Accounting Today identified the top accounting firms in 10 geographic regions across the United States. Even though all 10 regions reported growth in 2011, the Capital, Great Lakes, Mid-Atlantic, and Northeast regions reported relatively similar combined growths, of 4.97%, 6.04%, 6.55%, and 5.20%, respectively. A characteristic description of the accounting firms in the Capital, Great Lakes, Mid-Atlantic, and Northeast regions included the number of partners in the firm. The file Accounting Partners 4 contains the number of partners. (Data extracted from bit.ly/KKeokV.)
a. At the 0.05 level of significance, is there evidence of a difference among the Capital, Great Lakes, Mid-Atlantic, and Northeast region accounting firms with respect to the mean number of partners?
b. If the results in (a) indicate that it is appropriate to do so, use the Tukey-Kramer procedure to determine which regions differ in the mean number of partners. Discuss your findings.