The Journal of Retailing (Spring 1988) published a study of the relationship between job satisfaction and the degree ol Machiavellian orientation. Briefly, the Machiavellian orientation is one in which the executive exerts very strong control, even to the point of deception and cruelty, over the employees he or she supervises. The authors administered a questionnaire to each in a sample of 218 department store executives and obtained both a job satisfaction score and a Machiavellian rating. They concluded that those with higher job satisfaction scores are likely to have a lower

"Mach" rating.

a. What is the population from which the sample was selected?

b. What variables were measured by the authors?

c. Identify the sample.

d. Identify the data collection method used.

e. What inference was made by the authors?