The null hypothesis for each survey statement was: "There is no difference in the distribution of opinions between the public and private sector samples," and the primary goal of the research was to determine if there were measurable differences in the value systems that public and private sector managers apply in the process of deciding on goals and objectives, especially in their view of the opposite group's approach to basic business issues. Of the twenty-one statements ranked by the participants there were fourteen (67%) for which no difference in the distribution of opinions could be detected between the two populations. With the basic statistical analysis complete, the research concentrated on those seven statements (33%) for which a measurable difference in response distribution existed. Areas of positively correlated responses are noted in the results given above and may be reviewed in Appendices D and E. The seven statements for which the null hypothesis was rejected were:
1. Statement 5: Public sector management must work within a framework of bureaucratic regulation that tends to minimize innovative thinking.
2. Statement 7: Private sector managers are generally more innovative and cost effective than their public sector peers.
3. Statement 9: The private sector's primary goal is the maximization of short-term profits.
4. Statement 10: Public sector managers are generally more innovative and cost effective than their private sector peers.
5. Statement 12: Government employees are generally less motivated than private sector employees.
6. Statement 16: Private sector employees are generally less motivated than government employees.
7. Statement 20: Careful planning and effective management can attain goals and objectives in spite of personnel pay and motivation.
Perhaps the most revealing observation to be gleaned from the survey was that for those statements for which the null hypothesis was rejected, the private sector tended to have a lower range of response distribution, while the public sector responses were typically distributed over a wider range of opinion. For example, 100% of the private sector disagreed with the statement that public sector managers were more innovative than their private sector peers, while only 25% of their public sector peers agreed with that statement. On the issue of the private sector innovation and cost-effectiveness relative to the public sector, 100% of the private sector was neutral or agreed, while only 72.73% of the public sector was neutral or disagreed. Where these response distribution dissimilarities existed there seemed to be a sizeable minority of responses within the public sector that closely aligned with the central tendency of the private sector. This interesting result suggests that a minority segment of the public sector may harbor opinions that closely align with the private sector view of the public sector. These observations led this researcher to theorize that a continuum of entrepreneurial attributes may exist along which we find individuals who have no understanding, or desire to understand, entrepreneurial motivation; those that have an insightful grasp of entrepreneurial motivation to varying degrees, and those that are, in fact, entrepreneurially motivated. Along this theoretical continuum we would expect to find successful private sector managers drawn from the higher levels of well-developed entrepreneurial instinct and motivation because the marketplace would work against the success of a private sector manager at the lower end of the continuum. However, we would anticipate that, other training and skills being adequate, successful public sector managers could come from any point on the continuum. This theoretical observation would also serve to help explain the wider distribution of public sector responses in key areas compared to the private sector, and the noticeable minority of public sector responses agreeing with their private sector peers even though the central tendency of the public sector response was to disagree with the private sector response. However, since confidentiality of respondents was protected throughout the survey, no particular response can be attributed to a specific individual respondent or group of respondents and care must be taken not to read too much into these results. Additional research designed to illuminate the facts surrounding this issue would be extremely valuable.
Indecision on the part of respondents appeared in several statements. There was a wide distribution of opinion in response to Statement 17 on the effect of pressure to satisfy stockholders. Here the private sector showed a wider range of response distribution from 2 to 5, with the resulting mean of 3.00 reflecting a neutral position, which the researcher interprets as indecision within that sector. A similar indecision problem was exhibited by the public sector in Statement 5 pertaining to the concept of a framework of bureaucratic regulation minimizing innovative goal setting, and by both groups in Statements 14, pertaining to public bidding and disclosure regulations, and 21, pertaining to the aggressive "for profit" attitude within the private sector creating problems for public sector clients. The researcher concluded that these questions involved complex statements vulnerable to wider interpretation by the respondents, and the resulting indecision resulting from multiple interpretations of the statements rather than lack of opinions on the issues. Therefore, these indecisive results were assumed to cast little light on the research questions at hand and were disregarded.