Entertaining and educational, this is a genuinely accessible introductory statistics book for first year business students trying to grasp the essential concepts and techniques of quantitative analysis, using IBM SPSS and Microsoft Excel software. It does not assume any background knowledge of mathematics or statistics, and presents the fundamentals of data analysis in an engaging and readable way. The authors show both how and why quantitative analysis is useful in the context of business and management studies and instill a fundamental sense of fun and enthusiasm for numbers by providing readers with an array of interesting and interactive examples and exercises.

About the Authors Dedications Acknowledgements Foreword: What is this book? How should you use it? Part 1: Demystifying Quantitative Analysis Chapter 1 Demystifying Quantitative Data Analysis Chapter 2 Gathering and Preparing Data Chapter 3 The Software Environment Chapter 4 Describing Your Data Chapter 5 Introduction to Probability Chapter 6 Random Variables and Probability Distributions Chapter 7 Sampling and Intervals Part 2: Introduction to Statistical Inference Concepts and Methods Chapter 8 Statistical Hypothesis Testing Chapter 9 First Steps In Testing Relationships - Goodness of Fit and Independence Tests Chapter 10 Correlation and Regression Chapter 11 Regression Special Topics Chapter 12 Comparing Two Populations Chapter 13 Population Variances Part 3: Specialist Topics in Quantitative Analysis Chapter 14 ANOVA Chapter 15 Time Series Models and Forecasting Chapter 16 Using Statistics for Quality Control Bibliography Appendix.

Covering all the major qualitative approaches in business research (including case study research, ethnography, narrative inquiry, discourse analysis, grounded theory and action research), this practical, how-to guide shows how qualitative methods are used within management, marketing and organizational studies.