Many companies have ethical decisions that need to be and sometimes those decisions can affect many individuals or just a few. Making ethical decisions may be placed solely on one person’s shoulders or it may be a decision that multiple individuals must be involved in. There are several ethical issues in the Richardson Drilling case that should be considered. For instance, bribery, purchasing substandard parts with lack of disclosure that causes injuries, and revealing sensitive information. One potential ethical concern that could arise has to do with ongoing health insurance and the employer’s responsibility.
Bribery is considered to be the most common moral issue faced by engineers in any industry. This is considered to be a moral issue because each scenario is difficult to define and must be individually analyzed. An engineer must follow certain steps when faced with a moral issue of whether something is truly a bribe. This issue is important to discuss because if a bribe is accepted in the industry, it may lead to serious consequences, such as termination.
B. What position in the ValuJet organization did Sabretech fill, why was this a problem? If this were your company would you have used them? ValuJet hire Sabretech, owned by Sabreliner, and licensed by the FAA to perform critical work. If I was a manager for this company I wouldn’t of hire Sabretech. By looking at Sabretech I can see that they were lacking an ethical structure. A Structure that should represent various systems, position, and programs of a company to encourage and support ethical behavior. Such as whistle-blowing an employee disclosure of illegal, unethical practices. By encouraging whistle-blowing employees would not delay in telling regulatory agencies. Perhaps in helping avoid any future tragedy like this one.
Simply, the manger(s) should have conducted audits, supervised actions, and ensured the engineers followed the code of ethics to prevent this incident.
In the presence of guests and the staff members here assembled, I, ___________________________, solemnly promise and pledge to faithfully execute the member’s duties of the Mu Alpha Theta Oxon Hill Chapter to the best of my knowledge and ability, to commit myself to the society’s code of ethics, and to further the goals and objectives of this
The defense industry is one of the largest recruiters of STEM graduates in the nation. Thousands of engineering students enter this industry and must justify the morality of their work. These engineers work on projects that affect themselves, the engineering profession, and the entire world population. This paper will look into some of the facts surrounding engineering in the defense industry, its intended and unintended consequences, and judge the work of these engineers by applying Egoism, Utilitarianism, and Kantian ethical theories.
The following pages contain the central elements of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ (ASME) code of ethics and several key comparisons between ASME’s code of ethics and the National Society of Professional Engineers’ (NSPE) code of ethics. The last two pages are a copy of the ASME’s code of ethics.
Ethics in the Lockheed Martin Corporation didn’t always have the message it has today. As I read through the book, Ethics at Work: Creating Virtue at an American Corporation, specifically chapter two, I came across some very interesting issues this corporation has had to deal with over the past few decades that go back to the 1920’s and earlier. In the following I’ll go over a few points that led to the development of Lockheed Martine’s current ethics program. Ill cover some ethics issues that were overcame on the way to a great ethics program. First let’s talk about the beginnings that started the Lockheed Martin Corporation so you can get an idea of the foundation of the company itself.
Ethics and moral obligations are issues we all encounter at one time or another. In the professional setting, all people should act in a manner that would uphold the good of society. To be ethical, one has to determine their obligations, moral ideas, and moral philosophy (Boatright, p. 19, 2009). The case analysis involving Jacob Franklin was a perfect example of how an individual can face the dilemma of doing what is right or wrong. Businesses have their own code of ethics, and the employees within the business have to determine whether or not they will follow the company’s code of conduct. I will discuss several ethical issues in the case analysis including; failure to report information, remaining silent regarding faulty equipment,
Since professional misconduct is only defined as the “breach of the Act or regulations, other than an action that is solely a breach of the code of ethics” , the code of ethics is not directly enforceable. However acting in an unethical manner could potentially lead to a breach of professional misconduct. This is particularly evident in the article s.77. 2. (i) which states: “A practitioner shall, regard his duty to public welfare as paramount ” This article is a clear reminder to practicing engineers that their duty to public welfare takes precedence over serving employers or clients. It is important that engineers are aware of their vast influence, and revere the responsibility they hold to the public health and safety.
Indeed, engineering can be enriched by paying more attention to ethics. This guide uses cases drawn from real engineering situations, in order to allow engineers to practice ethical reasoning as it applies to these situations. However, in terms of developing better ethical awareness and reasoning skills, there is no substitute for dealing with the dilemmas and decisions that each of us faces daily. The first step is recognising these when they arise. Analysing them and responding effectively goes to the heart of personal and professional identity.
Martin Marietta took a hands-on approach in creating their Ethics Program, but monitoring 60,000 employees “ethical decisions” took a large workforce. In 1986, a committee including Martin Marietta and several other defense contractors created “A Defense Industry Initiative on Business Ethics and Conduct (DII).” Martin Marietta placed their entire company under a voluntary disclosure program, which required all employee misconduct to be reported, monitored, and resolved. To achieve this task, an audit committee was formed which tripled in manpower between 1986 and 1991. George Sammet was placed in charge of the Ethics program by insuring the employee’s complaints, questions, and concerns were heard and dealt with. “Ethic Officers” were placed at all of Martin Marietta’s branches to handle employee related issues. Ethical complaints could be made anonymously or vocally to field “Ethic Officers.” Once complaints were made the ethic officers would report them for investigation through audit, personnel, security, or legal staff. Almost half of the complaints which were reported were personnel related cases including salaries, promotions, and poor supervisory skills. But, with such an elaborate program, employees quickly became aware of possible retaliation for reporting issues. Once the issues were reported, they then needed to be dealt with. This could include verbal or written reprimand, transfer, or possible
Several cases have led to an awareness of the importance of ethics within the engineering profession as engineers realize how their technical work has far-reaching impacts on society. The work of engineers can affect public health and safety and can influence business practices and even politics.’’(Fledderman,2004)
More specifically, they were trying to avoid the blame and further their individual motives. When I saw the film I thought to myself there’s no possible way this happens in real life, but the article shows two examples. The Challenger case as well as the Macondo Well blowout showed that even though engineers might have noticed a problem, in the end management or other engineers decided that it was safe enough to proceed. Then during the investigation, the leaders of the company or project managers decided to play innocent and ignorant. The other thing that I found interesting is the “practice defines facts” model. If correlations are found, then they become facts until they are disproven; this is the problem with the model. A fact should not be able to change, if a fact is truly a fact then the evidence should always support it. When we spread misinformation by stating a correlation is fact, it can lead to many people thinking that it is the truth. It goes back to the first articles we read in class about misleading information in science. Not only does the Macondo/Challenger article tie into the film that we watch it also ties into other topics that we learned about ethics. People in certain situations have an innate self-interest that hurts
I would also report both Bob and Catherine’s practices to their supervisors because the Code of Ethics for Engineers says that I should. Section II, article 1 part of the Code of Ethics for Engineers states: “Engineers shall not aid or abet the unlawful practice of engineering by a person or firm.” And part of states that “Engineers having knowledge of any alleged violation of this code shall report thereon to appropriate professional bodies and, when relevant, also to public authorities.” Section III, article 3 states that “engineers shall avoid all conduct or practice that deceives the public,” and Part a of