More information about the Duke University business school cheating scandal continues to emerge. The Raleigh News & Observer newspaper reports that most of the students punished in the scandal are Asian. This brings up another interesting point in our discussions about cheating versus collaboration.

In many Asian cultures, people are encouraged to work together and share and build upon knowledge developed by other people. The notion of individual intellectual property is completely foreign; there is only knowledge for the collective good. Therefore, the Duke students did not understand the school’s honor code that forbids them from sharing answers or any part of their work on the take-home test. In other words, the “cheating” that took place could have been the result of a cultural misunderstanding. An attorney for some of the accused students called the honor code violations “minor and unintentional.”

Still, does that make it okay? Despite the students predominantly coming from Asian countries and cultures, they were enrolled in an American business school, presumably to learn the ways of American business. One could argue that the students needed to adjust their actions to adapt to the culture of the education system – and ultimately the business world -- they are in.

For me, personally, this has led to a bit of soul-searching about the HP Certified Professional Program. It is a worldwide program with one set of standards, although we do make minor adjustments for local/regional customs and needs. In all countries, we have a policy against cheating to attain a credential. The policy strictly forbids working with other individuals on the certification exams.

I now wonder, does this policy overlook cultural differences? And are we discouraging useful collaboration in order to evaluate individual knowledge? After all, if we want people to work in teams and to help each other when it comes time for complex technology implementations, is it right to insist that individuals prove their personal knowledge via exams they take on their own? Should our certification tests – as well as the learning processes – place more emphasis on teamwork?

Mind you, I’m still totally against the blatant theft of intellectual property (i.e., the data dumps of our certification exams), and I’m against the notion of someone acquiring exam answers inappropriately (from brain dumps, copying, using banned materials, etc.). This clearly is cheating, and there’s no place for it in a professional organization. HP will vigorously defend against this kind of behavior. But aside from that, perhaps it is time to think in terms of getting teams to work together to solve the world’s business problems.