Budding Managers Need to Be Watchful with Statistical Analysis and Interpretations: All That Glitters Is Not Gold:
Pardhasaradhi Madasu
Associate Professor at Siva Sivani Institute of Management
Budding Managers Need to Be Watchful with Statistical Analysis and Interpretations: All That Glitters Is Not Gold:
In a way we educators at management institutes are fortunate enough to have students who are surrounded and have the ability to achieve the heights. On the other side sometimes, we feel helpless because in the rush to complete the academic processes and join the corporates the budding managers are not getting the ‘Real’ purposes of the subjects/modules. Maybe, because of time pressure, the management students are focusing on usage of spreadsheets/SPSS and interpretation of output. Very few students are putting efforts in understanding the context and scenario in which the data was collected or the purpose for which the interpretation is going to be used. At this point many of us (management teachers) are feeling pained to see that the usage of statistics has become a routine activity without real soul going into it. Recently, the article by Christopher Engledowl & Travis Welland on the topic of “Date (Mis)representation and COVID-19 Leveraging Misleading Data Isolation for Developing Statistical Literacy Across Grades 6-16” has again made the management teachers (such as me) to think on use and usage of statistics for decision making.
The link for the said article could be found below:
We all know that a seasoned management teacher certainly would put efforts in sensitizing the students on the possibility of getting into the loop of ‘misleading statistics’. The case studies we as management teachers take up are worked out with pros and cons of the decision taken based on the data analysis relevant for that case. However, the participant in case discussion has to be sensitized on the point that: What if the data collection and data analysis could themselves be done in not-so-acceptable way? This question could trigger a sense of caution in the mind of the case discussion participant who is going to take on the challenges of the corporate world.
During some mutual academic discussion with other senior and contemporary academicians I understood that few forward-looking management institutes have introduced a module where the BBA/PGDM participants are being exposed to the cases where the statistics could mislead the decision makers and many times the disingenuous analysis or interpretation could be unintentional. This specific module is aimed at providing the budding managers insights into the areas where statistics could lead to a weak decision. ?Budding managers are sensitized on the fact that the best of the data scientists or statisticians may be prone to biases either under pressure or due to carelessness. Comprehensive topics that could be part of this kind of module could be differentiation between correlation versus causation and Simpson paradox. To demonstrate these topics lot much of real-life examples could be quoted. The exemplary list of topics complied by Bernardita Calzon are available at the following link:
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Another good article that is very much relevant in this context and my personal choice is written by Wendy on the Whatagraph platform. The link could be found here:
Out of the examples that are complied with lot of care, I prefer to use the real life example of misleading use of statistics in advertising by Colgate. I use this example for marketing batch where some data crunching is needed to be done. The example can also be used to provide insights into how ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) would probe into a false claim or misleading claim that is made through advertising.
The present article is meant to share my good experience with making the PGDM participants cautious about the numbers and the related analysis. Hope many other academicians/educators also would share their views on this topic. I feel that along with statistics and data analysis the other side of the coin also should be frequently discussed.
Thanks for sparing our time for reading this article. Please share your valuable views and suggestions.