Question

A company decided to scan all of its salespersons' important work that existed only in paper form into a central computer database that could be easily accessed using portable computers, thereby saving salespersons the effort of lugging their paper files all over the country. The project was a dismal failure, however; salespersons rarely accessed the database and continued to rely on many paper files, which they had refused to turn over to the staff responsible for creating the database.

Which one of the following, if true, most helps toaccount for the failure described above?

a. Some of the salespersons gave huge paper files to the staff responsible for creating thedatabase while other salespersons gave themmuch smaller files.
b. Most of the salespersons already had portablecomputers before the new database was created.
c. The papers that the salespersons found mostimportant all contained personal informationabout employees of client companies,which the salespersons did not want in acentral database.
d. All of the salespersons were required to attend aseries of training sessions for the new databasesoftware even though many of them found thesoftware easy to use even without training.
e. The number of staff required to create thedatabase turned out to be larger thananticipated, and the company had to payovertime wages to some of them.

Answer 1

c. The papers that the salespersons found most important all contained personal information about employees of client companies, which the salespersons did not want in a central database.

Step-by-step explanation:

Most salespeople earn their salaries through sales commissions. A salesperson not only competes with other competing companies, but also competes against other salespeople of the same company. It is likely that they didn't want to share their trade secrets with other salespeople within the same company.