Test Bank for Quantitative Analysis for Management, 11/E 11th Edition Barry Render, Ralph M. Stair, Michael E. Hanna

In solving a problem, managers must consider both qualitative and quantitative factors. He or she should do both qualitative and quantitative analysis.

Quantitative analysis is a scientific approach to decision making, referring to counts and measuring of things.

The approach includes defining the problem, developing a model, acquiring input data, developing a solution, testing the solution, analyzing the results, and implementing the results. It provides the fundamental connection between empirical observation and mathematical expression of quantitative relationships.

Different from quantitative analysis, the qualitative analysis focuses on the reasons behind the behavior, predominantly or exclusively using words as data.

Concerning on how and why it happens, instead of what, where and when, which are more focused upon when conducting a quantitative analysis.

The main disadvantage of qualitative analysis is that their findings cannot be extended to wider populations with the same degree of certainty that quantitative analyses can. This is because the findings of this research are not tested to discover whether they are statistically significant or due to chance.

For example, if we want to know the percentage of unemployment for one specific year, for qualitative analysis, we gather the information of a small sample, such as 500 persons, about occupation, age, industry, then categories these observations.

For quantitative analysis, we can gather information for a large sample, such as 5000 persons, treat occupation as dependent variable, and other factors as independent variables, by modeling the data, we can obtain an appropriate model and use it to predict or make a conclusion.