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Press Release on July 25, 2017

| Detailed Findings (Social Indicators) | (Freedom Indicators) | (Rule of law indicators) |

| Detailed Findings (Ratings of the Best Public Transportation) |

Special Announcements

1. Along with the 20th anniversary of the establishment of SAR, the Public Opinion Programme (POP) of The University of Hong Kong starts to regularly announce the “best corporations” in terms of “corporate social responsibility” ratings from July 2017, highlighting 18 business corporations from six major sectors. Such surveys began in 2008 and cover industries of public transportation, telecommunication, banks and financial services, real estate and property development, retail and fast food restaurants. It aims to gauge the public image of different commercial organizations in order to encourage them to become ethical companies. The rating figures released by POP today on Best Public Transportation is one of the “Best Corporations” Survey Series.

2. From July 2017, apart from sampling landline numbers to conduct opinion surveys, mobile numbers are also added to the sampling frame. Since it takes time to conduct further testing, the figures released today by POP are only based on the landline sample. The results of the mixed sample will be released after further testing is completed. Meanwhile, POP also enhanced the previous weighting method that has been used for quite a few years. Apart from age, gender and education, economic activity status is now also taken into account when adjusting data. The latest figures released today have been rim-weighted according to provisional figures obtained from the Census and Statistics Department regarding the gender-age distribution of the Hong Kong population in 2016 year-end, the educational attainment (highest level attended) distribution and the economic activity status distribution collected in the 2011 Census.

3. In January 2007, POP opened a feature page called “Opinion Daily” at the “POP Site”, to record significant events and selected polling figures on a day-to-day basis. In July 2007, POP started collaborating with Wisers Information Limited whereby Wisers supplies to POP each day starting from July 24, a record of significant events of that day, according to the research method designed by POP. These daily entries would be uploaded to “Opinion Daily” as soon as they are verified by POP. A decade later, in July 2017, POP started collaborating with uMax Data Technology Limited to conduct “Online Opinion Analysis”. uMax Data would provide technical support concerning social big data to track posts in Facebook pages and various major forums in Hong Kong that mentioned specific political figures or organizations. When public opinion changes very significantly, POP will summarize the popular online posts about the specific political figures or organizations between the two surveys and compile a list of related events. Readers could make their own judgment if the events listed have impact on the related public opinion figures.

4. To facilitate academic study and rational discussion, POP has already released for public examination some time ago via the “HKU POP SITE” (http://hkupop.pori.hk) the raw data of regular rating surveys of current CE Carrie Lam, former CEs CH Tung, Donald Tsang and CY Leung, along with related demographics of respondents. Please follow normal academic standards when using or citing such data.

Abstract

POP conducted a double stage survey in July on the “Best Public Transportation”, and the results show that, the most well-known public transport corporation was KMB. Results of rating survey, however, show that MTR has the best CSR reputation in the sector, scoring 63.7 marks, and it is believed to be related to recent fare rebates and publicity. Two bus companies followed, with 63.4 and 61.7 marks, it may be related to the free Wi-Fi introduced as well as some government proposed services. Results of the Online Opinion Analysis show that those eyecatching events involving MTR have not affected its performance in corporate social responsibility. POP interviewed 410 and 407 Hong Kong people by means of random telephone surveys for the first stage naming survey and second stage rating survey respectively. The sampling errors of rating figures are no greater than +/-2.0 marks at 95% confidence level. The response rate of the rating survey is 68%.

As for the social indicators survey, POP interviewed 804 Hong Kong people between July 10 and 13 by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. Our latest survey conducted after the new cabinet of Carrie Lam has taken office shows that, compared to half a year ago, all social indicators have risen, reflecting that people appraised the Hong Kong society more positively than before. To be specific, the ratings of 5 core social indicators, namely, the “rule of law”, “freedom”, “prosperity”, “stability” and “democracy”, have all gone up significantly. As for the 7 non-core social indicators, namenly, degrees of “public order”, “civilization”, “efficiency”, “corruption-free practices”, “social welfare sufficiency”, “equality” and “fairness”, likewise, have all remarkably gone up, while the rating of “social welfare sufficiency” has even reached its all-time record high since this survey series began in 1997. Besides, ratings of all 10 freedom sub-indicators have also gone up beyong sampling errors, they are freedoms of “religious belief”, “enter or leave Hong Kong”, “academic research”, “artistic and literary creation”, “speech”, “publication”, “strike”, “association”, “press” and “procession and demonstration”. In the area of rule of law, ratings of both “fairness of the judicial system” and “impartiality of the courts” have registered significant increases while the latest support rating of Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma has gone up by 1.4 marks to 68.2. The sampling error of rating figure of various indicators is no greater than +/-0.24 mark at 95% confidence level, while that of Geoffrey Ma is no greater than +/-2.2 marks. The response rate of the survey is 72%.

