How Engineers Are Faced With Ethical And Moral Issues

Moral Dilemma to me, means having to make an ethical decision between what is considered right and what is considered wrong.

What is a moral dilemma? A moral dilemma is a man versus self conflict. It is when a character has to perform two different actions, but they can not perform both actions because it is not possible. Authors use moral dilemmas in their writings to retain the reader’s interest in the book or play and to have the reader ask questions. People often face many life altering choices such as right versus wrong or good versus bad. In The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, John Proctor chooses to die because he does not want to blacken his name throughout Salem and to ruin his sons’ names when they grow up.

The Dean of Harvard Business School, Kim B. Clark, stood at a crossroads and incurred opportunity cost in two options such as ignoring the hacking or rejecting all applicants who had attempted to look at information. On the decision making process contains the impact of ethics. Moral philosophic factors will be taken into consideration as well as unconscious behaviors and attitudes will be occurred. Various approaches of ethical decision making was stated by Shannon Bowen (2002, pg 271) was stated such as materialism, utilitarianism and deontology. The utilitarianism was defined ‘This approach is typically identified with the policy of “maximizing the overall good” (Desjardins, J., 2009. p. 27). Positive and negative acts are determined by their consequences. In this case, the decision maker, the Dean of Harvard Business School, might use a self-interest approach for his short-term benefits which he could not have any ethical issues and got out of problem. However, it will bring moral and ethical issues for long term period such as the lack of veracity, fairness and the breach of trust from other applicants and stakeholders.

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,

Although many things about engineering are positive there is a dark side. We depend on them and while engineers are making innovations for us, and maintaining life as the way we know it they also struggle with ethical issues such as plagiarism, confidentiality, and whistleblowing. Just like the list of golden rules we learned as young children, engineers uphold a list of ethical rules to guide them to make the ethically correct decision when one of these situations arise. Bribery the act of receiving or giving a gift with something required in return is another example of an ethical issue that can entice engineers to break the code (“Gifts and Bribes”, 2006). Unfortunately this was the case for a former manager of the Army Corps of Engineers whose greed caused him to break the ethical canons to “avoid deceptive acts”, to “conduct themselves honorably, responsibly, and lawfully as to enhance the honor, reputation, and usefulness of the profession”, and finally to “hold paramount the safety, health and welfare of the public” (“Code of Ethics”). His misconduct is an example of the unethical decisions some engineers make.

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.

Careful analysis of the corporate code of ethics, applicable laws, and Scripture provided clear solutions for managers to take to avoid these incidents. First, provide employees the code of ethics, train them to follow the codes, supervise the work of the engineers, and immediately correct violations. Second, take similar steps regarding the knowledge and application of law. Third, Christians must conduct themselves within the construct of God’s Word and these principles should provide an example for others to follow.

Ethical theory will be outlined in relation to the example case with discussion on how the case poses an ethical dilemma in the workplace. Additionally ethical theory will be considered in light of the case with

In the workplace as well as one’s personal life is essential for ethics to be maintained; often taking the right action is not always the most popular choice. It is important for maintaining an upstanding ethical code of conduct to be a productive individual as well as function as an employee in the workplace.

Industrial Engineers often face the ethical dilemma of attempting to balance costs with quality and safety. Company management pressures Industrial systems engineers to design processes that are cost efficient, time constrained, and produce a high quality output. This puts the engineer in a tricky balancing act in which they are trying to make every stakeholder happy. Taking risks in order to create cost efficient solutions is not specific to only industrial engineers but applies to all disciplines of engineering, making this topic a relevant discussion. However, this conflict is especially true in a manufacturing setting where industrial engineers thrive, machine operators are often overworked, companies make products in high stakes, large batches, and the range of quality acceptance is growing ever smaller. A relevant example is the engineer who was designing a chemical plant in Mexico. In order to achieve the correct viscosity of the paint stripper, the engineer asked the plant operator to babysit the chemical mixture and manually release the valve when necessary. Engineering management’s decision puts the plant worker at a safety risk in order to achieve a tighter quality and standardization of the chemical stripper production process. Ultimately, this resulted in the catastrophic death of the plant worker and the destruction of the plant.

This essay will describe about ethics in project management which will provide us an overview of the aspects how the organizations develop the ethics in an organization and about the differences in the ethical decision making among various professionals in their given field. In order to understand various aspects of the chosen topic various literature have been examined including peer reviewed articles which have been carefully chosen. In today’s world all the professional fields have adopted the ethical code of conduct in one way or another but there are differences in the decision making because of variation in company culture and the ethical values of a project manager and the employees.

Many ethical issues have been surfacing in the last decade due to the hand in hand prosper of international business globalization. The ethical concerns include corruption, bribery, human rights issues among many others. Business ethics is a form of professional ethics or applied ethics that examines moral or ethical problems that arise in a business enviroment. It involves the application of moral behavior to business situations (Adeyeye, 2012 p 22). Bribery is the offering, receiving, soliciting, and giving of something of value in order to influence an action of an official or company in offering of legal or public duties. A bribe is a gift that is bestowed in order to influence the recipients conduct and the extent of the influence

There are many ethical dilemmas that an industrial engineer may face throughout their career. One major dilemma would be having to lay someone off because of a change you may have made to a process to make it more efficient. Industrial engineers are always trying to find a more efficient way of doing something, whether it’s in a factory, in an office, or the route of a delivery driver. Sometimes these things aren’t always as simple as they may seem. There are often consequences to these seemingly simple changes. People can and do get laid off because of a change to a process.

Ethics is the moral behavior that guides our actions; it motivates us in our personal behavior and is relevant in a business setting as well. Many organizations have set forth a set of guidelines known as a “Code of Ethics”. The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, being one of these organizations, has set forth their code as a requirement for students and engineer members to adhere to. Heading towards a career in electrical engineering I choose this organization to elaborate on for my ethics project.

Engineering is a pylon of human development and technology,having a significant impact on people’s daily lives. Engineering has improved humanity in every aspect (e.g. transportation, communication, medicine) and it has the potential to overcome the challenges that mankind still faces. However, engineers have responsibility for their actions and they must learn to follow a set of ethical principles relating to their work. All of which have to be followed to the letter otherwise there can be severe consequences.