Data Analysis for Managers with Microsoft Excel (with CD-ROM and InfoTrac ) [Hardcover]

S. Christian Albright (Author), Wayne L. Winston (Author), Christopher Zappe (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 19, 2003 | ISBN-10: 0534383661 | ISBN-13: 978-0534383664 | Edition: 2

This text presents statistical concepts and methods in a unified, modern, spreadsheet-oriented approach. Featuring a wealth of business applications, this examples-based text illustrates a variety of statistical methods to help students analyze data sets and uncover important information to aid decision-making. DATA ANALYSIS FOR MANAGERS contains professional StatPro add-ins for Microsoft Excel from Palisade, valued at one hundred fifty dollars packaged at no additional cost with every new text.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

S. Christian Albright received his B.S. degree in mathematics from Stanford in 1968 and his Ph.D. in operations research from Stanford in 1972. Since then, he has been teaching in the Operations and Decision Technologies Department in the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. He has taught courses in management science, computer simulation, and statistics to all levels of business students: undergraduates, MBAs, and doctoral students. He has published over twenty articles in leading operations research journals in the area of applied probability, and he has authored other successful South-Western titles, including DATA ANALYSIS AND DECISION MAKING, DATA ANALYSIS FOR MANAGERS, PRACTICAL MANAGEMENT SCIENCE, and SPREADSHEET MODELING AND APPLICATIONS. His current interest is in spreadsheet modeling, including development of VBA applications in Excel®.

Wayne L. Winston is Professor of Operations and Decision Technologies in the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, where he has taught since 1975. Wayne received his B.S. degree in Mathematics from MIT and his Ph.D. degree in Operations Research from Yale. He has written the successful textbooks OPERATIONS RESEARCH: APPLICATIONS AND ALGORITHMS, MATHEMATICAL PROGRAMMING: APPLICATIONS AND ALGORITHMS, SIMULATION MODELING WITH @RISK, DATA ANALYSIS AND DECISION MAKING, DATA ANALYSIS FOR MANAGERS, SPREADSHEET MODELING AND APPLICATIONS, AND FINANCIAL MODELS USING SIMULATION AND OPTIMIZATION. Wayne has published over 20 articles in leading journals and has won many teaching awards, including the school-wide MBA award four times. His current interest is in showing how spreadsheet models can be used to solve business problems in all disciplines, particularly in finance and marketing.

Chris Zappe earned his BA in mathematics from DePauw University in 1983 and his MBA and Ph.D. in Decision Sciences from Indiana University in 1987 and 1988, respectively. Between 1988 and 1993, he performed research and taught various courses in the decision sciences area at the University of Florida in the College of Business Administration. Since 1993, Chris has been serving as an associate professor of decision sciences in the Department of Management at Bucknell University. He currently teaches undergraduate courses in business statistics, decision analysis, and computer simulation. Moreover, Chris teaches advanced seminars in applied game theory, system dynamics, risk assessment, and mathematical economics. He has published articles in various journals including Managerial and Decision Economics, OMEGA, Naval Research Logistics, and Interfaces, and is co-author of DATA ANALYSIS FOR MANAGERS. His current scholarly interests focus on mathematical programming models of performance appraisal processes and innovative pedagogies in operations research/management science.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 984 pages
• Publisher: South-Western College Pub; 2 edition (February 19, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0534383661
• ISBN-13: 978-0534383664
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 7.8 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #613,215 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Challenging Textbook, full of practical Excel techniques, December 1, 2004

By 

Jhs "user186355998" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Data Analysis for Managers with Microsoft Excel (with CD-ROM and InfoTrac ) (Hardcover)

Best for an MBA textbook or very dedicated self-study for quantitatively oriented business analysts. You learn a lot of Excel skills and how to produce practical tables, charts and other exhibits in Excel.

Using traditional statistical software such as SAS, SPSS, Statistica, etc. makes the teaching and learning simpler. Using specialized software is the way to go if you are going to learn heavy-duty statistics (PhD research or Stats major). However, if you are an MBA student, you probably will not have access to specialized statistical software, since the jobs for which that is cost-justified generally are staffed by stats majors. Thus, learning to do a great analysis job using Excel is beneficial in the job-market "afterlife".

This book isn't an "easy read," as you will need to work carefully *all* the examples to really understand what is going on, especially with the early chapters. A common problem is skimming over the examples, then running into a wall in later chapters. If you really study the heck out of each example, things seem to go well. The book comes with the data files for all the examples. The instructor's edition comes with excellent solutions for all the problems. The author really knows how to make Excel do anything!

I earned an MBA many years ago from a top ten MBA program and worked in business after that, including owning my own business. Later I returned to school for a phd degree and now teach stats in a b-school.

3 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Waste of Money, October 23, 2004

By 

F. Toor (LA,CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Data Analysis for Managers with Microsoft Excel (with CD-ROM and InfoTrac ) (Hardcover)

I am using this book for a MBA class at a Top 20 school. Our class is focused on students who have not had any formal background in statistics. This book lacks in depth explanations for its problems. Its solutions manual is marginally helpful because it also does not explain how it reaches the answers.

Granted this book is mean to be used with excel, but it relies too much on Excel to do the computation. Thus the student is limited in building a strong basis in statistics.

Unfortunately, my whole MBA class is going through is agony with this book.