Points to note:

[1] The address of the “HKU POP SITE” is http://hkupop.pori.hk, journalists can check out the details of the survey there.

[2] Because of sampling errors in conducting the survey(s) and the rounding procedures in processing the data, the figures cannot be too precise, and the totals may not be completely accurate. Therefore, when quoting percentages of the survey(s), journalists should refrain from reporting decimal places, but when quoting the rating figures, one decimal place can be used.

[3] The data of this survey is collected by means of random telephone interviews conducted by real interviewers, not by any interactive voice system (IVS). If a research organization uses “computerized random telephone survey” to camouflage its IVS operation, it should be considered unprofessional.

Ratings of the Best Public Transportation

[4] The maximum sampling errors of various ratings are not more than +/-2.0. “95% confidence level” means that if we were to repeat a certain survey 100 times, using the same questions each time but with different random samples, we would expect 95 times getting a figure within the error margins specified. When quoting these figures, journalists can state “sampling errors of various ratings not more than +/-2.0 at 95% confidence level”.

Social Indicators Survey

[5] The overall sample size of this survey is 804 successful interviews, not 804 x 72.0% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake.

[6] When quoting these figures, journalists can state “sampling error of rating of various indicators not more than +/-0.24 while that of Geoffrey Ma not more than +/-2.2 at 95% confidence level” when quoting the above figures.

Latest Figures

I. Ratings of the Best Public Transportation

In 2008, HKUPOP initiated a tracking survey series on Corporate Social Responsibility, aiming to gauge the public image of different commercial organizations in order to encourage them to become ethical companies and select the best corporations. There are a total of six modules under this survey series, namely, 1) Public Transportation, 2) Telecommunication, 3) Banks and Financial Services, 4) Real Estate and Property Development, 5) Retail, and 6) Fast Food Restaurant. From January to December 2015, the survey was sponsored by Metro Broadcast Corporation Ltd and branded as “Metro CSR Index”. Results were released every month in the website of Metro Radio. At the beginning, these surveys were conducted once every three months, with two different modules each time. From July 2017, the frequency was changed to once every six months, with one module only for each survey. The surveys were conducted in two stages. In the first stage, respondents were requested to nominate, unprompted, at most 5 corporations that they can think of. POP would then select from this list of unprompted nominees the 3 most frequently cited names for the next stage survey. During the second stage survey, respondents would be asked to rate the CSR performance for each of the shortlisted corporations using a 0-100 scale. 0 indicates extremely poor performance, 100 indicates extremely good performance, and 50 means half-half. From July 2017, POP enhanced the previous weighting method that has been used for quite a few years. Apart from age, gender and education, economic activity group is now also taken into account when adjusting data. The latest figures released today have been rim-weighted according to provisional figures obtained from the Census and Statistics Department regarding the gender-age distribution of the Hong Kong population in 2016 year-end, the educational attainment (highest level attended) distribution and the economic activity status distribution collected in the 2011 Census. Herewith the contact information for the latest surveys of the Best Public Transportation under the Best Corporations series excluding the 96 and 107 testing samples using mobile numbers:

[7] Errors are calculated at 95% confidence level using full sample size. “95% confidence level” means that if we were to repeat a certain survey 100 times, using the same questions each time but with different random samples, we would expect 95 times getting a figure within the error margins specified.

The research design of our “Best Corporation” rating survey has been explained in detail under “Survey Method” in our corresponding web page. The corporations being rated in our latest survey were those which obtained highest unprompted mentions in our first stage naming survey conducted in July 2017. In the survey, respondents could name up to 5 local corporations which they knew best. The top three corporations mentioned most frequently in the sector were: KMB, MTR and Citybus. These corporations then entered into the second stage rating survey conducted in the same month, respondents were asked to rate each short-listed corporations using a 0-100 scale. 0 indicates extremely poor performance, 100 indicates extremely good performance, and 50 means half-half.

