Discuss About The Professionalism Communication Technology?
Ethical dilemma refers to the confusion that may occur due to the ethics of a person, which may give rise to a very complex situation, and this might result in a conflict with someone else having a different moral of view. Ethical dilemma can take place within someone at any instance of time and at any place. This kind of dilemma might take place due to different ideologies of differ persons and secondly this kind of dilemma is mostly seen in work places after seeing a same course of work being repeatedly (Wright et al. 2014). The rules and regulations of a company might not match with the ideology of an employee or the opposite might also happen which then gives rise to an internal conflict and this finally results in a dilemma (that is what actions should be taken and what actions should not to be taken) (Iacobucci et al. 2013). The report is going to discuss about a certain case of ethical dilemma where a software developer company makes a new software package for filing income taxes but the bugs present in the software results in filing of incorrect tax returns. This report also discusses about the ways to overcome this state of dilemma considering the ACS Codes of professional conduct (Burmeister 2013).
A software developing company decided to produce a new software package incorporated all the new tax laws, which can figure out the taxes for both individual and small businesses (Borrás and Edquist 2013). The company expected to receive a large number of complaints, queries, and suggestions, as they knew the software had a number of bugs. The president of the company knew that the program of the software had many bugs and this software is one of a kind. Due to this, the company expected to receive a number of complaints, queries and suggestions for the modification of the company. The company had a disclaimer of responsibility for errors resulting from the use of the program on its CD. The bugs in the program lead to incorrect filing of the taxes leading to penalty for the users. The president of the company stated that whoever buys the version 1.0 is aware of the general industry policy. The president of the company knew that the bugs might create problem still the product was lunched to get reviews about the product which the company could use to upgrade the product in future. Initially the relation between the customer and the company got shattered (Lawrence and Weber 2014) and made the customers lose hope on the company.
Proper response from the company could be possible if it follows some rules of Doing Ethics Technique (DET) (Miguel 2014). The company should first look into the matter properly and investigate the reason responsible for the errors of the software, after that they should consider all the ethical and non-ethical points of the decision they are to be take. Besides this, considerations about the consequences of the decision taken by the company on the peoples involved in the situation should be done. Proper statement should be prepared to support the decision. The company must take some necessary steps to help its customers who have lost their money. This incident is a lesson for the company and they should look for the betterment of the software to avoid such mistakes.
Q1. What’s going on?
The situation which has arisen over here is that the company has launched a software containing the current taxation laws but due to its failure in the market has made the customers suffer a lot and also effects the relation with customers (Alrubaiee 2012). Due to incorrect calculation of the taxes the customers had to pay huge penalties after filing the incorrect taxes. The president of the company knew that the bugs might create problem still the product was lunched to get reviews about the product which the company could use to upgrade the product in future.
Q2. What are the facts?
The main reason for this dilemma is due to the presence of bugs in the software. The bugs present in the software were the main reason for the failure of the software. Due to this, the company expected to receive a number of complaints, queries and suggestions for the modification of the company. The company had a plan of using all this to make changes in the program and eventually issue an updated improved and debugged version of the software. The company had a disclaimer of responsibility for errors resulting from the use of the program on its CD. The bugs in the program lead to incorrect filing of the taxes leading to penalty for the users.
Q3. What are the issues?
Due to the presence of the bugs in the software the filing of taxes was incorrect. This incorrect filing made the customers suffer a lot of problems and also made them pay huge penalties. The company had a disclaimer of responsibility for errors resulting from the use of the program on its CD. The president of the company knew that the bugs might create problem but still the product was lunched to get reviews about the product which the company could use to upgrade the product in the future.
Q4. Who is affected?
The issue has effect the customers a lot besides that the failure has also effected the company as the relation of trust got depleted when the president of the company even after knowing the drawbacks of the software released it into the market. The huge effect was on the customers as they had to pay huge taxes.
Q5. What are the ethical issues and implications?
The president of the company knew that the bugs might create problem still the product was lunched to get reviews about the product which the company could use to upgrade the product in future. The decision taken by the president of the company was totally unethical (Crane and Matten 2016) as the reputation of the company got shattered totally just due to one decision. It would be totally ethical if the company would have taken certain steps to compensate for the losses of the customers.
Q6. What can be done about it?
The main objective of the company should be wellbeing of the customers. The company should take necessary steps to support the needs of the company. The problems faced by the customers should also be considered. They should think of launching an upgraded version which do not consist of the bugs responsible for the errors.
