Discuss about the Information and Communication Technology Industry.
The term ‘ethics is utilized to define those sets of moral principles that can be utilized for analyzing the behavior of individuals or r groups of people as a whole (Bernstein, 2014). Therefore, ICT ethics can be defined as those moral principles that are utilized for regulating the behavior of the individuals associated with the IT profession (Stoodley, Bruce, & Edwards, 2013).
The primary aim of this report is to identify the ethical dilemma of the president of the software organization that has developed a faulty tax calculation software. The reasonable and justified responses of the president towards this dilemma would also be highlighted, along with the identification of those requirements of the ACS Code of Ethics that can be utilized in the scenario described in the case study.
The decision taken by the president (as depicted in the case study) would also be defended on ethical grounds, besides providing advices to him.
The information provided in the case study indicates that the president of the software firm under discussion was aware of the fact that the newly developed tax calculation program has a good number of bugs in it and does not operate properly. However, debugging the entire package would indeed take quite some time and according to the president, the firm would be financially hampered in case any other organization release a similar product within that time.
On the other hand, if the faulty product were shipped to the customers, the payment of wrong amounts of tax would lead to financial penalty of the users. These users would eventually press charges on the firm, resulting in both reputational and financial loss of the organization.
Thus, the president has to decide whether to take time and debug the package, thus increasing the chances of losing the market share to competitors, or to ship the faulty software packages to customers and be responsible for further consequences.
In case the software packages are shipped to the customers without removing all the bugs present in it, the customers who utilize the same would invariably file incorrect amounts of tax, thus facing strict actions taken by the government. However, it should be taken into consideration that the customers are not aware of the faults included in the software, neither do they intend to file incorrect tax amounts; however, they would face penalties due to the sheer irresponsible attitude of the software firm.
On the other hand, if the president instructs the employees of the firm to get rid of all the errors present the software code, the entire process would take considerable amount of time. The president is afraid that any competitor firm might release a similar tax calculation package in the mean time, thus moving ahead in the market competition.
The consequences of the first option would indeed be far worse than that of the second. Thus, the president of the software firm should choose the second option of debugging the entire product before release.
The five primary principles of ethics are: “respecting autonomy”, “fidelity”, “nonmaleficence”, “justice” and “beneficence” (Broad, 2014). As the names indicate, these principles consider only those activities to be ethical that respect the autonomy of individuals, do not cause harm to others, maintain the confidence of others, are justified, and provide benefit to others.
In case the president encourages the sale of the faulty tax calculation software, it would indeed be an act of breaching the trust of the customers, besides causing them financial loss. The financial loss includes the fines that they would have to pay to the government for not filling taxes correctly.
On the other hand, the second option would not do any harm to others: however, any other organization might go ahead in market competition in case they successfully launch a tax calculation program within the time required for debugging the software package in consideration.
Thus, the president should instruct the team to debug the software, thus postponing its release and maintain the trust of the customers on their brand name.
Duties of the president
The duties of the president, in the current scenario, include the following:
To maintain the trust of the customers and perform no such activity (knowingly) that might cause harm to them instead of benefitting them.
To take a decision that would be justified both for the target customers of the organization and the firm.
To take responsibility of the consequences of the decisions that he takes.
Researcher Melden (2013) is of the opinion that the “typical response of a caring person” includes the following: attentiveness, responsibility, responsiveness and competence.
In context to the circumstances depicted in the case study, the president of the IT organization should be much more attentive towards the consequences of following either of the two options available to him. As mentioned in section 3.1, considering the probable outcomes of the two options that the president currently has, not producing the faulty software to the customers would be the most ethical decision. Besides this, the president must be responsive towards the issues that the organization might experience due to decisions taken by him and take the responsibilities of the same.
Making a justified decision and taking the responsibilities of the same would also demonstrate the president’s competence in managing the overall operational activities of the software firm.
