Philosophy of Sciene (14)

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Philosophy of Sciene (13)

Let's start an online brainstorming!

Referring to our today's coaching session in Philosophy of Science in order to discover something new, interesting and funny about the “homo oeconomicus”. Professor Peschel said we are free to explore and a leading questions could be: what is the core meaning of "homo oeconomicus" and what are the differences and implications of the model and real-word phenomena? The aim is that we should get differrent, diverse impressions by looking beyond the border.

I'd like to know what drives people or in other words what is their motivation? Some people have besides extrinsic motivation also a lot of instrinisc motivation. Some people like to compete while others prefer to cooperate. Therefore we could observe (a) young people - teenagers / (b) business people (with focus group interviews) / and (c) old people and find out what drives them.

Have a short look: http://arm.in/e0d (please klick transalte after opening the website).

Philosophy of Sciene (12)

In our today's meeting we sharpened our thematic field "homo oeconomicus" and prepared some questions for the focus group interview with business people that we will probably conduct on Monday 3/5/2010. Here are some questions that we prepared so far:

1. What are the factors which are responsible that you like your job?
2. What does money mean in general to you (does it make you happy)?
3. Do you prefer a leadership strategy which is more task or more group orientated?
4. In case of a recession how do you handle the hiring and firing of people?
5. Do you promote people who are more considered to have an efficient working style or people who are considered to be friendly persons?
6. How do you make decisions concerning luxury things?
7. ....

Feel free to adapt the listed discussion points above or come up with other ones!

Philosophy of Sciene (11)

I read some background information about group interviews that we want to conduct as observation strategy for our thematic field "homo oeconomicus". "A focus group interview is an interview with a small group of people on a specific topic. Groups are typically six to eight people who participate in the interview for one-half to two hours (Patton 2002, p.385)." Patton sees the focus interview as a highly efficient qualitative data collection technique. It is not a problem-solving session or decision-making group. The main adavantages are that focus groups interviews are low cost and rich in data, that they stimulate the responders and support them in remembering events, and they can lead beyond the answers of the single interviewee (Flick 2009, p.196).

What can be a "discussion stimulus"?
On the one hand, in the beginning of 2009 a group of Harvard students created a new management oath "to make a real impact on the meaning of the MBA degree and the role people expect business to play in society". http://mbaoath.org/about/the-mba-oath/
On the other hand, we can find almost daily in reality the absolute opposite. There are several scandals or affairs like the one of Bernard Madoff (72) who ran the biggest ponzi scheme ever known and who was sentenced to 150 years prison by an US-judge. Because of Madoff private, corporate and public investors lost approximately 65 billion US-Dollar and even two investors committed suicide after they realized the amount of their financial losses. http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/29/news/economy/madoff_prison_sentence/index.htm?postversion=2009062909
Do managers need an oath like physicians?