VietNamNet Bridge – Dr Le Tham Duong, Dean of the Business Administration Faculty of the HCM City Banking University, a well-known economist, whose name appears regularly on mass media, has been alleged as committing plagiarism since 2008.

The banking expert called the plagiarist

Giao duc Vietnam newspaper has repeatedly received letters from readers, who wrote in a decisive tone that Dr Le Tham Duong has copied ideas from other business articles published on local newspapers.

Thirty six phrases or arguments in the presentations, articles or lecturers by Duong have been found as nearly the same with the phrases and arguments in some articles.

Especially, readers have found some completely similar paragraphs, from the dots to the commas.

The noteworthy thing is that the presentations or scientific articles by Duong were believed to come out to the public after the other articles were posted. Those who denounced Duong of plagiarism, believe that Duong has been doing this since 2008, while the latest behavior was conducted in September 2012.

On September 4, 2012, an article by Hoang Duc about the state owned enterprise restructuring process was posted on a provincial online newspaper, which quoted the opinions of Dr Le Tham Duong about the issue. Readers have found out in the article 14 phrases which were identical with the opinions of other experts in the other six articles published prior to September 4.

The article repeats the content of the article: “Vai tro cua CEO trong qua trinh tai cau truc doanh nghiep” (the role of CEO in the enterprise restructuring process) by Dr Phan An published on vef.vn on July 24, 2012.

On November 11, 2008, the article “Chi tra co tuc bang tien: lieu cao da tot?” (is it good to pay high dividends in cash?) by Hong Ky was published on VnEconomy. The convincing argument in the article was then believed to be plagiarized by Duong, who then used the materials to answer the questions raised by the reporter from another newspaper.

In another example, readers pointed out that the ideas and arguments in three articles published on http://daibieunhandan.vn/default.aspx?tabid=75&NewsId=89497, http://www.thesaigontimes.vn/home/dothi/nhadat/25218/, and http://sgtt.vn/Kinh-te/Tai-chinh-va-dau-tu/114532/Siet-manh-tin-dung-cuoi-nam.html on November 11-14 , 2009 were copied by Duong and used by him when talking with a reporter named HN, who then wrote an article about the increasing popularity of bonds.

What does Duong say?

Duong has denied the plagiarism. He said that the evidences cited by the readers are mostly from local newspapers. The articles were written by reporters of the newspapers themselves, who then quoted Duong’s opinions. These were not Duong’s articles or his presentations on TV.

“It is the reporters, who plagiarized, not me,” Duong said.

Regarding the article by Hoang Duc, Duong affirmed that the opinions were spoken out by him at a conference in Quang Tri province held on July 22. Meanwhile, the article was published on July 24, or two days after the conference day.

“I have learned that many reporters “cooked” the opinions of other people, but then assigned the statements to me. Meanwhile, I never met the reporters before and I did not answer their interviews,” Duong said to explain why his name regularly can be seen on newspapers.

The suspected plagiarize scandal has not been clarified yet. Duong has repeatedly affirmed that all the phrases and arguments are the basic economics knowledge that every lecturer can have, while they are not the new ideas or arguments. Therefore, Duong has no reason to plagiarize the arguments.

GDVN