THE MARKETING ETHICS CASE: CONFLICT OF INTEREST

Recall that a conflict of interest scenario was presented to a sample of 205 marketing researchers and that 111 of these researchers disapproved of the actions taken.

a. Let p be the proportion of all marketing researchers who disapprove of the actions taken in the conflict of interest scenario. Set up the null and alternative hypotheses needed to attempt to provide evidence supporting the claim that a majority (more than 50 percent) of all marketing researchers disapprove of the actions taken.

b. Assuming that the sample of 205 marketing researchers has been randomly selected, use critical values and the previously given sample information to test the hypotheses you set up in part a at the .10, .05, .01, and .001 levels of significance. How much evidence is there that a majority of all marketing researchers disapprove of the actions taken?

c. Suppose a random sample of 1,000 marketing researchers reveals that 540 of the researchers disapprove of the actions taken in the conflict of interest scenario. Use critical values to determine how much evidence there is that a majority of all marketing researchers disapprove of the actions taken.

d. Note that in parts b and c the sample proportion pˆ is (essentially) the same. Explain why the results of the hypothesis tests in parts b and c differ.