Business Statistics: For Contemporary Decision Making, 8th Edition

CHAPTER 6

Continuous Distributions

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

The primary learning objective of Chapter 6 is to help you understand continuous distributions, thereby enabling you to:

1. Solve for probabilities in a continuous uniform distribution.

2. Solve for probabilities in a normal distribution using z scores and for the mean, the standard deviation, or a value of x in a normal distribution when given information about the area under the normal curve.

3. Solve problems from the discrete binomial distribution using the continuous normal distribution and correcting for continuity.

4. Solve for probabilities in an exponential distribution and contrast the exponential distribution to the discrete Poission distribution.

The Cost of Human Resources

What is the human resource cost of hiring and maintaining employees in a company? Studies conducted by Saratoga Institute, PricewaterhouseCoopers Human Resource Services, determined that the average cost of hiring an employee is $3,270, and the average annual human resource expenditure per employee is $1,554. The average health benefit payment per employee is $6,393, and the average employer 401(k) cost per participant is $2,258. According to a survey conducted by the American Society for Training and Development, companies annually spend an average ...