Ethical Dilemmas

Perception of ethical behavior varies between people; this variation is formed due many different factors such as culture, background, experience, religious belief, and many more. Although ethics and ethical behavior judgment comes as a result of multiple factors, I do believe that ethics could be taught, and employees perception could be altered and enhanced. This believe is coming from the fact that International enterprises exist in many different locations, with employees from different cultures and backgrounds and most of them behave ethically with relation to the enterprises ethical principle and rules, else disciplinary actions could be taken.

IT plays a vital role in our life now, and this role in increasing day-by-day. Schools in UAE for instance started to replace the heavy student bags with iPads, and I personally d not know anyone who isn’t an online user, and communicate through social networking websites even the elders. E-business adoption is increasing and people started to use their mobile devices to ecommerce. Every new technology is born with its known ethical dilemmas, and yet more to be discovered by time, that because technology is the gateway to information, personal data, public data, communication and a lot more. In this article I will discuss the presented ethical dilemmas.

Case 1:

Producing a better quality product requires more time, and more time results in missing the deadline. Since the product is acceptable, this means that by delivering the product in the current state should not harm the customer, and the company is not conducting any immoral behavior. On the other hand, missing the deadline could impact the company’s reputation.

Me: I would not miss the deadline, and prefer to deliver the product in its acceptable state. In addition to that, I would inform the management about the finding and initiate a quality enhancement program to revisit products quality and enhance it.

My employees: I would like them to inform me about any future findings that could help the company improve the quality of its products, and focus on deadlines as long as the quality is acceptable.

Case 2:

Policies and procedures in an organization are developed to enhance productivity and control behaviors to benefit the organization. Those procedures should be revisited and enhanced as time advances to improve them and improve productivity. However, it should be in a controlled manner, if every employee believes that a certain action would improve a procedure, and apply his actions the organization will turn into chaos.

Me: I would follow the procedure and recommend the enhancement action either through a change management process, or request policy and procedure owner to revise my recommendation.

My employees: I would encourage them to look for enhancements, and only apply after being approved by the organization.

Case 3:

Every organization might have employees who perform unethical behaviors, however whistleblowing is crucial in such scenarios even if it is going to impact the employees professional life at this organization.

Me: I would report the harassment and request the human resource department to investigate the matter. In addition to that I would encourage the organization to implement a solution that allow employees to report harassment and unethical behavior in an anonymous form.

My Employees: I would encourage them to report harassments and not to have fear from being laid off, if not reported the harassment might happen with them in the future.

Case4:

Reporting mistakes at the very beginning might help the organization to find a solution to its consequences and reduce the impact on the organization, I personally have conducted a mistake that resulted in the loss of data when I first joined my professional life. I informed my management at the very beginning and they helped me by providing me with data recovery tools, and the data was retrieved.

Me: I would inform my management directly, to set expectations and understand the consequences. As well to find a solution that won’t harm the organization.

My employees: I encourage my employees to report any mistakes, and not fear from reactions. Instead of spending time trying to fix the problem, I might be able to help them with the solution.

Ethical dilemmas in Information technology industry are endless, with every new product or technology new dilemmas will rise. It is important to have a corporate understanding and definition for ethical behavior.

Reference:

Desai, M, von der Embse, T, & Ofori-Brobbey, K 2008, 'Information Technology and Electronic Information: An Ethical Dilemma', SAM Advanced Management Journal (07497075), 73, 3, pp. 16-24, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 19 May 2012.

Hall. P. & Fernandez-Ramil. J., (2007), Managing the Software Enterprise.  London. Thomson Learning..  Print. (ISBN-10:1-84480-354-6 ISBN-13:978-1-84480-354-5