NEPAL OPEN UNIVERSITY

Faculty of Management and Law

Programme: Master of Business Administration (MBA) Full Marks:100

Group-A
Q.1. Read the following case and answer the questions that follow: [25]
TechNepal, a leading technology company specializing in software development, is striving to enhance
its product innovation to stay competitive in the rapidly evolving tech market. The company believes
that two critical factors—employee training and R&D investment—play a significant role in driving
innovation. However, management is uncertain about the relative impact of each factor and wants to
optimize resource allocation to achieve the best outcomes in product innovation. To assess the impact
of employee training hours and R&D investment on the number of innovative products developed by
TechNepal each year. TechNepal collected data over 10 years, including:
• Annual employee training hours.
• Annual R&D investment (in NPR).
• The number of innovative products developed each year.
Employee R&D Number
Training Investment of
Hours per (NPR Innovative
week Million) Products

X1 X2 Y
9 20 4
11 25 5
10 23 4
13 28 6
12 26 5
15 30 7
14 27 6
17 32 8
16 30 7
18 35 9

(a) From the principle of least-square fit the regression equation of number of innovative products
as predicted variable.
(b) What percentage of the total variation in the predicted variable is explained by this fitted model.
(c) What value of the standard error for this model would be determined? and interpret it.
(d) Estimate the number of innovative products for the 20 employee training hours per week and
Rs.40 millions of R&D investment?

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 Group B
Q.2. Situation Analysis/Problem Solving. [25]
A mid-sized e-commerce company in Nepal has implemented three different customer segmentation
strategies to improve its sales performance. The segments are based on:
Demographic Segmentation (Segment A): Targeting customers based on age, gender, and income.

Behavioral Segmentation (Segment B): Targeting customers based on their purchase behavior, such
as frequent buyers or occasional shoppers.
Psychographic Segmentation (Segment C): Targeting customers based on lifestyle, personality
traits, and values.
The company wants to evaluate which segmentation strategy is most effective in driving higher
average sales per customer. To do this, they have collected data on the average sales per customer for
each segment over the past quarter.

Segment by

Demographic Behavioral Psychographic

30 42 48

35 45 50

32 44 49

31 42 58
Is there a significant difference in the average sales per customer among the three customer
segmentation strategies used by the e-commerce company?

Group-C
Long Answer Questions [25]
Q.3 (a) A retail company in Nepal wants to understand whether the type of marketing strategy it uses
is associated with customer loyalty. The company has implemented three different marketing
strategies:
Discount-Based Promotions
Loyalty Programs
Social Media Engagement
After a six-month period, the company surveyed 300 customers to determine whether they are "loyal"
(repeat customers) or "not loyal" (one-time customers). The following contingency table summarizes
the survey results:

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 Loyal Not Loyal
Marketing Strategy Total
Customers Customers

Discount-Based Promotions 40 60 100

Loyalty Programs 70 30 100

Social Media Engagement 50 50 100

Total 160 140 300

At the 0.05 level of significance, is there a significant association between the type of marketing
strategy used and customer loyalty?? [12.5]
(b) A factory produces a product using three different machines: Machine A, Machine B, and Machine
C. The production is distributed among the machines as follows: Machine A produces 50% of the
total output, Machine B produces 30%, and Machine C produces 20%. The defect rates for the
machines are different: Machine A has a defect rate of 2%, Machine B has a defect rate of 3%, and
Machine C has a defect rate of 5%. A randomly selected product from the factory's output is found
to be defective. Given that a product is defective, what is the probability that it was produced by
Machine A, B, and C? [12.5]
Or
Q.3. A company wants to compare the average number of training hours received by employees in two
different departments, Department A and Department B. The company collects data on the number of
training hours completed by employees in both departments over the past year.
Department
40 45 50 55 42 47 48 53 51 46
Training A
Hours Department
30 32 28 35 29 33 31 34 30
B
Using an independent sample t-test, determine whether there is a significant difference in the average
number of training hours between Department A and Department B.
Group D
Short answer questions. Attempt ANY FIVE questions. [5x5=25]
Q.4 A bag contains 5 red balls, 3 blue balls, and 2 green balls. If two balls are drawn at random one by
one without replacement, what is the probability that the first ball is red and the second ball is blue?
Q.5. A company wants to evaluate the impact of a new productivity tool on employee performance. The
average productivity score before the introduction of the tool was 82. After the tool's
implementation, the company measured the productivity scores of a sample of 20 employees,
resulting in a sample mean score of 85 with a standard deviation of 4.5. Perform a one-sample t-test
to determine if the average productivity score after the introduction of the new tool is significantly
different from the historical average of 82?

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Q.6. A call center receives an average of 8 customer inquiries per hour. The inquiries follow a Poisson
distribution. What is the probability that the call center will receive exactly 5 customer inquiries in a
given hour? Also, calculate the probability that the call center will receive no more than 3 customer
inquiries in an hour.
Q.7. The zero order correlation coefficient of three variables are found to be r12 =0.48, r13 = 0.56, and
r23=0.84, then find r12.3 and R2.13, also interpret.
Q.8. An investment portfolio manager is evaluating the annual returns of a particular stock, which are
assumed to be normally distributed with a mean return of 8% and a standard deviation of 2.5%. The
manager wants to know the probability that the stock will yield a return of at least 15% in a given
year. What is the probability that the stock will yield a return of at least 15% in a given year?
Q.9. A company wants to estimate the average monthly expenditure on groceries for households in a
particular city. A random sample of 40 households is selected, and the mean monthly expenditure in
the sample is $600 with a standard deviation of $80. Estimate the true mean monthly expenditure for
all households in the city using a 99% confidence interval.
Q.10. Write briefly on quota and snowball sampling techniques.

Best of Luck
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