Chapter 2
Data Structures: Classifying
the Various Types of Data Sets
Data Structure Elements
Data Set:
Measurements of items
e.g., Yearly sales volume for your 23
salespeople
e.g., Cost and number produced, daily, for
the past month
Elementary Units:
The items being measured
e.g., Salespeople, Days, Companies,
Catalogs, …
A Variable:
How Many Variables?
Univariate data set: One variable
measured for each elementary unit
e.g., Sales for the top 30 computer
companies.
Can do: Typical summary, diversity,
special features
Bivariate data set: Two variables
e.g., Sales and # Employees for top 30
computer firms
Can also do: relationship, prediction
Numbers or Categories?
Quantitative Variable: Meaningful
numbers
e.g., Sales, # Employees
Can add, rank, count
Qualitative Variable: Categories
Ordinal Variable: Categories with
meaningful ordering
e.g., Bond rating (AA, A, B, …), Diamonds
(VSI, SI, …)
Can rank, count
Time-Series or Cross-
Sectional?
Time-Series Data: Data values
recorded in meaningful sequence
Elementary units might be days or
quarters or years
e.g., Daily Dow-Jones stock market
average close for the past 90 days
e.g., Your firm’s quarterly sales over the
past 5 years
Cross-Sectional Data: No
meaningful sequence
Example
Firm Sales Industry Group S&P Rating
IBM 66,346 Office Equipment A
Exxon 59,023 Fuel A-
GE 40,482 Conglomerates A+
AT&T 34,357 Telecommunications A-
Cr
Example
o s s - (continued)
Sec t i o nal
Multivariate Data (3
Firm Sales
variables)
Industry Group S&P Rating
IBM 66,346 Office Equipment A
Exxon 59,023 Fuel A-
GE 40,482 Conglomerates A+
AT&T 34,357 Telecommunications A-
Elementary Quantitative Nominal Ordinal
units variable Qualitative Qualitative
variable variable
Example
Year Small Business Administration
Budget ($ Millions)
1995 677
1996 873
1997 333
1998 -77
1999 57
2000 287
Time
s
Example
serie
Year Small Business Administration
Budget ($ Millions)
1995 677
1996 873
1997 333
1998 -77
1999 57
2000 287
Elementary unit Quantitative data
defined by “year”
Stock Market – Time
Series
S&P Stock Index, monthly since 1925
1,600
1,400
1,200
S&P stock market index
1,000
800
600
400
200
0
1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000
Year
Sources of Data
Primary Data
• When you control the design and data
collection
Production data from your factory
Your firm’s marketing studies
Secondary Data
• When you use data previously collected
by others for their own purposes
Government data: economics and
demographics