Q7. What are the options?
The company had options of taking all the responsibilities of the failure and help the customers in solving their problems. Other option for the company is to compensate for the losses of the customer.
Q8. Which option is best – and why?
The best option for the company is to provide essential support to the customers and should accept its fault. This is the best option as this can help in regain the trust of the customers (Weiss 2014). The company can take a lesson from this incident and after accepting the faults they can work for the production of the upgraded version.
Considering all the ACS code of professional conduct (Gotterbarn 2013) judging this incident becomes very easy in an effective manner. The ACS codes are listed below:
The primacy of public interest: according to this code the public interest is given more preference than any type of personal, private and sectional interests. This also includes the resolving of any types of issues in the favor of public interest. Work should be done so as to safeguard the interests of the stakeholders. This also includes the matters which are related to health safety and the environment (Bowern and Burmeister 2013).
Enhancement of the quality of life: This code includes the ways in which the implementation of ICT could help in avoiding the negatives effects of ICT. This process includes the work which is it to be done so as to enhance the life of the people. The protection and promotion of health and safety of the peoples affected by the work. Understanding of the perceptions of the peoples affected by the work and give due regards to that peoples (Bowern and Burmeister 2013).
Honesty: this includes that there should not exist any breach in the trust of the customers or the stakeholders. Many situations can arise during the professional career which can be beneficial for an individual in some way but can be harmful in some other way for the other peoples. This behavior of the individual is at all acceptable in the ACS code of professional conduct. This codes indicates that a person should not accept any provocations or any offer of bribery. Individual should distinguish between the professional and the personal opinions and advice (Warren and Lucas, 2016).
Competence: this codes includes the ability of a person to perform a certain operation or not. No one should hesitate in taking an expert advice whenever needed or ask from someone who is more qualified than the one performing the work. One should always be aware of the limitations and should do anything that the person is not aware of. Everyone is not aware of all the ICT facets but they should be capable of recognizing their abilities and if they need any expertise advice or not. No one should misprint their knowledge and their abilities. Standards and legislation relevant to the work should be known properly. Responsibility for the task should be accepted (Al-Saggaf, Burmeister and Weckert 2016).
Professional development: According to this work one should be aware of the new technologies practices and the standards regarding the work. Everyone will expect that the person doing the work will provide certain skills and the advice. For doing one should keep his knowledge updated. Every colleague and the employees should be encouraged. Actions should be taken so as to encourage the hard work and the knowledge. This can help in increasing the effectiveness of the work and help in the advancement of the capabilities and help in encouraging to take more responsibilities. One should upgrade their knowledge and skills every time (Al-Saggaf and Burmeister 2013).
Professionalism: As ICT is a new technology which has advanced in the recent years. Like other technologies this has not taken many years for its development and evolvement of its standards and legislations. This code tries to improve the interests of public on the ICT industry. It is the responsibility of the members to the society to maintain professional standards so that the image of the industry gets enhanced and improved. As all peoples are having the right to get dignity and respect so it is totally unprofessional to have discrimination in an organization. One should be calm, objective and informed before making any types of decision. Steps should be taken against those who do not follow the codes. One should be proud of the profession and should also promote professionalism in ICT industry (Weckert and Lucas 2013)
The primacy of public interest: In the incident discussed above the customers are the victims of the problem, as they had to pay huge penalty for wrong filing of income tax returns. Due to this reason, the company must put aside their own personal interest and look into the problems of the public. They must make decisions for helping its customers. The company should also plan of making plans so as to help the customers in the future.
The Enhancement of Quality of life: Like all technology, ICT also has negative sides. ICT plays a very significant role in society and way of life. Ethical approach in the work helps in recognizing and minimizing the adverse effects. In the incident, ICT played a very important role (Eden, Jirotka and Stahl 2013). It has affected the lives of the users adversely. Promotion and protection of health and safety of the affected user should be done according to this code along with understanding and giving due regards to the perceptions of the affected users. The company should attempt to increase the amount of trust among the affected users.
Professional Development: The president of the company should upgrade the knowledge and skills to avoid situations of difficulty and should always be aware of the profession as well as the relation with the public. Even after knowing the faults the president decided to launch the product. This was a major fault of the company was launch of the product even after the knowledge about the product. The president should have looked into the matter of making the software bug free but in spite of that the president performed that task and released the product. This not only effected the professional development of the president but also made a barrier in the development of the careers of the employees who were working on the software.
