The following appeared in the editorial section of a corporate newsletter:“The common notion that workers are generally apathetic about management issues is false, or at least outdated: a recently published survey indicates that 79 percent of the nearly

The writer of the editorial section of a corporate newsletter avers that the common notion of workers generally being apathetic towards management issues is false or outdated. He substantiates this claim by presenting the survey data of 1200 workers, out of which 79 percent displayed high level of interest in corporate restructuring and redesign of benefits program.The argument at first glance may appear to be fairly coherent and convincing.However, upon closer examination, a number of faults and questionable assumptions come into light rendering the argument wholly unpersuasive.

The primary pitfall of the argument is the scope of the management issues is undefined by the writer.He just assumes that topics such as corporate restructuring and redesign of benefit programs encompass the management issue.These 2 parameters tested by the survey are only important to determine whether a worker is pathetic or apathetic towards the management issues.But, there are many other factors and issues that come under management issues of a corporate house such as business expansion, new product launches, overall turnover of the company etc. So the proper scope has to be defined before arriving at any conclusion.

Furthermore, the writer assumes that the sample space of the workers who responded the survey correctly mirror the opinions of the workers as a whole in the corporate office.Whereas , it might be plausible that ,in that particular sample size the proportion of people knowing or showing interest in the corporate management issues is high, but in the actual scenario, that is not the case. Additionally, the writer mentioning the survey also needs to justify whether the sample size taken for the survey was a enough.For instance, if the corporate house employs 10 lakh employees, then the sample size of 1200 would not suffice to make such a claim.A larger sample space would be needed needed for it.

Moreover, the parameters of the survey are not fully cited by the writer. For proper evaluation of the claim, an in depth knowledge and analysis regarding the questionnaire and parameters have to be done.

In a nutshell, the argument made by the writer of the editorial section of the corporate newsletter is highly unacceptable To make his stance compelling enough, he needs to provide additional data regarding the survey parameters, the scope and definition of the management issues being talked about and the sample size ratio in comparison to the employees working in the corporate office.