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Scenario
Let's say that you chose Monster Beverage (stock abbreviation: MNST) as the
company you was going to research. Your focus was to find out if there was going to
be a total revenue difference (increase or decrease by year end) for Monster due to
the fact that Coca Cola will be transferring ownership of NOS and Full Throttle Energy
Drinks to Monster at the end of their first quarter, and Monster will be giving its nonenergy portfolio to Coke and using their distribution network for their energy drinks.
By Module 4, you have already introduced the company, given the background of the
merger decision, and explained what your research topic will be. The hypothesis you
are using to begin your research will be that you want to prove that MNST's total
revenue will increase due to the merger.
Your objectives will state that given the wide popularity of Coca Cola and the
resources the company has brought to the table, MNST gross sales will increase from
the fourth quarter 2014 of $2.8 billion to over $3 billion the end of 2015 due to
increased sales arising from increased market exposure from Coke.
Your research will be designed to show historical sales of Monster Energy products
and Coca Cola Energy products (NOS and Full Throttle) using nominal scales. The
drawback to this research is using historical data to extrapolate future sales. For
now, you don’t need to survey anyone. You are using data that you can easily export
into a spreadsheet.
For the week 4 Excel spreadsheet, you would show their financial data that can be
found in each company's annual report. Copy this data into a spreadsheet and
calculate standard deviation. Refer the sampling techniques and sample size in the
report. See the sample Excel spreadsheet with two tabs – one for the data and one
for the chart.
Page 1
Confidential & Proprietary
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References
Coca Cola Form 10-K Annual Report Filed February 25, 2015. Retrieved April 27,
2015 from http://www.coca-colacompany.com/our-company/company-reports
Mcgrath, Maggie. Forbes Investing, August 14, 2014. Retrieved April 27, 2015 from
http://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2014/08/14/coca-cola-buys-stake-inmonster-beverage-for-2-billion/
Monster Beverage Corporation. Form 10-K
Annual Report Filed March 2, 2015. Retrieved April 27, 2015 from
http://investors.monsterbevcorp.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1104659-1515731&CIK=865752
Monster Beverage Corporation. Monster Beverage Reports 2014 Fourth Quarter and
Full Year Financial Results. February 26, 2015. Retrieved April 27, 2015 from
http://investors.monsterbevcorp.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=898727
Page 2
Confidential & Proprietary
Collegis Education, 2014
Directions for finding Standard Deviation in Excel
Find Standard Deviation in Excel 2013: Data Analysis
Step 1: Click the “Data” tab and then click “Data Analysis.”
Step 2: Click “Descriptive Statistics” and then click “OK.”
Step 3: Click the Input Range box and then type the location for your data. For example, if you
typed your data into cells A1 to A10, type “A1:A10″ into that box
Step 4: Click the radio button for Rows or Columns, depending on how your data is laid out.
Step 5: Click the “Labels in first row” box if your data has column headers.
Step 6: Click the “Summary Statistics” check box.
Step 7: Select a location for your output. For example, click the “New Worksheet” radio button.
Step 8: Click “OK.”
http://www.statisticshowto.com/find-standard-deviation-excel-2013/
Page 3
Confidential & Proprietary
Collegis Education, 2014
Monster
(in thousands)
Net sales
Coca Cola
(In Millions)
Net sales
2014
2,464,867
45,998
$
$
Monster
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
$
$
$
$
$
2013
$ 2,246,428 $
$
46,854 $
2012
2,060,702
48,017
Coca Cola
2,464,867
2,246,428
2,060,702
1,703,230
1,303,942
$
$
$
$
$
45,998,000,000
46,854,000,000
48,017,000,000
46,542,000,000
35,119,000,000
Monster
Mean
Standard Error
Median
Mode
Standard Deviation
Sample Variance
Kurtosis
Skewness
Range
Minimum
Maximum
Sum
Count
Coca Cola
1,828,576
208,054
1,881,966
#N/A
416,107
173,145,075,817
(1)
(1)
942,486
1,303,942
2,246,428
7,314,302
4
Mean
Standard Error
Median
Mode
Standard Deviation
Sample Variance
Kurtosis
Skewness
Range
Minimum
Maximum
Sum
Count
2011
2010
1,703,230 $ 1,303,942
46,542 $
35,119
$
$
Coca Cola
44,133,000,000
3,021,379,017
46,698,000,000
#N/A
6,042,758,035
36,514,924,666,666,600,000
4
(2)
12,898,000,000
35,119,000,000
48,017,000,000
176,532,000,000
4
Net Revenue
$60,030,000,000
$2,600,000
$2,400,000
$50,030,000,000
$2,200,000
$40,030,000,000
$2,000,000
$30,030,000,000
$1,800,000
$1,600,000
$20,030,000,000
$1,400,000
$10,030,000,000
$1,200,000
$30,000,000
$1,000,000
2014
2013
2012
Coca Cola
2011
Monster
2010
Scenario
Let's say that you chose Monster Beverage (stock abbreviation: MNST) as the
company you was going to research. Your focus was to find out if there was going to
be a total revenue difference (increase or decrease by year end) for Monster due to
the fact that Coca Cola will be transferring ownership of NOS and Full Throttle Energy
Drinks to Monster at the end of their first quarter, and Monster will be giving its nonenergy portfolio to Coke and using their distribution network for their energy drinks.
