Essentials of Business Statistics

Bowerman and O'Connell's, Essentials of Business Statistics (EBS) delivers clear and understandable explanations of business statistics concepts through the use of case studies and examples. The non-calculus-based approach thoroughly covers descriptive and inferential statistics with an emphasis on business applications. Both procedural and conceptual aspects of the subject are covered, analysis and interpretation are emphasized, and shows students how to select the appropriate statistical tool for use in a particular business application. The abundant examples reflect real applications of statistics relevant to business students. A key distinction of EBS is the rich and realistic continuing case study examples that provide the architecture of the text. Unlike virtually all other texts, which use discreet examples for each individual subject area, EBS relies on these continuing examples to "frame" the study of statistics and place it squarely into the realm of real business problems and scenarios. Part and parcel with this approach are the rich and relevant data sets used to demonstrate statistical concepts. Finally, Bowerman and O'Connell also provide a fresh technology perspective. Excel and Minitab output is included in the text to help students visualize concepts, and a robust Excel add-in package, Megastat is both available on the accompanying CD ROM and has been thoroughly integrated into the text. The coverage of the Internet included in the book is second to none.

Bruce L. Bowerman is a professor of decision sciences at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He received his Ph.D. degree in statistics from Iowa State University in 1974, and he has over 37 years of experience teaching basic statistics, regression analysis, time series forecasting, survey sampling, and design of experiments to both undergraduate and graduate students. In 1987 Professor Bowerman received an Outstanding Teaching award from the Miami University senior class, and in 1992 he received and Effective Educator award from the Richard T. Farmer School of Business Administration. Together with Richard T. O’Connell, Professor Bowerman has written 11 textbooks. These include Forecasting and Time Series: An Applied Approach and Forecasting, Time Series, and Regression: An Applied Approach (also coauthored with Anne B. Koehler); The first edition of Forecasting and Time Series earned an Outstanding Academic Book award from Choice magazine.

Richard T. O'Connell is an associate professor of decision sciences at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He has more than 32 years of experience teaching basic statistics, statistical quality control and process improvement, regression analysis, time series forecasting, and design of experiments to both undergraduate and graduate business students. In 2000 Professor O’Connell received an Effective Educator award from the Richard T. Farmer School of Business Administration. Together with Bruce L. Bowerman, he has written seven textbooks. These include Forecasting and Time Series: An Applied Approach and Linear Statistical Models: An Applied Approach. He is one of the first college instructors in the United States tointegrate statistical process control and process improvement methodology into his basic business statistics course. He (with Professor Bowerman) has written several articles advocating this approach.