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Business Communication Quarterly, Volume 74, Number 2, June 2011 205-209
DOI: 10.1177/1080569911404056
© 2011 by the Association for Business Communication
Chynette Nealy
University of Houston Downtown
PLAGIARISM, PRESENTING SOMEONE’S WORDS or other creative products as your own, is a mandatory discussion and writing assignment in many undergraduate business communication courses. In fact, it would be considered plagiarism if this definition is not attrib-uted. That being said, authors Kuasek, Brennan, and Browne (2003) expand the definition of plagiarism to include illegality if it violates copyright. Class discussions about this topic tend to be lively, ranging from questions about simply omitting identified sources to different standards of ethical behaviors reflective of people from different cul-tures, academic, professional, and other experiences. Business com-munication students can benefit from exposure to this topic within the context of challenges faced by some business professionals in an envi-ronment driven by competition and, regrettably, resulting in corporate scandals. One method of exposing students to this real-world problem is examining how an academic behavior—plagiarism—can become a transferable business practice. Students need to understand that pla-giarism can cause a range of consequences inclusive of whistle-blowing. This article discusses an assignment that discourages plagiarism.
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Numerous corporate scandals, especially in the financial arenas, have caused many businesses and employees to rethink business practices with limited transparencies. Many of these changes stem from famous cases involving whistle-blowers. Whistle-blowing exposes a violation of ethics or law (Levisohn, 2008). Arguably, Sherron Watkins, former vice president of corporate development at Enron, is one of the most famous whistle-blowers. She made a difficult decision to report ques-tionable, plagiarized accounting practices that placed her in a difficult position (Pasha, 2006). Interestingly, a whistle-blower can be resented
or rejected by coworkers and suffers from going public with complaints. However, a large number of employees file whistle-blowing cases relying on protection under federal and state laws (Aguilera & Vadera, 2008; Bailey, 2008; Orin, 2008).
In 2002, Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in response to corporate scandals. Sarbanes-Oxley encourages whistle-blowers to expose wrongdoing at their organizations. However, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act has its limitations: The provision only protects employees of public corporations and only if such employees report violations of federal securities laws (Moberly, 2007). This and similar “gaps” are often major points of debate during class discussions regarding plagiarism within the context of often-used business strategies, including suppressing unfavorable research to support business interests, using half of the information to obtain predetermined results, or distorting information released to stakeholders about operational or financial conditions.
In these discussions, attention is focused on team-based perfor-mances that create incentives for plagiarism and/or misconduct. Real-world examples include Enron, American Insurance Corporation (AIG) and Fannie Mae (Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics, 2009; Ethics Resource Center, 2009; Haggerty & McKinnon, 2004; McKinnon, 2004). In general, students posit their position about pla-giarism using the following: 56% of U.S. employees said they have observed unethical behavior by people in their organization and more than 40% of employees who witness unethical behavior did not report it (Hoover, 2007). Against this position, the following assignment helps students rethink and apply strategies to discourage plagiarism.
THE ASSIGNMENT
In this assignment, I use concrete and/or practical material from pub-licized corporate and academic scandals to help student reflect while forming abstract concepts that can be applied. This instructional strat-egy is designed to engage students in developing skill sets targeting the relevance of closing the “theory to practice” gap (Dewey, 1938/1963; Kolb, 1984).
After discussing plagiarism, student teams consider a plagiarism case that involves incentives for team-based performance. Teams are required to prepare an analytical written report about the case. This
allows teams to reflect on the problem, report concrete analysis, and explain/apply the effect of plagiarism in this case. The objective is to align theory to practice, so teams receive a case using a real-world business and academic partnership scenario.
I take into consideration the gap between student and instructor perceptions of plagiarism by implementing 2 + 2 = 4, a logical approach that convinces a reader of the perspective by demonstrating that every-thing adds up (Thill & Bovée, 2008). Students are asked to apply problem factoring, divide the problem into logical connected questions; thus allowing each question to be evidenced during analysis. During this period, class time is used for explanation of rubrics (written and oral) used to evaluate the assignment. Included in these discussions are reading assignments and lectures within the scope of business practices that affect business communication, such as whistle-blowing, ethical dilemmas, ethical lapses, and team skills.
