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Strategies for Teaching Research Ethics in Business, Management and Organizational Studies

noreply@blogger.com (lore) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 07:15:00 +0000

Strategies for Teaching Research Ethics in Business, Management and Organizational Studies
Linda Naimi
Organizational Leadership, Purdue University, USA

Ethics education has become increasingly important in the wake of corporate scandals and scientific misconduct. The pressure to achieve at all costs has created what Callahan (2005) called our Cheating culture. We recognize that our students need preparation, mentoring and positive role models to help them in recognizing ethical issues, analyzing and reasoning carefully about them, and making responsible decisions in the face of difficult dilemmas.

Nowhere is this more critical than in the area of research, particularly human subject research. To ensure integrity in research, students and faculty must demonstrate that they understand the ethical and legal ramifications of their work prior to initiating any research. In addition to legal requirements, universities have employed a variety of creative approaches designed to promote integrity in personal and professional conduct.

This paper discusses learning theories and offers a number of effective strategies for teaching research ethics to undergraduate and graduate students in business, management and organizational studies. Successful strategies include online interactive training modules, case studies, role playing, action research, critical inquiry, simulations and online interactive tutorials, such as that offered by LANGURE. LANGURE (Land Grant University Research Ethics) is a national network of more than one hundred faculty and graduate students at eight land grant and historically black universities in the United States, engaged in developing a model curriculum in research ethics for doctoral candidates in the physical, social, and life sciences and engineering. The author teaches and conducts research in undergraduate and graduate courses in Research Ethics, Ethics, Law and Public Policy and Leading with Integrity. These courses examine the ethical, legal, and global challenges facing business leaders today.

Keywords: Research, ethics, business, management, organization, case studies

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Business Benefits of Non-Managed Knowledge

noreply@blogger.com (lore) — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 05:01:00 +0000

Sinead Devane1 and Julian Wilson2 1Business School, Bournemouth University, UK
2James Wilson (Engravers) Ltd, Poole, UK

Getting individuals to use knowledge is vital for business to thrive, especially in small businesses where each individual’s impact (good and bad) upon the organisation has an amplified effect. This paper presents the effects of one small business’ effort to make the most of its employees’ knowledge.

Here we introduce the thinking behind the organisation’s different approach; non-managed knowledge, or the indirect management of knowledge. The paper addresses a philosophical argument about the nature of knowledge and the way we use it and this argument is supported by a case study of the organisation and quantitative results from the company’s own records.

We argue that the management of knowledge itself is not a cost effective exercise, as knowledge is such a complex phenomenon, inextricably bound with individual biographies and circumstances of the moment. Rather, a new focus for knowledge management is presented, through which the effects of an individual’s use of knowledge is demonstrated. Knowledge itself cannot be seen, but the effects of its use can. Just as a shadow is cast when the sun shines on an object, so what a person achieves in their work takes a form that belies the knowledge that was used in the achievement.

Thus in this organisation individuals are encouraged to maximise their own agency, and work to their own potential. What they achieve above and beyond the minimum standards of the organisation will demonstrate their own competence. Such working conditions encourage individual development, the application of knowledge and effective knowledge management through indirect means.

Keywords: knowledge management, outcomes and application, reification, cultural memes, agency, innovation

Download full paper : http://tinyurl.com/ltn4ne

Comparison of Web and Telephone Survey Response Rates in Saudi Arabia

noreply@blogger.com (lore) — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:36:00 +0000

Ali A. Al-Subaihi
Taibah University, Madinah, Monawwarh, Saudi Arabia

A study was conducted to compare the response rate of telephone interview and Web Survey in Saudi Arabia utilizing Internet usage statistics, as well as experimental design. Official data shows that the reason that led the majority of Saudi people to choose not to interact with Web Survey similarly to the telephone interview is not technical due to the lack of Internet coverage, but rather cultural. Furthermore, the experimental part demonstrates three main findings. First, the response rate to the Web Survey is significantly lower than to the telephone interview.

Second, Saudi males participated significantly more than females especially with the Web Survey though both had the same level of Internet access. Third, the average response rate of telephone interview is significantly above 95% for both genders, whereas the average response rate of the Web Survey is about 30%.

Keywords: web survey; telephone survey; response rate; Saudi Arabia.