Recent ratings of the Best Public Transportation are summarized as follows:

[8] All error figures in the table are calculated at 95% confidence level. “95% confidence level” means that if we were to repeat a certain survey 100 times, using the same questions each time but with different random samples, we would expect 95 times getting a figure within the error margins specified. Media can state “sampling error of various ratings not more than +/-2.0 at 95% confidence level” when quoting the above figures. Numbers in square brackets { } indicates rankings. The error margin of previous survey can be found at the POP Site.

[9] Such changes have gone beyond the sampling errors at the 95% confidence level, meaning that they are statistically significant prima facie. However, whether numerical differences are statistically significant or not is not the same as whether they are practically useful or meaningful. (Postscript: Previous survey figures were not weighted by economic activity status, so comparisons were not made using “the same weighting method” as written in the original release, although the results are basically the same.)

Our latest survey showed that MTR was considered as having the best CSR reputation among local public transportation, scored 63.7 marks, while KMB and Citybus scored 63.4 and 61.7 marks respectively.

Online Opinion Analysis

In July 2017, POP started collaborating with uMax Data Technology Limited to conduct “Online Opinion Analysis”. uMax Data would provide technical support concerning social big data to track posts in Facebook pages and various major forums in Hong Kong that mentioned specific political figures or organizations. When public opinion changes very significantly, POP will summarize the popular online posts about the specific political figures or organizations between the two surveys and compile a list of related events. Readers could make their own judgment if the events listed have impact on the related public opinion figures.

Since the latest survey findings reveal that the rating of public transport corporation MTR who ranks first has changed significantly compared to the figure recorded in the last survey, POP conducted “Online Opinion Analysis” to identify the top ten most discussed issues on the internet. The list of most discussed items after eliminating duplications is as follows:

The results show that online public opinion had been discussing the dispute activities on the MTR, the incidents related and the promotional activities held by the MTR. Yet, it seems that those eyecatching events involving MTR have not affected its performance in corporate social responsibility. Whether or not these items could sufficiently explain the changes in the ratings of the Best Corporations, readers could form their own judgment.

II. Social Indicators Survey

POP today releases on schedule via the “POP SITE” the latest social indicators, include 5 core indicators, 7 non-core indicators, 10 freedom sub-indicators, 2 rule of law sub-indicators, and the rating of Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma Tao-li. From July 2017, POP enhanced the previous weighting method that has been used for quite a few years. Apart from age, gender and education, economic activity group is now also taken into account when adjusting data. The latest figures released today have been rim-weighted according to provisional figures obtained from the Census and Statistics Department regarding the gender-age distribution of the Hong Kong population in 2016 year-end, the educational attainment (highest level attended) distribution and the economic activity status distribution collected in the 2011 Census. Herewith the contact information for the latest survey excluding the 226* testing samples using mobile numbers:

[10] Errors are calculated at 95% confidence level using full sample size. “95% confidence level” means that if we were to repeat a certain survey 100 times, using the same questions each time but with different random samples, we would expect 95 times getting a figure within the error margins specified.
* Erratum: The figure in the original release was mistyped, with regret.

Herewith the latest figures of the 5 core social indicators:

[11] Starting from February 2011, these questions only use sub-samples of the tracking surveys concerned. The sub-sample sizes of this survey range from 388 to 502, and the increased sampling errors have already been reflected in the figures tabulated.

[12] All error figures in the table are calculated at 95% confidence level. “95% confidence level” means that if we were to repeat a certain survey 100 times, using the same questions each time but with different random samples, we would expect 95 times getting a figure within the error margins specified. Media can state “sampling error of various ratings not more than +/-0.21 at 95% confidence level” when quoting the above figures.

[13] Such changes have gone beyond the sampling errors at the 95% confidence level under the same weighting method, meaning that they are statistically significant prima facie. However, whether numerical differences are statistically significant or not is not the same as whether they are practically useful or meaningful.

Herewith the latest figures of the 7 non-core social indicators:

[14] Starting from August 2010, these questions only use sub-samples of the tracking surveys concerned. The sub-sample sizes of this survey range from 447 to 523, and the increased sampling errors have already been reflected in the figures tabulated.