By Module 4, you have already introduced the company, given the background of the
merger decision, and explained what your research topic will be. The hypothesis you
are using to begin your research will be that you want to prove that MNST's total
revenue will increase due to the merger.
Your objectives will state that given the wide popularity of Coca Cola and the
resources the company has brought to the table, MNST gross sales will increase from
the fourth quarter 2014 of $2.8 billion to over $3 billion the end of 2015 due to
increased sales arising from increased market exposure from Coke.
Your research will be designed to show historical sales of Monster Energy products
and Coca Cola Energy products (NOS and Full Throttle) using nominal scales. The
drawback to this research is using historical data to extrapolate future sales. For
now, you don’t need to survey anyone. You are using data that you can easily export
into a spreadsheet.
For the week 4 Excel spreadsheet, you would show their financial data that can be
found in each company's annual report. Copy this data into a spreadsheet and
calculate standard deviation. Refer the sampling techniques and sample size in the
report. See the sample Excel spreadsheet with two tabs – one for the data and one
for the chart.
Page 1
Confidential & Proprietary
Collegis Education, 2014
References
Coca Cola Form 10-K Annual Report Filed February 25, 2015. Retrieved April 27,
2015 from http://www.coca-colacompany.com/our-company/company-reports
Mcgrath, Maggie. Forbes Investing, August 14, 2014. Retrieved April 27, 2015 from
http://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2014/08/14/coca-cola-buys-stake-inmonster-beverage-for-2-billion/
Monster Beverage Corporation. Form 10-K
Annual Report Filed March 2, 2015. Retrieved April 27, 2015 from
http://investors.monsterbevcorp.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1104659-1515731&CIK=865752
Monster Beverage Corporation. Monster Beverage Reports 2014 Fourth Quarter and
Full Year Financial Results. February 26, 2015. Retrieved April 27, 2015 from
http://investors.monsterbevcorp.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=898727
Page 2
Confidential & Proprietary
Collegis Education, 2014
Directions for finding Standard Deviation in Excel
Find Standard Deviation in Excel 2013: Data Analysis
Step 1: Click the “Data” tab and then click “Data Analysis.”
Step 2: Click “Descriptive Statistics” and then click “OK.”
Step 3: Click the Input Range box and then type the location for your data. For example, if you
typed your data into cells A1 to A10, type “A1:A10″ into that box
Step 4: Click the radio button for Rows or Columns, depending on how your data is laid out.
Step 5: Click the “Labels in first row” box if your data has column headers.
Step 6: Click the “Summary Statistics” check box.
Step 7: Select a location for your output. For example, click the “New Worksheet” radio button.
Step 8: Click “OK.”
http://www.statisticshowto.com/find-standard-deviation-excel-2013/
Page 3
Confidential & Proprietary
Collegis Education, 2014
Running head: WALMART WORKPLACE ENVIRONMENT
Walmart Workplace Environment
Institution Affiliation
Date
1
WALMART WORKPLACE ENVIRONMENT
2
Introduction
Wal-Mart is an American multinational that operates a chain of retail stores and
warehouses around the world and has global presence. It has been in operations for the past 53
years and the multinational is in 28 countries in the world. In recent years the company has
turned to be the company with the highest revenue in the American economy. This is highly
attributed to its method of doing business where it targets the people of lower price average by
selling their goods at low prices compared to its competitors. This work swell because thee
volumes of sales has increased a lot and this makes the amount of revenue gained to be very high
compared to the other competitors in the retail business (Fishman, 2013).