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HURRICANE! - A SIMULATION-BASED PROGRAM FOR SCIENCE EDUCATION

noreply@blogger.com (lore) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 22:32:00 +0000

Jia Luo
Alpesh P. Makwana
Dezhi Liao
J. Peter Kincaid

Institute for Simulation and Training
3100 Technology Parkway
University of Central Florida
Orlando, FL 32826 USA

ABSTRACT
We describe the development, testing and fielding of a PC-based instructional program, Hurricane!. This program educates students about the effects of hurricane winds on different kinds of residential structures.The effects on the residential structures are physics-based. The program has been developed both for schools and science museums. The format is game-based with realistic graphics and sounds and students see different degrees of damage depending
on choices that make. For example, a one story masonry house built to current Florida building code standards, is much less vulnerable than a two story wood structure built before 1985. Therefore, students who make the first choice see less damage. Several tests in middle school science classes have demonstrated that the game is highly interesting and effectively teaches concepts central to understanding how to prepare for a hurricane.

Full paper as pdf file

Distortion-Free Steganography for Polygonal Meshes

noreply@blogger.com (lore) — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 11:24:00 +0000

Alexander Bogomjakov Craig Gotsman Martin Isenburg

Center for Graphics and Geometric Computing - Technion - Israel Institute of Technology Center for Applied Scientific Computing - Lawrence Livermore National Labs

Abstract

We present a technique for steganography in polygonal meshes. Our method hides a message in the indexed representation of a mesh by permuting the order in which faces and vertices are stored. The permutation is relative to a reference ordering that encoder and decoder derive from the mesh connectivity in a consistent manner. Our method is distortion-free because it does not modify the geometry of the mesh. Compared to previous steganographic methods for polygonal meshes our capacity is up to an order of magnitude better. Our steganography algorithm is universal and can be used instead of the standard permutation steganography algorithm on arbitrary datasets. The standard algorithm runs in O(n2 log2 n loglog n) time and achieves optimal O(nlogn) bit capacity on datasets with n elements. In contrast, our algorithm runs in O(n) time, achieves a capacity that is only one bit per element less than optimal, and is extremely simple to implement.

Categories and Subject Descriptors (according to ACM CCS): I.3.m [Computer Graphics]: Miscellaneous

1. Introduction
Steganography (or, more simply, data-hiding) is the science of hiding messages in media in such a way that even the existence of the message remains undetected to all but the recipient. This is in contrast with cryptography, where the fact that a message is hidden in the data is not disguised, but it may be retrieved only by the use of a secret key, typically known only to the recipient. Thus, steganographic messages do not attract attention to themselves, to messengers, or to recipients. A classic example is invisible ink that turns brown when the paper is heated. An inconspicuous cover message is important as a blank sheet of paper can arouse suspicion.

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Evolution of the Internet AS-Level Ecosystem

noreply@blogger.com (lore) — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 17:20:00 +0000

Srinivas Shakkottai
Texas A&M University
College Station, USA

Marina Fomenkov
Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis - CAIDA
San Diego Supercomputer Center,
University of California, San Diego

Ryan Koga
Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis - CAIDA
San Diego Supercomputer Center,
University of California, San Diego

Dmitri Krioukov
Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis - CAIDA
San Diego Supercomputer Center,
University of California, San Diego

kc claffy
Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis - CAIDA
San Diego Supercomputer Center,
University of California, San Diego

Abstract. We present an analytically tractable model of Internet evolution at the level of Autonomous Systems (ASs). We call our model the multiclass preferential attachment (MPA) model. As its name suggests, it is based on preferential attachment. All of its parameters are measurable from available Internet topology data. Given the estimated values of these parameters, our analytic results predict a defnitive set of statistics characterizing the AS topology structure. These statistics are not part of model formulation. The MPA model thus closes the \measure-modelvalidate-predict" loop, and provides further evidence that preferential attachment is the main driving force behind Internet evolution.

Key words: Preferential attachment, Internet evolution, AS-level topology, Internet measurement

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A Data Warehouse Model for Micro-Level Decision Making in Higher Education

noreply@blogger.com (lore) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 14:27:00 +0000

Liezl van Dyk

University of Stellenbosch, South Africa
lvd@sun.ac.za

Abstract: An abundance of research, by educational researchers and scholars of teaching and learning alike, can be found on the use of ICT to plan design and deliver learning activities and assessment activities. The first steps of the instructional design process are covered quite thoroughly by this. However, the use of ICT and quantitative methods to close the instructional design cycle by supporting sustainable decision making with respect to the evaluation of the effectiveness of teaching processes hold much unleashed potential. In this paper a business intelligence approach is followed in an attempt to take advantage ICT to enable the evaluation of the effectiveness of the process of facilitating learning. The focus is on micro-level decision support based on data drawn from the Learning Management System (LMS). Three quantifiable measures of online behaviour and three quantifiable measures of teaching effectiveness are identified from literature to arrive at a 3x3 matrix according to which 9 measures of e-teaching effectiveness can be derived by means of pair-wise correlation. The value and significance of information are increased within context of other information. In this paper it is shown how the value of LMS tracking data increases within context of data from other modules or others years and that useful information is created when this tracking data is correlated with measures of teaching effectives such as results, learning styles and student satisfaction. This information context can only be created when a deliberate business intelligence approach if followed. In this paper a data warehouse model is proposed to accomplish exactly this.

