Engineering is a very vital field when it comes to the innovativeness and development of new ideas in the advancing world. As much as the engineers are constantly in the laboratories seeking solutions to the daily challenges human are facing in their quest to maximise utility of scarce resources through automation their efforts are constantly affected by ethical issues in the field (CHARLES E. HARRIS, 2005).
As a general display of the problems often here of copyright and patent issues regarding new ideas and talents. Adding more problems into the issue is the problem of management skill to stabilise the sector. With employees regularly working on their own personal objectives and ambitions it takes more than just a set of rules to bring sanity to such an important sector the report is concerned with a case study of East Island petrochemical company to help highlight some of the management issues and ethical situations in the sector (UNESCO, 2010).
The management and employees of the company have raised a lot of ethical issues in their day to day work at the company, of concern is the behaviour of the head of the division of research of the petrochemical firm. Mr Walpole Snodgrass have developed the behaviour of womanising, as much as this is his personal life which may have little concern to the profession his expansion of the behaviour to sexual harassment undermines the principle of demonstrating integrity in his behaviours. When he tries to grope Melissa at a private meeting he failed to respect her dignity. On the other hand, his position as the head of division in the firm will bring disgrace to the industry and the firm should his bad image go public because of legal action by the women he harasses sexually (ENGINEERS AUSTRALIA, n.d.).
Another portrayed issue is Melissa’s immediate supervisor’s failure to practice competency. As he is described by Melissa he is wretched at his job and instead of acting as well as maintaining adverse knowledge and skill all he is concerned with is making the top managers happy. At this position, he is only restricted to offering the minimum effort to achieve his personal objective. In his case, we see him offended by the appointment of Walpole without considering the diversity offered by Walpole’s skills.
Craig Cattler is demonstrating poor leadership on the way he keeps faulting others in addition he lacks sustainability attributes as his engagement with the rest of the team is irresponsible (Okrent, 1977). He come back after lunch smelling and disappear on the course of the work to unknown secret place.
Trudy at times let her private life affect her personal life to the extent that she sometimes fails to adhere to the ethical issues. This indicated by when she fails to complete very vital tasks in time hence becomes untrustworthy. When she lies to Melissa and secure a bottle of KBC32 for other use not intended by company instructions her honestly and overall leadership skills seems to be pathetic. She further goes ahead to cooperate with Roger to associate with Milton Steiner the head of a competing firm, an association which have been observed to go against the company’s confidential policy. This behaviour is not in line with the ethical principle of promoting sustainability (Pinkus, 1997).
Lastly, we look at the questionable behaviours of Roger, he uses his hobby of drag racing to get intact with the top managers not only in their firm but also other competing firms. Due to the crowded nature of the events he is taking the advantage and engaging on illegal trading activities. His actions are threatening the future needs of the organization as he is giving away their production secrets to the competitors. Roger by giving away the sample of KBC 32 which he obtained illegally from Trudy by lying to Melissa to Milton, he proves to lack integrity (ENGINEERS AUSTRALIA, n.d.).
Apart from the ethical issue discussed above the East Island Petrochemical Company have some management issues which need immediate attention
Of concern is the management failure to regulate the behaviours of their employees. The head of department is going about freely sexually harassing women with no valid action taken against him. On the other hand, Craig Cattler have brought his drinking habit to the job and in return he spends his afternoon in unknown places without considering his responsibilities to the company (Knights D., 2006).
This issue further widens when we realise that there seems to be no set objectives for the employees. It is worth mentioning that Brian Brown being pathetic at his job and always working based on his own objective of keeping the top managers happy have been able to rise to the level of a supervisor.
As much as the company is putting down measures to protect the confidentiality of the firm and its activities the managers need to instil more measures to ensure there is a follow up on what employees do with the product after signing on its use.
The stiff competition from the firm headed by Milton Steiner should be a management concern as it directly impacts on the, take productivity and profitability of the firm, the fact that the competitor has been able to infiltrate the East Island company is a big threat to the company’s confidentiality in research outcomes.
Finally, the company is lacking a counselling centre to assist employees with their private issues. Trudy’s family tress is affecting human resource otherwise good performance yet the supervisor has not been able to recommend any solution to her.
The first action Melissa should take is to act normal and if possible avoid meeting the two at the event to avoid raising suspicion. After leaving the drag rally event he should identify one of the top managers concerned with the confidentiality of the company’s operations whom she feels free to talk to and explain her suspicions as well as her role on the securing the KBC32. Afterwards they can together initiate research to affirm that Trudy and Roger violated the confidentiality clause in their terms of service to the petrochemical company. Upon completion of the research should they prove that the actions of the two employees was not ethical they should present their case to the legal team to seek measures to restore the company’s advantage in the discovery of KBC32.
The behaviours of Roger in terms of contributing to the research work is undermining the effort of the other workers. He is dedicating his afternoon time to drinking and other activities that are not in line with the objectives of the firm as a concerned employee Melissa should report the situation to their supervisor to act. On receiving the information Brian brown should initiate corrective measures such as close monitoring to ensure that the behaviours of roger are punished as per the rules and guidelines of the company.
In addition, Trudy have a family problem which need to be solved as at time it makes her to leave vital tasks unattended to. As much as it’s the responsibility of the managers to offer solution like counselling to such situation their action is restricted to availability of information of such cases. It is therefore recommended that Melissa approaches one of the managers in charge of her to help find a solution to Trudy’s case (E. L. Cochran, 2002).
When Melissa met with Snodgrass he tries to grope her, this is a form of sexual harassment and to discourage such acts she should go ahead and report her. In her report, it will be ethical if she follows the measures put in place by the firm to address such issues. Any failure of it to materialise should be accompanied by a legal action as per the Australian regulations regarding the field.
Even though Melissa as an employee have responsibilities to ensure ethical issues in the firm are adhered to, it’s upon the management to put in place a strong internal system to ensure that the there is a working guideline in the firms’ operations and any deviations are rectified in time. Issued such as Snodgrass harassment of Melissa sexually as well as the laziness attributes portrayed by Mr Brown should be detected and penalised in time
In conclusion adherence to the ethical guidelines as well as working on the management issues will ensure East Islands remains one of the most competitive firm in terms of Petrochemical research (Boyle P. J., 2001).
References
Boyle P. J., d. E. R. E. S. J. G. D. E. a. M. D. B., 2001. Organizational ethics in health care: principles, cases and practical solutions. San Francisco: Jossey-bass / John Wiley and Sons.
CHARLES E. HARRIS, M. S. P. a. M. J. R., 2005. ENGINEERING ETHICS Concepts and Cases. 4th ed. Canada: WADSWORTH.
L. Cochran, M. C. a. P. B., 2002. IEEE organisation. [Online] Available at: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/517744/?reload=true [Accessed 17 May 2017].
ENGINEERS AUSTRALIA, n.d. Our code of Ethics. [Online]
Available at: https://www.engineersaustralia.org.au/sites/default/files/resource-files/2017-03/199472%20-%20Code%20of%20Ethics%20A5%20brochure%204%20pg.pdf
[Accessed 17 May 2017].
Knights D., a. O. M., 2006. leadership, ethics and responsibility on the other. journal of Business Ethics, 67(1), pp. 120-135.
Okrent, D. a. W. C., 1977. An Approach to Societal Risk Assessment Criteria and Risk Management Report, Los Angeles: School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
Pinkus, R. L. D. S. L. J. H. N. P. a. W. H., 1997. Engineering Ethics, New Wyork: Cambridge University Press.
UNESCO, 2010. Engineering: Issues Challenges and Opportunities for Development, s.l.: UNESCO publishing.
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