Professional Ethics

Work ETHICS

Work ethics is defined as a set of attitudes concerned with the value of work, which forms the motivational orientation. The ‘work ethics’ is aimed at ensuring the economy (get job, create wealth, earn salary), productivity (wealth, profit), safety (in workplace), health and hygiene (working conditions),privacy (raise family), security (permanence against contractual, pension, and retirement benefits),cultural and social development (leisure, hobby, and happiness), welfare (social work), environment(anti-pollution activities), and offer opportunities for all, according to their abilities, but without discrimination.

Engineering Ethics

 Engineering Ethics is the activity and discipline aimed at

(a) Understanding the moral values that ought to guide engineering profession or practice,

(b) Resolving moral issues in engineering, and

(c) Justifying the moral judgments in engineering. It deals with set of moral problems and issues connected with engineering.

Engineering ethics is defined by the codes and standards of conduct endorsed by engineering (professional) societies with respect to the particular set of beliefs, attitudes and habits displayed by the individual or group.

Scope

The scopes of engineering ethics are twofold:

1. Ethics of the workplace which involves the co-workers and employees in an organization.

2. Ethics related to the product or work which involves the transportation, warehousing, and use, besides the safety of the end product and the environment outside the factory.

VARIETY OF MORAL ISSUES

It would be relevant to know why and how do moral issues (problems) arise in a profession or why do people behave unethically? The reasons for people including the employer and employees, behaving unethically may be classified into three categories:

1. Resource Crunch 

Due to pressure, through time limits, availability of money or budgetary constraints, and technology decay or obsolescence. Pressure from the government to complete the project in time (e.g., before the elections), reduction in the budget because of sudden war or natural calamity (e.g., Tsunami) and obsolescence due technology innovation by the competitor lead to manipulation and unsafe and unethical execution of projects.

Involving individuals in the development of goals and values and developing policies that allow for individual diversity, dissent, and input to decision-making will prevent unethical results.

2. Opportunity:

a)    Double standards or behaviour of the employers towards the employees and the public. The unethical behaviours of World Com (in USA), Enron (in USA as well as India) executives in 2002 resulted in bankruptcy for those companies,

b)    Management projecting their own interests more than that of their employees. Some organizations over-emphasize short-term gains and results at the expense of themselves and others,

c)    Emphasis on results and gains at the expense of the employees, and

d)    Management by objectives, without focus on empowerment and improvement of the infrastructure.

e)    This is best encountered by developing policies that allow ‘conscience keepers’ and whistle blowers and appointing ombudsman, who can work confidentially with people to solve the unethical problems internally.

3. Attitude

Poor attitude of the employees set in due to

a)    Low morale of the employees because of dissatisfaction and downsizing,

b)    Absence of grievance redressal mechanism,

c)    Lack of promotion or career development policies or denied promotions,

d)    Lack of transparency,

e)    Absence of recognition and reward system, and

f)     Poor working environments.

Giving ethics training for all, recognizing ethical conduct in work place, including ethics in performance appraisal, and encouraging open discussion on ethical issues, are some of the directions to promote positive attitudes among the employees.

To get firm and positive effect, ethical standards must be set and adopted by the senior management, with input from all personnel.

CODES OF ETHICS

The ‘codes of ethics’ exhibit, rights, duties, and obligations of the members of a profession and a professional society. The codes exhibit the following essential roles:

1.    Inspiration and guidance. The codes express the collective commitment of the profession to ethical conduct and public good and thus inspire the individuals. They identify primary responsibilities and provide statements and guidelines on interpretations for the professionals and the professional societies.

2.    Support to engineers. The codes give positive support to professionals for taking stands on moral issues. Further they serve as potential legal support to discharge professional obligations.

3.    Deterrence (discourage to act immorally) and discipline (regulate to act morally). The codes serve as the basis for investigating unethical actions. The professional societies sometimes revoke membership or suspend/expel the members, when proved to have acted unethical. This sanction along with loss of respect from the colleagues and the society are bound to act as deterrent.

4.    Education and mutual understanding. Codes are used to prompt discussion and reflection on moral issues. They develop a shared understanding by the professionals, public, and the government on the moral responsibilities of the engineers. The Board of Review of the professional societies encourages moral discussion for educational purposes.

5.    Create good public image. The codes present positive image of the committed profession to the public, help the engineers to serve the public effectively. They promote more of self regulation and lessen the government regulations. This is bound to raise the reputation of the profession and the organization, in establishing the trust of the public.

6.    Protect the status quo. They create minimum level of ethical conduct and promote agreement within the profession. Primary obligation namely the safety, health, and welfare of the public, declared by the codes serves and protects the public.

7.    Promotes business interests. The codes offer inspiration to the entrepreneurs, establish shared standards, healthy competition, and maximize profit to investors, employees, and consumers.