Question III
Despite the fact that the population should be randomized, it should still be from the same group of individuals, which, in terms of alcohol tolerance, is probably unlikely to occur. It is difficult to determine whether alcohol tolerance is encouraged by a larger body weight or by additional other factors. However, the students selected for the experiments will need to have a similar alcohol tolerance, which is very difficult to calculate in practice.
In terms of its legality and ethical nature, one needs to refer to the potential harm that could come out of such an experiment. With such an experiment, the potential outcome could be harmful. Indeed, one could conclude that light beer is not harmful for the students, while, in fact, this could encourage them to drive after consuming a light beer, a situation which in fact could endanger their lives. In my opinion, such an experiment and of random selection into experimental and control groups is really somewhere at the limits of legality, exactly because of the implications that such a situation could have.
My advice to the president would be to (1) assume a different message for the beer in case, one that would not imply that drinking it allows the individual to still perform actions where his life or others may be endangered and (2) conduct the research and the subsequent experiments following this new line, which will be less likely to bring about any questions on legality and/or morality. At the same time, to address the randomization issues, one can select a quasi-experiment, which would imply...
The differences between the U.S. Or Europe and China are enormous and someone setting up a research department in China will need to be aware of this because it may affect the research methodologies, the ways in which the data is collected and analyzed, qualitatively and quantitatively etc.
Second, the population of China is vast and extremely diverse. The differences in perception between someone who lives in San Francisco and someone who lives in New York are not necessarily that big. However, the differences between Beijing and Shanghai are much more significant, despite for the distance being somewhat smaller than from New York to San Francisco. A proper Research Department will need to be aware of all these internal cultural differences that can significantly affect the results of a research.
Finally, in order to properly set up a Research Department in China, one will also need to investigate the efficiency of some of the research instruments that are generally used. For example, in Western countries, online questionnaires are an efficient way of gathering data and opinions. However, can this be extended to a country like China with a still limited access to the Internet? At the same time, one will also need to see if any of these research instruments are potentially going to come into conflict with the official party line.