The company was started back in 1962 by Sam Walton in the town of Rogers in
Arkansas. Back then he had started another store that had made good dealings but had to close
down because they could not come to an agreement with the landlord of the premises that he had
been operating from. This lead him to move to Rogers where he begun the first store of the today
known Wal-Mart. The company today operates more than 11000 stores around the world all
under different logs and banners. This has been brought about by the different diversity that is
found around the world and the different market penetration strategies.
Topic of research
I have chosen to work on a topic of the impact of workplace environment on the
productivity. The level of productivity for all the workers is determined by many variables in any
organization. Among the most important is the environment that the workers operate in and how
the y run their activities in the given environment. The working environment can be made
different by different things including the cleanliness of the place and the safety measures that
WALMART WORKPLACE ENVIRONMENT
3
are implemented in the area. The laws governing the workplace also play a big role in
determining the productivity (Billett, 2011).
There are several ethical considerations that I would expect to encounter and is the issue
of privacy. Different organizations have different policies on the issue of privacy on the
corporate secretes. These are considered to be secretes that could be used by competitors to gain
market. Most companies prefer to keep them away from researchers and this may be an obstacle
to collecting all the required information. Second is the willingness of participants in the research
to give the correct answers. This differs from one person to another and it can make a difference
in the type of data that is collected.
Problem statement
“The workplace environment plays the biggest role in determining the productivity of
workers in a certain organization.” There are many things that affect the level of productivity of
a worker and most of them are found in the place of work. The many organizations have
different working conditions depending on the needs of the workers and these can prove to be
very important in determining the final outcome. Among other variables are the payment and the
knowledge of the employee on the job that they are undertaking and also the equipment that they
are using in undertaking the job.
However, under the environment of the work place, there are several important factors
that determine how conducive the environment is. The first among those are the relationships
with the managers and your co-workers. If the workers have a good working relation among
themselves, they will be able to work well and be more productive in general and in their
WALMART WORKPLACE ENVIRONMENT
4
activities. This is because they can even offer assistance to each other which makes the working
easier and have higher productivity.
Health and safety measures looked upon. This means that if an organization make the
place of work to be very secure for the workers and that all the conditions for their safety are
looked after it gives the workers more confidence to work as they are less worried about their
safety. The health issues like cleanliness of the premises and other places like the toilets also add
a positive to the mentality that the workers come to work with and all this improves their
psychological condition during their working time. If all these issues are well taken care of, it
makes the workers want to work more and deliver more efficiency at the workplace (Foldspang,
Nordisk and Nordisk Råd, 2014).
The research statement basically reiterates the points and through my research I hope to
prove that this statement is true and is viable in the real world. There are many avenues that I
will follow in the hope of achieving this but it remains to be seen if the evidence found will be
enough. All this I hope to achieve by looking into one company which is Wal-Mart and seeing
how the working environment that they provided for their workers affected the productivity of
their workers and as it is known that there is a high rate of success for the company. So it will
provide efficient information on how to make the environment more appealing to the workers.
Research objectives
In undertaking this research, I have several objectives that I hope to achieve among them
being the following.
•
Describe factors that improve the work place environment.
WALMART WORKPLACE ENVIRONMENT
5
By undertaking this research, I hope to be able to bring up the main factors that lead to
the success of the Wal-Mart stores and how they were able to improve the working
conditions of their employees so that they could be able to come up with the best from
their employees.
•
Importance of workplace environment.
Through the research I hope to be able to show how important the working environment
is to the workers and what effect it has on their productivity depending on how good or
how bad the working conditions are.
•
Compare the different types of work environments that are available.
Through the research, I should also be able to compare and contrast the environments that
are currently available and how well they are working in favor of the company to try and
get the best from the employees.
Lastly, my research should be able to benefit the organization in several ways among
them is that the company can find out the environment that motivates the workers most and gets
the best possible results from them. If the company finds this they can be able to implement the
system to all other branches so as to be able to get the best performance and productivity from
the other workers too. This could go a long way in improving the performance of the company in
terms of sales and revenue. Through improving the workplace environment, the company will
also be able to attract the best talents in the industry and this would be an added advantage to the
company. By employing the best the company will be able to increase the productivity of the
workers and also be able to outdo their competitors in the level of employee satisfaction.
