The characteristics of individuals and business entities vary from individual to individual and

from entity to entity

So in case of human beings there are certain physical and/or quantitative characteristics like
height, weight, complexion etc and there are certain abstracts for qualitative characteristics
like intelligence, integrity, creativity, attitude etc.

similarly a business organisation also has physical characteristics like employees, sales,
offices, etc being physical in nature they are easily measurable however there are certain
abstract characteristics like reputation, image of the entity, motivation, work culture,
commitment, customers perception and trust so all these perception and feelings of
customers and employees are extremely important because they help the company to stay
afloat and group
Therefore it is essential for the companies to consider the above abstract characteristics
relating to employees and customers

Some concepts that are normally relevant for understanding the psychology of employees
and customers are achievement, attitude, intelligence, personality

According to behavioural scientists, they have evolved the following instruments to measure
the above concepts
Achievement tests
Aptitude tests
Attitude scales
Intelligence coefficient
Personality profiling.

So the measures and variables can be divided into two basic types namely Quantitative/
numeric/metric
Qualitative /categorical /non metric

Incidentally only quantitative variables can be measured and qualitative variables can only
be counted
This distinction of two variables is quite evident while analysing the data as most analysis
can be done using quantitative data

If the data is collected in quantitative form then in descriptive statistics one can find mean,
standard deviation etc whereas the qualitative variables has limitations so one can only
count such as variable, mean standard deviation etc cannot be computed

It is therefore very important to make a detailed plan of what analysis the research project
requires and set-up appropriate hypothesis accordingly before the data collection stage.

So the researcher must have a clear understanding of the type of variables to be used and
appropriate analysis to be performed on them.

The examples of categorical random variables are

Responses such as yes/no, to a question
Gender of a newborn child male/female
The result of students in an examination is pass/fail
Type of medals in a sports event is gold silver and bronze
The examples of numerical random variables are
Height,
Weight,
Income of individuals,
Marks obtained by the students,
Number of children in family,
Number of runs scored by a cricketer

so the variables can also be divided into two different categories based on different criteria
that is continuous or discrete

The continuous variable analysis in situation when some sort of measurement is involved
example height, weight, life of an electric bulb, waiting time for customers at a bank counter
the variable assumes all possible values in its range

the variable is set to be discrete if it assumes only some specified values in a given range
the discrete variable arises in situations when counting is involved that is number of children
in a family, number of credit cards held by an individual, number of customers visiting a
branch, number of defective items in a box etc

The classification or types of measurement scales are

 Nominal
 Ordinal
 Interval
 Ratio.

Scales possess typically the following properties

Distinctive classification
Order
Equal distance
Fixed origin

Distinctive classification
  a measure that can be used to classify objects or their characteristics in two distinctive
classes /categories is said to have this property this is minimum requirement for any
measure

For example
 Gender classifies the individuals into two distinctive groups male and female
 The individuals may also be classified on the basis of their occupation like student
salaried businessman etc,
 Similarly an individual could be used to classify on the basis of qualification such as
undergraduate post graduate professional etc

Order
A measure is said to have an order if the objects or their characteristics can be arranged in
a meaningful order
For example
A customer main rank for telecom service providers on connectivity the result will be in order
of companies 1,2,3,4
it may be noted that all quantitative measures have implied order various qualitative
measures may also have an order
Equal distance
For a measure, the difference between any two consecutive categories (generally termed as
value for numerical variables) of a measured attribute are equal then the measure is said to
have equal distance
The time difference between 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. is same as the difference between 3 p.m. to 4
p.m. that is 1 hour

So another example would be the temperature as a measure difference between 40 degree

Celsius and 50 degree Celsius is same width as between 60 degree Celsius and 70 degree
Celsius
So the all numeric measures satisfy this property

Fixed origin
a measurement scale for measuring a characteristic is said to have a fixed origin if there is a
meaningful zero OR absence of the characteristic
Examples are
Income of an individual,
Sales of a company
These scales have a meaningful zero OR absence of the characteristic

zero income signifies no income or absence of income and zero sales signifies no sales OR
absence of sales.