The teams are required to role play the findings in a 15-minute presentation, which allows students to experience increased insightful reflection before and during the application (Doron, 2007). For assess-ment purposes, students are told that each team will lead discussion and provide feedback after their presentation. In the role-playing pre-sentation, students include their analytical findings, which allow the audience to agree or disagree with the recommendations. It also allows, for the purpose of grading, measureable set criteria for evaluation via rubric: content, organization, and audience engagement. All presenta-tions are recorded for review.
Students have four weeks to complete the assignment. The analytical report should be 10-25 pages and include information from a business or academic entity that has experienced and/or is experiencing the same problem outlined in the case. Students also receive guidelines for the presentation, the role-playing of recommendations. Similar to the workplace, incentives encourage assignment completion. The following short scenario is used as the problem:
You have been hired as an external performance review team by a well known business and academic partner to the College of Business. Your professor explains that the business needs assistance in determining whether plagiarism is occurring on team projects sponsored at the university or during interaction with professionals during an internship.
The business, a financial services firm, provides two data sets: reports submitted for consideration for paid internships and reports completed during the internship supervised by an internal team.
Included in the data are the following team communications and activities. In both settings, students were assigned to a team of five class members with diverse backgrounds—that is, age, gender, business majors, and professional experience. The team began experiencing several prob-lems with some members, including not communicating in a timely manner, not participating in scheduled meetings online or face/face, and not completing project deadlines, resulting in the team losing points for overall performance. The team decided to not share several of the problems with the instructor or the internal team at the business. Then, two days before the major project is due, one team member requested a meeting with the business representative, not the internal supervising team, and blew the whistle, claiming that team members are plagiarizing; another team mem-ber emailed the instructor a vague communication noting personal prob-lems and dropped the course; the remaining three team members continued working on the project. The assignment is submitted to the instructor, the internal team, and the business representative on the due date inclusive of a performance review with all members’ signatures.
LEARNER ouTcoMES
Student feedback is positive. They indicate that the assignment mir-rored a “real-world opportunity” that increased their interest and con-firmed the consequences of plagiarism. Students also indicated the assignment allowed and encouraged confronting team members’ unde-sirable behavior, and students could identify strategies that encouraged positive team performance. Subsequently, students indicated under-standing the consequences of plagiarism and the need for rethinking their position about observing and not reporting plagiarism.
Recent corporate scandals continue to show patterns of unethical behavior that appear to be acceptable until exposed. Learner outcomes designed to provide measureable consequences of unethical behavior, such as plagiarism, are beneficial with respect to academic and profes-sional honesty. Aligning theory to practice about plagiarism will help some students rethink before applying unethical practices in academic and/or workplace settings. Writing the assignments using the 2 + 2 = 4 analytical format provide practice in logical reasoning that improves the probability of others, as well as oneself, to change prospect and
behavior. And role playing enlivens the learning environment with memorable course content.
References
Aguilera, R., & Vadera, A. (2008). The dark side of authority: Antecedents, mechanisms, and outcomes of organizational corruption. Journal of Business Ethics, 77, 431-449.
Bailey, J. (2008, January). Whistleblowing: An international perspective. Internal Auditing,
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Doron, I. (2007). Court of ethics: Teaching ethics and ageing by means of role-playing.
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Ethics Resource Center. (2009, November). 2009 National Business Ethics Survey. Retrieved from www.ethics.org/nbes
Haggerty, J., & McKinnon, J. (2004, September 24). Fannie Mae ousters might come. Wall Street
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Hoover, K. (2007, December 10). Most employees see ethical misconduct at work. Washington
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Levisohn, L. (2008, January 28). Getting more workers to whistle. Business Week, p. 18. McKinnon, J. D. (2004, September 24). Fannie aides voiced concerns. Wall Street Journal, p. C4. Moberly, R. (2007). Unfulfilled expectations: An empirical analysis of why Sarbanes-Oxley
whistleblowers rarely win. William and Mary Law Review, 49, 65.
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Pasha, S. (2006, March 16). Enron’s whistle blower details sinking ship. CNNMoney. Retrieved from http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/15/news/newsmakers/enron/index.htm
Thill, J., & Bovée, C. (2008). Excellence in business communication (9th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Chynette Nealy is an associate professor of business administration at the University of Houston Downtown. In her work, she is directly concerned with teaching and researching skills that can be applied to bridging the gap between theory and practice. Address correspondence to Chynette Nealy, Department of Management, Marketing & Business Administration, College of Business, University of Houston Downtown, 320 North Main, Suite B420, Houston, TX 77002; email: [email protected].
