When considering barriers to international communication, companies should be aware that noise tends to increase the probability of effective communication. source effects can be beneficial for an international business when potential consumers in a target country have a bias against foreign firms. many international businesses try to promote positive source effects by deemphasizing their foreign origins. fewer firms vie for the attention of prospective customers in developing countries, thus the noise level is lower. research suggests consumers use country of origin when evaluating a product, when they have detailed knowledge of the product.

True or false?

Avx home entertainment, inc., recently began a “no-hassles” return policy. a sample of 500 customers who recently returned items showed 400 thought the policy was fair, 32 thought it took too long to complete the transaction, and the rest had no opinion. on the basis of this information, make an inference about customer reaction to the new policy. (round your answers to 1 decimal place.)

Who is better at multi-tasking? in business, employees are often asked to perform a complex task when their atten-tion is divided (i.e., multi-tasking). human factors (may 2014) published a study designed to determine whether video game players are better than non–video game play-ers at multi-tasking. each in a sample of 60 college stu-dents was classified as a video game player or a non-player. participants entered a street crossing simulator and were asked to cross a busy street at an unsigned intersec-tion. the simulator was designed to have cars traveling at various high rates of speed in both directions. during the crossing, the students also performed a memory task as a distraction. two variables were measured for each student: (1) a street crossing performance score (measured out of 100 points) and (2) a memory task score (measured out of 20 points). the researchers found no differences in either the street crossing performance or memory task score of video game players and non-gamers. “these results,” say the researchers, “suggest that action video game players [and non-gamers] are equally susceptible to the costs of dividing attention in a complex task”

Cindy recently played in a softball game in which she misplayed a ground ball for an error. later, in the same game, she made a great catch on a very difficult play. according to the self-serving bias, she would attribute her error to and her good catch to her