About IBR

Grant Thornton International started a major annual research survey into the attitudes and expectations of small and medium-sized businesses in 1992 called the European Business Survey (EBS). In 2003 the research project was widened to an international perspective covering medium-sized businesses and renamed the International Business Owners Survey (IBOS). In 2007, the name of the survey changed from IBOS to the International Business Report (IBR).

In 2008 the IBR covers over 7,800 privately held businesses in 34 economies, drawing on 16 years of trend data for original EBS participants and 6 years for original IBOS countries. New entrants this year are Belgium, Denmark and Vietnam taking the global GDP coverage to 83 per cent.

Participating Economies

Detailed below are the 34 participating economies in IBR 2008:

Americas	Asia Pacific	Europe, Middle East and Africa
Argentina	Australia	Armenia
Brazil	China	Belgium
Canada	Hong Kong	Botswana
Mexico	India	Denmark
United States	Japan	France
	Malaysia	Germany
	New Zealand	Greece
	Philippines	Ireland
	Singapore	Italy
	Taiwan	Luxembourg
	Thailand	Netherlands
	Vietnam	Poland
		Russia
		South Africa
		Spain
		Sweden
		Turkey
		United Kingdom

Back to top

Target respondent

IBR surveys medium to large privately held businesses. Business sizes are defined by government descriptions in terms of number of employees, for example a medium to large sized business in the European U would typically have between 50-499 employees.

Coverage

IBR 2008 will deliver a series of press releases and reports based on specific business issues, some of which are detailed below:

January 2008 - Business optimism

February 2008 - Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

March 2008 - Business contraints

April 2008 - Recruitment and retention

April 2008 - Business langauges

May 2008 - Emerging markets

June 2008 - Global Report

For more information on the IBR 2008 methodology, please click here.