Faculty members at a leading business school receive a budget to cover research expenditures, soft-ware and hardware purchases, travel expenses, photocopying for classroom use, and so forth. The budget is increased $ 250 for each class taught (independent of the number of students enrolled). For example, a faculty member receives a base budget of $ 14,000 for this year and teaches three courses— hence, the faculty’s total budget is $ 14,750.

Finance professors teach much larger classes than any other functional area (e. g., accounting) and they tend to have larger course packets per student. Faculty can photocopy their course packets and have their budgets reduced by the photocopying charges. Or the faculty can distribute course materials via the school’s network where students can download them and print them on their personal printers.

Required:

a. Which faculty members are more likely to put course packets and lecture notes on their Web pages and which faculty are more likely to photocopy the material and distribute it to their students?

b. Is this partitioning of faculty members distributing materials electronically versus making paper copies efficient?