Ethical Considerations in Information Technology: Relationships and Responsibilities, Schemes and Mind Maps of Computer Science

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The framework of employee

relations law and changing

management practices

Employee relations

• (^) Employee relations is about the rules governing employment. Since people are employed to produce goods or services and such production entails a process, we may further say that employee relations is about the rules governing the work process.
• (^) These rules include anything from pay and normal hours of work to health and safety rules
• (^) There is a statutory obligation for the employer to provide a written statement of the main terms and conditions of employment

Employee relations

• (^) Employee relations issues are part of day-to- day management because they involve control of the work process
• (^) The procedural rules are utilized to arrive at substantive rules relating to pay and conditions, such as hours of work, holiday entitlement, shiftwork arrangements, overtime, bonuses and fringe benefits

Professional Relationships That Must Be Managed

• (^) IT workers involved in relationships with:
  1. Employers
  2. Clients
  3. Suppliers
  4. Other professionals
  5. IT users
  6. Society at large

Are IT Workers Professionals?

• (^) Partial list of IT specialists
  • (^) Programmers
  • (^) Systems analysts
  • (^) Software engineers
  • (^) Database administrators
  • (^) Local area network (LAN) administrators
  • (^) Chief information officers (CIOs)

Are IT Workers Professionals?

• (^) From a legal perspective, IT workers are not recognized as professionals because they are not licensed by the state or federal government. This distinction is important, for example, in malpractice lawsuits, as many courts have ruled that IT workers are not liable for malpractice because they do not meet the legal definition of a professional.

The Changing Professional Services Industry

• (^) Although not legally classified as professionals, IT workers are considered part of the professional services industry, which is experiencing immense changes that impact how members of this industry must think and behave to be successful.

The Changing Professional Services Industry

• (^) IT workers are considered part of the professional services industry
• (^) Seven forces are changing professional services
  • (^) Client sophistication (able to drive hard bargains)
• (^) Clients are more aware of what they need from service providers, more willing to look outside their own organization to get the best possible services, and better able to drive a hard bargain to get the best possible services at the lowest possible cost - (^) Governance (due to major scandals- less trust-more oversight over client-service relationship) - (^) Connectivity (instant communications) - (^) Transparency (view work-in-progress in real-time) - (^) Modularization (able to outsource modules) - (^) Globalization (worldwide sourcing-competitivness) - (^) Commoditization (for low-end services) Ethics in Information Technology, Fourth Edition 11

1. Relationships Between IT Workers and Employers

• (^) IT workers agree on many aspects of work relationship before workers accept job offer
• These issues can include job title, general performance expectations, specific work responsibilities, drug-testing requirements, dress code, location of employment, salary, work hours, and company benefits. Many other issues are addressed in the company’s policy and procedures manual or in the company’s code of conduct, if one exists. These issues include protection of company secrets; vacation policy; time off for a funeral or an illness in the family; tuition reimbursement; and use of company resources, including computers and networks.
• (^) Other aspects of work relationship defined in company’s policy and procedure manual or code of conduct
• (^) Some aspects develop over time(can leave one day early)
• (^) As steward of organization’s IT resources, IT workers must set an example and enforce policies regarding the ethical use of IT Ethics in Information Technology, Fourth Edition 13

Relationships Between IT Workers and Employers

• (^) Software piracy
  • (^) Act of illegally making copies of software or enabling access to software to which they are not entitled
  • (^) Area in which IT workers can be tempted to violate laws and policies(to reduce IT spending)
  • (^) 2007, 38% software was copied ilegaly,48$ billion loss for manufacturer, distributors and service providers
  • (^) Government loses sales tax revenue Ethics in Information Technology, Fourth Edition 14

Relationships Between IT Workers and Employers (cont’d)

• (^) In 2009, XMCO, a Michigan-based subsidiary of Koniag Development Corporation that writes and produces technical manuals for military equipment and vehicles, paid BSA $70,000 to settle a claim that it had installed unlicensed copies of Adobe, Corel, and Microsoft software on its computers. XMCO agreed to delete all unlicensed copies of software, buy the necessary number of licenses to become compliant, and commit itself to implementing improved practices for managing software licenses. Ethics in Information Technology, Fourth Edition 16

Ethics in Information Technology, Fourth Edition 17 Relationships Between IT Workers and Employers (cont’d.) http://www.bsa.org/country/BSA%20and%20Members/Our%20Members.aspx

Relationships Between IT Workers and Employers (cont’d.)

• (^) IT workers must set an example and enforce policies regarding the ethical use of IT in: (cont’d.) - (^) Trade secrets - (^) Business information generally unknown to public - (^) Company takes actions to keep confidential - (^) Require cost or effort to develop - (^) Have some degree of uniqueness or novelty - (^) Design of a software code, hardware designs, business plans, design of a UI etc - (^) Examples include the Colonel’s secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices, the formula for Coke, and Intel’s manufacturing process for the i7 quad core processing chip. Ethics in Information Technology, Fourth Edition 19

Relationships Between IT Workers and Employers (cont’d.)

• (^) Trade secrets
• (^) In September 2006, a vice president of HP’s printer division was fired from his new job after just four months. Shortly after his employment began with HP, he e-mailed confidential information from his former employer, IBM, to two senior vice presidents at HP. The information was marked confidential on each page and included product costs and material data that could help the HP sales team understand the goals of IBM. HP quickly investigated, fired the employee, and reported him to IBM and law enforcement authorities. He faces a possible sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment and a $250,000 fine. Ethics in Information Technology, Fourth Edition 20