Importance Of Professional Ethics And Adhering To ACS Code Of Professional Conduct In Workplace Ethics

Negative Experience due to Unethical Conduct

Discuss about the Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conducts.

I work at a company where my job is to design different types of products as per their requirements.  Just a few days back, I faced a negative experience at my workplace. The team leader who was assigned to my team told me to do a particular assignment and gave me a blueprint of the product. The task was based on designing a product which has some basic specifications that was noted in the blueprint. I accepted the task initially. I started researching about the product online and came upon the website of a company eventually who was using the same product whit the same specifications. This surprised me as the specifications were similar to what was proposed to me in the blueprint. I declined the task immediately.

The main reason why the conflict started in the first place was due to the simple fact that my team leader did not want t accept his mistake. The similarity of the product could have pushed the other company to file a case on our company for infringement of copyright laws. The lawsuit that my company would have got due to his actions could have destroyed the reputation of the company and could have caused irreparable damage. The higher authorities failed to understand the situation and told me to continue with my work without any more delays.

From the conflicting scenario, I came to learn some essential things. I understood the importance of working ethically and the temptations of malicious actions. The team leader wanted to take a shortcut for completing the task before the deadline so he assigned me a copied blueprint from another company. His action could have cause the company to face a lot of problems legally. Being the chief designer of the company, I would have faced several allegations as well as I was in charge of designing the product. The other personnel of the company would have been affected as well if the company lost its reputation.

As per the scenario mentioned above, I decided to conform the situation directly by making my higher authorities understand the implications of the actions done by the team leader. A meeting was arranged and eventually I made them understand the seriousness of the issue. I told them that if I was given enough time, I am capable enough to design my own blueprint of the product from the beginning.

Conforming the Situation Ethically

The negative side of the whole scenario was that my TL got angry on me for disobeying his orders. The positive side of the entire scenario was that the higher authorities finally understood the implications of the team leader’s actions and proposed some fundamental rules and regulations for ethical adherence.

During a recent discussion with my classmates, I cam to know about ghost writers who are hired by them to get good marks in their exams. To combat this situation, my first response was to tell the lecturer about the mentioned situation. I know that my actions will eventually tarnish my friendship with my fellow classmates but I hope that in time, they will come to understand that my intentions were targeted towards their won benefits.

One of the basic aspects of ACS Code of professional conduct is professional development. The element states that using the work of another person as their own is against the conduct and should not be used to enhance one’s professional conduct. The image of the ACS code of Professional conduct and the profession should not be destroyed by the action of the performer.

Honesty is another aspect of the ACS code of professional conduct. The aspect specifically mentions that during the course of the profession, the user will eventually come face to face with a deceptive situation that offers a number of temptations. In this situations, the user should immediately reject such types of offers. As per the code, the user has to conduct the profession ethically without any external forces (Acs.org.au, 2018). His personal opinions does not matter with contrast to what the profession deserves him to do. The ghost writers should be given proper credits instead of my classmates as it is not their skill that has been used in the assignment. My classmates should not have used the work of another person for their own benefits.  They should have been honest at least that they would be unable to do the task without external help.

Another aspect of ACS code that will be taken in this scenario is competence. It specifically mentions that the person who is conducting the profession should only take up the professional activities if he or she is competent enough to produce positive results. If he or she is not competent enough to perform the job effectively, then he or she should admit that he or she is not capable enough or must reject the job. In the mentioned scenario, the students are using ghost writers to gain good marks in their exams. They are using the competence skill of another person for their personal benefits.  This is ethically not correct and the task should not be misinterpreted for their advantages (Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conduct, 2018). If the students were unable to do the task they could have consulted the lecturer about their inability to do the task and the need for external guidance from their fellow mates.

Importance of Ethics and Adhering to ACS Code

My listening and verbal skills were used in several situations while completing the assignment. While discussing about the main topic for the assignment, the skills came in handy. It helped me and my team embers to properly evaluate different elements of the topic through a constructive discussion. My skills helped the team to gain a deeper insight about the mentioned technology.

While completing the assignment, my reading skills also came in handy. I was able to understand the topic properly due to my skills. A lot of online journals, books and related assignments were evaluated by me and the drafts created by my team members were properly analysed due to my reading skills. We were able to get the present market scenario of 3D printing technology due to my proper reading skills.

During the course of the assignment, I used my interpersonal as well as team work skills with my perspective team. As I was appointed the team leader of my assigned team, I was able to mitigate a lot of issues that cropped out during the decision making processes. Initially some issues were caused by some of my team members about the kind of topic they were assigned or the particular assignment. With my interpersonal skills, I eventually managed to convince them that their total cooperation is needed by each and every one to complete the assignment properly.

The only negative scenario that I experienced was the implications of the legal, social and privacy issues on the provided topic of ICT. There were a lot of Ethical related issues that were related to the use of 3D printing technology in the medical scenario. Another consideration was the legal issue that companies can face due to inappropriate use of 3D printing technology.

Intercultural dependency was used by me during the completion of the assignment. During the task assignment phase, I provided each and every member of the team with different topics of the assignment irrespective of their race and colour. Moreover, most of the times the male member are given the tasks which are more critical. I did not follow that method and assigned each members equally using my diversity skills.

Some good examples of collaborative and communication technology are video advertisements and social media platforms. These technologies can be used by the industries for a variety of advantage. The companies can even make use of these communication technology to gain precious feedbacks about their products. Moreover, they can conduct their marketing practices with these mediums.

For evaluating and assessing the ICT technologies, proper validation in real time needs to be assessed. Data entry errors need to be checked properly to find flaws in the system.  The system need to be checked for proper scalability for future use and the system needs to e monitored to check its efficiency.  If the evaluation process comes out positive, then the system should deliver proper optimizing and streamlining of the business processes. ICT technologies like the 3D printing machines can be evaluated by checking their accuracy levels. The efficiency can be measured if the system generates consecutive consistent results.

After completing the unit, I personally found two unit learning outcomes from the mentioned assignment. The first ULO or unit learning experience was the ethical perception of professional activities. To evaluate the ethical domain of every profession, it needs to be assessed according to its social, privacy and legal perspectives. The second unit learning experience was the use of ACS Code of professional conduct in assessing a particular situation. My workplace experience helped me to evaluate the need for a regulation for evaluating a potential scenario that is ethically incorrect.

The use of ACS code of professional conduct was the main thing that intrigues me while completing this assignment.

I think the assignment could have benefitted if a case study and analysis section was added to the assignment for more practical knowledge alongside the provided theoretical knowledge.

References

Acs.org.au, (2018). Retrieved 25 April 2018, from https://www.acs.org.au/content/dam/acs/rules-and-regulations/Code-of-Professional-Conduct_v2.1.pdf

Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conduct. (2018). CFA Institute. Retrieved 25 April 2018, from https://cfainstitute.org/ethics/codes/ethics/Pages/index.aspx