Final answer:
The best measure of variability for making comparisons among different enterprises is the coefficient of variation. It allows comparing the relative spread of data sets, accounting for different scales or units by standardizing the dispersion in relation to the mean.
Step-by-step explanation:
The student has asked which measure of variability is best for making comparisons among different enterprises. The correct answer is coefficient of variation. This is because the coefficient of variation standardizes the measure of dispersion in relation to the mean, making it a unitless ratio. It allows for the comparison of variations relative to the size of the mean across different data sets.
The standard deviation is useful in measuring how spread out the values in a data set are, but it does not take into account the relative size of the mean. Thus, when the goal is to compare variability across different enterprises with potentially varying scales or units, the coefficient of variation is the most appropriate measure.
The coefficient of variation is calculated by dividing the standard deviation by the mean and then multiplying by 100 to express it as a percentage. A higher coefficient of variation indicates greater dispersion of data relative to the mean, whereas a lower coefficient suggests less variability.
When comparing two data sets, one with a higher coefficient of variation would have more relative variability than one with a lower coefficient of variation, regardless of the actual scale or units of the data.