Business & Education Blog of an MBA Grad and PhD Student
Archive for December, 2009
Morals versus Ethics
Dec 30th
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The following is a post exerpted from a compulsory weekly course discussion in my PhD (Finance) program at www.waldenu.edu in the Winter 2009/2010 quarter regarding Ethics. The full discourse can be found archived at http://robincheung.info/rsch8100/week2/discussion1/
In 2000 when I began my MBA studies, McMaster University had no formal ethics course in the curriculum. Just before the Andersen and Enron debacles, McMaster’s business school began to integrate a weekend minicourse on ethics. Part of that course differentiated ethical and moral issues–the main difference being that ethics are codified; thus, it is entirely possible that Dr. Frederick may not have done anything wrong ethically, but has wronged Sandra morally.I think that whether Dr. Frederick has done anything wrong would depend on whether Sandra was given an active role in determining her plan of study, whether her consent to the plan involving the company-funded research was truly informed, and whether she had any viable alternatives. As her mentor, it should be his responsibility to point out the possible consequences of her accepting this path; just as his research is expected to be unbiased, so too should be his guidance. Were he to have recommended that she accept this course or misled her to believe this More >
Plagiarism is about stealing ideas more so than the actual words
Dec 30th
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The following post is exerpted from a doctoral RSCH 8100 Research Design and Theory course in Winter 2009/2010 quarter at www.waldenu.edu in the AMDS PhD (Finance) program. The complete archive can be found at http://robincheung.info/rsch8100/week2/discussion1/
18 Dec 09 8:24 PM MST
To me, the situation depends less on the punctuation and more on the use of the material. If the material is simply presented without adding value, such as testing the previous author’s theories in a new way or providing a new application of it (including supporting a new conclusion), then there is no incremental benefit to including the material, properly cited or not.When writing a research paper, any new conclusion must be defensible either with new data or previous conclusions. If the new data do not support a new conclusion, then it must have come from a previous source, and whether it was written by the same or different author, it must be cited. Robin Cheung 19 Dec 09 6:45 AM MST I just wanted to point out that I did not mean to introduce a bias in writing what I did yesterday about how a new conclusion must either be supported by new data or previously argument supported by More >
Use of Theory: Falsified models still valuable (Exerpted from Research Design and Theory RSCH 8100 Course)
Dec 30th
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The following exerpt is from a weekly discussion on Use of Theory in my PhD program compulsory RSCH 8100 Research Design course at Walden University for Winter 2009/2010 quarter. The full discussion archive can be found at http://robincheung.info/rsch8100/week3/discussion/
Robin Cheung26 Dec 09 8:29 PM MST
Kristina,When I reflected upon that post, I remembered a situation in Grade 11 where our chemistry teacher, Mr. Wade, was introducing the Quantum model of the atom, where electrons are not discrete particles circulating about the nucleus, such as in the Bohr atom. I then pointed out that even though such shifts in paradigms do invalidate some aspects of a previous model, they still retain certain didactic value.
While we understand the models are not sufficient past a certain point, they are still valuable for understanding the basics of how systems work. In physics, for example, while we know that Newtonian classical mechanics do not apply at the subatomic scale or at high velocities and altitudes due to relativistic effects, it is impractical to take into account relativistic effects, for example, of time and length dilation, when considering moving cars, since the relativistic effects are negligible at those scales.
Similarly, in terms of understanding chemical bonding, reactions, and More >
