error,
according to customary statistical standards, is no more than plus or minus 3.5
percentage points. This means that
there is a 95 percent probability that the “true” figures would fall within this
range if the entire survey universe were sampled. The margin for error is higher for any demographic subgroup, such
as gender or race.
Ó This
survey is provided free of charge.
However, we ask that Gonzales Research & Marketing Strategies,
Inc. of Annapolis be credited if the survey is cited in a news story or column.
Maryland Statewide Poll Sample Demographics
|
Gender Male 409 (50%) Female 417 (50%) |
|
Party Democrat 470 (57%) Republican 272 (33%) Independent 84 (10%) |
|
Race White 628 (76%) Black 187 (23%) Other 11 |
|
Region Eastern Shore/So. MD 99 (12%) Baltimore City 86 (10%) Baltimore Suburbs 279 (34%) Washington Suburbs 269 (33%) Western MD 93 (11%) |
Regional
Groupings
Eastern Shore/Southern Maryland - includes voters in these counties: Calvert, Caroline, Cecil, Charles, Dorchester, Kent, Queen Anne’s, St. Mary’s, Somerset, Talbot, Wicomico, and Worcester.
Baltimore City - includes voters in the City of Baltimore.
Baltimore Suburbs - includes voters in these counties: Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Harford, and Howard.
Washington Suburbs - includes voters in these counties: Montgomery, and Prince George’s.
Western Maryland - includes voters in these counties: Allegany, Carroll, Frederick, Garrett, and Washington.
General
Summary & Analysis
In
this survey, 826 Maryland voters were asked whether they recognized the names
of 15 of Maryland’s biggest public companies, how they would rate each of those
companies, and how they would rate a series of eight separate factors that
might effect one’s perception of a business.
In
choosing the companies included in our survey, we were aided enormously by the
research conducted to compile the “Washington
Post 100” and the Post’s list of
“Top 30 Maryland Companies Beyond the Beltway.” Five of the businesses on the list were drawn from the “Washington Post 100,” their compilation
of the biggest public corporations in the DC area. The remaining ten came from the “Top 30” list.
Lockheed
Martin, the aerospace giant, is second on the Post 100 list. The Marriott
Corporation, the Bethesda hotel and food service firm, is actually listed as
four separate corporate entities in the Post
100 (at numbers 4, 9, 10, and 24). We
consolidated them into one for our purposes.
US Food Service (#6 in the Post
100) and The Rouse Company (#31 in the Post
100) are both headquartered in Columbia, well “outside the Beltway,” but
within the Post’s readership
area. The fourth company drawn from the
Post 100 is Snyder Communication
(#32).
Three
Maryland-based companies ranked higher in the Post 100 than Snyder’s 32nd, but were left out of our
survey for a two major reasons.
Coventry Health Care (#16), a Bethesda-based managed care firm, and USEC
(#23), a company specializing in uranium enrichment also based in Bethesda,
both employ the vast majority of their workers out of state and each employs
fewer than 200 employees locally.
Ryland Homes (#20), based in Columbia for some 20 years, announced late
last year that it would be moving its corporate headquarters to Southern
California.
The
ten businesses drawn from the Post’s
Top 30 list actually range from first to twelfth on the Post’s list. We passed over
Linthicum-based fiber optic firm Ciena (#10) and Baltimore-based Prime Retail
(#11), a factory outlet developer, in order to include Baltimore-based Sylvan
Learning Systems (#12), a company that has actively sought a high public
profile. The other companies included
in our survey from the Post 30 ranked
there as follows: Black & Decker
(1), BGE (2), Integrated Health Services (3), Allegheny Electric (4), McCormick
& Co. (5), Crown Central Petroleum (6), Legg Mason (7), T. Rowe Price (8),
and Sinclair Broadcasting (9).
Anyone
who doubts that a community’s identity is derived, at least in part, from the
businesses that populate it needs only to look at the near-panic enveloping
Northern Virginia after the announcement that the new headquarters of AOL Time
Warner will be in New York. Or the
frenzy of secretive activity surrounding the possible relocation of the
Marriott Corporation from its Bethesda home.
Or the pall that descended over Columbia when Ryland, a major patron of
local arts and charities, decided to move its base of operations to Southern
California.
In
this survey, we set out to learn how well Maryland voters know some of their
major corporate citizens, what kind of public image those companies have within
the state, and which factors are most important to voters when evaluating a
business. As always, there were some
surprises.
