Ethical Issues In Project Management

Overview of Ethics and its Subsets

Question:

Discuss about the Project Management for Systematizing and Defending Concepts.

Ethics which is also known as moral philosophy is a subset of philosophy that encompasses recommending, systematizing and defending concepts of right and wrong. The word ethics is derived from an ancient Greek word ethos which means a custom or habit. In ethics the main purpose is trying to resolve questions which are concerned with human morality (Hoy, 2005). This is done by defining concepts which include wrong and right, evil and good, justice and crime and vice and virtue. In ethics today there are three main areas which are recognized. They are meta-ethics, applied ethics and normative ethics. In normative ethics individuals try to determine actions which have a moral cause by the use of practical methods. Meta-ethics involves a moral proposition reference and theoretical meaning and how its values of truth can be established. Applied ethics relates to the obligations in which individuals are allowed to undertake when in a particular domain of action or situation. Ethics is utilized in various disciplines to ensure that people are always doing the morally right action as they endeavor in every project.

A project is an endeavor which is undertaken to ensure a specific goal or result is attained. Project management is a discipline which relates to initiating, executing, planning, closing and controlling the actions performed by individuals in a team to attain a specific goal. Project are usually temporary because they are usually undertaken to achieve a specific goal (Kingsolver, 2008). The normal business operations of a company are not defined as a project because they are continuous within a company. Project management is present to ensure a project is successful and achieves its goal on time and on budget. The main challenge with project management is ensuring that even with the present constraints all the project goals can be attained. The constraints of a project are usually defined in the documentation of a project. The project documentation is usually developed at the initial stages of a project. The main constraints within any project are time, scope, budget and quality (Dinsmore et al, 2005). The secondary constraints are the necessary resources being allocated and optimized to ensure the predefined objectives of the project are met.

The operations within a project and the individuals undertaking the project should adhere to ethical standards to ensure the project is a success and is of good quality. Project managers are usually the lead in any project. They steer and manage the project to ensure it delivers on the set objectives. In the operations of a project the project manager is faced with many ethical issues. Project managers are not given the necessary skills and training to handle ethical issues. This causes there to be various problems being faced by project managers as they manage a project. The various institutions which educate individuals on project management aspects usually focus more on the technical aspects and less on the ethical aspects associated with a project. If the ethical issues in a project are not resolved properly the efficiency of the team members can decrease tremendously. In project management ethical issues are related with the relationship of team members as they work on a project (Cattani, Ferriani, Frederiksen & Florian, 2011). These ethical issues are based on values, norms, beliefs and thoughts of individuals. In project management ethical issues do not have a quick fix. They need to be dealt with by utilizing leadership and entrepreneurial skills.

Introduction to Project Management

Project managers have a responsibility to ensure that the project they are managing achieves profit maximization, fulfills its corporate social responsibility and ethical responsibility. In project management the most common ethical issues include violating the basic rights of workers. Workers or members of a team within project are very essential in ensuring the objectives of the project are achieved. The project managers can however misuse their powers through violating the rights of these team members. This can be done by overwhelming the team members with a lot of work and responsibilities which are not realistic. They can also do this by making the team members work overtime all the time all so that the project manager is seen to be bringing in results (Lock, 2007). The project team are individuals who also have lives outside of the project at hand. If these individuals are faced with an emergency they may need to be excused and divert their attention towards this emergency. There are project managers who violate this right by not giving these individuals permission to attend to the emergency which concerns them. This right is something essential that a project manager is ethically obliged to give to their team members to ensure that their basic rights are not violated. When the basic rights of the team members in project are violated their output is decreased because they are not motivated to work on the task at hand (Lyon, 1999). It is ethical for the project manager to always ensure the basic rights of his or her project team is met so that they feel appreciated, motivated and deliver on the tasks at hand which will lead to the project objectives being met.