WALMART WORKPLACE ENVIRONMENT
6
References
Fishman, C. (2013). The Wal-Mart effect: How the world's most powerful company really works,
and how it's transforming the American economy. New York: The Penguin Press.
Billett, S. (2011). Learning in the workplace: Strategies for effective practice. Crows Nest
(Avstralija: Allen & Unwin.
Foldspang, L., Nordisk Ministerråd, & Nordisk Råd. (2014). Working environment and
productivity: A register-based analysis of Nordic enterprises. Kbh: Nordisk Ministerråd.
Running head: WAL-MART RESEACH DESIGN
1
Wal-Mart Research Design
Institution Affiliation
Date
WAL-MART RESEARCH DESIGN
2
Research design
A research design is the overall strategy that one chooses to use in the process of
integrating all the findings and components of a research problem. A research design is chosen
with the specific research problem in mind so as to determine the specific needs of that research
and this ensures the end result is perfect and fits all the needs of the research. There are several
factors that one needs to consider before choosing the most suitable research design. The first is
the source of information that the researcher is going for. The second and most important is the
type of information that the researcher expects to get and how they expect to analyze it so as to
come up with the final data for the research.
With these two things taken into consideration, there are several types of research designs
that can be chosen to be used in a certain research. The first type of research design is the case
study design. This is a design that is used in cases where the researcher wants to concentrate on
one particular problem and leave out all the other broad statistical analysis of a problem. This
means they tend to lay emphasis on one object or one case and then all the effort is put into
discovering that item. This method is most useful where nothing is known about the particular
topic of research and it gives very detailed results about that specific topic.
The second is the descriptive design. This is a type of design where it works to help
answer the questions who? Where? How? When? Where? And many more in association with
the research problem and this makes sure that all these are taken into consideration considering
the type of research that is being undertaken in the specific cases. The biggest advantage for this
is that the object being observed is often in the most natural state without much interference and
WAL-MART RESEARCH DESIGN
3
this makes sure that the information gathered is first hand and can be very reliable. Unfortunately
this research design does not apply very well in the cases of business research.
Another method is the observational design. This is a design that is used mostly in cases
where the research is done by comparing an object against a research group and this is
controlled. This is mostly done in cases where the researcher has no control over the whole
experiment and this is done so as to make sure that the results that are valid. There are two types
of observations; the first is the direct observation which involves the observation of the research
object while it has the knowledge of your presence. The second is where one take unobtrusive
measures meaning that the observer does not make his or her presence known to the people he is
observing.
The biggest advantage of this method is that the research is flexible and so can be done in
a more relaxed manner. This means that it is not based on a hypothesis and there is no strict
method that should be followed in taking note of all the activities of the research project. Despite
all these methods, there is only one research design that I found to be appropriate for the research
on the workplace environment of the Wal-Mart (Massengill, 2013). For this specific research, I
found the most suitable design to be that of mixed method design. This is a method that provides
more than just a methodology but it also presents a different approach to the whole thing thus
making the process to be more collective.
This design combines both the quantitative and qualitative methods of research and uses
them to bring out a whole new view to the issue of research and also make sure that all the
details that could have been missed in case one view is take and the other left out are all
recorded. Many say that this is not just a view of combining these two but it gives a whole new
WAL-MART RESEARCH DESIGN
4
perspective as to how the whole research is done. When doing a research on a big organization
like Wal-Mart, it is important to make sure that all the details in a research are well taken
consideration of. There are several advantages that come with taking this method over the rest.
The first is that using this method, the advantages of one method can be used to
overcome the weaknesses of the other method. This means that the weaknesses of the overall
method are very minimal and so the research results are often very detailed and also accurate.
Second is that this method may generate new insights or new patterns that may have been
ignored in the past or that may not have been reveled in the past and this hence makes the whole
project to be worth the trial of finding out something new (Cooper, Schindler and Sun, 2011).
This method also gives out both numeric and narrative data. The narrative data often act as a
support to help understand the numeric data and this is helpful to the researcher.
The method also has its own disadvantages among them being that it requires the
researcher to be very well educated on the research methods so as to understand how to apply
multiple methods of research at ones so as to get the best results. This method can also increase
the likely hood of getting results that are conflicting from the multiple sources.
