The United States has trained some of the world's best computer programmers and technology experts. Despite all of this training, many businesses do not have a full understanding of information technology. As the importance of technology in the business world grows, many companies are wasting money on extensive technology projects. When problems arise, they expect that further investment will solve these issues. To prevent such problems, many companies have begun to outsource these functions in an effort to reduce costs and improve performance. The majority of these outsourced information technology and call center jobs are going to low-wage countries, such as India and China where English-speaking college graduates are being hired at substantially lower wages. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the positive and negative aspects of offshore outsourcing with a focus on the outsourcing markets in India and China, arguably the two most popular destinations for outsourcers. The cost savings associated with offshore outsourcing will be evaluated in relation to the security risks and other weakness of offshore outsourcing. In addition, an analysis of the number of jobs sent overseas versus the number of jobs created in the United States will be used to assess the effects that outsourcing is having on the American economy and job market. Finally, the value of jobs lost from the American economy will be compared to the value of jobs created. The goal of these analyses is to create a clear picture of this increasingly popular business strategy
A) Answer the following questions about the abstract above:
1) What is a potential hypothesis of the researchers?
2) What is one of the independent variables?
a. What type of variable is the independent variable?
3) What is one of the dependent variables?
a. What type of variable is the dependent variable?
4) What might cause some measurement error in this experiment?
5) What type of research design is the experiment?
a. Why?
6) How might you measure the reliability of your dependent variable?
7) Is this study ecologically valid?
8) Can this study claim cause and effect?
a. Why/why not?
9) what type of data collection did the researchers use (please note that #5 is a different question)?