Individual Report
This assignment requires you to build and estimate a model using Microsoft Excel or specialist
software to address a management problem. Please upload both your report and data analysis file
on Moodle.
Specifics
You are required to find a management decision problem in any company. Using Excel (or specialised
software), conduct an analytics for the problem, and interpret the results. You are required to submit a
technical report (1,500 words) that discusses the managerial problem, the results, their implications and
makes recommendations for improvement.
Your report will be marked according to the following criteria: problem description;
modelling and solution; discussion on the result; managerial recommendations.
The grade components will be approximately distributed as follows:
Introduction (5%)
Descriptive analysis (20%)
Regression analytics (25%)
Managerial interpretations and implications (40%)
Conclusion (10%)
Introduction
In this section, you will identify your research question - based on the Excel Data you are
assigned. It is important to give reasons for why you think it’s interesting to explore such
question.
Descriptive analysis:
Import the raw data to the database, make sure it imported correctly, identify the main tables and
relationships between, produce relevant visualizations.
Regression analysis:
Using appropriate regression models to address the managerial problem.
II. Steps to be taken
1. Please go to the module webpage in Unihub;
2. Go to the section named “ Individual Assignment”;
3. Upload the zip file to your laptop;
4. Open the file name “Assignment of Excel file” to individual student;
5. Identify the data file that is associated with your student ID.
6. Open the Excel file that you find in step 5. For example, if your student ID is
associated with Data 2, then you will work on Data 2.
III. Description of the EXCEL data files:
Data 1:
The file P02_03.xlsx contains data from a survey of 399 people regarding an environmental policy.
Data 2:
The file P02_07.xlsx includes data on 204 employees at the (fictional) company Beta Technologies.
Data 3:
The data Lasagna Triers.xlsx is related to the buying behavior of customers.
Data 4:
Catalog Marketing.xlsx contains recent data on 1000 HyTex customers.
Data 5:
The file P03_63.xlsx contains financial data on 85 U.S. companies in the Computer and Electronic
Product Manufacturing sector (NAICS code 334) with 2009 earnings before taxes of at least $10,000.
Each of these companies listed R&D (research and development) expenses on its income statement.
Data 6:
The file P10_05.xlsx contains information about the human resources.
Data 7:
This is data for Business Week’s top U.S. MBA programs in the MBA Data sheet of the file P11_14.xlsx.
Data 8: The file P11_44.xlsx lists the test scores and performance ratings for a ra.
1. Individual Report
This assignment requires you to build and estimate a model
using Microsoft Excel or specialist
software to address a management problem. Please upload both
your report and data analysis file
on Moodle.
Specifics
You are required to find a management decision problem in any
company. Using Excel (or specialised
software), conduct an analytics for the problem, and interpret
the results. You are required to submit a
technical report (1,500 words) that discusses the managerial
problem, the results, their implications and
makes recommendations for improvement.
Your report will be marked according to the following criteria:
problem description;
modelling and solution; discussion on the result; managerial
recommendations.
The grade components will be approximately distributed as
follows:
Introduction (5%)
2. Descriptive analysis (20%)
Regression analytics (25%)
Managerial interpretations and implications (40%)
Conclusion (10%)
Introduction
In this section, you will identify your research question - based
on the Excel Data you are
assigned. It is important to give reasons for why you think it’s
interesting to explore such
question.
Descriptive analysis:
Import the raw data to the database, make sure it imported
correctly, identify the main tables and
relationships between, produce relevant visualizations.
Regression analysis:
Using appropriate regression models to address the managerial
problem.
II. Steps to be taken
1. Please go to the module webpage in Unihub;
2. Go to the section named “ Individual Assignment”;
3. 3. Upload the zip file to your laptop;
4. Open the file name “Assignment of Excel file” to individual
student;
5. Identify the data file that is associated with your student ID.
6. Open the Excel file that you find in step 5. For example, if
your student ID is
associated with Data 2, then you will work on Data 2.
III. Description of the EXCEL data files:
Data 1:
The file P02_03.xlsx contains data from a survey of 399 people
regarding an environmental policy.
Data 2:
The file P02_07.xlsx includes data on 204 employees at the
(fictional) company Beta Technologies.
Data 3:
The data Lasagna Triers.xlsx is related to the buying behavior
of customers.
Data 4:
Catalog Marketing.xlsx contains recent data on 1000 HyTex
customers.
4. Data 5:
The file P03_63.xlsx contains financial data on 85 U.S.
companies in the Computer and Electronic
Product Manufacturing sector (NAICS code 334) with 2009
earnings before taxes of at least $10,000.
Each of these companies listed R&D (research and
development) expenses on its income statement.
Data 6:
The file P10_05.xlsx contains information about the human
resources.
