Final answer:
Comparing the stocking rates of the night-shift workers at the specialty stores with the average of the other stores, it is found that the specialty store workers are slightly more efficient, stocking more products per hour.
Step-by-step explanation:
The question asks us to compare the stocking rates of workers at specialty stores with those of other stores in the same chain. The night-shift workers in three of Super Bo's specialty stores stock about 500 products in about 3 hours. In comparison, the other 97 stores average about 496 products stocked in the same amount of time. Stocking efficiency is measured by the number of products stocked per unit of time. Thus, we can compare the rates by simply dividing the number of products by the hours.
For the specialty stores:
500 products / 3 hours = approximately 166.67 products per hour.
For the other stores:
496 products / 3 hours = approximately 165.33 products per hour.
Since the workers at the specialty stores stock more products per hour, they are doing a slightly 'better than average' job in terms of efficiency.