Joseph KK Ho's work diary

My brief searching identify the following Internet resources as related to professional ethics as related to accounting : On  accounting ethics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accounting_ethics Professional ethical codes for accountants (pdf): http://app1.hkicpa.org.hk/ebook/HKSA_Members_Handbook_Master/volumeI/COE.pdf Importance of ethics to accountants: http://ezinearticles.com/?Are-Ethics-Important-For-Professional-Accountants?&id=516791 Why are ethics important to accountants: http://www.ehow.com/about_6602027_ethics-important-field-accounting_.html On integrity for accountants: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0ICC/is_4_72/ai_109580301/ References On professional ethics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_ethics Hartman, L.P. and Desjardins, J. (2008) "Chapter 10: Ethical Decision Making: Corporate Governance, Accounting and Finance" Business Ethics , McGraw Hill (also refer to: http://josephho33.blogspot.com/2012/04/business-ethics-as...

In lecture on software testing , I will cover following concepts: The software testing process Types of software tests unit test integration test system test function test structural test User acceptance test: http://www.exforsys.com/tutorials/testing/what-is-user-acceptance-testing.html Usability test: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usability_testing Alpha, beta and pilot tests: http://www4.nau.edu/azregions/testing/beta.htm References Whittaker, J.A. (2000) "What is software testing? Any why is it so hard" IEEE Software , Feb., pp. 70-79. On software testing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_testing

I made up the following examples to illustrate some issues as related to Business Research ethics : Case 1: Student: my topic is "why my boss is such a poor manager?" Teacher: In this case: you cannot comply with the principle of informed consent Case 2: Student: I want to study sex harrassment in offices Teacher: IC. In this case, you should not employ participant observation nor covert observation as your research methods. Case 3: Student: If I study "office violence" using my company as a case study for my dissertation, could I use participant observation? Teacher: Of course not. Your boss probably will not approve your topic. Thus, informed consent may not be feasible. You also need to maintain confidentiality of your informats in this case.. Reference Related blog article: http://josephho33.blogspot.com/2012/03/research-and-consulting-ethics.html

New to dissertation project works, some students can get nervous when they find that they cannot meet their commited dissertation proposal objectives nor their dissertation project milestones, etc... I think there are several major reasons for that and the situation facing the students may not be that scaring: The reasons can be: Fundamentally, your project proposals are unclear about what you intend to do. Nevertheless, you have submitted your dissertation proposals to meet administration deadlines. In this case, you still need to finish your "unfinished" tasks to write up a dissertation proposal. As you become more knowledgeable with your topic areas, you refine your project objectives and research design, leading to changes in your project plans. This is a very legitimate reason to revise your dissertation project plans. In a real-world dynamic settings, many things can happen that require you to respond by revising your dissertation project plans: e.g. changes in th...

For the upcoming Independent Study tutorial 2 , I would like to examine the following topics: Quantitative data analysis On research design evaluation: http://josephho33.blogspot.com/2011/08/on-research-design-evaluation.html Writing up business research References Blog article 1: http://josephho33.blogspot.com/2011/11/conducting-quantitative-analysis-with.html Bryman, A. and Bell, E. (2007) Business Research Methods , Oxford University Press, Chapter 14: Quantitative Data Analysis Bryman, A. and Bell, E. (2007) Business Research Methods , Oxford University Press, Chapter 27: Writing up business research Tutorial 1 blog article: http://josephkkhoworkdiary.blogspot.com/2012/01/tutorial-1-for-independent-study-class.html

The main topics to cover on the subject of Business Systems Analysis are as follows: Systems development environment and Systems Development Life Cycle Project management concepts for Business Systems Analysis Determining systems requirements and requirement prioritization Evaluating and choosing commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) packages Soft systems methodology (SSM), including rich-picture building On Use Case Diagrams and Activiity Diagrams (in UML) On design strategies and systems implementation Basic ideas in Software Quality Assurance On software testing Class exercise Rich picture building exercise in class: A manufacturing company located in Mainland China produces toys for a big business customer located in USA. The manufacturing company has 2 major suppliers of parts that are located near the company's plant. The management team of the company is not happy with the manual system for purchasing parts from the 2 major suppliers. They feel that there is a nee...

My sister examined my articles and other readings, feeling perplexed in the "sea of data" that she found herself in. I think, even for students are are keen to learn, the contemporary business publications can rightly be called a "sea of data".  Our Internet infrastructure, including search engines, portals, e-libraries and, above all, the digital social media ecosystem, provides a powerful means for us to index and categorize e-resources. Such indexing effort is itself a form of literature review effort. Its nature is similar to Data Management (Loomis, 1989). From this e-resources with indexes, we then go through another literature review process in our professional development/ dissertation project works, namely, formulation and refinement of theories/ theoretical frameworks. Let's call this intellectual exercise "theorizing" . Some people, me included, like to organize concepts and theories in the form of diagrams to make explicit these theoreti...

From time to time, I come acrosss faceless dissertation reports for marking: Students did not turn up in dissertation meetings; or they just turned up in last minute to sign on attendance log only. Students are not responsive to my feedbacks The reports appear to be quite good in quality, in terms of writing style, research methods and literature review Students do not appear to be intelligent and more like criminal suspects. If the anti-plagiarism software could not detect plagiarism of their reports, I have difficulties to challenge their works. Nevertheless, these are faceless dissertation reports .. I suspect that these students have succesfully defeated our education system and gained a recognized qualification - a recognized qualification of how to defeat our education system as a crook . These "graduates" most often do participate in graduation ceremonies, based on my experience.

Very often, in dissertation meetings, students ask me questions about dissertation requirements that are administrative in nature: when to submit reports, what should be report format, what is my role, e.g. as an internal consultant or an external consultant, etc? Some students form an impression of the supervisor's competence in terms of ability to answer these questions.  I am sure these issues are relevant to their dissertation project works. But, they are trivial issues and students can figure out what are required if they bother to study the subject handbook themselves. Well, some students consider that it is reasonable to ask these questions, and that they would expect dissertation supervisors to refine and elaborate on their vague and "poorly" formulated research themes, and subsequently, to assure them that their ideas are proper. These expectations/ viewpoints from students are reasonable, aren't they? I am fully aware that these are prevailing expectatio...

My lecture topics on Dissertation and Consulting Management are: Planning and managing project Performing research access and interventions Research and consulting ethics Students should also refer to the two lecture notes: marketing qual part 1 and marketing qual part 2 , which I will also review in class. Related blog ref.: http://josephho33.blogspot.com/2012/01/on-nature-of-qualitative-research.html Some  specific information covered in  lecture 1: Report requirements: Marketing stream: 1. Dissertation report: 10,000 words Business Admin stream: 1. Dissertation proposal: 1,000 words 2. Dissertation report (6000 words) and consulting report (1,500 words) 3. Oral Presentation An example of an online survey tool: http://mysurvey.tw/ Facebook contact: facebook.com/josephho33 E-library note: http://josephho33.blogspot.com/2011/12/browsing-academic-e-library-brief-note.html Academic publishers' websites: http://josephho33.blogspot.com/2011/12/major...

My Contemporary ISD student took a photo of me again. In the photo, I was writing on the whiteboard:

Students can be Johnny Walkers... when you show some weaknesses in certain topics you cover in lectures, they walk out and leave the classroom. When your topics are not related to examination scope, some of them will walk out and leave the classroom. When you refer them to textbooks and they feel overloaded with reading materials, they feel upset and walk out of the classroom.. When they feel that the lecture handouts are simple and they do not miss any major information about exam scope, some of them will walk out of the classroom immediately... In short, they are walkers.. let's call them Johnny walkers..