Business Modelling and Analysis (FIN60003)
Assignment
Contents
Objectives ................................................................................................................................................ 2
Presentation of a business report ......................................................................................................... 2
Background ............................................................................................................................................. 2
Tasks ......................................................................................................................................................... 3
1. Select a Random Sample ........................................................................................................... 3
2. Descriptive Statistics .................................................................................................................. 3
3. Confidence intervals .................................................................................................................. 4
4. Hypothesis Testing..................................................................................................................... 4
5. Correlation and Regression ....................................................................................................... 5
Assignment structure: ............................................................................................................................ 5
Presentation ........................................................................................................................................ 5
Executive summary ........................................................................................................................... 5
Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 5
Analysis ................................................................................................................................................ 6
Conclusion and limitations ............................................................................................................... 6
Reference list ...................................................................................................................................... 7
Appendices ......................................................................................................................................... 7
Marks and submission instructions...................................................................................................... 7
Objectives
In this assignment you are expected to develop a business report that will be presented to a senior manager of a law firm. The report should be informative but concise and follows a specific structure that allows the document to be easily read and understood. For this purpose please ensure that you have studied supplementary material about the academic report writing available on e-tivity 5.4 before you start your assignment. This assignment is worth 20% of your final mark.
This assignment provides students with opportunity to:
• combine statistical analysis and report writing skills to prepare a concise, non-technical business report,
• draw a random sample to complete statistical analysis,
• develop and enhance computing skills, specifically the use of the built-in functions in MS Excel and MS Word,
• apply statistical techniques to a data set, and
• reinforce taught concepts including descriptive statistics, sampling and estimation, hypothesis testing, correlation and regression.
Background
Margaret is the partner of a law firm in Melbourne. She has recently attended a seminar in which Simon Sinek discussed challenges faced by the new generation of employees (please watch the video posted on e-tivity 7.5, The Millennial Question). After the seminar, she decided to implement some new strategies in her firm to improve the working environment. She aims to instil collegial spirit among employees, reduce stress and improve productivity.
For that purpose, Margaret asked Jason, a newly appointed research officer, to help with her initiatives. In January 2017, they installed a special software on all computers and devices with internet connection capabilities. The software measured the amount of time each employee spent on different social media during each day. At the end of January, using a questionnaire, Margaret and Jason asked employees to rank their levels of job satisfaction, stress and their perception about the level of support they received from their peers. At the first day of February 2017, the software automatically blocked access to social media on all devises and employees had only halfan-hour during their lunch times to access social media via their mobile phones. Margaret also ordered some social spaces to be built in her company so employees could interact more often while enjoying free tea and coffee. She hoped that this creates a collegial environment where employees feel they belong to a big family. At the end of April 2017, Margaret and Jason again asked employees to answer the same questionnaire and measured their job satisfaction, stress and peer support.
Data are presented in the excel file named FIN60003_Assingment Data.xls and is available on etivity 7.5. There are seven variables for 810 employees in this data set. Variables are:
GENDER: Gender of employees (F: Females and M: Males)
AGE: Age of employees in years
TIME on SM: Average time spent on social media (hours per day) before the implementation of the new initiatives
PRODUCTIVITY: it is measured by the number of billable hours
JOB SATISFACTION: it is measured using a likert scale questionnaire, where 1 indicates least level of satisfaction and 10 is the highest level of satisfaction
STRESS LEVEL: it is measured using a likert scale questionnaire, where 1 indicates least stress level and 10 is the highest stress level
PEER SUPPORT: it is measured using a likert scale questionnaire, where 1 indicates least peer support and 10 is the highest peer support perceived by employees.
Presentation of a business report
You are going to help Jason in developing a report that addresses Margaret’s concerns. She wants to know whether the initiatives she implemented have been beneficial. Since Margaret is not very familiar with statistical terms, try to not just quote statistics or analysis results, but explain what they mean. In general, do not include formulae, calculations, definitions of statistical terms or discussions on how graphs are constructed in the report. Where appropriate these may be included in the appendices. Follow the Harvard Style Guide (available on e-tivity
5.4) for all in text references, reference lists and bibliographies.
