Affirmative action is good business. So asserted the National Associat

Question

Affirmative action is good business. So asserted the National Association of Manufacturers while arguing retention of an executive order requiring some federal contractors to set numerical goals for hiring minorities and women. " Diversity in work force participation has produced new ideas in management, product development, and marketing," the association claimed.

The association's argument as it is presented in the passage above would be most strengthened if which of the following were true?

(A) The percentage of minority and women workers in business has increased more slowly than many minority and women's groups would prefer.

(B) Those businesses with the highest percentage of minority and women workers are those that have been the most innovative and profitable.

(C) Disposable income has been rising as fast as among the population as a whole.

(D) The biggest growth in the sales in the manufacturing sector has come in industries that market the most innovative products.

(E) Recent improvement in the management practices have allowed many manufacturers to experience enormous gains in worker productivity.

TGC · Accepted Answer

(B) it is !!

Because the conclusion tells "Affirmative action is good business" and the premises says that executive order require contractors to hire minority and women.

Now to support this argument we need to strengthen the link between the premise and conclusion by showing how minority and women workers increased profits in certain businesses.

Rgds,
TGC !!

KarishmaB · Answer

Association's argument - Diversity is good for business
Claim of association in support to the argument - Diversity in work force participation has produced new ideas in management, product development, and marketing.

We need to strengthen the association's argument (that is, we need to strengthen that diversity is good for business)

(A) The percentage of minority and women workers in business has increased more slowly than many minority and women's groups would prefer.

Irrelevant what minority and women's groups would prefer.

(B) Those businesses with the highest percentage of minority and women workers are those that have been the most innovative and profitable.

It does lend support to the argument "Diversity is good for business".

(C) Disposable income has been rising as fast as among the population as a whole.

Irrelevant

(D) The biggest growth in the sales in the manufacturing sector has come in industries that market the most innovative products.

We don't know whether this has anything to do with minority and women workers. Did the industries that market the most innovative products have many minority and women workers? We don't know.
The association claims that diversity has produced new ideas in management, product development, and marketing. Is it so? We don't know. Did the new ideas by minorities and women in product development lead to innovative products of these industries? We don't know. Innovative products could have come because of tech advancements too. This option doesn't link diversity to growth in sales.
 Sneha2021

(E) Recent improvement in the management practices have allowed many manufacturers to experience enormous gains in worker productivity.

Who/what brought about the recent improvement in the management practices? We don't know.

Answer (B)

Bhai · Answer

B should be the answer.

The companies trying to discharge its services by doing some ggof to the community by hiring minorities so that they are part of the action may be called Affirmative action. The original leaders wanted to help minorities and wanted businesses to voluntarily help them. In India the closest thing to AA may be reservations (or quotas for minorities) which is not voluntary but forced.

Gauriii · Answer

GMATNinjaTwo  Can you please tell me what is th argument here? As in what is the premise and what is the conclusion?

Regards

EP2620 · Answer

I can help you with this one.

Affirmative action is good business. 
 This is the conclusion of the association. The association believes in this. Slight outside context here is that affirmative action refers to any policy that benefits 'traditionally marginalized communities'. What this traditionally marginalized community could be varies from country to country. For example - India has reservation for SC, ST and OBC communities, and colleges in the US have certain diversity requirements for African Americans. In this argument, the association is referring to 'minorities and women' as can be seen from the next statement.

So asserted the National Association of Manufacturers while arguing retention of an executive order requiring some federal contractors to set numerical goals for hiring minorities and women.
 
 "Diversity in work force participation has produced new ideas in management, product development, and marketing,"  the association claimed.
 This is the premise on which the conclusion is based. Affirmative action is good business because 'diversity in work force participation' has produced new ideas in management etc etc.

The association's argument as it is presented in the passage above would be  most strengthened   if which of the following were true?
 In other words, we are looking for something that reinforces our belief in the fact that affirmative action is good for business because it (diversity) leads to new ideas.

( A) The percentage of minority and women workers in business has increased more slowly than many minority and women's groups would prefer.
 % of workers or their growth or the expected pace of that growth is irrelevant to our conclusion

(B) Those businesses with the  highest percentage of minority and women workers  (= marginalized communities) are those that have been the most innovative and profitable. 
Okay - so I already knew diversity was leading to new ideas. Now I know that those ideas might have translated to innovation and profits. Definitely, a strengthener
Also, this doesn't mean that minorities and women constitute the highest % in a given business. This simply says that if minority+ women represented {30%, 30%, 20%, 10%, 5%} for 5 companies A, B, C, D, E; then A and B would be most innovative and profitable
 
(C) Disposable income has been rising as fast as among the population as a whole. 
Irrelevant to minorities and women
 
(D) The biggest growth in the sales in the manufacturing sector has come in industries that market the most innovative products. 
This was an attempted trap, given the use of the phrase 'market the most innovative products'. But what does it tell us? The biggest growth in ABC sector has come through marketing of most innovative products. So is affirmative action good for business? Umm we don't know. Exactly! 
 
(E) Recent improvement in the management practices have allowed many manufacturers to experience enormous gains in worker productivity. 
Is affirmative action a management practice? We don't know. What improvements in these practices? We don't know.

A_Nishith · Answer

(B) Those businesses with the highest percentage of minority and women workers (= marginalized communities) are those that have been the most innovative and profitable.
Okay - so I already knew diversity was leading to new ideas. Now I know that those ideas might have translated to innovation and profits. Definitely, a strengthener
Also, this doesn't mean that minorities and women constitute the highest % in a given business. This simply says that if minority+ women represented {30%, 30%, 20%, 10%, 5%} for 5 companies A, B, C, D, E; then A and B would be most innovative and profitable

Answer: B

rushimehta · Answer

MartyMurray   KarishmaB   Bunuel

What if we wanted to weaken this passage ? 
Will an alternative cause weaken this ?

"Diversity in work force participation   produces/causes   new ideas in management, product development, and marketing," the association claimed."
what if the last statment was revised as above ? would an alternate cause still weaken it ?

AbhishekP220108 · Answer

Hi  rushimehta

To weaken this we have to create a doubt on the argument given. Something which goes against hiring of minorities and women because conclusion is "Affirmative action is good business". These are resoning-"So asserted the National Association of Manufacturers while arguing retention of an executive order requiring some federal contractors to set numerical goals for hiring minorities and women. " Diversity in work force participation has produced new ideas in management, product development, and marketing," the association claimed."

MartyMurray · Answer

This argument cannot be weakened through presentation of an alternative cause because the statement about the effect of "diversity in work force participation" is stated as fact by the association, rather than as a conclusion supported by facts. So, it's not a cause-effect conclusion of the type such that the case for it can be weakened through presentation of an alternative cause. In general, we have to be careful to use the alternative cause approach to weakening an argument only contexts in which it's appropriate. That approach is often not appropriate even when an argument has a conclusion that involves a cause and an effect. For an example in which a choice that presents alternative causes is not correct, see this question. https://gmatclub.com/forum/president-po ... 41722.html

KarishmaB · Answer

If we wanted to weaken the reasoning of the  association, we need to weaken: Affirmative action is good business.

So to weaken it, we would need to provide data on how diversity has led to problems in business. Then the  overall  impact of diversity may not be "good" for business.

Affirmative action is good business. So asserted the National Associat

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Affirmative action is good business. So asserted the National Associat

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