Keywords: learning management system, data warehouse, student tracking, decision support, student feedback,
learning styles

1.Introduction
In a paper, commissioned by the EDUCAUSE Centre for Applied Research, Goldstein & Katz (2005) coined the terminology Academic Analytics to refer to Business Intelligence within an Educational setting. They argue that Business Intelligence “rang hollow to our delicately trained academic ears”. Business Intelligence entails the gathering of data from internal and external data sources, as well as the storing and analysis thereof to make it measurable, so as to assist and sustain more efficient and longitudinal decision-making (Kimball, 2002 and Imnon et al., 2001).

Page : 10
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Attaining Social Value from Electronic Government

noreply@blogger.com (lore) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 13:22:00 +0000

Michael Grimsley1, and Anthony Meehan2
1Faculty of Arts, Computing, Engineering and Sciences, Sheffield Hallam University, UK
2Centre for Research in Computing, Department of Computing, The Open University, UK
m.f.grimsley@shu.ac.uk
a.s.meehan@open.ac.uk

Abstract: We define and elaborate a Social Value framework supporting evaluation and attainment of the broader sociopolitical and socio-economic goals that characterise many electronic government initiatives. The key elements of the framework are the willingness of citizens to (positively) recommend an e-Government service to others, based upon personal trust in the service provider, and personal experience of the service, based upon experience of service provision and outcomes. The validity of the framework is explored through an empirical quantitative study of citizens’ experiences of a newly introduced e-Government system to allocate public social housing. The results of this study include evidence of generic antecedents of trust and willingness to recommend, pointing the way to more general applicability of the framework for designers and managers of electronic government systems.

Keywords: electronic government, social value, public value, recommendation, trust, evaluation.

Page : 12
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Network Marketing's Greatest Gift

noreply@blogger.com (lore) — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 10:17:00 +0000

Hint: It's Not the Products or the Income

By Robert T. Kiyosaki

After retiring in 1994, financially free at the age of 47, I began to research the network marketing industry. Whenever someone invited me to a presentation, I would go, just to hear what they had to say. I even joined a few—but not necessarily to make more money. I joined in order to take a long, hard look at the positives and negatives of each business.

After working my way through masses of wannabes, hustlers and dreamers, I began to meet the leaders of some of these businesses. The ones I met were some of the most intelligent, kind, ethical, moral and professional people I have met in all my years of business. Once I got over my own prejudices and met people I could respect and relate to, I found the heart of the business.

I am often asked, “If you did not become rich and famous from a network marketing business, why do you recommend people get into the business?”
It is because I did not gain my fortune from network marketing that I can be perhaps a bit more objective about industry and its real value—a value that goes beyond the potential of making a lot of money.
It’s Not the Money
“We have the best compensation plan

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The Emergence and Diffusion of the Concept of Knowledge Work

noreply@blogger.com (lore) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 20:55:00 +0000

Hanna Timonen and Kaija-Stiina Paloheimo
Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
hanna.timonen@tkk.fi
kaija-stiina.paloheimo@tkk.fi

Abstract:

The past decades have witnessed the proliferation of research on knowledge work. Knowledge work has mostly been used as an antonym to manual work, to refer to specific occupations characterized by an emphasis on specialized skills and the use of theoretical knowledge. The efforts to encompass all the different contexts where knowledge plays a relevant role in work tasks has resulted in various and ambiguous definitions of what knowledge work actually is.

In order to shed light on the elusive concept of knowledge work, we studied how it has appeared in the scientific discussion, and diffused from one scientific community to another. As the circulation of new ideas and concepts in scientific discussion is apparent through academic literature, we examined the emergence and diffusion of the concept of knowledge work through a citation analysis on articles from the Social Sciences Citation Index. The data set consists of 273 articles with 7,057 cited references for the 1974 to 2003 period, and we used a dense sub-network grouping algorithm on the co-citation network to distinguish highly cited groups of references.

We distinguish three periods of diffusion of the concept of knowledge work. The results show that Drucker’s In the age of discontinuity (1969) and Bell’s The coming of post-industrial society (1968) were the main influencers when the concept emerged in the scientific discussion from 1974 to 1992. After this period, we can distinguish a slow diffusion period from 1993 to 2003, when the concept started to gain attention, and a fast diffusion period from 1999 to 2003, when the research proliferated.

