9 You are working with a consulting group that has a new project for the Palm Grove School System. The school system of this large county has individuals with purchasing, service, and maintenance responsibilities.

They were asked to evaluate the vendor/distribution channels of products that the county purchases. The evaluations were on a 10-point metric scale for the following variables:

Delivery speed—amount of time for delivery once the order has been confi rmed.

Price level—level of price charged by the product suppliers.

Price fl exibility—perceived willingness to negotiate on price.

Manufacturer’s image—manufacturer or supplier’s image.

Overall service—level of service necessary to preserve a satisfactory relationship between buyer and supplier.

Sales force—overall image of the manufacturer’s sales representatives.

Product quality—perceived quality of a particular product.

The data are found on the text website.

Your task is to complete an exploratory factor analysis on the survey data. The purpose for the consulting group is twofold:

(a) to identify the underlying dimensions of these data and

(b) to create a new set of variables for inclusion into subsequent assessments of the vendor/distribution channels. Methodology issues to consider in your analysis are:
a Desirability of principal components versus principal axis factoring.
b Decisions on criteria for number of factors to extract.
c Rotation of the factors.
d Factor loading signifi cance.
e Interpretation of the rotated matrix.
Prepare a report summarizing your fi ndings and interpreting your results.