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210 Part Seven: Comprehensive Cases
Case 4
TABH, INC., Automotive Consulting
Database: Students are instructed to download the data set for this case from the website or to
request them from their instructor.
Objectives: To encourage students to think about sampling issues as well as ethical issues.
Summary: TABH consulting specializes in research for automobile dealers in the United
States, Canada, Mexico, and Europe. While most of their research is custom, they also produce
a monthly “white paper” that is sold via their Web site. This off-the-shelf research is
purchased by other research firms and by companies within the auto industry. This month, the
research is analyzing the viability of college students attending schools located in small college
towns as a potentially underserved market segment.
Michel Gonzalez, a junior analyst assigned to this project, contacts the traffic departments at
Cal Poly University and at Central Missouri State University (Note: this university is now
named University of Central Missouri) to obtain data from the students’ automobile parking
registration records. Both schools are willing to provide anonymous data records for a limited
number of students, and Cal Poly allowed Michel a chance to visit during the registration
period. This allowed Michel to intercept students near the registration window in exchange for
Michel purchasing a booth at the school’s career fair. The information results in a small data
set consisting of observations from 100 undergraduate college students in Pomona, California.
The data collected includes sex, color of car, major, grade, whether a student’s car is financed,
whether the student lives on campus or commutes, and a cartoon about the type of car they
would like to purchase.
The purpose of the white paper is to offer car dealers considering new locations a comparison
of the profile of a small town university with the primary market segments for their particular
automobile. TABH wants to appeal to companies with high sales growth in the U.S. (i.e., Kia
and Hyundai), and potentially European auto dealerships currently without significant U.S.
distribution (i.e., Smart). TABH also hopes the white paper may eventually lead to a
customized project for one of these companies.
The general research question is: What are the automobile market segment characteristics of
students attending U.S. universities in small towns?
Questions
1. What types of tests can be performed using the data that may at least indirectly address the
primary research question?
Simple descriptive statistics could be useful. This would involve frequency tables such as:
© 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or
duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
211 Part Seven: Comprehensive Cases
RESIDENCE
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent
Valid COMMUTE 49 49.0 49.0 49.0
2. What do you think the primary conclusions of the white paper will be based on the data
provided?
Students can run frequencies on all of the variables. They can run cross-tabs and chi-square
They tend to be male and female in equal proportions:
SEX
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent
Students in this sample tend to like red cars:
COLOR
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent
Valid BLUE 26 26.0 26.0 26.0
© 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or
duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Case Four: TABH, INC., Automotive Consulting 212
Female students are more likely to like red cars than are male students:
COLOR * SEX Crosstabulation
Count
SEX
MALE FEMALE Total
COLOR BLUE 20 6 26
Chi-Square Tests
Value df Asymp. Sig. (2-sided)
Pearson Chi-Square 17.038a2 .000
a. 0 cells (.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is
12.00.
Females are significantly more likely than males to commute:
RESIDENCE * SEX Crosstabulation
Count
SEX
MALE FEMALE Total
RESIDENCE COMMUTE 15 34 49
© 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or
duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
213 Part Seven: Comprehensive Cases
Chi-Square Tests
Value df Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) Exact Sig. (2-sided) Exact Sig. (1-sided)
Pearson Chi-Square 14.446a1 .000
a. 0 cells (.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 24.50.
b. Computed only for a 2x2 table
Business students think of a car as a cat or a dog and engineering and liberal arts students think
of it as a mule:
ANIMAL * MAJOR Crosstabulation
Count
MAJOR
BUSINESS ENGINEERING LIBERAL ARTS Total
ANIMAL CAT 17 6 6 29
Chi-Square Tests
Value df Asymp. Sig. (2-sided)
Pearson Chi-Square 14.465a4 .006
a. 0 cells (.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 8.70.
3. Assuming a small college town lacked an auto dealership (beyond Ford, GM, and
Chrysler), what two companies should be most interested in this type of location? Use the
Internet if necessary to perform some cursory research on different car companies.
© 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or
duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Case Four: TABH, INC., Automotive Consulting 214
4. What are the weaknesses in basing decisions on this type of research?
5. Are there key issues that may diminish the usefulness of this research?
The data represent only one college town, which may make it not representative of the
population of interest, which is “college students attending schools located in small college
towns.” In fact, Pomona, CA, is not a “small” college town. It is the fifth largest city in Los
6. What kinds of themes might emerge from the cartoon drawings?
One theme that could emerge from the cartoon drawings is how students perceive their cars.
Each animal has a specific meaning that reveals the interpretation of a “car” to that person. For
7. Are there any ethical dilemmas presented in this case?
David had to “purchase” the opportunity to collect data by paying for a booth at the college
career fair. Another potential ethical dilemma is how the results of this research will be
© 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or
duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
