A Survey of 50 Companies

In January '08, fifty customers of a lumber manufacturer were surveyed regarding their satisfaction with products and service. These customers buy from the supplier and sell to retail chains like Home Depot and Lowes. Shortly after, the manufacturing company was sold.  In June '08, the customers were telephoned and interviewed and were asked to rate overall satisfaction again.

For each research question, describe in your Microsoft Word document the application of the seven steps of the hypothesis testing model.

Step 1: State the hypothesis (null and alternate).

Step 2: State your alpha (unless requested otherwise, this is always set to alpha = .05).

Step 3: Collect the data (use one of the data sets).

Step 4: Calculate your statistic and p-value. (This is where you run spss and examine your output files.)

Step 5: Accept or reject the null hypothesis. (This is where you report the results of your analyses t (df) = t-value, p = sig. level.)

Step 6: Assess the Risk of Type I and Type II Error. (Did the data meet the assumptions of the statistic, effect size, and sample size?)

Step 7: State your results in APA style and format.

Part 1

Question 1: How do small companies compare to the major competitor?

The trade association magazine published a report that this company's major competitor accounts for about 60% (60.0) of their small customers purchases. Is this company's Usage different than their competitors?

1. Use Select Cases to choose companies with less than 100 employees (Firm Size=0).

2. Run a single sample t-test using usage as the dependent variable, and 60.0 as the test value.

3. Report the descriptive statistics, assumptions tests, as well as tests of statistical significance.

Question 2: Is there a difference between small and large companies in their overall satisfaction with the company as rated in January?

1. Run an independent samples t-test.

2. Use size as the independent variable.

3. Use overall satisfaction in January as the dependent variable.

4. Report the descriptive statistics, assumptions tests, as well as tests of statistical significance.

Question 3: Has satisfaction with the manufacturer changed since the change in company ownership?

1. Run the paired samples t-test

2. Use satisfaction in January and satisfaction in June as the variable pair.

3. Report the descriptive statistics, assumptions tests, as well as tests of statistical significance.

Write a brief conclusion statement summarizing your results. What can you tell this manufacturing company about their customers? What could you suggest they do to improve?

Part 2:

Question 1: Are there differences in perceptions of delivery reliability between the companies who resell as a private label, manufacturer brand, or a combination of both?

1. Run the one-way ANOVA.

2. Use type of company sales as the independent variable.

3. Use delivery reliability as the dependent variable.

4. Select descriptive statistics and tests of homogeneity.

5. Choose an appropriate post-hoc comparison to evaluate the differences between groups.

Question 2: Did company size and structure of procurement impact overall customer satisfaction in January?

1. Run a two-way between groups ANOVA.

2. Use size and structure of procurement as independent variables.

3. Use overall satisfaction in January as the dependent variable.

4. Report the descriptive statistics, assumptions tests, effect sizes (partial eta) as well as tests of statistical significance.

Question 3: Has overall customer satisfaction changed since the change in ownership? And, are smaller companies more satisfied than larger companies?

1. Run a one-way between groups ANCOVA.

2. Use size as independent variables.

3. Use overall satisfaction in January as the covariate.

4. Use overall satisfaction in June as the dependent variable.

5. Report the descriptive statistics, assumptions tests, effect sizes (partial eta) as well as tests of statistical significance.

Write a brief conclusion statement summarizing your results. What can you tell this manufacturing company about their customers? Has the change in ownership improved customer satisfaction? What types of customers seem to be most satisfied with this company?

Part 3

 Question 1: Is there a relationship among the variables measuring different aspects of customer satisfaction?

1. Run a Pearson correlation matrix using delivery reliability, product satisfaction, technical support, sales satisfaction, overall satisfaction in January and overall satisfaction in June.

2. Create a scatterplot for the following pairs: (1) delivery reliability-overall satisfaction in June; (2) product satisfaction-overall satisfaction in June.

3. Report the descriptive statistics, assumptions tests, as well as tests of statistical significance identify of positive and negative relationships.

Question 2: Does delivery reliability impact overall satisfaction in June?

1. Run a simple regression using delivery reliability as the independent variable and overall satisfaction in June as the dependent variable.

2. Report the descriptive statistics, assumptions tests (scatter plots), as well as tests of statistical significance.

Question 3: Does delivery reliability and product satisfaction impact overall satisfaction in June?

1. Run a stepwise multiple regression using delivery reliability and product satisfaction as the independent variables and overall satisfaction in June as the dependent variable.

2. Report the descriptive statistics, assumptions tests (scatter plots), as well as tests of statistical significance.

Write a brief conclusion statement summarizing your results. What can you tell this manufacturing company about the relationship among satisfaction variables? Are there any areas they need to improve? Does adding a second variable to the regression equation increase prediction of customer satisfaction?

Part 4

Question 1: Before the change of ownership, the company was encouraging its customers to reduce private labeling as a way to reduce cost of goods sold. Explore the distribution of customers by company sales. Does the distribution of customers (private label, brand label, or both) differ from what one would expect by chance?

1. Run a chi square goodness of fit using Company Sales as the variable with "all categories equal".
2. Report the observed and expected values and the tests of statistical significance.

Question 2: Run a chi square goodness of fit using purchase type as the variable with "all categories unequal" for the expected value.

1. Run a chi square goodness of fit using purchase type as the variable with 12, 26, and 12 as the expected values.

2. Report the observed and expected values and the tests of statistical significance.

Question 3: Is there a relationship between the type of purchasing and the structure of procurement?

1. Run chi-square independence test (crosstabs) using type of purchasing  in the rows and structure of procurement in the column.

2. Use the chi square and the phi coefficient to evaluate the relationship and statistical significance.

3. Report the observed and expected values and the tests of statistical significance.

Attachment:- business.sav