The discussion dispersed outside the management domain already in the emergence period, but the management domain has stayed the main domain of discussion also later on. However, from 1992 to 2003 the discussion inside the management domain dispersed into different groups. One of the main influences to a new group of research that appeared at this time was Zuboff’s In the age of the smart machine (1984). This group, drawing on research conducted on knowledge-intensive firms, has recently produced highly cited articles such as Blackler’s ‘Knowledge, knowledge work and organizations’ in Organization Studies (1995). As the current discussion on knowledge work is dispersed in different groups, there is a need to engage in a common conceptual discussion and define what is actually meant by knowledge work.

Keywords: scientific discourse, knowledge work, bibliometric analysis, citation analysis

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Nonlinear Image Recovery with Half-Quadratic Regularization

noreply@blogger.com (lore) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 18:40:00 +0000

Donald Geman and Chengda Yang
July, 1993

Abstract

One popular method for the recovery of an ideal intensity image from corrupted or indirect measurements is regularization: minimize an objective function which enforces a roughness penalty in addition to coherence with the data. Linear estimates are relatively easy to compute but generally introduce systematic errors; for example, they are incapable of recovering discontinuities and other important image attributes. In contrast, nonlinear estimates are more accurate, but often far less accessible. This is particularly true when the objective function is non-convex and the distribution of each data component depends on many image components through a linear operator with broad support. Our approach is based on an auxiliary array and an extended objective function in which the original variables appear quadratically and the auxiliary variables are decoupled. Minimizing over the auxiliary array alone yields the original function, so the original image estimate can be obtained by joint minimization. This can be done efficiently by Monte Carlo methods, for example by FFT-based annealing using a Markov Chain which alternates between (global) transitions from one array to the other. Experiments are reported in optical astronomy, with Space Telescope data, and computed tomography.

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Short Paper: Mobile Proactive Secret Sharing

noreply@blogger.com (lore) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 16:39:00 +0000

David Schultz
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
das@csail.mit.edu

Barbara Liskov
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
liskov@csail.mit.edu

Moses Liskov
The College of William and Mary
mliskov@cs.wm.edu

ABSTRACT

MPSS is a new way to do proactive secret sharing in asynchronous networks. MPSS provides mobility: The group of nodes holding the shares of the secret can change at each resharing, which is essential in a long-lived system. MPSS additionally allows the number of tolerated faulty shareholders to change when the secret is moved so that the system can tolerate more (or fewer) corruptions; this allows reconfiguration on the fly to accommodate changes in the environment.

Categories and Subject Descriptors

C.2.4 [Computer Communication Networks]: Distributed Systems--distributed applications

General Terms

Security

1. INTRODUCTION

Malicious attacks are an increasing problem in distributed systems. If a node holds an important secret, that secret could be exposed by an attack in which an intruder gains control of that machine. An example of such a secret is the private key used by a certificate authority (such as Verisign) to sign its certificates.
Secret sharing allows a group of servers to possess shares of a secret, such that any t + 1 servers can collaborate to compute with the secret, but any t or fewer servers can learn nothing about the secret. Proactive secret sharing extends secret sharing to work in a long-lived system, in which nodes can become compromised over time, allowing the adversary to collect more than t shares and recover the secret. These schemes provide a share regeneration protocol, in which a new set of shares of the same secret is generated and the old shares discarded, rendering useless any collection of t or fewer old shares the adversary may have learned.

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Friendship Versus Business in Marketing Relationships

noreply@blogger.com (lore) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 12:26:00 +0000

Although combining friendship and business in the same relationship can be beneficial, it can also create conflict.
A source of this conflict is incompatible relational expectations. True friends are expected to be unmotivated by
benefits that can be used beyond the relationship (e.g., money, status), whereas business partners are, by
definition, at least partly motivated by these more “instrumental” concerns. Using a role theory framework and data
collected from a survey of 685 direct-selling agents, this article reports evidence that a conflict between friendship
and instrumentality can undermine some of the business outcomes that friendship might otherwise foster. It also
suggests that this conflict is more severe for friendships that become business relationships than for business
relationships that become friendships. Study conclusions do not suggest that friendship is entirely “bad” for
business and, instead, propose that friendship’s influence can be both positive and negative.

Social Roles and Role Conflict
This article uses a role theory perspective to analyze and
understand the conflicting orientations of friendships and
business relationships. Several previous studies in marketing
have also applied this framework (Arnett, German, and
Hunt 2003; Atuahene-Gima and Li 2002; Schewe 1973;
Singh 2000; Smith and Barclay 1997; Solomon et al. 1985;
Walker, Churchill, and Ford 1977), including Heide and
Wathne’s (2006) recent analysis of friendships and business
relationships. Role theory is based on the premise that
effective social interaction depends on a shared understanding
of relationship rules—that is, the behaviors that are
(in)appropriate for different people in different social situations
(Biddle 1986; Heide and Wathne 2006; Michaels, Day,
and Joachimsthaler 1987; Sarbin and Allen 1968).

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