There are a number of ethical considerations that have to be taken into consideration and
among them is privacy. The organization may take measures to ensure that not all information is
diverged and this has a good and bad side. On the positive it helps make sure that the research
program stays on course without diverging into information that the company considers to be
critical. On the negative side, the whole privacy issue may lead to hiding of information that is
critical and so it may undermine the final results that the research gives.
WAL-MART RESEARCH DESIGN
5
References
Fishman, C. (2013). The Wal-Mart effect: How the world's most powerful company really works,
and how it's transforming the American economy. New York: The Penguin Press.
Billett, S. (2011). Learning in the workplace: Strategies for effective practice. Crows Nest
(Avstralija: Allen & Unwin.
Foldspang, L., Nordisk Ministerråd, & Nordisk Råd. (2014). Working environment and
productivity: A register-based analysis of Nordic enterprises. Kbh: Nordisk Ministerråd.
Cooper, D. R., Schindler, P. S., & Sun, J. (2011). Business research methods(Vol. 9). New York:
McGraw-hill.
Massengill, R. P. (2013). Wal-Mart wars: Moral populism in the twenty-first century.
Running head: WAL-MARTRESEARCH MEASUREMENT SCALE
Wal-Mart Research Measurement Scale
Institution Affiliation
Date
1
WAL-MART RESEARCH MEASUREMENT SCALE
2
Introduction
There are four basic measures of scale that can be used in any research. This includes the
nominal ordinal, interval and ratio. They all have different measures of scale and they can be
used in different situations depending on the type of research. They all have a difference in the
type of details that each method gives and also the type of analysis it can conduct. In my research
I found that the information that I had to analyze was complex in nature and so it needed a scale
that could be applied in a vast range of information so that I could get the intended information
from the data collected. It was this short analysis that lead to the decision of using the ratio
method in my calculations.
Background information
In my research on the retail giant Wal-Mart, there are several types of data that I would
expect to collect. The first is the qualitative data. This is data that cannot be measured and is
often by the word of mouth. This means that the data collected cannot be measured but it is
useful in getting the overall picture of the information gathered. It is of most importance because
it helps in explaining the numeric values that are found in the research. It can come in the form
of the employee’s personal experience while working for the firm or the statements that are made
by the managers who are in charge of the whole organization (Babbie, 2010).
The second type of data that is collected is the quantitative data. This is the data that has
numeric value and so it is in numbers. This is the data that we are interested in having a
measurement scale for it so that we can make sensible information from the data that is collected
in the field. The information is what is useful to coming up with sensible conclusion and so it is
important to have the right scale of measurement so that the final information conveyed is
WAL-MART RESEARCH MEASUREMENT SCALE
3
accurate. The ratio scale offers a vast range of measurements that can be made using it and this
made it most suitable.
First is that it can be able to make all the measurements that are made by the nominal and
ordinal scales which are the most basic of the scales. This includes the frequency distribution in
the data and also the mode and the median of different items that need to appear in the
information. This could be crucial in determining which methods were used most and which
methods were most effective. Basically it would provide information on any count. This method
can also be used to find the quantity of difference between each value, make the addition and
subtraction sums. It can also be used in multiplication and division sums.
A measurement error is the degree of difference between a statistics that are made and the
actual situation in the ground. When it comes to errors, there are two most possible errors that
can be made with this method. The first is caused by imperfect scales. These are the differences
that may be in the scales that are used to measure the different measurements in the organization.
This includes things like the sales, profit margins and also the employee numbers. These are all
important in the final findings. Second is the issue of poor wording of the question which may
lead to the collection of wrong answers that do not give the information that was required.
Limitations
Despite all the positive things that this method does, it has one limitation. The method
includes very complex sums that may often not easy for a regular researcher. This means that
one may need to seek professional help in calculating the final information from the data which
may prove to be an inconvenience (Krishnaswamy, Appa and Mathirajan, 2013).
WAL-MART RESEARCH MEASUREMENT SCALE
4
Reference
Babbie, E. R. (2010). The basics of social research. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth.
Krishnaswamy, K. N., Appa, L. S., & Mathirajan, M. (2013). Management research
methodology: Integration of principles, methods and techniques. New Delhi: Pearson
Education.