[15] All error figures in the table are calculated at 95% confidence level. “95% confidence level” means that if we were to repeat a certain survey 100 times, using the same questions each time but with different random samples, we would expect 95 times getting a figure within the error margins specified. Media can state “sampling error of various ratings not more than +/-0.20 at 95% confidence level” when quoting the above figures.

[16] Such changes have gone beyond the sampling errors at the 95% confidence level under the same weighting method, meaning that they are statistically significant prima facie. However, whether numerical differences are statistically significant or not is not the same as whether they are practically useful or meaningful.

Herewith the latest figures of the 10 freedom sub-indicators:

[17] Starting from August 2010, all questions of sub-indicators only use sub-samples of the tracking surveys concerned. The sub-sample sizes of this survey range from 447 to 524, and the increased sampling errors have already been reflected in the figures tabulated.

[18] All error figures in the table are calculated at 95% confidence level. “95% confidence level” means that if we were to repeat a certain survey 100 times, using the same questions each time but with different random samples, we would expect 95 times getting a figure within the error margins specified. Media can state “sampling error of various ratings not more than +/-0.24 at 95% confidence level” when quoting the above figures.

[19] Such changes have gone beyond the sampling errors at the 95% confidence level under the same weighting method, meaning that they are statistically significant prima facie. However, whether numerical differences are statistically significant or not is not the same as whether they are practically useful or meaningful.

Herewith the latest figures of the 2 rule of law sub-indicators and the rating of the Chief Justice:

[20] Starting from August 2010, all questions of sub-indicators only use sub-samples of the tracking surveys concerned. The sub-sample sizes of this survey range from 476 to 498, and the increased sampling errors have already been reflected in the figures tabulated.

[21] All error figures in the table are calculated at 95% confidence level. “95% confidence level” means that if we were to repeat a certain survey 100 times, using the same questions each time but with different random samples, we would expect 95 times getting a figure within the error margins specified. Media can state “sampling error of various ratings not more than +/-0.19 at 95% confidence level” when quoting the above figures, and that “sampling error is not more than +/-2.2 at 95% confidence level” when citing Geoffrey Ma’s rating.

[22] Such changes have gone beyond the sampling errors at the 95% confidence level under the same weighting method, meaning that they are statistically significant prima facie. However, whether numerical differences are statistically significant or not is not the same as whether they are practically useful or meaningful.

Regarding the core social indicators, latest results showed that, on a scale of 0-10, Hong Kong’s degree of “compliance with the rule of law” scored the highest rating with 7.08 marks, followed by “freedom” and “prosperity”, with 7.07 and 7.03 marks respectively, and then “stability” and “democracy”, with 6.83 and 6.39 marks respectively.

As for the non-core social indicators, “public order” has the highest score of 7.50 marks, followed by “civilization”, “efficiency”, “corruption-free practices”, “social welfare sufficiency”, “equality” and “fairness”, with scores of 7.24, 6.86, 6.78, 6.61, 6.39 and 6.02 marks correspondingly.

As for the freedom sub-indicators, the freedom of “religious belief” scored the highest rating with 8.66 marks. Freedom of “entering or leaving Hong Kong” came second with 8.36 marks. Freedoms of “academic research”, “artistic and literary creation”, “speech”, “publication”, “freedom to strike”, “association”, “press” and “procession and demonstration” formed the next tier, with respective scores of 7.52, 7.29, 7.19, 6.81, 6.76, 6.75, 6.69 and 6.68 marks.

Finally, for the two rule of law sub-indicators, the impartiality of the courts scored 6.93 marks, while the rating of the fairness of the judicial system was 6.87 marks. Meanwhile, the latest popularity rating of Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma Tao-li, a representative figure of the judicial system, was 68.2 marks, on a scale of 0-100.

Opinion Daily

In January 2007, POP opened a feature page called “Opinion Daily” at the “POP Site”, to record significant events and selected polling figures on a day-to-day basis, in order to let readers judge by themselves the reasons for the ups and downs of different opinion figures. In July 2007, POP collaborated with Wisers Information Limited whereby Wisers supplies to POP each day since July 24, a record of significant events of that day, according to the research method designed by POP. These daily entries would be uploaded to “Opinion Daily” as soon as they are verified by POP.

For the polling items covered in this press release, the previous survey was conducted from February 6 to 9, 2017, while the latest one was conducted from July 10 to 13, 2017. In between these two surveys, herewith the significant events selected from counting newspaper headlines and commentaries on a daily basis and covered by at least 25% of the local newspaper articles. Readers can make their own judgment if these significant events have any impacts to different polling figures.