Data 7:
This is data for Business Week’s top U.S. MBA programs in the
MBA Data sheet of the file P11_14.xlsx.
Data 8: The file P11_44.xlsx lists the test scores and
performance ratings for a randomly selected group
of employees. It also lists their seniority (months with the
company) at the time of the performance
rating.
IV. Some suggestions on how to proceed with the assignment
The best way to think about this assignment is to consider it a
simplified version of your master
5. dissertation which you are going to do soon! As such, you can
apply knowledge acquired from the
Dissertation Module, and any other modules to work on the
assignment. In what follows, I would like to
provide you with some suggestions on how to explore the
EXCEL data to write the report.
Let’s assume you are given a data that have information about
HR. In this data you have variables such
as age, gender, work experience, education, salary, tenure and
so on.
1. How to define a problem or research question?
It is sufficient to define just one research question. In this
example, you can propose a question such as “
Does there exist a link between gender and wage differential?”.
In other words, you want to study
whether female employees and male employees have the same
salary level if they have the same level of
education, work experience….
It is also important to elaborate on why you think this is an
interesting and relevant question. To do so,
it’s a good idea to incorporate some existing academic
references that address the link between gender
and salary.
2. How to do the data analysis
2.1. Descriptive analysis
6. You can report some measure of central tendency such as mean,
median, standard deviation, frequency
of the main variables in the Excel file;
2.2. Regression analysis
In this example, salary would be the dependent variable. You
then can run the regression using the
techniques we talk in class.
3. Interpretation of the results
It’s important to provide some discussion on your findings. For
example, if you find that the coefficient
for men is positive i.e., men have higher salary than women.
You can explain why this might be the case.
Also, it’s good idea to make references to academic studies that
may or may not support your results.
4. Recommendation
What would be the managerial implications for your results?
For example, if men have higher salary
then women, what would you like to recommend either from the
government’s policy perspective, and/or
from the firm’s HR practices perspective.
7. Source
This is fictitious data.
DataPersonAge
A satisfied Microsoft Office user: 1 if 30 or younger
2 if 31 to 55
3 if 56 or olderGender
A satisfied Microsoft Office user: 1 if male
0 if femaleOwn Home
A satisfied Microsoft Office user: 1 if person owns home
0 if person is rentingMarried
A satisfied Microsoft Office user: 1 if married
0 otherwise
Close
A satisfied Microsoft Office user: 1 if "close" to stores with
similar merchandise
0 if out in the middle of nowhereSalary
A satisfied Microsoft Office user: Combined salary of person
and spouse (if any), measured in $1000s
Children
A satisfied Microsoft Office user: Number of children living
with personHistory
A satisfied Microsoft Office user: NA if no spending history
before this year
1 if low-spending customer last year
2 if medium-spending customer last year
8. 3 if high-spending customer last yearCatalogs
A satisfied Microsoft Office user: Number of catlogs sent to
person this yearRegion
Chris Albright: Region where customer lives: South, West,
Midwest, or East
StateCityFirst Purchase
Chris Albright: Data of first purchase from HyTex
Amount Spent
A satisfied Microsoft Office user: Amount spent total on
purchases this
year110001$16,4001112SouthFloridaOrlando10/23/11$2182201
10$108,1003318MidwestIllinoisChicago5/25/09$2,632321111$9
7,3001NA12SouthFloridaOrlando8/18/15$3,048431111$26,8000
112EastOhioCleveland12/26/12$435511001$11,2000NA6Midwe
stIllinoisChicago8/4/15$106620001$42,8000212WestArizonaPh
oenix3/4/13$759720001$34,7000NA18MidwestKansasKansas
City6/11/15$1,615830110$80,000036WestCaliforniaSan
Francisco8/17/09$1,985921101$60,3000NA24MidwestIllinoisC
hicago5/29/15$2,0911031110$62,3000324SouthFloridaOrlando6
/9/11$2,6441121011$94,2001318EastNew
YorkBuffalo4/27/11$1,2111221110$73,8000324WestUtahSalt
Lake
City8/13/11$3,1201321101$45,9002112SouthLouisianaNew
Orleans6/2/11$4161421000$52,6001NA18EastNew
YorkBuffalo4/8/15$1,7731520111$82,2001NA12WestCalifornia
Los
Angeles4/15/15$1,5171620111$76,700226EastPennsylvaniaPhil
adelphia7/28/12$5341720111$79,400316SouthTennesseeMemph
is3/1/15$2001821111$66,9000312WestWashingtonSeattle5/12/0
9$1,2201910001$12,4001NA12SouthFloridaMiami4/23/15$2292
011011$52,6001212SouthLouisianaNew
Orleans5/28/11$1,0522130100$28,3000224MidwestMissouriSt.