The following section of the report highlights those particular requirements of the ACS Code of Professional Conduct that need to be followed in the circumstances depicted in the case study.
|
Sl. No |
Requirement number |
Justification |
|
1. |
1.2.1. a. |
The president of the software firm should essentially identify those stakeholders who might be penalized by the use of the software (Acs.org.au, 2017). |
|
2 |
1.2.1. b. |
The customers should essentially be informed of the fact that the software package contains certain errors and might result in wrong tax calculation. |
|
3 |
1.2.2. c. |
The consequence that the customers would face after filing incorrect amount of taxes should be considered. |
|
4 |
1.2.3. b. |
Not informing the customers about the faults included in the software would be act of deceiving them. |
|
5 |
1.2.4. a. |
The software should not be provided to the customers, until and unless the fault are identified and rectified (Acs.org.au, 2017). |
|
6 |
1.2.4. e. |
Informing the customers of the faults of the software would indeed be an ethical decision. |
|
7 |
1.2.5 b. |
The president of the software firm should consider the ill effect of releasing a faulty software on their relationship with the clients |
|
8 |
1.2.5 c. |
The ICT experts working for the organization should have been encouraged in finding the faults that exist in the software and fix them. |
|
9 |
1.2.6. f |
Shipping off an erroneous tool to the customers is equivalent to deceiving them (Acs.org.au, 2017). |
The president of the software firm had decided to ship off the faulty software to the customers. However, the CDs included a disclaimer stating that the organization would bear the responsibilities of any error cause by the software. The president of the software firm has even encouraged the customer to inform the organization of any error or fault that they experience while using the tool; the same would be resolved in the next version .
This particular gesture of the president of the software firm indicates that he or she is well aware of the fact that using the software package might make the customers face certain issues: however, he is willing to take responsibilities for the same. The entire situation also reflects the fact that he does not want to deceive the customers, nor is he willing to ruin the existing business relationship with them.
The fact that the president does not wish to deceive the customers and is willing to take responsibility of all the consequences they face makes his decision ethical to some extent.
Conclusion
The ethical dilemma of the president of lied in the fact that options available to him would either lead to the penalization of the customers or considerable financial loss to the organization. Three responses to this dilemma have been provided in the report, considering the consequences of the options, the primary principles of ethics, and the duties of caring person.
In the light of the discussions made in the report, the following advices are being made to the president:
Make test versions of the software available to customers, free of cost.
Encourage the customers to participate in the debugging phase.
Making the test version available to the customers would indeed act as a promotional activity, besides making the task of identifying the bugs faster. Following the second advice would serve the same purpose.
Acs.org.au,.(2017). Retrieved 4 January 2017, from https://www.acs.org.au/content/dam/acs/acs-documents/ACS%20Code-of-Professional-Conduct_v2.1.pdf
Bernstein, J. M. (2014). Recovering ethical life: Jurgen Habermas and the future of critical theory. Routledge.
Broad, C. D. (2014). Five types of ethical theory (Vol. 2). Routledge.
Kim, H. S., Kim, J. M., & Lee, W. G. (2014). IE behavior intent: A study on ICT ethics of college students in Korea. The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher, 23(2), 237-247.
Markus, M. L., & Mentzer, K. (2014). Foresight for a responsible future with ICT. Information Systems Frontiers, 16(3), 353-368.
Melden, A. (2013). Ethical theories. Read Books Ltd.
Stoodley, I., Bruce, C., & Edwards, S. (2013). 12. Experiential ethics education for IT professionals. Professionalism in the Information and Communication Technology Industry, 3, 233.
van Oortmerssen, G. (2014, May). Ethics and ICT: Beyond design. In Ethics in Science, Technology and Engineering, 2014 IEEE International Symposium on (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
Weckert, J., & Lucas, R. (2013). Professionalism in the information and communication technology industry. ANU Press.
Whitehouse, D., Duquenoy, P., Kimppa, K. K., Burmeister, O. K., Gotterbarn, D., Kreps, D., & Patrignani, N. (2016). Twenty-five years of ICT and society: codes of ethics and cloud computing. ACM SIGCAS Computers and Society, 45(3), 18-24.
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