In most countries the rights of employees are protected through the setting of safety, environmental and health standards. There are project managers who however ignore these standards. Ignorance of these standards can cause there to be many issues that might negatively affect the employees and the project as a whole. In any project the safety, environmental and health standards need to be maintained to ensure the employees are protected (Berger, Easterly, et al, 2010). A project should be undertaken in a conducive environment which will enable the team members to work well and achieve on the set objectives. The environment should also be safe and healthy for the team to work in. A good example is if a project team is working in an industrial area. If the project involves a lot of meetings the industrial setting will not be a conducive environment which is safe and appropriate for them to work in. The project manager should always ensure that the environment in which the team works in is safe, healthy and appropriate for them to achieve the project goals (Phillips, 2003).

Constraints in a Project

Projects need money for them to achieve the needed objective. The project managers may be tempted to engage in shady deals so that they can benefit personally from the project budget. Project managers who are corrupt usually engage in these kind of shady deals and these kinds of deals are potentially very hazardous to an organization. It can cause an organization to face legal action because their project manager partook in a shady deal. It is observed that there are many companies today who are facing legal action because their employees have been discovered to be engaging in shady deals. A project manager can also come up with fictitious documents such as lying on their experience so that they gain an advantage in getting a project management job (Pinnington & Lafferty, 2002). Project managers should ensure that they are ethical so that they can be able to manage the project in an ethical manner which will guarantee its success and avoid any kind of backlash that can befall the organization in a negative way,

In any project there is a very high potential of things becoming worse very fast. If a problem arises within a project the project manager is liable at first because they lead the team (Robotham, 2005).. If a project manager or any other member of the project team blames another member for a problem within the project or if there is any issue within a project it should be considered that the whole team is at fault. This will encourage everyone within the team to own the problem and collaborate together to solve the problem and achieve the goals of the project. Biasness is a common thing observed in various settings. In project management if the project manager displays biasness they will encourage disunity within the project team. It is essential that a project team works together in ensuring they achieve the set objectives. If the project manager is not able to be fair and maintain unity within the team the project success rate will be very minimal. Project managers can be unethical by only hiring their family members or friends (Singer, 2000). They might hire individuals in the project who are not qualified to deliver on the tasks which need to be done to achieve project success. The team chosen by a project manager to achieve the objectives of a project needs to have the necessary skills and qualifications to fulfills the tasks at hand. They should ensure that they recruit the project team based on merit, skills and qualifications and not on closeness or relationship ties.

Ethical issues in project management can hinder the project operations and success (Young-Hoon Kwak, 2005). For the success of a project to be guaranteed the project manager and his or her team needs to have high ethical standards. If a project manager is able to ensure that they can maintain high ethical standards by being honest and motivating their team it will ensure that the project operations will be a success and will lead to the objectives of the project being achieved.

References

Berger D., Easterly W., et al. (2010). Commercial Imperialism? Political Influence and Trade During the Cold War. NBER Working Paper.

Cattani G., Ferriani S., Frederiksen L. & Florian, T. (2011). Project-Based Organizing and Strategic Management, Advances in Strategic Management, Vol 28, Emerald.

Dinsmore C. P. et al (2005). The right projects done right! John Wiley and Sons. p.35.

Hoy D. (2005). Critical Resistance from Poststructuralism to Postcritique. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Kingsolver A. (2008). Capitalism. Encyclopedia of Race and Racism. J. H. Moore. Detroit, Macmillan. pp. 268–271.

Lock D. (2007). Project Management (9th ed.) Gower Publishing, Ltd.

Lyon D. (1999). Postmodernity (2nd ed.). Buckingham, Open University Press.

Phillips J.(2003). PMP Project Management Professional Study Guide. McGraw-Hill Professional. p.354.

Pinnington A. H. & Lafferty G. (2002). Human Resource Management in Australia. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

Robotham D. (2005). Political Economy. A Handbook of Economic Anthropology. J. G. Carrier. Northampton, MA, Edward Elgar. pp. 41–58.

Singer P. (2000). Writings on an Ethical Life. London, Harper Collins Publishers.

Young-Hoon Kwak (2005). “A brief History of Project Management”. In: The story of managing projects. Elias G. Carayannis et al. (9 eds), Greenwood Publishing Group.