A team member reports weekly hours: [32, 40, 48, 56]. Compute the mean and state whether multiplying the mean by 1.5 to plan staffing is a valid operation. Show calculations.

• A. Mean = 44 hours; multiplying by 1.5 is invalid because means of work hours are never representative and staffing must be based on medians only.
• B. Mean = 44 hours; multiplying by 1.5 to plan staffing is valid because hours are ratio-level, so scaled arithmetic is interpretable.
• C. Mean = 44 hours; multiplying by 1.5 is only valid if you first rescale hours into a 0–1 interval, otherwise multiplication will break interval assumptions and produce nonsense.
• D. Mean = 44 hours; multiplying is invalid because you must first convert into ordinal ranks before any multiplicative scaling is performed for workforce planning.

Answer: (B)