It is important that the values which have been calculated are correctly analysed, discussed and interpreted. The written description of the main features of the tables and graphs should be presented. The emphasis will be on interpretation and analysis, not just the computation of statistics and construction of graphs. The assessment should be in one single Microsoft Word compatible document and should be written in 12 point font. It is expected that all work submitted, will have been edited for spelling, grammar and clarity.
Tasks
Most of your statistical calculations should be carried out using Excel only and you will use Microsoft Word and Excel to complete this assignment.
1. Select a Random Sample
Select a random sample of size 100 from the given 810 cases (remember that 810 cases constitute the population of interest and you are not allowed to calculate any parameters such as mean and standard deviation). You will use this sample data to complete tasks 2 to 5.
2. Descriptive Statistics
Use appropriate data summary methods to describe the (data name) data in your sample using the (number of) variables. Use an appropriate graphical and/or summary statistical technique, chosen according to the type of variable. These techniques will be chosen from:
Tabular Techniques: Frequency tables and Grouped (joint) frequency tables.
Graphical Techniques: Pie chart, Bar graph, Histogram (avoid three dimensional graphs).
Summary Statistics: Mode, Median, Mean, Standard Deviation, Range, Coefficient of Variation and Interquartile Range.
You will need to choose the most appropriate technique(s) for each variable being analysed. Less appropriate/inappropriate techniques will receive fewer/no marks.
There are seven variables all together to be analysed.
For a nominal or an ordinal (discrete) variable draw a graph and present a frequency table in percentages.
For a ratio or an interval variable (continuous) draw a graph and a summary statistics table.
Try to use variation in drawing graphs e.g. pie chart/ bar chart or histogram as much as possible. Do not draw two different graphs for the same variable.
3. Confidence intervals
Estimate the following quantities, using 95% confidence intervals. Explain the meaning of your confidence intervals.
i. The average age of employees. ii. The average total time spend on social media.
Compare both intervals with their respective true means.
4. Hypothesis Testing
Margaret has some assumptions about the impact of time spent on social media on employees’ wellbeing and wants to check their validity. She also wants to know whether her initiatives have been successful or not. Investigate these contentions by carrying out appropriate hypothesis tests.
i. It is often felt that female employees spend more time on average on social media than male employees do.
ii. After implementation of the new initiatives, employees’ stress levels have decreased.
iii. After implementation of the new initiatives, employees feel they receive more support from their peers.
Only report a non-technical explanation of your methodology and your findings in the main section of the report. The computations and output should be placed in an appendix.
5. Correlation and Regression
In this section, first, Jason intends to investigate the relationship between the time spent on social media and employees’ productivity. As the second test, he investigates the relationship between the time spent on social media and employees’ job satisfaction. For these tests use productivity before.
Use these variables to develop two regression models and make sure to provide full discussions on each test. You discussions for each test should include:
• a scattergram and full interpretation
• an estimate of the linear regression model
• the coefficients of correlation and determination
• a test of the hypothesis that there is no linear relationship between dependent and independent variables.
Assignment structure:
Presentation
Presentation is an important feature of a business report. The guide to presentation that follows includes an Executive summary, Introduction, Analysis and Appendices (please follow the instructions given in e-tivity 5.4). Your assignment should contain the following sections:
Executive summary
This is your first page and not to be included in the page count. Executive summary should be a combined form of Introduction and Conclusions.
• Report only the highlights of the findings
• Entice an Executive to read on
• Essentially a lively summary of the main conclusions
• No longer than one page since not counted in the page count, must be on a separate page from the rest of the report.
Introduction
This should contain information about what we expect to read in the project.
• State the purpose of the report, e.g. what you will discuss in the report
• Outline the contents of the report
• Provide a brief description of the methodology
• Describe the source of the data and state its location in the report.
THIS SHOULD TAKE ABOUT HALF A PAGE.
Analysis
This section contains a thorough yet non-technical description of all the findings (graphs and tables will be included only where they help this discussion). It details the results that were highlighted in the Executive Summary. No calculation is required here but appropriate graphs and tables which are needed to support your discussions should be included. Your analysis section should contains the following divisions:
• DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS
There are 7 variables in your data sets. Depending on the level of measurement (Nominal, Ordinal or Interval/Ratio measures), you will need to provide an appropriate graph, a summary statistics table and descriptions related to each variable. Take one variable at a time.
