Wrapping up MMC 640

Wow! A lot of material covered in the two classes I took this term in the MMC program.

In assessing what we learned in MMC 640 Ethics and Decision Making, I think we did a good job of meeting the objectives stated in the beginning of the course. I was impressed with the Seven Layers book despite having a built-in bias against the publisher, AuthorHouse (their evil! Ask me about it later). The book did a good job explaining the layers and illustrating how they can occassionally come into conflict with one another. Thus, every ethical dilemma is not always black and white. I'm curious as to how you discovered the book, Professor Artz.

I enjoyed watching the two films, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and The Insider. Both films took different approaches, but did a great job of illustrating ethical conflicts in the real world. Incorporating films like these into the classroom is a great way to facilitate the learning process. Education dressed up as entertainment! A spoon full of sugar helps the point come across!

I thought Judgement in Managerial Decision Making did a good job of pointing out some of the biases that heavily influence our decision-making process, but they are so engrained that we often are not even aware of them. The strategies presented to counteract some of these should prove valuable. Since I touched on publishing a bit in the second paragraph, I'll include a note on book design here. I remember when I first paged through this book. I was a bit intimidated because the text was so dense. I think the book would read better if the text were a bit bigger and allowed to breathe more. Of course that would likely increase the size and thus the cost of the book, which as a student I'm firmly against!

All in all, I enjoyed the class and felt like I learned a few things! Can't ask for much more than that.