Statewide
name recognition of 15 of the largest Maryland-based public companies among the
state’s registered voters ranged from the near-universal 97% for tool-maker
Black & Decker to just over a quarter of those surveyed – the 26% who
recognized the name of Snyder Communications, the source of Redskins-owner
Daniel Snyder’s wealth.
Also
ranking high, with recognition levels at 80% or above, were Marriott (88%), BGE
(83%), Lockheed Martin (82%), and McCormick & Co. (80%). Baltimore-based financial firms T. Rowe
Price (71%) and Legg Mason (68%) top the next tier, followed by Sylvan Learning
Systems (66%), Crown Central Petroleum (59%), and The Rouse Company (58%).
Companies
with recognition levels below 50% were Hagerstown-based Allegheny Electric
(46%), US Food Service (37%), Integrated Health Services (33%), Sinclair
Broadcasting (31%), and Snyder Communications.
It
is notable that all but two of the business with recognition levels above 50%
-- Lockheed Martin and The Rouse Company – market their products or services
directly to the public, which is a major factor in creating public
awareness. But it is certainly possible
to be a big, profitable entity while operating below the public’s radar, with
Columbia-based US Food Service, the nation’s second largest food distributor
and the Post’s 6th ranking
company on their top 100 list, a case in point.
Poll
respondents who recognized the names of the corporations in the survey where
then asked to rate the company on a one-to-ten scale, and these results were
averaged to create the favorability percentage. Sparks-based spice purveyor McCormick & Co. topped the charts
with a favorability rating of 84%, followed by Black & Decker (82%), T.
Rowe Price (81%), BGE (79%), Marriott (76%), The Rouse Company (75%), Legg
Mason (74%), Lockheed Martin (73%), Sylvan Learning Sustems (73%), Allegheny
Electric (72%), Snyder Communications (69%), US Food Service (68%), Sinclair
Broadcasting (64%), Crown Central Petroleum (64%), and Integrated Health
Services (61%).
Once
again, companies that deal directly with the public tended to rank higher than
those who market their good and services to governmental entities or to other
businesses. One notable exception to
this rule is Baltimore-based Crown Central Petroleum, whose reputation may be suffering
as a result of their labor woes.
The
quality of the product or service was the runaway winner among the eight
possible factors by which someone might rate a company that we presented to
survey respondents, with 91% rating quality as “very important.” Working conditions for the company’s
employees was next at 77%, followed by a company’s response to allegations of
racial discrimination (74%), a product liability problem (73%), or sexual
harassment (71%). Rounding out the list
were corporate community involvement (66%), a company’s financial condition
(57%), and the personality of a company’s leader (45%). (The questions are listed in the data
report in the order in which they were posed in the survey questionnaire).
The
importance of the quality of a company’s products or services is rated as very
important in terms of evaluating a business by at least 90% of respondents in
each of the survey’s demographic subgroups – men (90%), women (92%), whites
(90%), and African-Americans (93%).
The
next most important factor, the working conditions for the employees of the
company, is rated 14 points lower, at 77% overall. Demographic differences are sharp here: Blacks (86%) and women (85%) are more likely rate working
conditions as very important than whites (74%) or men (69%).
A
company’s response to an allegation of racial discrimination against its
customers or employees rates high among all groups, but is a potential
deal-breaker with African-Americans, 98% of whom rate a company’s response to
such an allegation as very important, compared with 67% of whites. Women (79%) are somewhat more sensitive to
an allegation of racial discrimination than men (69%), but the difference is
not as stark as the 31-point gap between the races.
The
response to a product liability problem by a business is, similarly, more
likely to be rated as very important by blacks (88%) and women (81%) than by
whites (69%) and men (65%).
Surprisingly,
an allegation of sexual harassment against by a company against its employees
is rated as very important when evaluating a business by 94% of
African-Americans – a figure nearly as high as that for racial discrimination
-- and the gap between whites and African-Americans on this subject is nearly
as large. Sixty-four percent of whites
rated an allegation of sexual harassment as very important, a 30-point
gap. The difference between men (60%)
and women (82%) on this issue is big, but not the yawning chasm that exists
between blacks and whites. Eleven
percent of men say that an allegation of sexual harassment is not important
when evaluating a company, the first “not important” figure to reach double
digits.
Involvement
by a corporation in the local community is rated as very important by 66% of
respondents overall, but the divide between the races, at 27 points, is nearly
as large as with the discrimination issues.
