Correlation and P Value I have run correlation on SPSS for the variables of number of employees in a bank and Net profit margin for the data of 10 years. Results show the correlation coefficient '-0.1649' and p-value '0.649'.
I am unable to interpret the result and need help.
 A: It appears you have data for one bank for 10 years, so N = 10. The low, negative correlation only indicates that for the bank you chose, for the 10 years you have, the linear relationship was small and negative.
Unless you are willing to posit that either a) These 10 years are a random sample of all years from your bank or b) These 10 years are a random sample from those 10 years for some larger population of banks then you won't be doing any inference and the p value isn't important. (And positing either of those things seems unjustified, at least to me).
What I would do is plot the ratio of profit to employees over time and see if anything interesting appears.
A: Your data shows a slight negative correlation between number of employees and net profit.  (correlation coefficient of -0.17).
Your data is consistent with a world in which there was no true correlation between number of employees and net profit, in that it is not unlikely that the data shows a slight negative correlation due to random chance (p-value of 0.65).
In short, almost all rational people would not take this data as proof that there is a negative association between number of employees and net profit.