Professionalism: According to this value, one should always stay calm, objective, informed, and knowledgeable about the work before engaging in it. One should be co-operative and advancing in ICT by communication with other peoples. No one should be provoked to take actions, which involve in breach of the ACS codes. According to this code the president should learn a lesson from the incident and encourage the employees to put more effort in the development of the software.
The company should stop the further production of the software as the company violated the most essential ACS code of professional conduct that is the primacy of public interest. According to this code the aim and the first priority of the company should be the benefit of the public. The company should aim at making decisions that are in favor of the public. The wrong decision of the company made the customers suffer a lot. The software made the customers face a lot of difficulties in their filing of the taxes and made them pay huge penalty. The main aspect of a business that is the customer got affected by the software. The decision of launch of the product was made even after knowing the defects of the software. Initially the final step of the company should be discontinuing or stop the further the production of the product. This step is necessary so as to stop the facing of the difficulties by the customers. By doing so the most essential ACS code of professional conduct won’t get affected. The company should also aim at providing a better software which will not create any further difficulty to the customers. The software should be bug free as the main reason for such a defect were the bugs.
Conclusion:
The above incident helps to conclude that every organization faces a state of ethical dilemma. Following of certain ACS code of conducts and the DET is required to avoid state of ethical dilemma. Organizations should make judgments considering the effects on the peoples involved. The president of the company could easily have avoided the state of ethical dilemma if he would have stopped the launch of the product after knowing the presence of bugs in the program. The president just looked for the profit of the company without thinking about the customers. The judgment of the company made the customers pay penalties. Just a single decision affected everyone’s lives. The company just gave a disclaimer of responsibilities in case of any error and lunched the product. If the company would have followed certain DET techniques, then certainly some way would have come out to solve the issues. The company did not follow the ACS code of professional conduct as well. When the problem occurred, it just depleted the relation of trust between the customers and the company. The plan of launching the next upgraded version also got shattered.
References:
Alrubaiee, L., 2012. Exploring the relationship between ethical sales behavior, relationship quality, and customer loyalty. International Journal of Marketing Studies, 4(1), p.7.
Al-Saggaf, Y., Burmeister, O.K. and Weckert, J., 2016. Perceptions of incompetence in the ICT workplace. ACM SIGCAS Computers and Society, 45(3), pp.11-17.
Borrás, S. and Edquist, C., 2013. The choice of innovation policy instruments. Technological forecasting and social change, 80(8), pp.1513-1522.
Bowern, M. and Burmeister, O.K., 2013. 14. Business benefits from keeping codes of ethics up to date. Professionalism in the Information and Communication Technology Industry, 3, p.295.
Burmeister, O.K., 2013. Achieving the goal of a global computing code of ethics through an international-localisation hybrid. Ethical Space, 10(4), pp.25-32.
Crane, A. and Matten, D., 2016. Business ethics: Managing corporate citizenship and sustainability in the age of globalization. Oxford University Press.
Eden, G., Jirotka, M. and Stahl, B., 2013, May. Responsible research and innovation: Critical reflection into the potential social consequences of ICT. In Research Challenges in Information Science (RCIS), 2013 IEEE Seventh International Conference on (pp. 1-12). IEEE.
Gotterbarn, D., 2013. 13. ICT governance and what to do about the toothless tiger (s): Professional organisations and codes of ethics1. Professionalism in the Information and Communication Technology Industry, 3, p.267.
Iacobucci, T.A., Daly, B.J., Lindell, D. and Griffin, M.Q., 2013. Professional values, self-esteem, and ethical confidence of baccalaureate nursing students. Nursing ethics, 20(4), pp.479-490.
Lawrence, A.T. and Weber, J., 2014. Business and society: Stakeholders, ethics, public policy. Tata McGraw-Hill Education.
Miguel, A., 2014. Doing Christian Ethics from the Margins: Revised and Expanded. Orbis Books.
Warren, M., Warren, M., Lucas, R. and Lucas, R., 2016. Ethics and ICT: Why all the fuss?. Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, 14(2), pp.167-169.
Weckert, J. and Lucas, R., 2013. Professionalism in the information and communication technology industry. ANU Press.
Weiss, J.W., 2014. Business ethics: A stakeholder and issues management approach. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Wright, D., Finn, R., Gellert, R., Gutwirth, S., Schütz, P., Friedewald, M., Venier, S. and Mordini, E., 2014. Ethical dilemma scenarios and emerging technologies. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 87, pp.325-336.
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