THIS SHOULD TAKE ABOUT TWO PAGES.
• CONFIDENCE INTERVAL
“We are 95% confident that………….”
Do not show the method of calculating a confidence interval (calculation details should be reported in appendices). Do not draw a graph. Report the sample data used for analysis of this section in the appendix. THIS WILL TAKE HALF A PAGE OR LESS.
• HYPOTHESIS TESTING
Do not write H0, HA etc. Only your result such as “hypothesis test was performed on………” Also report the type of hypothesis (i.e., upper, lower, two-tail), the test statistic, p-value, and degrees of freedom. Report the sample data used for these analyses in the appendix. THIS WILL
TAKE AROUND ONE PAGE OR LESS.
• CORRELATION and REGRESSION
Present your scatter plots with a line of best fit included in the graphs. Clearly specify the dependent and independent variables and describe the strength of relationships using R and R squared values. A full linear regression model should be stated on both graph and in the discussion.
Interpret the slope and intercept coefficients and hypothesis test result (t-value, p-value, etc.). Report the sample data used for these analyses in the appendix. THIS WILL TAKE ABOUT ONE AND HALF PAGES OR LESS.
Conclusion and limitations
All the important findings and results of your work should be presented here in a concise format. Make sure not to give tables or graphs here. This section is
• Essentially an expansion of the Executive Summary written from the point of view that the Executive Summary has not been read.
• It ends with a discussion of the limitations of your analysis.
THIS WILL TAKE HALF A PAGE.
Reference list
Follow the Harvard Style Guide (available on e-tivity 5.3) for all in text references, reference lists and bibliographies (reference list and appendices are not included in the page count).
Appendices
• Must be numbered and referred to in the main body of the report (print double sided and mind use of paper).
• Must contain your selection of random numbers and related random data and any additional calculations and computer outputs for each section (do not print the entire population).
• Also attach your EXCEL work for descriptive statistics, confidence interval, hypothesis testing and regression.
Graphs must be presented in the main body along with relevant tables and discussion. Those
Graphs that are presented in the appendices only will not be marked. Only include relevant Excel outputs in the report, and place the rest of outputs in the appendices. However, try to keep the appendices to a moderate size. Remember that examination is entirely based on the report itself and any excel outputs appeared in appendices are only to confirm your excel calculations.
Indications given above about the page lengths are only a guideline. You will not be penalized for changing these, as long as you remain within the 7-pages limit.
Marks and submission instructions
This assignment contributes 20% to the final assessment.
Presentation 1% Executive Summary 1%
Introduction 1%
Descriptive statistics 4%
Confidence intervals 2%
Hypothesis Tests 4% Correlation and Regression 4% Conclusion and Limitations 1%
Appendix with EXCEL outputs 2%
• Students must work independently on this assignment and submit only their own work. They are expected to submit genuine attempts at the assignment.
The penalties for plagiarism can be severe ranging from a zero grade for an assessment task through to expulsion from the unit and in the extreme, exclusion from Swinburne.
Note: no extension will be given to students on the grounds that they tried to print their assignment on the due day but the print failed for any reason.
• This assignment must include your ID number, family name, given name, tutorial day and time and your lecturer’s name.
• Marks will be awarded for presentation. Assignments must be word processed and include page numbers. Students are to use MS-Excel to perform the data analysis. All relevant Excel output, referred to but not included in the report itself, is to be placed in an appendix.
• Assignment maximum lengths: 7 single-sided A4 pages, Executive Summary and Appendices. Executive Summary, Reference List and Appendices are not included in the page count.
• Each student must keep a copy of their assignments for their own records.
• Students are required to submit their assignments electronically through Turnitin. Students are allowed to submit only one document (including the appendices). Turnitin provides a matching service which will compare final submission with a range of data bases, including comparisons with other assignments, to avoid plagiarism.
• Due date: All assignment must be submitted by Friday 26 May at 5pm.
• The submission times are recorded on Turnitin and the penalty for late submission of assignments is 20% of awardable marks per day overdue.