1/7/17	Xi Jinping attends the Inaugural Ceremony of the Fifth Term HKSAR Government.
23/6/17	The Executive Council passes the proposal of abolishing the MPF offsetting mechanism.
13/6/17	The Chief Executive in Council has endorsed the report and recommendations of the Standard Working Hours Committee as a framework to guide the future formulation of the working hours policy.
3/6/17	The Development Bureau announces the Sustainable Lantau Blueprint.
23/5/17	ICAC arrests 21 over faked concrete test results for Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge project.
27/3/17	The police charge nine protesters of the Occupy Central movement.
26/3/17	Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor is elected as the fifth Chief Executive of Hong Kong.
16/3/17	Three participants in Mong Kok Unrest are convicted of rioting.
16/2/17	Hong Kong is again ranked first in the world in economic freedom by the Heritage Foundation.
14/2/17	Seven police officers are convicted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

Commentary

Edward Chit-Fai Tai, Senior Data Analyst of POP, observed, “according to our long tracking CSR survey series, MTR, KMB and CityBus have a proven track record of being the best perforaming public transporation corporations. Our latest survey conducted in July shows that, the most well-known public transport corporation was KMB. Results of rating survey, however, show that MTR has the best CSR reputation in the sector, scoring 63.7 marks, and it is believed to be related to recent fare rebates and publicity. Two bus companies followed, with 63.4 and 61.7 marks, it may be related to the free Wi-Fi introduced as well as some government proposed services. Results of the Online Opinion Analysis show that those eyecatching events involving MTR have not affected its performance in corporate social responsibility.

As for the social indicators survey, our latest survey conducted after the new cabinet of Carrie Lam has taken office shows that, compared to half a year ago, all social indicators have risen, reflecting that people appraised the Hong Kong society more positively than before. To be specific, the ratings of 5 core social indicators, namely, the ‘rule of law’, ‘freedom’, ‘prosperity’, ‘stability’ and ‘democracy’, have all gone up significantly. As for the 7 non-core social indicators, namenly, degrees of ‘public order’, ‘civilization’, ‘efficiency’, ‘corruption-free practices’, ‘social welfare sufficiency’, ‘equality’ and‘fairness’, likewise, have all remarkably gone up, while the rating of ‘social welfare sufficiency’ has even reached its all-time record high since this survey series began in 1997. Besides, ratings of all 10 freedom sub-indicators have also gone up beyong sampling errors, they are freedoms of ‘religious belief’, ‘enter or leave Hong Kong’, ‘academic research’, ‘artistic and literary creation’, ‘speech’, ‘publication’, ‘strike’, ‘association’, ‘press’ and ‘procession and demonstration’. In the area of rule of law, ratings of both ‘fairness of the judicial system’ and ‘impartiality of the courts’ have registered significant increases while the latest support rating of Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma has gone up by 1.4 marks to 68.2. As for the reasons affecting the ups and downs of various indicators, we leave it for our readers to make their own judgement after reading detailed records shown in our ‘Opinion Daily’ feature page.”

Future Release (Tentative)

August 1, 2017 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: Popularity of CE and HKSAR Government, PSI

Reference – Technical Notes of “Online Opinion Analysis”

Technically, POP research team firstly determines and inputs related keywords to be searched on the platform provided by uMax Data. POP then selects targeted online platforms to be monitored (currently selected: Facebook and forums), and extract the top five most discussed items on each online platform, thus come up with a list of 10 items in total. By eliminating duplications in the top ten items, POP compiles a table which is included in the press release for readers’ reference.

No. of hits since Jun 3, 2000: 81,029,657

No. of hits since Jan 1, 2018: 167,708

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Everything carried in this website does not represent the stand of the University of Hong Kong. Dr Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, is responsible for everything posted herewith, except for column articles and messages posted at the opinion platforms. Any responsibility, legal and otherwise, arising from any such item shall vest entirely with its author. The intellectual property of all information contained in this website, including questionnaire design and research reports, originally belongs to HKU POP unless specified otherwise. HKU POP opens their copyright to the world via this website, but would request all users to acknowledge their source properly.

HKU POP all rights reserved.

Last update :  26/6/2019