Eighty-seven percent of blacks view community involvement as very
important, compared to 60% of whites.
Women (71%) are more likely then men (61%) to view involvement in the
community as a very important factor in evaluating a business.
Perhaps
most surprising is the relative position of a company’s financial condition
compared with the other factors named in the survey. Rated as very important by 57% of respondents overall, a
company’s financial condition is judged as very important in evaluating a
business by 60% of men and 54% of women, and by 58% of whites and 55% of
blacks.
Ranking
last in importance among the eight factors one might use to evaluate a company
was the personality of a business’ leader.
Here, there was the same uniformity across the board as we saw with the
most important issue – the quality of a business’ products or services. The variance among the demographic subgroups
does not deviate more than two points from the overall figure of 45%, and
nearly a quarter of respondents (23%) say that the personality of a company’s
leader is not important when evaluating a business.
Everyone
expects a company to deliver a quality product or service. That is indisputable. But it is clear that blacks and women hold
local corporations to a higher standard.
Women and blacks, in greater numbers than whites and men, expects
businesses to conduct themselves in a humane manner, rating working conditions,
the handling of complaints, and community involvement as very important, and in
super-majority proportions. We were all
taught in school that a corporation is treated as a person under the law. According to these survey results, women and
blacks want that “person” to be efficient and
well behaved.
QUESTION: I
am going to read you the names of several Maryland companies, and ask you first
if you recognize the name of that company.
If you do recognize the
company, I would then like you to rate the company on a one to ten scale, with
one meaning your opinion of the company is “not at all favorable” and ten
meaning your opinion of the company is “extremely favorable.”
|
Company |
Statewide Recognition |
|
Black
& Decker |
97% |
|
Marriott
Corporation |
88% |
|
BGE |
83% |
|
Lockheed
Martin |
82% |
|
McCormick
& Company |
80% |
|
T.
Rowe Price |
71% |
|
Legg
Mason |
68% |
|
Sylvan
Learning Systems |
66% |
|
Crown
Central Petroleum |
59% |
|
The
Rouse Company |
58% |
|
Allegheny
Electric |
46% |
|
US
Food Service |
37% |
|
Integrated
Health Services |
33% |
|
Sinclair
Broadcasting |
31% |
|
Snyder
Communications |
26% |
|
Company |
Favorability Percentage * |
|
McCormick
& Company |
84% |
|
Black
& Decker |
82% |
|
T.
Rowe Price |
81% |
|
BGE |
79% |
|
Marriott
Corporation |
76% |
|
The
Rouse Company |
75% |
|
Legg
Mason |
74% |
|
Lockheed
Martin |
73% |
|
Sylvan
Learning Systems |
73% |
|
Allegheny
Electric |
72% |
|
Snyder
Communications |
69% |
|
US
Food Service |
68% |
|
Sinclair
Broadcasting |
64% |
|
Crown
Central Petroleum |
64% |
|
Integrated
Health Services |
61% |
|
Evaluation Factor |
“Very Important” Percentage |
|
Quality
of product |
91% |
|
Working
conditions |
77% |
|
Response
to allegations Of
racial discrimination |
74% |
|
Response
to Product
liability problem |
73% |
|
Response
to allegations Of
sexual harassment |
71% |
|
Involved
in community |
66% |
|
Financial
condition |
57% |
|
Personality
of leader |
45% |
QUESTION: When evaluating a company, how
important is the company’s financial condition?
Very Important 57%
Somewhat Important 40%
|
|
Very Imp |
Smwht Imp |
Not Imp |
|
Male |
60% |
39% |
1% |
|
Female |
54% |
41% |
5% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
White |
58% |
39% |
3% |
|
Black |
55% |
44% |
1% |
QUESTION: When evaluating a company, how
important is the quality of the products or services offered by the
company?
Very Important 91%
Somewhat Important 7%
|
|
Very Imp |
Smwht Imp |
Not Imp |
|
Male |
90% |
9% |
1% |
|
Female |
92% |
5% |
3% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
White |
90% |
7% |
3% |
|
Black |
93% |
7% |
- |
QUESTION: When evaluating a company, how
important are the working conditions for the employees of the company?
Very Important 77%
Somewhat Important 22%
|
|
Very Imp |
Smwht Imp |
Not Imp |
|
Male |
69% |
29% |
2% |
|
Female |
85% |
15% |
- |
|
|
|
|
|
|
White |
74% |
25% |