June 9, 2013

A study by Dufresne and Offstien, 2012 highlighted the application of ethical training in developing students in becoming model citizens of society. The authors undertook a qualitative research of West Point, an institution based in the United States of America that focuses mainly on training cadets to be commissioned into the United States Army (Dufresne & Offstien, 2012) . The article presented a background on ethics and highlighted a number of cases involving companies that have been cited for ethical breaches. In developing the background to the research, landmark court cases were cited and the relatedness to the research was presented. Included in the background discussion is a brief summary of West Point. This gives the reader an opportunity to understand the rational for selecting the institution of the research. The primary research question; “to better understand how West Point engages in character development of its students to inform how schools of business may learn from this model” was noted (Dufresne & Offstien, 2012). The methods employed in doing the qualitative research were established. The authors indicated the use of an anthropological and phenomenological orientation. The purpose for using these methods was explained and reference cited. The data collection methods included observation, interviews, and documents as primary data sources and involved an integrative and iterative data analysis using triangulation as well as other methods of data analysis. The authors indicted the research will have elements of a case study, grounded theory and ethnography to arrive at the meaning and themes that emanate from the research. In presenting the findings the authors did a comparative analysis and presented the data in a systematic format that resulted in ease of understanding and interpretation. References were