The following appeared as part of an article in a business magazine.
"A recent study rating 300 male and female Mentian advertising executives according to the average number of hours they sleep per night showed an association between the amount of sleep the executives need and the success of their firms. Of the advertising firms studied, those whose executives reported needing no more than 6 hours of sleep per night had higher profit margins and faster growth. These results suggest that if a business wants to prosper, it should hire only people who need less than 6 hours of sleep per night."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
According to the survey provided by the question, if a business wants to prosper, it should be hire only people who sleep less than 6 hours. In taking a retinal responses to this argument, we need scientifically examine the assumptions the survey based on; whether the 300 people can represent the whole business people and if there are other reasons concerning the success of their firms besides sleeping as well as whether the founding of Mentian adverting can apply all the business circle.
Firstly, we need to know how the 300 male and female are selected and whether they can represent the whole business people. For example, if the 300 people are selected in several very successful advertising companies, it is surly that those executives have a much less sleep comparing to other companies, for those people would have more pressure to bring profits to keep the pace of the development of their companies. What's more, if there are only 20 women who take part in this survey; then the results may not represent the sleeping statues of women comparing to men. Since those executives are all in the fields of advertising, the results of the survey may not apply for other fields, for the reason that the advertising industry is more busy than other industries in general.
Apart from the critique above, we need to assure that whether sleeping is the only factor that could contribute the success of a enterprise. The answer, is definitely NO. Even though those people who sleep less than 6 hours enjoy more success, we cannot guarantee that less than 6 hours' sleep can bring fortune all the time. Whether, there are other reasons, like industrious, diligent, hardworking, efficient, corporation, coordination as well as other merits that could equally make a company successful? As a result, it is the reason that those people are more industries rather than they sleep less that make them different from others. Thus, without knowing others factors that could equally effect the success of those businessman, we could not sure whether less than 6 hours' work is essential for the success of an executive.
Also, we need to contemplate that whether the discoveries in the field in advertising can apply to other fields. For the obvious reasons, we all know that advertising company is much busy than other fields. For they need to process many promotion protocols and spare no efforts to meet the demand of customers. Other fields, like factories workers, since they could only work 7-8 hours a day, they need not sleep that less compare to the executives of advertising company. Therefore, without the investigation of other fields we cannot come to the conclusion that if businessmen wants to success, they should be hire only people who sleep less than 6 hours.
Taken together, without knowing the assumptions above, we just cannot sure whether the suggestion the survey provides is right or wrong. For a through scientific conclusions, we need more details and comparisons.