Question

Corporate sustainability and firm characteristics. Refer to the Business and Society (March 2011) study on how firm size and firm type impact corporate sustainability behaviors, Exercise 1.28 (p. 51). Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) were surveyed on their firms’ likelihood of reporting sustainability policies (measured as a probability between 0 and 1). The CPAs were divided into four groups depending on firm size (large or small) and firm type (public or private): large/public, large/private, small/ public, and small/private. One goal of the analysis was to determine whether the mean likelihood of reporting sustainability policies differs depending on firm size and firm type. Identify each of the following elements for this study:

a. Experimental units

b. Response variable

c. Factor(s)

d. Factor levels

e. Treatments

Short answer

e. The treatments are (small, private), (small, public), (large, private), and (large, public).

Step-by-step solution

Given Information

The four CPA types are large/public, large/private, small/ public, and small/private.

Definition

The treatments are all possible combinations of different factor levels.

Identifying the treatments

e.

There are four different CPA types based on the firm size and type. That is (small, private), (small, public), (large, private), and (large, public).

Therefore, these are the treatments in this experiment.